Bittersweet Symphony
2004-05-08 at 5:38 p.m.
Zawaj
OK, the honeymoon is over. But I'm still enjoying myself. My mother-in-law and I are getting to know each other better. Still they speak broken English to me and I say only a few words in Arabic. I have to fix this. It doesn't help me to tell them to speak only Arabic to me because I am the one who is making them speak English.I've been uploading pictures to my family and to my husband. If anyone wants to see the pictures, send me an email (tandeetaylor at yahoo) and I will send you an invitation. If you are a woman, you have to promise me that you won't show the pictures marked "For women only" to any men because it will have pictures of my MIL without her hijab. She's very pretty, I wish she wouldn't wear that thing. Oh well.
Every night I go with my BIL to smoke hookahs with his friends by the beach. I like his friends a lot. They're all guys, of course, and they all care about politics, which is so neat for me. And not just the war or something. One of them told everyone about how that doctor in Libiya (SP?), along with his nurses, gave some children AIDS in order to do experiments on them (I don't know if they're reporting it in the west), and everyone *cared*. It's so neat. Not the story, of course. eh... Anyway, I think I am understanding more and more about some general Lebanese mindsets. It's so different from what I thought, even a week ago. They don't hate America, they admire a system in which dissent is not only allowed, but common, they don't like the war of course, but they still hope for good things for America. Anyway...
My husband's grandmother has a maid from Ethopia. She generally treats her well, but she only pays her $100 a month. That's the common amount. Of course, her income monthly is somewhere around $1000, so it's not too bad. And she gives quite a bit of her money to my husband's family too. But she also told me that, although she was very smart and well-educated "sometimes her negro mind comes out." I don't know what to say to that. I don't want to make problems. So, although, everyone wants us to come visit them often, I won't be going there often. Her maid, her name is Mooloo, went with me to some shops while my son slept. She told me how her family has 8 or 9 children and she and her sister had to come here to send them money. It's interesting, really, because my dh's grandma gets her money from her children working in America, and her maid's family gets her money from working in Lebanon. I see now how much the world economy depends, at least in large part, on the American economy. Everyone wants to get to a richer country to work. Everyone here loves Lebanon, except that the work pays very poorly. I see construction workers working on buildings and I wonder how much money they make. I think the average salary here is about $300.
My brother-in-law is so anxious to go to America. He wants me to find someone who will marry him. He's gorgeous, like my husband. I think he could get someone to fall in love with him. It's complicated. They want a wife that they will love, really, but they also need to get out of this country. Therefore, Danny has a Lebanese girlfriend, but he doesn't want to marry her. I think if I wasn't married, I could come here and have my pick. Which isn't such a bad prospect, the Lebanese have such a beautiful mix of different world ethnicities. Greek, old Babylonian like in Iraq, Arab, and some surviving Phonecian, I think. Really gorgeous. My brother and his Mormon self wants to be married. I'm going to tell him to come here with me, he'll find a nice girl. My brother is great, really, but *very* unexpressive of his feelings, and therefore he has a hard time. Anyway, that's all.
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