Georgette

The first thing I noticed was that our lovely serene garden got a complete wax job.  It just looked naked. No weeds, no random plants, and shurbs scattered in between and around the white rose bush, the lemon trees or the almond trees.  instead the fresh dirt had been plowed and mulch was scattered about, and instead of a field of random greens of different sizes, it was a distinct garden of only what was supposed to be there, the trees, and the freshly dug up deep brown dirt.

The landlord had arrived. I hadn’t met her, I just knew her name was Georgette, and that  she was gone to the States for an eye surgery or something since the end of last year and had mysteriously made her return and I was too oblivious to notice when she actually came back, until I saw the garden.  

This 80 year old woman had quite the repertoire.  Firstly she’s 80 something years old and she’s spent those 80 years in Ramallah.  Ramallah is really not that big, which means everyone knows her and that she knows everyone. I remember hopping onto a random taxi one evening going to an evening class, and small talk with the cab driver about where I was from and where I was living led to the cabbie going “o georgette!! You live at her house? What a wonderful lady! She is very funny and sweet. Everyone knows her!”.  Somehow everyone knew georgette and no one uttered a bad word about her. She had been the principal of a high school here for years.

Then came the afternoon when we got a reeeeeeeally mean and hostile telephone call.  I picked up and heard a hoarse voice asking for M.  I handed over the phone to my roommate to see her face turn different colors of frustration ending in a phone slam with a finale of “bitch!!”.  “what kind of stupid people are you?? what kind of stupid people leaves the doors open? Why did you leave the doors open??”  Georgette screamed from the other end of the line, to which Maggie kept on replying : “we are IN the house.  No we are INN the house.  … WE ARE IN the house! We want ventilation” and then Georgette demanded that we pay rent right that second.  This was maggie’s 3^rd or 4^th direct or indirect interaction with her and each one got progressively more and more negative.  Supposedly in one of these interactions, Georgette had inquired about the ‘girl from north carolina’ because she had gone to school in north Carolina or something.

We hadn’t paid the rent yet, we hadn’t gone to see her after she came back, even though it felt like half the town had already  paid her a visit out of respect, so we were definitely accumulating negative points with Georgette. With teaching and tutoring, Maggie and I get home around 8 every night and by that time we are exhausted completely and after a couple of hours we go to sleep.  Somehow visiting Georgette upstairs never got scratched off the to do list.  Since I had never seen or met her, and both her and M were fuming, M handed over the rent and the small box of Hibiscus tea we brought for Georgette from Egypt to me, and I slowly made my way upstairs, nervous eager and scared to make peace with this lady whose house I’ve been living in since I got here.

This little old hunched over lady (completely blind in one eye) opened her giant doors and I walked in with a giant beaming (fake) smile greeting her with a gracious hello.  “Who are you?” she asked.  “O I’m Fahmida, Maggie’s roommate”.  “oh.  Well come in”.  2 seconds in her living room and she angrily handed over her remote control and asked me “do you know how to fix this STUPID thing?? Why is it so loud? I cant hear myself think!”.  Logically I thought maybe the remote control doesn’t work, so I was waking over to the tv to lower the volume and she goes “DON’T TOUCH THE TV!” “oop sorry sorry sorry, ahh lets ee the remote control, well here’s the volume, and here’s the down, and ohh yeah look ok is that better?”  she stared at the tv and then at me, and then she went “how did you do that?”

I was so scared. This four feet tall hunched over little old lady was emanating so much I was nervous about my ability to tame her anger or to have a nice friendly interaction.  “well sit down, but can you move that STUPID thing from the couch, I don’t even know what it is”.  I think stupid is her favorite word.  I was really impressed with her impeccable English though.  We sat down I gave her the tea and she goes ‘what is this??” I told her about the Egypt trip slowly softening her up into a casual conversation and suddenly she goes “whats your name again?”  “f”.  “oh ok.  Well who the hell is Samira?”  “..I have no idea who Samira is, but I’m fahmida”.  “well someone told me that you are samira.  But you’re not.  There is an F in your name not S”  “I know, yeah….yeah my name is f”. 

And then she asked me where I was from, I told her north Carolina, then her face slowly softened up a bit more and she told me that she spent some years there “in the middle ages” and went to college there, first at Guilford and then to UNC.

Unc!!! My 80 year old Palestinian landlord from Palestine is a tar heel alum from the freakin 50s! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat.  I cant think of a better divine sign that I should definitely be working and living here J .  Two tarheels generations apart in the same house, lol what what what? Still boggles my mind.

And she sure did experience the north Carolinian terrain in the 50s.  she asked me if I was Catholic or Orthodox, and I told her that I was Muslim.  “O! Muslim??!”.  Then she goes “A muslim from north Carolina?? How did THAT happen??”  I guess some things have changed since her time J

The tarheel connection definitely definitely soothed and tamed her anger. I told her that I had to run but I’d definitely love to visit her whenever she is free.  “Im old and I live in this big house alone.  I’m always free, come whenever you want.  And bring Maggie too.  She seems like a nice girl”

I left her house thinking of that Leggo my Eggo waffle commercial of the old granny lady doing super speedy double flips to get her waffles.  I bet georgette could do that and kick people’s asses left and right.  She’s definitely a character, and I’m incredibly curious about her life.

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p.s. funny thing about real Madrid and Barcelona.  Based on this sports obsession, I gave a bonus question on one of the quizzes to my 4^th graders asking them to write 3 sentences about their favorite team.  I was very pleased with 2 of the responses. One came from abdul-rahman, this too- much-of- a- genius-for-his-own-good 9 year old kid who talks like a mini professor,  wrote : Teacher, I don’t’ know anything about Real Madrid.  I don’t know anything about Barcelona.  I don’t even know what sport this is.  I play computer games.

And one of my favorite students, Nadeem wrote : I don’t watch games. I sleep.  I love English.

My type of students J