Thursday, March 17, 2016

A Story From the Life Of Efaf I. Ghostwritten by Sophia A.

Photo courtesy of Google Maps


A Story From the Life Of Efaf I.
Ghostwritten by Sophia A.


It Only Gets Easier


If life were ever easy, I would have never known about it. Everyday we had chores to do. Knead the bread, bake the bread, fill the water tanks from the stream, watch the fields, gather the fruit, soak the wheat, visit with family, make the coffee. Never in my life would I have thought that things could get any better.


Life on my family’s land was like one of those old Syrian and Egyptian dramas- even on the best of days you could find something wrong that needed fixing- and on the happiest occasions, a feud could still be taking place between villages and families. Sometimes when the weather was cloudless, my mother would bring the vegetables outside and prepare dinner outside. I would sit next to her and do the smaller job, while she did the more important job. Sometimes when we would prepare stuffed eggplant and zucchini I would cut the tops off of the vegetables and she would core the insides out. The other housewives that surrounded our house would come over with their own ingredients to help us with dinner. As all the women came together, they would gossip about what happened that week.


One woman with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth leans over the basket of potatoes.“Did you hear?” One of her eyebrows rose, “The son of Nabeel just had his fifth child! And guess what? They finally had a son!”


The wives face lit up with shock then with excitement. One lady that was in her 50’s said that the village needed to throw a party for the first born son. Talking and gossipping was fun; it spread the news around, although that news  would also get altered the more mouths is passed through. No one had a phone in their homes so the news didn't travel fast. That's why if you wanted to call anyone you'd have to go to the grocers, which was a couple miles from home at least and home was around 20 acres. Most of it was olive trees, since that was the family business. We’d always get unexpected visitors on my father’s land. We weren’t wealthy; I think as farmers we were well enough that we always had food in the house and enough to put on the table when guests and family came to visit. It was a sign of hospitality to put a mezze of small dishes filled with different dips, the house’s olives and oils, pickles, fruits, pita, sweet nectars, arak, and in the background the smell of fresh coffee being roasted, ground and brewed.

It’s really not like today, people get so anxious the moment you show up unexpected at the door. Lord forbid they come in for a quick second to drop something off or pick something up, and you offer them a cup of coffee or tea with a little something to eat. This is the attitude I get from my grandkids, when all I want to do is make the home smell inviting with the scent of spices cooking magic on the stove. It’s different nowadays; one does not have pots and pans on the stove ready to feed an army. Now, one can simply go out and buy ready food to eat or flour to bake with and squeezed milk all prepared at a grocery store.


I really shouldn’t be complaining, at least nowadays the toilet is in the house. I remember once a group of young European ladies came up to me and asked me rather urgently in a very funny accent if we had a toilet they could use. I had been so enthusiastic because they were Europeans, and we didn’t see many of them in our village back then. They must have been part of a tourist group or a pilgrimage. I told them with the biggest smile on my face that we did indeed, and I was leading the way to our toilet. Poor girl, it looked like she was having a hard time though, because her knees were literally locked together and her face had turned an almost tomato-like color. When we arrived at our toilet, she wore a grief stricken look on her face, and in broken Arabic asked me if there was another place that I could take her too, like an actual toilet. I made a face and said that we only had this outhouse and no other, but it worked quite well since we had just dug the hole the previous fall and you could hardly smell anything since the manure from our animals was kept next door to it.


She made a funny look, and asked me if there was anyone who had an actual toilet that she could use. I wanted to laugh, but I realized because she was European she didn't understand much, so I told her in my most serious demeanor that no one in the village had one. It would have been hot gossip if someone did have a toilet in their house.

Looking back 60 years ago, the daily life of present day people has significantly changed. The saying times have changed is honestly true. No need to wash laundry by hand, or look in several books to find information, or even do your business outside in a shack. 

Technology and different innovations have influenced our lives, making them  more efficient. We should be thankful for this. I would not believe my eyes if I saw my grandchildren without a phone or laptop for even a couple of hours. Technology has become the new norm, and if one does not assimilate to this culture they would be lost. Even I use technology in my daily life; whether I’m watching the news on the television or on facebook.