Sahibe caught a fish!!
What a wonderful day!! The weather cooperated beautifully with upper 80 temps. We were set to get on the road around 2pm. The children started coming to the door at 1pm asking if we were ready. Then 1:30 rolled around and another knock, knock, knock, "Can our friends come too?" they asked hopefully, laughing, smiling and expectantly. We laughed and said.... "the more the merrier" then decided to throw in an extra bag of chips to the picnic basket.
In all we had 5 children ages 15 to 8 and 5 men folk. Now please understand that I am laughing in just sheer joy over the next comments because diversity is simply a favorite of this heart of mine. Our friends are from the Middle East, born and raised in the land of women never exposing their hair to a non-family member and quite proper. We smile knowingly and chuckle often because here we are two American Women living together quite nicely with no men. They are always ready to help when we need something heavy moved. They refer to us as their Sisters (both privately and when introducing us to their friends) and we are not neighbors, we are family. Not sure but with my hugging thing, it might be the only way they could keep the peace with all of their Muslim friends over our relationship.
You can imagine that it has been interesting as we developed our mutually respectful relationship over the last 2 years. Firstly we had to get the hugging issue out of the way. I am a hugger after all. The first time the Husband came over and treated us with mowing the front yard I was in delight over it. I just ran out and hugged him.... ut oh.... yep this brought my friend, his wife, running and explaining that in their culture this is forbidden. To which I explained that in MY culture it is completely acceptable to hug someone when they have done something very nice for us then apologized for any unintended offense. Later it became clear that hugging (understand it is always quite quick) was now acceptable. Life is a process. LOL Ok this is important as the story continues to understand that our wonderful fishing companions are quite ummm chauvinistic and Middle Eastern old fashioned types and here we have 5 grown Men accompanying us on this trip. Oh My... pretty sure they are still talking about it today.
The children had never been fishing and actually we are not sure if the Parents have either but we are pretty sure they expected us to go all girly over putting worms on the hooks. Ummm no.... fish eat worms, we want to catch fish AND we brought a brand new full roll of paper towels. Now the girls on the other hand kept as far away from those wiggling worms as possible but eventually decided they were a necessary evil of fishing. Next time we will bring artificial bait. Each child learned to cast an open faced reel (it is all we fish with) and (except for putting worms on their own hooks) practiced happily until they perfected casting that bobber 1/2 way across the small pond. Only had one incident which made them finally understand why staying away from that sharp hook and making sure not to be near as another was/is casting is important. Thankfully the hook did not embed itself deeply and was easy to remove. No more issues with constant harassing them to be careful of the hook after that. Everyone had a good time, no real fishing was accomplished but they practiced reeling in and casting to their little hearts content. Sahibe did catch a fish and I'm certain all of Palestine knows about his accomplishment today, I am also certain it turned from a 3 inch fish into a 3 foot fish by this morning which makes me proud to think he most probably has learned the art of a good fishing tale. We were very proud of the men for staying in the shade which allowed Karen and I to have our fun day teaching the children to fish.
After fishing, it was time to go swimming so we all moved to the swimming beach. I did not want to swim so sat comfortably in the fold up chair watching with little Malath (she is 11), who also did not want to swim, on the shore. Four of the men also sat on the shore occasionally breaking out into an Arabic song which caused Malathe to hide her face embarrassed and quiet but joyous laughter from my own lips.
Karen (my Partner) swam out to boiy (no idea how to spell it) which was oh around an 1/8 to a 1/4 of a mile into the lake. She swims like a fish. I watched happily from the shore. When she reached the boiy I noticed that Eshmahel decided to swim out also and watched (he is in his 20's). Now understand that in their custom a woman had just out done them and he had to reclaim his honor and make sure that a man was also represented as swimming out so far. Oy Vey..... We think this behavior is cute and take no offense to it at all because well... they know us and we are just who we are which is an education all in its very own right on American diversity, friendliness and how not to judge a book by its cover. Later Eshmahel would say, "Well, I thought that her being a woman and over age 50, I could do it too". Karen is very athletic and fit for our age.
Karen and Eshmahel rested at the boiy then started back. Karen started yelling for help but I honestly thought she was playing with the other children who were nearer to the bank. If she had called my name I would have taken her seriously. Eshmahel was in trouble. We did not know that he has heart issues and on the return trip he exhausted in about 20 foot of water. She flipped him over but being tired herself could do little as he kept pulling her under. This is when we knew there was a problem and another very athletic man swam out to help. Thinking about it this morning, it was probably a good thing that I did not react until they were closer to the shore. I just can't imagine poor Karen dealing with the 5 men out there and all of them getting into trouble trying to save poor Eshmahel.
My friend looked at me as a worry came over my face and asked what was wrong? I said, "I'm trying to figure out what is going on out there" and pointed. By this time Karen and the other man had Eshmahel in shallower water, one on each side with the middle not being able to stand on his own. The 4 men went running.
We took a lawn chair to him then moved him near the path. Karen and I went to get the Explorer and headed down the muddy dirt path to be close to him so he did not need to walk the far distance back to a vehicle. So bonus... we got to go mudding on this trip.
Eshmahel was doing fine by the time we all arrived home. His stomach is (or was) upset over swallowing lake water and the humiliation of a woman saving his life but life is wonderful as everyone is fine and another American lesson accomplished.
Now we have to deal with the after math of this thing because our neighbor has already told us that he is washing the mud off of our car today!!! Karen did after all save his friends life. OY VEY.... today we will explain that this is just what Americans do..... when someone is in trouble we help in anyway we can.
What a beautiful day it was... oh and after a bath... I slept an incredible 10 hours straight.
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