Read Online Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
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became a major
undertaking. Who knew who might be sitting in the coffee
shop who might remark that so-and-so’s family was running
about town these days. For a model wife stayed at home, cared
for her children and for her house, prepared good food for her
husband and his guests, and kept out of sight of strangers. So,
although few people really noticed it and only one or two of
the women even remarked on it, in fact the women went out
much less often after the new bridge was finished and the old
bridge was dismantled and sold for firewood.
The main street of El Nahra, neon-lighted, was a
continuation of this new bridge. Here were the offices of the
government officials assigned from Baghdad to administer the
village and its immediate area. A boys’ primary school (400
pupils), a girls’ primary school (175 pupils), the mayor’s
office, the jail, the government dispensary with its resident
doctor, the police station, and the post office lined the street.
On a side road facing the canal was the office of the irrigation
engineer, the one indispensable man among the government
officials, for on his authority the floodgates which channeled
water from a branch of the Euphrates River were opened and
closed. The village and the surrounding farm community
depended on the water supply for life.
Along this bank, near the irrigation office, were the most
modern dwellings in El Nahra, two or three well-built houses
of fired brick, with tiled floors and carefully cultivated
gardens. This was the fashionable, the “right” side of the
canal, and the tribal settlement was obviously on the wrong
side. Why on earth didn’t Bob and I, foreigners and not
destitute, live on the right side of the canal, I was asked by the
women schoolteachers, the mayor’s wife, the engineer’s sister
and the doctor’s wife, the handful of middle-class ladies in the
town who entertained me at lunch and tea, polite, pleasant,
and quite puzzled as to our presence in this remote village and
our house among those of the tribal fellahin.
Khadija, the engineer’s sister, was from a tribal group
herself and could hardly contain her curiosity about the
women of the sheik’s house; she had never visited them, as
they were not of her social group. Paradoxically she would
have liked nothing better, for she enjoyed visiting the hut of
the man who cultivated her beautiful garden. In the gardener’s
one-room shack she could sit on the floor with his wife and
daughter, drinking tea and gossiping. This kind of visit was all
right—the gardener and his wife were her servants; she was
expected to be kind and visit them occasionally, bringing
small presents of tea and sugar. But the sheik’s house? Never.
She was above that sort of thing now. Her brother Jabbar, the
engineer, was a self-made man. An attractive, intelligent and
ambitious boy, he had graduated highest in his class from the
time he entered his village primary school until he finished
secondary school in his provincial capital. His achievements
brought him a scholarship to the engineering college in
Baghdad. Now he was an effendi, a white-collar worker; he
had risen higher than any member of his family before him.
His younger sister, brought to El Nahra to keep house for him,
had assumed his social status without his education and
intelligence; unfortunately, she had not even Jabbar’s good
looks in her favor. She worked at dressing smartly and
learning to make crème caramel, she obediently visited the
teachers and the mayor’s wife, tried hard to keep up with the
latest song successes of Abdul Wahab and Um Khalthum, and
asserted that she wanted to learn to read and write, but she was
equipped for her role neither by training nor by native
intelligence.
Jabbar wished her to become accustomed to conversing
with men so that she might be a companion as well as a
housekeeper for her husband; accordingly he invited Bob and
me to his house and
undertaking. Who knew who might be sitting in the coffee
shop who might remark that so-and-so’s family was running
about town these days. For a model wife stayed at home, cared
for her children and for her house, prepared good food for her
husband and his guests, and kept out of sight of strangers. So,
although few people really noticed it and only one or two of
the women even remarked on it, in fact the women went out
much less often after the new bridge was finished and the old
bridge was dismantled and sold for firewood.
The main street of El Nahra, neon-lighted, was a
continuation of this new bridge. Here were the offices of the
government officials assigned from Baghdad to administer the
village and its immediate area. A boys’ primary school (400
pupils), a girls’ primary school (175 pupils), the mayor’s
office, the jail, the government dispensary with its resident
doctor, the police station, and the post office lined the street.
On a side road facing the canal was the office of the irrigation
engineer, the one indispensable man among the government
officials, for on his authority the floodgates which channeled
water from a branch of the Euphrates River were opened and
closed. The village and the surrounding farm community
depended on the water supply for life.
Along this bank, near the irrigation office, were the most
modern dwellings in El Nahra, two or three well-built houses
of fired brick, with tiled floors and carefully cultivated
gardens. This was the fashionable, the “right” side of the
canal, and the tribal settlement was obviously on the wrong
side. Why on earth didn’t Bob and I, foreigners and not
destitute, live on the right side of the canal, I was asked by the
women schoolteachers, the mayor’s wife, the engineer’s sister
and the doctor’s wife, the handful of middle-class ladies in the
town who entertained me at lunch and tea, polite, pleasant,
and quite puzzled as to our presence in this remote village and
our house among those of the tribal fellahin.
Khadija, the engineer’s sister, was from a tribal group
herself and could hardly contain her curiosity about the
women of the sheik’s house; she had never visited them, as
they were not of her social group. Paradoxically she would
have liked nothing better, for she enjoyed visiting the hut of
the man who cultivated her beautiful garden. In the gardener’s
one-room shack she could sit on the floor with his wife and
daughter, drinking tea and gossiping. This kind of visit was all
right—the gardener and his wife were her servants; she was
expected to be kind and visit them occasionally, bringing
small presents of tea and sugar. But the sheik’s house? Never.
She was above that sort of thing now. Her brother Jabbar, the
engineer, was a self-made man. An attractive, intelligent and
ambitious boy, he had graduated highest in his class from the
time he entered his village primary school until he finished
secondary school in his provincial capital. His achievements
brought him a scholarship to the engineering college in
Baghdad. Now he was an effendi, a white-collar worker; he
had risen higher than any member of his family before him.
His younger sister, brought to El Nahra to keep house for him,
had assumed his social status without his education and
intelligence; unfortunately, she had not even Jabbar’s good
looks in her favor. She worked at dressing smartly and
learning to make crème caramel, she obediently visited the
teachers and the mayor’s wife, tried hard to keep up with the
latest song successes of Abdul Wahab and Um Khalthum, and
asserted that she wanted to learn to read and write, but she was
equipped for her role neither by training nor by native
intelligence.
Jabbar wished her to become accustomed to conversing
with men so that she might be a companion as well as a
housekeeper for her husband; accordingly he invited Bob and
me to his house and
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