I came across this story, and it is too good not to share. I pray that this experience can become a catalyst for change. Thank you Naomi for sharing this with us:
I want to live in this world.
Naomi
Shihab Nye
After learning my flight was detained 4
hours, I heard the announcement: If anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A
understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.
Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my
own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly.
Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told
her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this.
I put my arm around her and spoke to her
haltingly.
Shu dow-a, shu- biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit
se-wee?
The minute she heard any words she
knew—however poorly used—she stopped crying.
She thought our flight had been canceled
entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late,
Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and
tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and would ride
next to her—Southwest.
She talked to him. Then we called her other
sons just for the fun of it.
Then we called my dad and he and she spoke
for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends.
Then I thought just for the heck of it why
not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours.
She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about
her life. Answering Questions.
She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool
cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of
her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate.
To my amazement, not a single woman declined
one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies.
And then the airline broke out the free
beverages from huge coolers—non-alcoholic—and the two little girls for our
flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice and
lemonade and they were covered with powdered sugar too.
And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and
weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world.
Not a single person in this gate—once the
crying of confusion stopped—has seemed apprehensive about any other person.
They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.
This can still happen anywhere.
Not everything is lost.
