Dir Balak
Tonight my dad had the moment every man who has a daughter wishes he could experience:
Naveed, dad and I were sitting in Al-Rashid's Ecotourism Cafe, where we got free hookah and turkish coffee because my boss at FoEME knows the owner. We were passing the pipe, enjoying the balcony view over downtown Amman, and when our coals weren't that great on the hookah, this guy sitting at another table, who had a little pot full of coals, helped us reload.
Anyway, this guy was a Palestinian living in Jordan and he really wants to learn English. He keeps a little notebook full of Arabic-English lists of words that he got from reading a dictionary, and he was speaking to us in terrible English while we responded with terrible Arabic and he took down how to spell "father" and "daughter."
So we are talking, and eventually he asks me how old I am (which I think translates into English as "will you sleep with me?"). I told him, and a look of death is gradually coming over dad's face. We all spoke for another 20 minutes. Eventually it's time for us to go, and the guy asks if we can hang out sometime, and my dad looks at him and says "dir balak" which means "don't you dare or I will use your testicles as target practice."
On a more serious note, I think being an American woman without any Arabic just screams "I will screw anything that moves." I dress pretty conservatively here, covering the shoulders and legs and often wearing long sleeves. I would like to be able to have a serious conversation with a taxi driver, with local young people, or even with a fucking 16-year-old Bedouin kid driving the donkey I am riding uphill in Petra. Unfortunately it always degenerates into "how old are you?" Does anyone have any advice, short of wearing hijab, to help me not seem like a walking whorehouse?
Oh, and you should go to Petra. It's amazing. And it is full of Bedouins who have more donkeys than teeth, who set up racks of jewelry right along the trails up to the big monuments, hoping that even though its above 90 degrees and you are sweating buckets, you will take five minutes on your way up to haggle over necklaces or bracelets made of camel bone and silver or fake Nabatean lamps. What is it about people with no teeth that makes me leery of buying their things?
posted by DCheslow @ 6:24 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Hey there! It's Salma... I just read this post and cracked up laughing. So I decided to show it to my mother, who also cracked up laughing. If all else fails in life, you could become the new Dave Barry of the Middle East.
Maybe the damn sexy aura you send off just screams "I'm a walking whorehouse," whether you're in Jordan or in Evanston...;-) In the case of the former, though, the fact that you're American really doesn't matter too much in the scheme of things. You're female and young (confirmed by your answer to the question, "What's your age?"). That's about all that's required to solicit advances. Horney men do not discriminate, no matter where in the world they are (no offense). It happens as often to Jordanian women as it does to you =) I suppose, though, that you're broken Arabic does not help the situation... next time someone asks you your age, just causally ask "L'aish?"/ "Shu'b t'ifruh?" or say something rather vague, like "I'm a student" or "I'm in college" and quickly change the topic =D
Did you end up finding a place to live?? You never called back...
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