Cucumbers, Rubbers, and Tehva

Here is how you traumatize S the Wondermaid--sex ed.

And here is how you play it off like those condoms were supposed to be in the toy box--Tehva.

But first a bit of background. We still enjoy the biweekly visits from S the Wondermaid who continues to astonish and amaze with her prowess in the kitchen, her kindness with the kids, and her thoroughness with the mop and bucket.

S's battle with the house is as never-ending as the quest for smarts undertaken daily by the Fantastic Four who darken my school room door each morning, which lends a lovely balance to my life. The house is like a mountain, stacked to its pinnacle with stones on the edge of tumbling over a precipice, threatening to take down the whole peak.

The Fantastic Four's battle with the daily regimen of reading, math, and thinking thinking thinking is contributing to this precarious peak because learning here in Oman while you are a teen apparently involves lots of eraser ash, crumpled tissues, half-chewed pencils, and tiny scraps of paper tossed onto the most immediate floor space. And it also involves extensive cutting, slicing, peeling, ripping, rubbing, and rolling. You know, just to keep it all fresh.

The scraps that result from all of these actions often end up tucked away in odd places--under the seats of the car, wrapped up on people's desks, and stuck in random containers. If the remnants are simply, say, flakes of paint, then S just gets on with things. But if the remnants are condoms? Well, then S pulls out the big guns.

When we returned from Jordan, we found that S had defrosted the freezer, deroached under the sink, cleaned the windows, bleached our socks, combed and primped the cats, and emptied Tehva's toy basket, scrubbing each item thoroughly. She then had replaced everything in its proper place, except for a small plastic tea pot. I found it sitting in a place of honor in the kitchen upon our return.

When I tried to remove it from its new showcase area, S lunged at me. "No! It is dirty! Do not touch that! I have boiled it and washed it with soap. But do not to touch it! I think you need to throw it. It is very dirty."

So I pulled back my hand like I had been burned because S has seen dirty in her day, and if she says this is dirty then it must be DISGUSTING. But no. It appeared to be the same blue plastic, moderately clean Fisher Price teapot that it had always been.

S lunged at me again. "No! Do you know what I found in there? THREE USED CONDOMS! Somebody in your house hid them there I think. I FOUND THEM AND SCRUBBED AND SCRUBBED! SO DIRTY! AND I PUT THAT POT IN BOILING WATER!"

The telling continued in this vein, cyclical in nature, peaking and then subsiding until it had been reduced to "Three condoms," and "Very dirty" along with frantic gestures.

And then it dawned on me. These were the absentee condoms--the ones that had gone missing during our sex ed unit when, in very American style, I went out and bought a box of condoms and a bag of cucumbers and let the kids have at it. Along the way, the kids also filled two giant white board with questions ranging from those of technicality to those of practicality. Tehva, being seven, was excluded from this event since she already has a horrible habit of blurting out the most inappropriate things and actually could have probably taught the unit anyhow. I nestled her in front of a Mr. Bean DVD and ignored her.

But the whole time I suspected that Tehva was lurking around the perimeter of the talk, and when I heard her running the water in the bathroom, I suspected that she was up to no good, since she, soap, and water are not friends.

And, indeed, poor S found the proof of Tehva's covert misdeed, shoved in the bottom of Tehva's beloved teapot.

When I confronted Tehva, she giggled and then laughed, pointing out that condoms make good balloons. When I explained to S, she giggled and giggled and giggled, but mostly she looked relieved. And when I reflected back on the whole sex ed talk, I had a sudden revelation as to why one-room school houses probably never tried to address sex.

Small children make talented condom thieves. And discarded play condoms make for an uncomfortable clean up crew. Just wait until we dissect those pigs!

I Don't Really Speak Arabic

My daily Arabic lessons always happen over dinner and, unfortunately, come from a fairly unreliable source. Tehva is our resident Arabic expert, haphazardly dishing out phrases and single words nightly. The problem is, we cannot ask her how to say this, or how to say that as she cannot translate for us. We are simply prisoners to her linguistic whims and, thus, possess a command of the language that consists of the most convoluted vocabulary and phrases.

