Fatima Hatfield and Hanan McCoy

Our village along the Nile

It started out innocently enough. John and I had a few errands to run so we put on our best walking sandals (Chacos for John for everything, every day and Clarks for me...Thank you, sweet Mother-In-Love!) and headed up the path out of our village. We had almost reached the part where the village road meets the city road when my sandal strap broke.

Sidebar: Any shoe that can last longer than 6 months in this terrain gets 5 stars. These had lasted almost an entire year! RIP, Beloved Shoes. 

But I digress...John told me to go sit and visit with an older lady who was peeling a bag full of garlic while he went to the apartment to get me another pair of sandals. (Same brand of sandals in various colors.)

I greeted Lulee* and she began asking about my daughters, MiMi (Emileigh) and Aya (Aria). I asked about her family and noticed that children began gathering around us curious to see what the khawayja "foreigner" was doing. They smiled shyly and we began chatting a bit. 

The scene of "The Episode"

From the corner of my eye, I could see two women coming out of their homes and looking up to another building across the path. I followed their sightline and noticed a woman in the second story standing at her window. Let's call her "Fatima." Fatima began raining down all sorts of words to the women below. She was clearly angry about something. I was trying my best to understand what was happening, but I am not fluent yet in Angry Arabic.

One of the two ladies below, let's call her "Hanan", returned the shouts complete with fist-waving and other colorful gestures. Lulee kept peeling her garlic nonplussed by it all. The children continued trying to engage me. I wanted to make sure that I was out of the path of any flying debris.

Fatima continued with a long diatribe that included "HE IS..." "HE SHOULD NOT..." Again, bits and pieces, but no clear story emerging.

The scene was escalating so Lulee shouted to the women that we had a "guest" with us and they should "cool it." (My word insertions here...)

They didn't care and continued back and forth now drawing additional village people to see what all the hubbub was about.

The mahkwaghee (the man in the village who does all the ironing for everyone) came from behind his ironing board and stood in the middle of them with his hands stretched out to the side giving them the "stop" gesture.

They did pause for a moment and then began directing all their angry words toward him. He looked up at me, smiled, shrugged his shoulders and went back to ironing.

It was at this time that John called me and asked, "What color sandals do you want me to bring?"

He had no idea what was going on. I said, "I don't care. Whatever. Just get here!"

He said, "Well, there are some kind of grayish ones and black ones, but I don't see any brown ones."

On most days I would love a man that would care that his wife wanted to be coordinated, but today I just wanted him to get back so that we could get out of the very awkward crossfire. 

He said, "Okay, I'll just bring these gray ones. See you in a few."

As I hung up, another woman stepped in and demanded that Fatima stop immediately and go back inside. This lady must have wielded some power because Fatima did quiet down, however continued muttering.

Hanan said a parting word to which Fatima had to respond, which made Hanan say one more thing. This continued back and forth until everyone settled down and returned to their homes.

I smiled at Lulee who had never once stopped peeling her garlic buds. The children continued to try to entertain me when John walked up and said, "Here ya go!"

I put my (obviously brown, not gray) sandals on, kissed Lulee goodbye and began walking out of the village.

I told John all the excitement he had missed. He said that it was great that the villagers felt comfortable enough to argue in front of me. Ah, yes. Mr. Sunshine Pants. My adrenaline hadn't worn off yet, but I'm sure I would eventually come to the same conclusion. 

Maybe someday I'll have enough Arabic to jump in and join or even mediate! But for now, I'm just grateful for backup sandals, my garlic-peeling friend and everyday life among the Nubians even when I don't quite understand or know what to say or know what to do. I'm learning and that's okay. They seem to be okay with it, too. That's a good feeling even when it's not. 

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*Not her real name