Written by Stinni on Monday, April 07, 2008
We had a bunch of Korean workers renting the house next to ours and they were lovely because they were hardly home and when they were home, they were really quiet.
Recently, the house has been rented by a (*roll of eyes*) lovely (*sarcastic tone ends here*) family with around eight children? Ten children? I can't count them all. Until recently, they had chickens who would come into my hosh (tiled front yard) and shit all over the place. I politely asked their houseboy to fence them in instead of letting them run wild through the neighborhood but maku faida (no use). It doesn't matter now because during one of their neighborhood walks, someone nabbed them. That's right, they got birdnapped. At least now I don't have to obsessively hose down chicken shit in my front yard because my paranoid hypochondriac brain couldn't stand the thought of my children accidentally riding their scooters through bird flu infested chicken poop.
Anyway, they still have their pigeons. And when their pigeons try to escape the wrath of the children's torturous ways, by flying up to our roof, those lovely children throw rocks at them, nearly missing our windows. We've had to yell at them several times.
On one hot afternoon,I went out to water my garden in sweatpants and a t-shirt. The neighbor's children were standing at the edge of my yard and watching me. They asked my name. I told them that my name was Um Mishari. Then they asked why I was showing my arms. Huh? Then I realized that I was wearing a t-shirt and they were asking why I was showing my bare arms. I laughed and told them it was hot out, that's why. Then one little boy asked me if I was hindi. When I told him that I was not hindi, he asked what I was.
"Ana Kuwaitiya wa Amreekiya" I'm Kuwaiti and American, I told him. He stopped smiling and started frowning. "Enty haiwana." He basically said that I was an animal, more like being called a bitch.
He's about four.
I'll do the rest in English but the conversation took place in Arabic.
"I'm an animal?"
"Yes, you're an animal."
"Why?"
"Just because. You are an animal, just because."
Funny, they're running around in bare feet, stepping all over chicken and pigeon shit, wearing filthy clothes and pajamas but I'm the haiwana.
At this point I just shook my head and continued watering my garden. Then one of the boys grabbed a six-foot long stick. He told me he was going to hit me with it. I was like, whatever little boy. So then my children hear what's going on and they run out and start calling the children words like peepee (bola) and caca (zega), giggling and then running back into our gated yard. As I was done watering the garden, I followed them into our gated yard, shut the gate and told my kids to just ignore the children from next door.
My kids are sitting on the front stoop and I'm sitting by them. The children from next door walk up a few feet from the gate. They say, "Um Mishari, come."
"Why? So you can do something naughty?"
"No, no, I swear, nothing naughty", says the boy holding the stick.
I open the gate, walked up to him as calm as could be and asked him what he wanted. He told me he was going to hit me with the stick.
"Why? Why do you want to hit me?"
"Just because."
"What have I done to you?"
"You know what you did!"
And then he says something in Arabic that I don't understand, but something to the effect (or is it affect?) that I did something to their house.
"I didn't do anything to your house. Where's your mother?"
"Inside."
"Tell her to come here, I want to talk to her."
"I'M GOING TO HIT YOU!"
"Yallah, yallah, go home."
I walked back into my yard, shut the gate and then they started throwing rocks at us, through the gate, giggling, because I suppose it was hilarious to them. I told them to stop, to go home but they kept on taunting us.
My husband came home at that point and all it took from him was to say, "Shteboon?! Yallah...yallah!" ("What do you want?!" Go...go!") and they RAN home.
Why couldn't I have been born with a penis?
Posts
