Middle of Everywhere - Mary Bray Pipher [20]
Today all the family was sick and demoralized by the frigid weather. They spent their days assembling computer boards and pieces of electronic equipment. At best, it was dull work that required care and close attention. At worst, it involved scornful supervisors and toxic chemicals. We talked about other job options and the sisters decided to look, as a group, for a better place to work. Then they would leave this factory en masse.
The sisters were never alone. Partly this was of necessity; they hadn't had the luxury of houses with bedrooms for each person, or of separate vehicles for outings. Partly it was tradition; they came from a part of the world legendary for its female bonding. Women cooked, ate, bathed, danced, and slept together. And partly it was for protection. One of their survival tools had been to stick together.
I learned early that whenever a decision had to be made, whichever sister was involved would say, "I will talk to the family and tell you later." Nobody thought of just going off and doing what she wanted. Always the question was, "What is good for the family?"
That didn't mean there was not tension. At first I just didn't see it. I saw nothing but sharing, taking turns, and being polite. Later I would see that communal living took a toll. Sometimes it was hard to share the phone or car. The sisters had different priorities and needs. There were arguments about decisions. The older sisters were stressed by their responsibilities to the younger ones. Goals were deferred for the good for the group, but not without resentment.
Probably the most significant tension was around the younger sisters' desire to study and the older sisters' desire that they all work and make money to buy a house or a car or to send money to Iraq. Yet no one ever questioned that issues should be resolved in a group process. No one struck out on her own. Most of the time, the sisters took turns getting their needs met. Furthermore, they were best friends who went dancing together and took each other along on dates.
This snowy morning Leila brought me strong medicinal soup of spinach and beans. Perhaps because it was snowy and they were sick, the talk was a bit grim. Shireen was being bullied by an African American girl at school. Shireen made what could be considered a racist generalization and I talked about the stereotypes and media images of blacks in this country. I encouraged Shireen to try to make friends with some of the black kids at her school.
We talked about male-female relations. The sisters worried that Kurdish men expected to be the boss. But they were also leery of American men, who they'd been warned wanted to have sex right away. Shehla wanted to go see the movie Girl, Interrupted. She didn't know what it was about, but she liked the name.
A SPRING DAY
Another day, spring arrived and we drove to the university campus. At the campus fountain I taught the Kurdish sisters to throw pennies and make a wish, which they enjoyed very much. This was about the right level of fun. Elaborate, expensive plans could easily run amok. Small was beautiful.
I explained vocabulary words they'd heard recently. Shehla asked what sarcastic meant. I'd used the words vulnerable and intuitive and they wanted to understand them. After I explained them all, Meena used them in a sentence. "We are intuitive and we have been vulnerable, but we are not sarcastic." Yes, I thought, that is exactly right.
We walked to the sculpture garden. Many statues were scattered in the prairie grasses. They liked a statue of a grief-stricken daughter crying on her father's corpse. We stood a long time in front of a bronze of a buxom woman with big hips and a very small head. Finally Shireen said, "We know what the artist thought was important about women."
STATE FAIR
On a hot July night, I took the family to an outdoor musical. We carried our strawberries, naan, and goat biryani into the field that served as seating for