...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.