Eman

Tonight my house phone rang, which surprised me since I didn’t realize anyone had that number. I assumed I would answer the phone to an Arabic speaker who had dialed the wrong number. Instead, I answered and heard “Hello? Kathren? I am Eman.” It was my sweet landlady. Once I acknowledged that I knew who she was, greeted her and asked how she had been (all in my limited Arabic), she began to laugh and from then on called me “habibti”, a very common term of affection in Arabic that most closely means “dearest”. I couldn’t not smile. She was just calling to check in on me, to make sure I was happy in the apartment, to make sure the boab (doorman of the apartment building) was doing his job properly, to ask if I needed anything, etc. All of this, of course, was done in a broken combination of Arabic and English. She was speaking as much English and I as much Arabic as possible, though I could hear her husband the whole time shouting out English words in the background, trying to help her with the conversation. (I wouldn’t have been surprised if he were sitting there with a dictionary.) I had to laugh at the image of the two of them sitting there trying to figure out how to talk to me.

The whole conversation just made me smile. I am so incredibly thankful to have a landlady who is so sweet, who treats me as her daughter and just wants to make sure I’m happy and safe and comfortable.