...give four kisses

An unreal heat has descended upon the Holy Land. Breathing is sweating; walking is galloping, and sitting in the sun, suicide. So much for being sun-kissed, I think, as I flee the shadeless patches of my walk to work and den myself in the comfort of a cement cave with an electric wind. And as I look out the window, I wish I could bear Heaven’s Eye which has thus far tanned my skin. I want her to continue, to infuse, to brown, to kiss. But, alas, she has become the lidless, greedy eye of Sauron. Curses.

Mr. Typhoon

So I ask myself what I should write about on these days so hot that I feel as though I cannot think, that all my creative energy within is sitting at a conference table somewhere coming up with new ways to cool me down…

Forget it. I’ll just turn on a fan and have a staring contest with it…Huuuuuh, it always wins. Curse your lidless eye, too, Mr. Typhoon.

I pick up another class tomorrow, since one class ended last week. This one will be with thirteen and fourteen year olds. Nice. Finally something to be confident about: if I can’t teach ‘em, I can woo ‘em. They are most likely beginners with a lot of knowledge but hardly any understanding. They may recognize Present Continuous, but they sure don’t know why we use it. So it will be fun? Inshallah. God willing. Even without fluency in Arabic.

See, Tim is the owl. He is elusively wrapping his mind around Arabic more and more. He studied Linguistics so solving languages is something he just does. He knows the questions to ask and the sounds to listen for and the patterns to recognize, and then he swoops down out of the darkness and makes his linguistic catch. I, however, am a chameleon. I camouflage. I like being with the people and learning the cultural customs, but I cant really communicate with them and when I try, my eyes go wonky. But its not really fair. Tim gets to do all the understanding and complex conversating, while I’m stuck being kissed.

Oh. Thanks.

The sun, raging as she sets.

But it is the custom here. Well, one of them. When you see a friend or relative you haven’t seen for a while, you greet each other with four kisses on the cheeks. Right, left, “how’reyou,” right, “I’mgood,” left. Continue. Of course, this is only done with those of the same sex, so, if anything, I am learning how prickly men’s faces really are (do women like this?).

I guess this isn’t so bad, though. But then there are these few people who, for whatever reason, enjoy greeting me every time with this labial hello. I think I received twenty kisses yesterday. Twenty.

So I have traded the sun’s kiss for the man’s. And yet, I can’t lie and say I wish I could trade back, that it would stop or that I don’t prefer it. No, it’s just different. And as foreign as it is, and sometimes uncomfortable, I must admit it actually makes me proud to receive this greeting. It is as if I am indeed one of them, that somehow they are seeing me as a brother, as a friend.

So I suppose I don’t need to rue the end of my affair with the sun, for even without her kiss, my skin is still changing color. Just, from the lips of another. I am browning. I am camouflaging. I am Arab. 

Just an illiterate one. 

…display your feathers

Days are getting fuller; nights are more eventful. I have changed my surname to Himony and Arabic slowly descends into a realm of recognition. This precedes the realm of understanding by a long shot. Ugh. The stoop-sitters recognize us, unashamedly, and the coy lashes betray curiosity. We are dodo’s here: rare, and interesting, with blue feet. Metaphorically speaking, of course.

Tonight I was greeted by a kebab of girls all smiling and extending their hands and offering freshly cooked-over-trash corn. They are so sweet, and since there is hardly any interaction with women over the age of thirteen, it is surprisingly refreshing to smile back and say hello. After several requests, I told them my name. “Ana Simon Himony.”

        “Himony?!” they chorus back. “Ana Himony! Ana Himony!” I furrow my brow in wonder and open my mouth in surprise.

“Wallah?” I say playfully. “Really? Inti Uchti! Inti Uchti!” And they are my sisters, and cousins, and I escape with half a cob drenched in salt.

Another beautiful Himony

Mahmoud, preparing for the day

The Himony family is the large extended family that lives and owns several blocks around my apartment. The polygamist family I live in this building with are Himonys. The family who owns the restaurant on the corner and the coffee stand below it and the small store next to it and the … are all Himonys. It's quite the family affair. And they are each so pleased to hear that I am Himony too. Here we take our father’s (and sometimes even grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s) names as middle names. That makes me Simon Walter (Robert) Himony. Nice to meet you. The first several days after my name change I was dragged around and ordered to repeat it over and over again, and every time a shout of celebration would go up, hands were clapped together and smiles erupted into laughter. They love having an American Himony, I guess. And I couldn’t have picked a better time to change my name because a few days later, there was a wedding. And when there is a wedding, there is a hafla. Party-time.

