Read Online Guests of the Sheik: An Ethnography of an Iraqi Village by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Elizabeth Warnock Fernea
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insisted that the four of us sit and eat
together. Khadija was painfully embarrassed and could not
even look at Bob; she kept her eyes cast down and
occasionally giggled nervously. Jabbar decided I could teach
her to bake cakes and cookies like the upper-class Baghdadi
women; I tried hard, but she had neither talent nor interest.
Khadija seized on me out of loneliness and curiosity, for I
was so odd a figure in the village even she felt comfortable
with me. But the friendship was a difficult one. Unless I spent
every afternoon with her, which was impossible, she
complained to Jabbar that I did not like her; since Jabbar was
one of Bob’s closest personal friends in the village as well as a
key figure in his irrigation study, this made life troublesome
for all of us. I finally limited myself to a weekly visit with her,
and Bob told Jabbar that I was busy at home and helping him
the rest of the time.
Khadija dreaded marriage, she told me, because she would
have to leave Jabbar and her family and go with her husband;
I thought she feared more the burdens of cooking, child-
rearing and entertaining in a white-collar household, activities
at which she seemed bound to prove inadequate.
The teachers, the mayor’s wife and the doctor’s wife, all
fairly well educated, tried to be kind to Khadija, and although
she was pleased at their attentions, basically she resented
them. Hind, youngest of the three teachers, a lively witty girl,
tried to teach Khadija to read and write. At this time Jabbar
was considering marrying Hind; though nothing had been said
to Hind’s family, she had heard the rumors. When he suddenly
became engaged to another girl, Hind quite rightly tried not to
visit his house so often. But Khadija was furious and told me
over and over again that Hind had never liked her, that she
only wanted to marry Jabbar, and that was why she had visited
her before.
I did not believe this, for Hind was kind as well as sensible,
much like her older sister Aliyah, who had come to El Nahra
thirteen years before when the girls’ school opened and had
remained there ever since, teaching, in loneliness and
obscurity, the girls of this remote area. At first, she told me,
only a few girls, daughters of merchants and effendis, had
come to school; Aliyah had not been discouraged. She visited
the village families, not just once, but many times, until they
became used to her presence and were no longer suspicious.
She pointed out the importance of women learning to read, not
only the Koran (the women mullahs were available to teach
them that), but books about Islamic history, about sewing and
cooking. When Sheik Hamid married Selma, Aliyah went to
visit her and was welcomed warmly; they had mutual
acquaintances among the teachers in Diwaniya. Gradually the
tribal girls began to attend the school. First only one came
from each of the wealthier families, then the poorer girls, and
finally more and more of the villagers. The school had grown
slowly, but it had 175 girls now, and only three teachers.
Inspectors from the Ministry of Education had expressed
several times to Aliyah herself their amazement at the large
enrollment in such a conservative area, but knowing Aliyah
and the high personal respect she enjoyed in El Nahra, I was
not surprised.
The town fathers knew that Aliyah was no modern upstart,
come to teach the girls to take off their abayahs and learn the
wicked, immodest ways of the city. Her family was from
Baghdad, it was true, but was known to be conservative and
religious; Aliyah wore the abayah herself and lived quietly
with Hind, their mother and another unmarried sister who
cooked and kept house. Jabbar once explained to Bob, “They
have no man to protect them, but their good reputation is
protection enough.”
Aliyah was anxious that I teach English part-time at the
school; she had asked the Ministry repeatedly for another
teacher to help handle the growing
together. Khadija was painfully embarrassed and could not
even look at Bob; she kept her eyes cast down and
occasionally giggled nervously. Jabbar decided I could teach
her to bake cakes and cookies like the upper-class Baghdadi
women; I tried hard, but she had neither talent nor interest.
Khadija seized on me out of loneliness and curiosity, for I
was so odd a figure in the village even she felt comfortable
with me. But the friendship was a difficult one. Unless I spent
every afternoon with her, which was impossible, she
complained to Jabbar that I did not like her; since Jabbar was
one of Bob’s closest personal friends in the village as well as a
key figure in his irrigation study, this made life troublesome
for all of us. I finally limited myself to a weekly visit with her,
and Bob told Jabbar that I was busy at home and helping him
the rest of the time.
Khadija dreaded marriage, she told me, because she would
have to leave Jabbar and her family and go with her husband;
I thought she feared more the burdens of cooking, child-
rearing and entertaining in a white-collar household, activities
at which she seemed bound to prove inadequate.
The teachers, the mayor’s wife and the doctor’s wife, all
fairly well educated, tried to be kind to Khadija, and although
she was pleased at their attentions, basically she resented
them. Hind, youngest of the three teachers, a lively witty girl,
tried to teach Khadija to read and write. At this time Jabbar
was considering marrying Hind; though nothing had been said
to Hind’s family, she had heard the rumors. When he suddenly
became engaged to another girl, Hind quite rightly tried not to
visit his house so often. But Khadija was furious and told me
over and over again that Hind had never liked her, that she
only wanted to marry Jabbar, and that was why she had visited
her before.
I did not believe this, for Hind was kind as well as sensible,
much like her older sister Aliyah, who had come to El Nahra
thirteen years before when the girls’ school opened and had
remained there ever since, teaching, in loneliness and
obscurity, the girls of this remote area. At first, she told me,
only a few girls, daughters of merchants and effendis, had
come to school; Aliyah had not been discouraged. She visited
the village families, not just once, but many times, until they
became used to her presence and were no longer suspicious.
She pointed out the importance of women learning to read, not
only the Koran (the women mullahs were available to teach
them that), but books about Islamic history, about sewing and
cooking. When Sheik Hamid married Selma, Aliyah went to
visit her and was welcomed warmly; they had mutual
acquaintances among the teachers in Diwaniya. Gradually the
tribal girls began to attend the school. First only one came
from each of the wealthier families, then the poorer girls, and
finally more and more of the villagers. The school had grown
slowly, but it had 175 girls now, and only three teachers.
Inspectors from the Ministry of Education had expressed
several times to Aliyah herself their amazement at the large
enrollment in such a conservative area, but knowing Aliyah
and the high personal respect she enjoyed in El Nahra, I was
not surprised.
The town fathers knew that Aliyah was no modern upstart,
come to teach the girls to take off their abayahs and learn the
wicked, immodest ways of the city. Her family was from
Baghdad, it was true, but was known to be conservative and
religious; Aliyah wore the abayah herself and lived quietly
with Hind, their mother and another unmarried sister who
cooked and kept house. Jabbar once explained to Bob, “They
have no man to protect them, but their good reputation is
protection enough.”
Aliyah was anxious that I teach English part-time at the
school; she had asked the Ministry repeatedly for another
teacher to help handle the growing
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