Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea Page B

and kindness in a difficult
    situation. “But,” she said grandly, “I have been to secondary
    school in Diwaniya and have read about the West, I know
    your ways are much the same as durs, so I will drink some
    tea.”
    The crisis passed. Sheddir also accepted a glass, and
    Fadhila, but the others still refused. I passed around cigarettes.
    As I had thought, this was too great a temptation to resist, and
    everyone, even those whom I had never seen smoke, took a
    cigarette.
    “What do you do all day here by yourself?” asked Fadhila.
    “I cook, and clean the house.”
    “Why don’t you do your washing in the canal as we do?”
    suggested Sheddir.
    “Because I like to do it in my house,” I said.
    Then in a whispered conversation which followed, I
    distinctly heard Sheddir say that she often came to our garden
    to cut grass for their animals, and had never seen much
    laundry hanging on my line. She allowed as how I must be
    very lazy. I felt myself bristling, readying a tart reply to that
    one, but Selma intervened.
    “You say you cook,” she said. “What do you cook? I
    thought Westerners ate all their meals from tin cans.”
    I told them what we had for lunch, and added that I had
    baked bread that morning.
    “Bread like ours?” asked Sheddir.
    “No,” I said, “Western bread.”
    Selma explained to the group that this was a high loaf called
    “toast.” Haji ate it all the time in Baghdad and had told her
    about it.
    “Let us see some,” they clamored.
    I ran to the kitchen, proud that I was good for something,
    and returned with several slices of fresh bread, cut into
    quarters.
    “You taste it, Sheddir,” Selma instructed.
    Everyone stopped talking and watched as Sheddir, very
    flustered indeed at being chosen the group guinea pig, picked
    up one of the squares of bread between thumb and forefinger
    and stuffed it in her mouth. She masticated a moment, then
    made a terrible face and spat it out on the floor. The ladies
    exploded and laughed till the tears ran down their cheeks. I
    was close to tears myself, and not humorous ones, but I
    realized that Selma was watching me.
    “Sheddir is not accustomed to your bread—she finds it
    strange,” she offered kindly, but she could not help shaking
    with laughter at this huge joke. At the height of the mirth,
    Sheddir thought of something else that was screamingly
    funny, and launched into a long tale which I did not
    understand, but which seemed to have something to do with
    me, for she kept watching me out of the corner of her eye as
    she talked.
    “Do you know what she is saying?” Selma asked me. I
    shook my head. “Sheddir says you do not know how to cook
    rice, and because your rice is so bad, your husband comes to
    eat at the mudhif.”
    I admitted I did not know how to cook the rice in El Nahra
    because it was different from the rice in America.
    Even Fadhila laughed at this. “Rice? Rice is the same
    everywhere,” she asserted and people nodded. I was obviously
    slow-witted as well as lazy.
    My face must have shown what I was feeling, for Selma
    changed the subject.
    “Do you and Mr. Bob both sleep in that little bed?” she
    asked. I said yes.
    “What fun they must have, I’m sure!” croaked Sheddir and
    the ladies were off again. I knew this was a good-hearted joke,
    but I had been tried too far that evening. Selma saw it too. She
    stood up and pulled her abayah around her, announcing that
    Haji Hamid would soon be back from the mudhif, and if he
    found her gone–she made an unmistakable gesture.
    “Oh, no, Selma,” protested Sheddir. “Haji would never beat
    you. You are too beautiful.” Selma arched at this, but she did
    not deny it. The attention had been diverted from the strange
    American and the women’s attitude changed. They rose and
    prepared to take their leave. I saw them to the gate, voicing
    the traditional farewells, and got a few halfhearted ones in
    reply. Then I shut the gate and burst into tears.
    Six months