Arizona Pie 9 October 2008
Posted by ANNA in ANNA, Education.2 comments
Aisha’s horse wants vegetables after salah. We pause at the playground’s entrance and I pat the front of my abaya, pantomiming pockets. “I have something special today,” I tell her. “For ‘Eid. Today, it’s not carrots.” She scrunches her eyebrows into a bow. “What is it?” I draw an imagined white bulb with my hand. “Today, I have fennel.”
“What’s fennel?” Aisha wants to know. While I am describing the vegetable’s virtues, Faiza joins us. Her hair is curled for ‘Eid. Today, freshly back from holiday, the class is uniform-free. Hands are dyed with henna. From the edge of the slide, turquoise satin shalwar cuffs shine around brown feet.
Faiza’s horse gobbles the fennel from my palm while Aisha makes up her mind. “It’s a crunchy vegetable,” I say. “Like celery. But it has a nice smell, and feathery leaves. I’m sure your horse would like it. Where is he?” I find another fennel in my pocket and hold it before her nose. This one is for you, sweetheart.
Banishment 25 September 2008
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She frames it as a question. “Do you think that they’re too young to go upstairs to the masjid?” I watch lunchtime from the doorway; on my left, my twenty charges. On my right, elegance, in black, is waiting. “I know they enjoy the change of pace,” I try to avoid answering.
For a moment I imagine my two unruly lines, boys separate from girls, laughing and chattering. What a difference five children makes; at times this year’s group of twenty feels twice as big as last year’s fifteen. Leading them up to the masjid is an exercise in repeating. The “No”s and the “Don’t”s outnumber the “Do”s; paths and plants and bugs and shoes and stairs and voices and hands and cars and gaps can be overwhelming.
Beginning 19 September 2008
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Three meters outside the First Grade door, my feet won’t go on. A container full of backyard grapes balances in my hands; a miniature snail, shell fingernail pale, climbs slowly between globes. She is as I feel: in trouble so deep she can’t begin to guess. Hopelessly out of place.
I cross the long way past the class, hoping that the children will not see me. At the end of the hallway, an exit door leads to the field outside. I prop it open with my knee. The breeze across Sharon is wet, as if carrying presents for the sea.
Turkey Diary: Let Us Pray 14 August 2008
Posted by ANNA in ANNA, Culture, Spirituality, Theology.8 comments
1. Istanbul
The entrance to the mosque is hidden behind a metal door which swings. It is early, still, for maghrib; I imagined, walking downhill, that I would find a space inside, up in a balcony, where I might wait to pray.
The masjid is a simple thing with a short minaret, just this side of shabby. Its facade has been whitewashed in recent years, and yet, still, patches of brick, swathes of cement are visible through its skin. I am reminded, standing outside, of veins on the back of my hand.
Turkey Diary: Unwrapping 24 July 2008
Posted by ANNA in ANNA, Culture, Politics, Travel.3 comments
Istanbul, July 20
Hazelnuts grow in twists of green from which they must be pried. To my left in the shade of the window frame, Hasibe’s fingers unwrap leaves. At her touch, they open; one by one, nuts are freed. Soon a handful roll on the white place mat. They are shaped like acorns and I wonder if they will be as bitter.
Cigdem, Serra, Zahra and I sit on mismatched chairs. It is Sunday, pajama day, and we are not dressed for going outside. Curls and freckles, nightgowns and slippers, we sit in our glasses, breakfasting. I have made an omelet for the girls, a puffy thing, encasing peppers and cheese. Sliced hot into wedges, it is inspected with wonder and eaten. “It is like a special pizza,” Serra is happy. “I have never seen such a thing.”
In an hour, we will scrub the apartment, in two hours, we will leave. One by one, with the coming ezan, we will disappear to pray. In three hours, Hasibe and I will pass, through Bogazici, down to the sea. Like green hazelnuts, we will be wrapped. We are better than hazelnuts, I decide, because we may cover, uncover, recover ourselves as we so please.
