On Family

Shout outs:

Ambrose--don't worry about commenting on every post. Save yourself for the ones you really get into. And we all know you're capable of incomparable wit.

Todos--thanks for the compliments on the poems. Well, they are what they are. I'm glad they served.

Note the note at the bottom of the page: we'd be glad to include more blog links if you have 'em. Remember that this is a family station.

Ahnos--still nothing. We miss you, and wish we knew who you were.



Alright. We were a bit neg last time, so we're going to point out some of the cultural high points in the coming weeks.

The first and best of these is the importance of family in Emirati culture--informed more by Arab heritage than by Islam, I think, but with its share of influences. We'd love to say that this is true of the muslim world in general, and it probably is to some extent, though it is also true that Islamic communities have historically tended to a quasi-pathological patriarchal structure. And we must also say that Emirati culture is not without its warts in this respect as well: women are still relatively limited in terms of the choices and kinds of choices they can make.

That said, domestic life here seems really very tranquil. We rarely see parents abuse their children in any way (even when we sometimes wish they would), and we see them together a lot. Emirati families love to be out and about, especially in the evening hours. There are parks all over the place, and these are generally busy: picnics in the evening, games and fun during the day. Couples and families shop together, and you'll actually see men with their children more than you see women alone with the children. Families that have nannies--the pyjama-wearing, deflated, Eeyore, subaltern types or the hip, chatty, liberated types--will generally always have the nanny in tow, especially a mother with her children.

They love them some kids, though. Jonah is regularly mobbed and always ogled wherever he goes. His hair has been tousled, stroked, finger-combed, and otherwise assaulted. His cheeks have been pinched, kissed, tickled, and scratched. He's been lifted up, full on mouth-kissed, cornered, chased, and traumatized in a thousand other ways. All in good fun. Kismet, we suppose, for the time he knocked that poor pregnant woman over on her keister (how does one spell that?).

Emirati children are a handful, mind you. We've dubbed those ones "Emibratties." We mean it in the best positive way. But they can be very sweet, and all in all kids is kids.

And we suppose that's what distinguishes and humanizes our Arab others: we all have fundamentally the same stresses, concerns, joys, and loves. Whatever its failings, Arab culture has learned to safeguard children and is increasingly egalitarian in its view of parenting and marriage. Modest displays of affection are evident even here: the holding of hands, an exchange of whispered jokes or glances, a watchfulness and patience. We've much to learn as westerners, in that respect at least. We probably chalk our own newly discovered family unity to our spiritual isolation, but we think it may well be part of an identification, an awakening, that connects us to our hosts, even as language and habit and doctrine still divide us.

And that's the way it was this Friday, February 1. We're not Paul Harvey (nor are we Walter Cronkite--whoops), but good day anyway.