Beyond the doors: Part 3

Note: I LOVE holding you all hostage. Haha. Who knew you'd be so riveted? And even if you're not, thanks for pretending. Tiff says 'you too could know the whole story in advance if you called every day like she does." True! So PLEASE call! AND, why am I writing in installments? First, who has time to read more than a page a day? The internet is a time sucker enough. So, really, I'm just thinking of all of you. haha. Second, I only have a few precious minutes a day to blog, as it is. And there has been a lot that has come of this story, so I have to give all the background. Thanks for your WONDERFUL comments. They make me smile!

These doors were lovely. They were neither fancy nor plain. They were clean and simple. As I stepped through the door, this woman disappeared. I looked around as much as I could, taking in what I could in the short time. And there standing on these big cement steps, opposite the side of the house where the red hooded woman went, was a young lady in a t-shirt and jeans wearing bright red lipstick.

“Fatimah?”

“Yes.” She laughed, “Oh yes. You haven’t seen me yet. How do I look? Am I beautiful?”

We left the courtyard of this house. I learned that was their servant who came to get me, and she must have entered the house through the main door. The small glimpse of the ‘yard’ I saw was all cement. Two large sinks, and lower spigots were just inside the door. I am assuming this is for prayer, as they must wash before each prayer. It was plain and clean. Nothing fancy, but nice.

She welcomed me into a big rectangular room with five very large, overstuffed, red and gold couches. They lined the walls and had a couple of coffee tables in the middle of the room. There were fancy curtains on the covered windows. The only way for women to be able to walk freely in their homes is if their windows are blacked out. So there is no natural light in these houses, best I can tell. I recently saw a really nice home with ornate stained glass windows, which seems like a great way to let light in, with pretty scenes, and still not let people see in. There was nothing on the walls. At all. It was very simple – modest. Which, how I understand it, is how ’faithful’ people live here.

Was she beautiful? Hm. That’s a loaded question isn’t it? She certainly wasn’t beautiful by our Western standards. But honestly, most of the people aren’t, here. People here have been marrying their first cousins for generation after generation. And after a while, their features start to look a little odd. At least to me. There are a many ‘different’ looks here. Closely centered or very far apart eyes, long or larger noses, big lips. Fatimah has beautiful eyes, the big deep brown eyes of Arabia. Her veil, like most, covers her eyebrows and is pressed right up under her bottom eye lashes. But her eyes are very pretty. Her nose is like many, quite large for her small face. And she has big full lips, where she loves to wear her bright red lipstick. Fatimah is typically short for this area of the world. They are seriously tiny. She is fairly slender, but not thin. She, like many here, also has a rear end that reminds me of true Africans. Which makes sense, since this area was once one. Many also have very similar hair to Africans. Her hair was a little longer than hour shoulders, black, and quite curly. Her hands are the size of my children, with very perfectly manicured nails. Not fancy manicure, clean manicure. She wore trendy skinny jeans and a printed, with bling, t-shirt.

After we made a little small talk, she invited me to sit down. Telling me that her siblings were in the city getting their hair done, and her father was at ‘their property’, relaxing in their tents they keep there. They have land where they keep some animals and hire a man to take care of it. They have three large tents that they like to visit and get away from the small city walls around them. There are eight daughters and three sons in her family, all from one mother. “Would your father ever take another wife,” I ask. “We would kill him if he even thought about it,” was her reply. These families here have many children, and they are spread out over many years. I think her family is spread out over at least 25 years. Two of the brothers, older than 25 year old Fatimah, are married. One lives here in town. Three older sisters are married, but they all live in their family’s original city. The sisters all married their first cousins, and now live far away.

I came to learn that Fatimah had been proposed to twice, but she had refused both times. She is educated, worked briefly, and has a good idea of what she wants. The first suitor divorced his first wife, his first cousin. “If he could do that to his own blood, think what he could do to me.” Good point. And the second man didn’t have a job, “so how could he support our family?” Again, I totally understand. Funny how in our culture, we would have gotten to know a person before a proposal was even thought of. And here, they come, you talk, you get engaged. Or not. Fatimah says her family is very ‘open minded’. This means that if she doesn’t want to marry a man, she can refuse. Where in many families, girls have to choice, at all. She feels very lucky.

Marriage works like this here: A girl waits and waits..and waits. She is waiting for a mother of a man to contact her mother. She will call or visit the girl’s mother, and they will talk. They boy’s mother will say she would like to come and meet the girl. So the boy’s mother and other female family will come to meet a veiled girl. They will talk to the girl and her mother. If they think she may be of interest to the boy and the family, they will make an appointment for the boy to meet the girl – unveiled. He will come, and with her father in the room, they will be able to talk. “And if he likes how I look and what I have to say, he will ask to marry me.” In a modern family, the girl has the final say. In a traditional family, her father has the final say.

If they choose to be married, they will now be able to speak on the phone or in supervised discussions. A few weeks later, they will make a formal agreement of their upcoming marriage. Shortly after that, the girl’s father will take her and meet the boy at their religious center. The boy will sign his name, the father will sign for the girl and she will leave a fingerprint instead of signing. They are now “engaged.” But this is what you and I know as married. There is no other ceremony, just a big party several months later. They will not live in the same house, or have ‘relations.’ But this is it. She will spend these months preparing for her marriage. Shopping, basically. And he will spend his time saving money, to give to her family. Although, I understand that most men don’t even get to serious stages of looking for a wife until they have a decent amount of money saved. So, many months later, they will have a HUGE elaborate wedding party, totally separated by gender, – and off they go.

A few minutes into our discussion, Fatimah got up to turn the wall A/C unit on. She also spoke loud, firm orders in the direction of the central area of the house. Immediately the same woman that met me came out of the kitchen area, in a stooped respectful walk, carrying a tray with a very large ornate object. It was about 12 inches tall and five inches around, sliver and shiny red with carved detail all over it. Tall rounded prongs fell down from top forming a bowl area, pillar like stands supported the bowl. “This is incense. I like it. I think it smells very good. You will like it.” I like incense. You know, the kind you get at Pike Place Market in junior high, on a stick or shaped like a cone, and you think you’re really cool burning it? Who doesn’t? The servant had lit some coals, in the center of the incense bowl, although I didn’t know this at the time. Fatimah took a good sized handful of what look like black wood chips and put them on top of the coals –and; Poof! Just like that I thought someone had rubbed their magic genie lamp. Smoke was billowing like a bad night around a camp fire. My eyes were burning. It was like a really smoky bar or something. I tried not to cough and rub my eyes. Sandalwood. Yep, that’s what it was – or something like that. And then, I saw it get sucked into the air conditioner, and out again. It really was a sight to see. And smell. She didn’t even blink. Where I come from one you’d consider calling 911 if you came across a scene like this. Not here. Just relax, settle back on your couch and breathe it all in. Mmmmm. *cough, cough*