AN INVITATION?

AN INVITATION ... OR IS IT?


What can I wear?  
I don’t know, but they’re all “cover ladies” there. Cover ladies is the short-hand term used to translate the Arabic “moojahaba”, or “moojahabay” as it is pronounced in Syria, which means a female person who observes the “hijab” or dress code which, in practical terms, means leaving no piece of flesh uncovered except the hands (although some even wear gloves too!) and the face, though some women also cover the face completely with a black veil.  Outside the home, the most visible expression is the ubiquitous long, shapeless raincoat (yes, even in the height of summer!) and a headscarf tied around the head.  So a “cover lady” is a far cry from the “cover girls” of Western society.

I can’t wear this fuschia dress because it’s sleeveless and the neck is a bit too low.  This blue two-piece has a higher neck - but it’s no use because it has no sleeves either.  I’ll have to wear this blue skirt and white blouse.  But the blouse has got embroidery and cutwork on the front.  Maybe you can see through it.  Well, I don’t have anything more suitable so it will just have to do. Maybe if I put on a full length underskirt ...

We set off a bit earlier than necessary to have time to find the place where we were to be met by the daughter of the family - the second bridge over the Jordan highway. Of course, we couldn’t just stop on the bridge itself so we found a place where we could pull in off the road and put on the hazard warning lights both as a sign to the zooming traffic and to the person who was coming to meet us.  Eight o’clock came and went and nobody appeared.  

Strange, said Robert, I think they’re very punctual.
Quarter past eight.  What should we do?  
Wait till half past and then if nobody comes, we’ll go home.
Twenty past eight.  Maybe I made a mistake.  
What do you mean “a mistake”?  
Well, maybe it wasn’t eight o’clock or maybe I got the day wrong.  
What!  
I’ve got it written down in my diary, so maybe we should go back and have a look.  
Why didn’t you check it before?  
I was sure it was today, but ....  
Get ready, because if you got the day or the time wrong and you had it written down all along, watch out!

We drove back home.  Simon gave us a warm welcome and a big row for going off and leaving him.
Sorry.  It’s tomorrow.
Silence. We took the dog out for a walk.

Right.  I’m starving so I’m going to sit down on this sofa and wait for something to appear.  I don’t care how you do it but ...

How can you make such a mistake?  Quite simple really. The difference between the European and Islamic concepts of the weekend can easily lead to confusion.  Come on Saturday.  The European mind unconsciously equates Saturday with the first day of the weekend which is Friday.  The reverse can also occur.  The invitation may be for Friday and the person makes the opposite equation and turns up on Saturday.  This is a more  serious error because it makes you miss the appointment.


               *          *          *

Saturday evening came and the obligation to keep the appointment ran into a snag.  This was the last time trial of the Tour de France and RaiTre was doing a special programme on Pantani who was winning the Tour.  In the end, the social graces prevailed and we headed off once more for the second bridge over the Jordan highway.  This time, just as we came off the bridge, the daughter of the family was coming in the opposite direction to meet us.  Although she was driving, she was accompanied by one of the guards, as it is unseemly for a young woman to be out on her own after dark.  We drove through fertile, cultivated land and eventually turned into the grounds.  

The family manufacture underwear and we were to spend the evening in the grounds of the factory.  The land, which is in the “gharb” or traditional orchard belt of Damascus, belonged to their grandfather.  It has a fruit orchard where they grow plums, apricots and other fruits and a large kitchen garden which supplies all the family’s requirements.  An agronomist is employed to take care of that side of thing. A large area has been turned into a garden and a landscape gardener designed the layout which includes plenty of trees, a waterfall with papyrus and other aquatic plants growing in the “stream” which then meanders around, a swimming pool and a variety of pagodas where guests can sit during the various stages of their visit.  At first we sat near the watercourse while the staff set out the food for a buffet in another clearing beside the swimming-pool off to the left.  After the meal everyone sat in a covered pagoda with music playing while tea was served.

The food was delicious.  There were most of the typical mezze dishes and the lady had  also prepared certain Iraqi specialities such as stuffed onions and a variety of vegetarian food.  With her kitchen staff she had spent four hours each on two consecutive days preparing the special dishes.  The kitchen staff took care of the ordinary dishes.

The other guests included a couple made up of a girl from the Swedish embassy and her Catalan husband who is doing his PhD in Arabic literature at the French post-graduate institute in Damascus.  The topic of his thesis is “The laments of Pre-Islamic literature”.  There was a retired civil engineer who had lived for over twenty years in Germany and his wife, a heart surgeon who studied in Spain and specialized in Spain, the US, London and South Africa with Dr. Christian Barnard accompanied by his wife and two children, another doctor with his family as well as the second daughter of the El-Taji family with her husband and two children.

The gathering was an interesting one and, curiously enough, at least half the people present could speak Spanish.  The host family could nearly all speak Spanish because their factory manufactures garments for Spanish makes and they do a fair amount of business in Spanish-speaking countries.

