Amman was a city of light and heat, of concrete and sand. The author was raised with traditional Arab values: respect for our elders, loyalty to our family, and devotion to our parents. Friday nights were “American Night” when we ate steak and mashed potatoes, or hot dogs with macaroni and cheese. Even TV was a strange combination of East and West. The Muppet Show was our go-to, and as we got older, we loved The Cosby Show, Growing Pains, and Are You Being Served?
The Golden Girls was the show that got away with everything, but the show’s censors didn’t notice it. It was a crash course in feminism for young women in Saudi Arabia. My parents chose each other after a chance meeting on the streets of Amman, Jordan, in their early twenties. They loved to travel, and during their childhood, they saw more of the world than many people get to see in their lifetime. They traveled to France, England, Switzerland, and Italy, and traveled to the Far East, staying in hotels in Hong Kong and Singapore.
The Middle Eastern family is so interconnected that often mothers call their children Mama, uncles call their nephews Uncle. For us, family members are not spokes on a bicycle wheel, they are the wheel itself. When we met some-like one new, their first question was “Beit meen?” That wasn’t just my last name, it was where and to whom I belonged, it’s my home. The British school in the Middle East opened up a new world for me.
At home, I had to consider how each decision I made would impact my family. At school, I was a quiet student, mostly mostly, but a diligent one. At the British school, we followed British customs. At school they told us to ask questions. They’d say, “What do you think about that?” No one had ever asked me what I thought about anything. The old world of Jiddo Riyad’s house and the new world of Amman. I was learning to adapt to lots of environments.
Jamal Khawlah was a battlefield nurse during the Islamic conquests. His mother signed him up for ballet instead of martial arts or playing soccer. She insisted on ballet, but nothing seemed to work. “Your cousins are going to the party,” she would say, or “Your cousins will all be there.” I had so many cousins that I didn’t even recognize some of them, Jamal says. Jamal: “It’s important I play girls’ sports, not the ones I liked, the ones considered more masculine”.
The author’s first baseball game was the highlight of her week playing catch with her brothers. She says she felt the happiest playing with a ball, whether it was a baseball or basketball or soccer ball. “I liked knowing that I was a part of a team and that my teammates were my friends; they had my back back,” she says. “For a brief moment in time, nothing else mattered except for that. And for a short time, I felt relaxed and at ease physically, emotionally”.