View from atop the Himony restaurant

How do I describe this…event? Think of the last dance you went to, perhaps at a wedding reception yourself. Maybe a school dance? Now, imagine it without any of the females. What would it look like? Men would stand around, look at each other, and quickly find something to drink in order to look busy. This is far from the case in the Palestine. But first, lets get to the party. It started in a big hall with many chairs lined up back to back in rows. Young Himony boys ran around serving candies and taking trash. The coffee guy filled little ceramic cups and the poor juice boy, dressed like a character from Aladdin (complete with the fez) walked around and poured this super-sweet juice: Tamir. He holds the tank on his back and bows to get the juice out of the spout. My only hope was that he gets paid a good price.

On our way to the meet-n-greet we saw the 
famous coffins holding Palestinians who were 
being returned to their people, finally. The truck 
was pulled over. I think there was some dispute
 between Fatah and Hamas as to what to do 
with them...Not sure, though.

This part of the evening was for chewing the fat and congratulating the groom. Of course, it was male-only and the most exciting part of the several-hour occasion was when fifty of them got up into lines and prayed together. It was here I was dragged around, repeating my name like a parrot for a cookie. And this was only the beginning.

We left the building around nine, migrating just ahead of the flock, and made it to the party early. The only worm to reward us was witnessing the lights being set up and microphones tested. It was surely a transformation from the empty dirt lot it used to be; now it had a stage, somehow, and many chairs were set up like an auditorium. Of course, in front of the stage (and above it) was vast empty space. This was our dance floor (and our roof). And as men of all ages started to arrive, the music began.

One of the oldest among us began. Adorned with the classic kufiya wrapped around his head, he stepped into the empty space, raised his arms slightly over his shoulders, and began dancing. His wrists twisted and curled through the air and his feet stepped gently and specifically beneath him. In between the two, his hips traced the music into the air. Then some young men joined, smiling, mimicking this familiar dance, and I saw it: roosters. They were roosters, strutting around, however daintily, with their feathers and their crowns and their chins held high. At certain points in the music, they would all crow, in response to the prompting of the singer. I watched this, entertained by the unfamiliarity of it all. I had never been to a dance where not a single woman was present. The funny thing was, this didn’t change the dancing. The hips went, the wrists flipped, and no one was without a partner.

My ogling ended as I was eventually pulled in, and however timid I pretended to be, I was eager to try it out. No cold, blue feet here; dancing is a must. Now I must humbly admit that I was graced with the hips of an Arab. Or Latino. So I fit in pretty well. And I have never been one to pass up an opportunity to tuck my wings and dive in. So I did. And again, I must humbly admit, I did well. But it was…strange.

Men danced with each other as freely…no, more freely then men dance with women in the States. There are few inhibitions. In fact, shortly into the hafla men had stripped down to their tank tops and were giving Shakira a run for her money in the hip-movement category. And I, the foreigner who could dance, became a certain wonder among them. Remember when I said the dragging around had only begun? Here, it gained some speed. During the four straight hours of dancing that occurred I was pulled, whipped around, dragged, pushed, ushered violently, and ordered around the dance floor and beyond. I could barely dance in one place or with one person for longer than ten seconds before someone else had to dance with me. Or I was put in a circle of people who all looked at me with expectancy. What can the white guy do?! I could go to bed, I thought, but that wasn’t an option. No, I would see this party to its 1:30 AM finale, the after-party meal until almost 2, and then the tea at my friend’s house until I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore. Tim hit the sack by midnight, and somehow managed to avoid most of the cacophony. He also avoided something I didn’t: having a grown man stick his head between my legs from behind and lift me up into the air on his shoulders where I would became a high-flying display for everyone to see. Sometimes they would even stack up three at a time, which I luckily never had to partake in.

  

This is what the party looked like at 1 AM

And it was during all this commotion that I realized we weren’t roosters. No, rooster’s need hens to behave the way they do. And they are so prideful. Here, we weren’t competing, we were merely displaying our feathers. We were peacocks. I would dance with a 50-year old and we would display our feathers together. His arms would open up like a peacock’s tail, and his legs would move with purpose. I would do the same, adding a flick of the wrist on descent. I would then dance with a 20-year old and we would hold each other’s hands and rotate in a circle, split and rotate our hips, legs extended in front. Then I would dance with a 12-year old who tried to do something western, but looked silly doing so, and I would join in the dance of the determined.

How strange it was to dance with these men all night, hands, hips, heads, heels all moving and grooving to the phenomenal beats of the live hand-drummer. I have never been so tired. My feet hurt from so much movement, my shoulders hurt from the incessant grabbing and my throat hurt from the shouting and lack of water. My ears didn’t stop ringing for three days and I’m sure not one person in the whole neighborhood slept that night. I saw grown men engaging in pure delight and young men blowing off the steam built up from their rigid culture. I saw peacocks moving in the moonlight, conscious and unashamed of their beauty, freely on display. And it was strange and beautiful and frustrating and fun and long, long, long.

And I would do it again tomorrow.