The Givers

Last Saturday, I bought some little foil-wrapped Easter chicks of Lindt chocolate and gave them, with cards, to folks who are so kind to us here. I thought it was a small gift for their always graciousness in answering our ignorant questions, interrupting their work in their shop. I was feeling a bit left out of family Easter gatherings as we had no home to go to during the weekend, other than our own, so I tried to think what I could do for someone else. Then Tuesday, I was talking with Ms. S. and asked if she would accept if I invited her to my flat for tea. She said, “Of course”!–if it was on her day off. She arrived with her hands full of several kinds of bread, some coconut pastries, and samples of the smoked fish, salted fish, and sardines that most families ate together on Monday. So much for trying to give something away, I thought!

A view from the balcony where I study with Ms. H.

Today, I met with Ms. H to have another Arabic lesson in the clubhouse by the seashore.  I took with me some fresh apple crisp that I had made this morning—small payment for her always gracious “I’m with you” when I ask if she has time for another lesson, not to speak of her paying a driver to pick me up, tipping the gate keeper, buying me tea with a gorgeous view, etc.  She says her greatest happiness is to give things away and to be with people that she likes being with. She doesn’t know how much she has contributed to MY sense of well-being here. We laugh a lot as I struggle over weird pronunciations and we talk about our lives. As if these gifts were not enough, she presented me today with a lovely little box decorated with traditional Egyptian figures playing musical stringed instruments.

In the evening, as I was trying to open the elevator door, our gatekeeper, who had just

returned from vacation in Upper Egypt, motioned for me to wait. He went into another room and produced from a paper bag some little balls of baked fermented grain balls and a lovely round loaf of flat bread called Al-shamsi, or sun bread, that is a type of sourdough bread made primarily in the villages and rural areas south of here. I had never seen it here. I received that bread as though it were bread from heaven, something quite precious that was made by his wife who lives many hours away, whom he sees only on rare holidays. He is considered a poor man, yet is so generous, many times offering to share things like a few strawberries or other bits of food he may be eating when we pass through the hallway. I occasionally have given him things to eat also, but nothing I consider so precious.

All of these acts of kindness as well as the gifts given by our students—the baby seahorse plucked from the canal wall, dried and varnished, made into a key chain; chocolate Easter bunnies brought all the way from Canada; a home-made chocolate cake, offers for help with travel plans, and other sweet gestures have been downright humbling to me. I hope that if I haven’t mastered Arabic here, at least I will not forget to take with me the lessons on generosity that have been shown us here.