Favorite Eid Moment

The Eid (Celebrating the end of the month of fasting where we live) is usually celebrated with lots of visiting. While we didn’t do much visiting ourselves this year, one little visit kept me smiling all day…

Bedouin elderly women are one of my favorite things about living here.  Usually they have had a good dozen children, tended a lot of sheep, weathered a lot of dust storms and difficulty, and have come through it with so much spunk and humor and affection.  On the day of Eid Il Fitr, I was briefly visiting an elderly Bedouin woman who has been sick.  She was enjoying a visit from her family and, as I leaned into kiss her a greeting, she took the fly swatter in her hand and whacked me with it, a laugh playing on her lips.  I grabbed the fly swatter from her hand and swatted her right back.  “Swat her harder!” laughed her delighted family.  She pulled me in for a kiss on both cheeks. Where else can you have so much fun with sick old ladies?