Last night, while Silas vomited in his plate over the eggplant he was being forced to eat (quite literally), and Tony and I sipped an amber beverage between us, Tehva held court at the table. "Walid means boy, like one little boy. But if you have a line of boys or a group of boys, that has a different word. That word is oglad. But a group of girls is banad, like when we go outside after Arabic class the teacher tells to us line up and says, 'Yalla, oglad.' And then all the boys line up. And then she says, 'Yalla, banad.'" With that, Tehva authoritatively jammed a spoonful of rice into her mouth, and that was the end of the day's lesson.

With such limited exposure to Arabic, my language development has, to put it mildly, been stunted this year. We all came with honest intentions to learn the language but have had such limited opportunities to learn any of it. As a matter of fact, if it weren't for Tehva and her nightly mini-lectures, we would still be working on, "Saalam Aleykum" and "Masaalama".

However, as I am sure all of you know who have suffered through five year olds, their information is not always accurate or terribly reliable, so two nights ago I called in an expert--Zamzam the Emirati. Zamzam has, by some horrible twist of fate, given up her life in Dubai for a more sedate and, shall we say, dull life here in Muscat. She is elegance itself in her embroidered abayas, tastefully executed makeup, and head scarves that show nearly HALF of the hair that she has on her head. Often her abaya gaps and I can see the designer jeans underneath and her tight, low-cut tops. She is shockingly trendy and sooooo out of place here.

On the nights when they close off the pool to men and boys, pulling the opaque club curtains and tucking the ends into the doors for good measure, Zamzam comes to swim with the ladies. The employees, who are all men, scurry about the pool just before 7 p.m., dimming the lights, delivering the last pots of tea from the restaurant, straightening chairs, and searching for boys and men who may be hiding in the dark recesses of the University Staff Club.

When the hands of the clock hit 7 p.m., the ladies peak to be sure the curtains are really closed and the workers are gone, and then smile, exhale, and remove their head scarves and abayas. Some put on risque one- piece bathing suits that show their arms and legs, their collar bones, and the split in their cleavage. Scandal! Others elect to wear more modest suits, with leggings, full arm coverage, and a matching bathing suit head scarf that wraps under their chins and around their necks.

Zamzam, of course, elects to wear a "skimpy" one-piece with a frilly little skirt, and a black and white bathing cap that matches the design on her suit. On this night, as on other nights I see her at the pool, the other women seem to avoid her and, while the others conglomerate in knots of head to toe fabric, she bobs or sits alone, looking for someone to chat with. Our conversations, while in English, are peppered with the ubiquitous "Humdilallah" and "Yani", and she is always trying to teach me more Arabic, but tonight I want her to listen to Tehva and tell me what she is always saying as she wanders around the house.

Some of her blathering is easily understood:






But other things I cannot decipher and so I ask Zamzam to have a chat with her and tell me just how much of what she is saying makes sense. Tehva takes one look at the monumental task in front of her, maybe intimidated by Zamzam and her elegance, maybe frightened at finally being found out as a fraud, and she freezes. I try to play the part of the encouraging mother but before too long, I have to run out to the toilet so cannot stay and encourage for more than a moment.

When I return, my answer is waiting. Tehva is at the poolside, waving her arms in the air like an enthusiastic, bordering on rabid, aerobics instructor. She is counting, "Wahid, ithnain, thalaatha, arbaa..." while she rhythmically moves her arms and throws her hips side to side. Her r's roll off her tongue beautifully but I cannot admire those r's too long because I am distracted by the enormous bevy of women who are in the pool, staring at Tehva, mimicking her technique, flailing their arms and shaking their hips. They are counting in Arabic with her. Then she breaks off the counting and issues some sort of command, and they all start to jump up and down, the pool water churning and waving around as they resume counting. Tehva issues one last command and they smile and jog a little in the water. "I didn't know she could speak Arabic!" one of the women grins at me.

"Neither did I," I reply, as I scoop her up. Zamzam gives me a thumbs up. "Aamal jaeed," she says to me, which means that Tehva has done a good job...I think. Because although Tehva looks pleased with herself, when I ask her what Zamzam just said, she shrugs. "I only understand my teachers' Arabic. And I don't really speak Arabic."

Whatever.