George's America-Hating Arab Friends

This is an account from a trip to Tunisia his male self, George, took with his girlfriend “Lucy” in the last week of 1995:

A couple of young guys sat across from George and Lucy and tried to make conversation, but neither of them felt welcoming toward anyone who was friendly because they expected them to try to scam them, which had happened several times. One of the guys was about 13. The other, about 18, was named Sabir. He knew English and asked lots of questions, which were answered politely, but not invitingly.

Sabir noticed that George was putting his cigarettes out on the deck and leaving them there. Public garbage bins were rare in Tunisia. Trash was thrown on the ground to be swept up at the end of the day. Seeing what George was doing with his butts, Sabir said, “You English, you are afraid to throw things in the sea. Watch,” he said, tossing an empty soda can into the vast wastebasket of the Mediterranean.

George asked Sabir whether it was possible to go crabbing on the islands. “You like crabs?” he replied.

“Yes,” George said, “I catch them.”

“I can take you for the crabs,” he said, “We will catch the crabs. Yes?”

George was ready to do it, even if Sabir meant to hoodwink them. George looked to Lucy for confirmation. She was for it, so they said okay, and it was a plan.

When they landed on Sabir’s island there was nothing at the port except sandy wasteland as far as the eye could see. Everyone dashed off to secure the waiting taxi cabs. Sabir told George and Lucy to relax and he would get a cab that would take them to his village.

It was a ten mile trip to the village. He pointed out the home of a local artist who had a mural of Charlie Chaplin painted in blue and black on the front of his whitewashed house. This seemed unique since Islam forbids reproductions of human form. Sabir showed them his horse “Marilyn,” named after Marilyn Monroe. She was small, brown and gentle. They photographed her with chickens mulling around her hooves…

…In the late afternoon they met Sabir at the village cafe, where they drank coffee, smoked cigarettes and played cards. The atmosphere was relaxed and pleasant, but kind of macho, too. There were no women - except Lucy. Some of the men were drinking beer - the only beerdrinking George and Lucy saw in Tunisia - and no one seemed to notice the call to prayer. There was a lot of laughing and joking. George didn’t know whether to be comfortable or afraid…

…The next day, at midday, George and Lucy went to Sabir’s house, which was a large compound that housed his extended family. His brother was coming crabbing with them. He had neatly coiffed hair, like Devo.

They reached the crabbing spot: mounds of dried mud, several meters from the sea. The brothers set about gouging into the mud with sharp tools and quickly reaching barehanded into the holes, feeling for crabs, then yanking them out in a flash and tossing them into the open air. Then, while the crabs lay there dazed, the brothers would toss them into a plastic, mesh basket. They welcomed George to join them, but he was too scared.

Sabir began singing. Lucy asked him what he was singing. He said, “I am singing a song to the crab--for him to come out.”

After a few hours they had sixty or so crabs and returned to their house. They went into a white room with a white-tiled floor, a few chairs, a low table and a TV with VCR. An open doorway looked out onto the water. The sea breeze came in through it. George and Lucy sat talking with Sabir and his brother for a long time. Then, without fore-notice, a woman appeared with a large bowl of vegetables and fish mixed into spicy couscous. They stuffed ourselves, and then came the crabs - a mountain of them.

George and Lucy were full and exhausted, but Sabir and his brother were alert and still hungry. They used their mouths to shell them, biting through the exoskeleton and sucking out the meat. George was too full, tired and disoriented to try it.

Lucy picked disinterestedly at a couple of crabs. She was not feeling well because she hadn’t gone to the bathroom since they had arrived in Tunisia. George and Lucy lingered at the brothers’ house for as long as possible because they didn’t want to be impolite. They were treated hospitably, as guests from a foreign land, and they wanted to honor this, but physically they were feeling run-down. George was exhausted from doing a cross-cultural high wire act balancing on the queasy uniqueness of his vague and doomed identity and Lucy was overloaded with poop. They managed to exit graciously.

On the way to their hotel, Lucy’s poop was demanding expulsion. She hunched over with cramps, moaning with pain. George felt helpless, wishing he could do something, knowing how she felt, having been in that condition countless times. They wanted to wait till they got back to the hotel not only because they didn’t want her to go outside, but because it seemed like a serious social transgression for her to go outside. Yet there were no homes or people near them. It was almost evening and the villagers were all indoors with their families.

Lucy reached a point of no return. There was a large, squat palm tree which she hurried to and ducked behind. At first George didn’t look because he thought she wouldn’t want him to, but concern and curiosity got the best of him. George saw a meter-long python of brown muck shoot out of her behind. She then squeezed out the dregs, pulled her pants up over her soiled legs and fanny, and they continued home.

George didn’t hold her as they went because they purposefully avoided physical contact in public in Tunisia, but when they got back to their room George was motherly to her, as undaunted by her filth as if she had been a baby. He had her take her clothes off and they got into the shower together and George washed her. She didn’t want him to, out of shame, but George insisted. He couldn’t allow her to feel self-conscious about it. After she was clean, George cleaned her jeans, too…

…They met Sabir at the cafe the following evening and went to his family’s house. He and his older brother showed them his older brother’s room, which was like a museum of his life. Finely made wooden cupboards, drawers and posts were built into the room and were painted beautifully, with care and detail. His bed was up on a loft and the walls around it were papered with photos and images of Marilyn Monroe. There was a classical guitar.

He showed them swords that his grandfather had used in battle, and that ancestors farther back had used. He told them about some of the wars his family had fought in, and then, having gotten himself a bit riled up - and believing them to be Canadian (which was what they told everyone they were) - talked of them atrocity committed against his Arab brothers in Iraq.

Such things didn’t seem to concern Sabir. He photographed Lucy and George seated on the steps that led up to his brother’s bed, with Marilyn sparkling glamorously in the background.

They went into the room where they had feasted the day before. They had one video tape for their VCR: Bodyguard with Whitney Houston. They had watched it a lot. It was their favorite movie.

Some friends of theirs dropped in to meet George and Lucy. They were chummy guys who spoke some English. A woman appeared with cake, plates and forks, set them down and left the room, which made George more aware of the uniqueness of Lucy’s presence. George wondered how often women sat in the room. The chairs weren’t too comfortable. You couldn’t slouch in them, and the light was fluorescent and strong.

After the cake George and Lucy said they were tired and ready to go. First, they were given a tour of the rest of the house. They went into the kitchen where there was an unveiled woman and a girl, about seven years old. They were smiling and seemed delighted to have them in their kitchen. Everyone was joking in Arabic. The little girl went around behind George to examine his hair, which was tied back and almost to his waist. Her eyes were wide and she held out her hand as if she wanted to touch it. “It’s okay,” George said, and the woman encouraged her to go ahead in Arabic, so she did, taking it in her hand and stroking it a little, quietly saying something like, “Wow.”

George and Lucy followed her and the woman into the women’s living room. It was much more comfortable than the men’s living room. It also had a TV, but was carpeted and had lots of pillows to sit on or in or against, and the lighting was soft, coming from lamps. Three or four women sat close together in the pillows, watching TV. George and Lucy said HI and BYE. The women were smiling.

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.