The predominance of doctors was due to the fact that the lady was a doctor herself and had only stopped practising two years ago after working for thirty years.  She had stopped  for two reasons: firstly, she found that for the first time she was finding her work stressful and, secondly, she wanted to be able to retire while still in good health and young enough to enjoy it.  One of the unfortunate results of her professional life was that during her first pregnancy she caught some kind of infection from a patient and her eldest child, a boy called Omar, was born mentally retarded and with muscular debility in the left side.  She had taken him to specialists in London, Germany and Sweden but nothing could be done.  Finally, she took a course on how best to cope with educating him and they manage very well, although at the age of 26 he is unable to speak at all.

Both daughters hold positions of responsibilty in the family business.The youngest daughter, who is a graduate in economics, is the production manager and a very bright young woman.  She had been engaged to be married but, after eighteen months (an unusually long engagement for Syria), she had decided not to proceed because, although her fiancé accepted that she had a career, he demanded that she should be at home whenever he was there and that his needs should come first at all times.  So, since she was not prepared to accept that degree of control, as emergencies could always arise which would make this impossible, she preferred to break off the engagement.  Maybe someone else will come along who will accept that I have rights too.  Like my sister’s husband. This is one “cover lady” with firm views. Her sister is responsible for CAD/CAM and design at the factory and her husband is in business for himself and they have two small children.
                    
The factory is a model.  All the installations are pristine and comply with the highest European standards in every area.  The workforce is mostly female so crèche facilities are provided free.  The crèche is run on very dynamic and stimulating modern educational lines. However, there are conditions.  Each worker can only have one child in the crèche at any one time which means that, if they want to keep their jobs (which they nearly all do), they must space out their children.  Medical care is also provided free including family planning advice.  The canteen service is also free or near enough as makes no difference.  

The wife of the heart surgeon who studied in Spain had an interesting story to tell, though I am sure it is not the least unusual in the region.  When she finished school, her parents received a call from the parents of her husband who, at that time, was specializing abroad.  Their son, who had been living with a German girl, had decided that, as he would one day be returning to Syria, he ought to take a Syrian wife and had contacted them asking them to make a selection for him.  His parents visited her parents to explain the virtues and prospects of their son and showed his photograph.  Her parents did their “market research” to find out as much as they could about the family (an old, established Damascene family) and, after three months, she went to Jordan with her parents and her grandmother to meet the prospective husband. The meeting was arranged in Amman because her husband had been called up for military service and had not returned to do “his patriotic duty”, so he was unable to set foot on Syrian soil.  He stayed with a sister in Jordan.  During the meeting, her parents questioned the young man who seemed self-assured and relaxed from the very start. Then he asked if he could speak to the girl alone.  Her parents complied and he told her everything about himself, including his relationship with the German girl.  The family met again the following day and Zaki, for that is his name, produced an engagement ring.  Nobody specifically asked Rasha if she wanted to marry but silence is regarded as consent. The engagement document was drawn up in the court that very afternoon,

The following day, which was a Saturday, she returned with her family to Damascus and they set about buying all the things needed for a wedding.  The following Friday the wedding took place in Amman and the next day the couple set off for England where they spent their honeymoon.

After that they lived for a year in Madrid before going to the US and later to Cape Town.  “We had the chance to buy a house there, but I was young and missed my family and wanted to come back to Syria, so we didn’t.  Now I wish we had.  It was fine here at first, but now I find that my life is not my own.  Everything has to be done to keep our families happy.  I have no choice and no freedom for myself.  The first year of marriage was hard.  I wasn’t used to saying what I wanted so I just kept quiet.  My husband would just say if he didn’t like something, and he had to get used to having me to look after.  It was a good thing that we spent that early time of our marriage away from the influence of our families. Otherwise it might not have worked, but it has, mainly I think because there has been a policy of honesty right from the start”.

But had she really learned to say what she wanted?  “We live in Dumar. We used to live in Mezze.  We have a duplex there and we used to spend part of the time there and part of the time at our house in Dumar.  But my family is big and so is my husband’s, so I was exhausted catering for all these people between the two houses.  One day I told my husband he should choose which house we were going to live in and stay there all the time.  He chose Dumar.  We have a beautiful house there and a nice garden.  The neighbours are very kind too.  He loves it there because when he comes home from the hospital he can relax completely away from the city.  I’m not happy there though, because I stopped driving after we had two accidents and I have to depend on taxis to go anywhere and half the time they don’t turn up on time.  I can’t say that though because my husband and the children are happy there”.

Rasha was wearing a peach suit with a head-hugging hat and a muslin veil of the same colour.  “I started to cover just nine years ago.  I am the only woman in my family who covers.  My grandmother on my father’s side lived most of her life in America and she never veiled.  She lived to be over a hundred.  When I was alone so much I started to read and I came to the conclusion that it was wrong for me not to cover.  At first I didn’t say anything because I knew my husband wouldn’t like it. Then I asked his permission and he said no.  For four years I asked and he kept saying no, he didn’t like the idea.  Then, after four years, he asked me if this was something I really wanted to do and, when I told him it was, he said he didn’t want to stand in my way and cause me to do something I felt was wrong.  So, ever since then I have covered.  When I travel, I don’t wear this veil.  I just wear a blouse with a high neck and cover my hair”.

I wonder, though, just how great a role social pressure played in that decision, because the pressure to wear the veil has been growing over the last fifteen years.

August 2 1998