The four-year-old daughter of the sheikh comes into my room when I get up every morning.
Her brown hair, eyes and checked pajamas and smile are a welcome “good morning” for me. In a soft, low voice, she repeats the names of things that she points to in the room in Arabic. My part of the “game”: is to repeat the names after her. What a kind and gentle little language teacher she is. Then she tells me (in Arabic) her plans, dancing on baby bare feet, moving her arms in a baby ballet to better convey her thoughts to her foreign friend. Her friend, smiling behind his whiskers, himself changed by the blows of the years, wishes for this newly fleshed soul a cycle not too full of sorrow and pain—though being born in this country at this time is not too promising.
In another year and for the rest of her life, this child will not be permitted to be in the same room unveiled with any male not her blood relative or her spouse.
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