In foreign countries, I seem to be known for my baby face! In another country, I always got my cheeks pinched. Here, I have been asked what facial moisturizer I use and if you can get it here. (I have also been told my hair is a "camp" multiple times by a hairstylist here, still not sure what that means.)
My language teacher has called my face a "garden" before. I always thought she was talking about my crazy hair. But today I got the reason for it! There is this green floral shirt I wear that she really likes on me, and says that it bring out the color of my lips and just works...therefore my face is as pretty as a garden, (Obviously, right!?!) This is the shirt below, although, I wear a long sleeve shirt underneath it here, but I don't have a picture of that.
So, since she was complimenting me, I told her that "Fustanik hilwe" your dress is beautiful. {Tangent: Arabic is a difficult language to master, but very convenient, see above, what takes 4 English words can be said in Arabic in 2 words! There are several phrases like this. For indirect and direct object you just add an additional suffix instead of another word, this is nice, but just another thing to have to learn} And this was a new dress or at least one, that I had never seen her wear and it was "mov" (mauve) her favorite color. She liked that I liked her dress and said that it was the color her husband like the most on her.
Well, about 15 minutes later, her dress gets caught in her chair, and an about an inch of eyelet material is ripped....and I AM BLAMED! Because I complemented her dress, then something had to be done, so I would not covet! That is the jest, anyway. Here it is always good to stay away from complimenting someone about a material possession, because then that obligates them to give it to you, or means that now, something bad will happen to them or to that material item. BUT, I thought that since I had already been complimented on my garden face, only minutes before, I could complement her dress. I thought that my language teacher was more Western and had moved past that tradition. And maybe she has, but she still took advantage of the opportunity to blame me in a joking way, for the rip in "Fustan hilwe" (beautiful dress).
Other notes from class today on life here:
My teacher is very jumpy around loud noises. Which can be attributed to the fact that most of her life she has lived through harab (war). And this is the reason she has stomach ulcers. She was very sick (could have been anxiety caused by the war, or just a stomach bug/virus) during the war, when medical help was harder to come by. So she went untreated and without medicine for such a long time, that she has now developed ulcers.
She also does not like the Call to Prayer here, that is broadcast from the mosques five times a day. I have not heard Nationals say that they don't like the Call to Prayer before. Foreigners either think it is beautiful, or become annoyed by it, or have a very hard time with it because of the beliefs it represents. But to have my covered language teacher tell me that it gives her chills, I was very surprised. When she explained though, I remembered, that the call also goes off during a funeral. So she also links the Call to all the people she knows that have passed away. Something that I had not thought about before.
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