Fateeha had her
moment too when Syb and Mum took her to the Supermarket, Of course in Dahran
there was Safeway full of American products so she knew about them and used
them when she was home. But Booths was a rather different type of prospect
being a rural institution and of course the product range was totally strange
to her. Not to allow the strangeness of the produce throw her and much to Syb and
Mum’s dilemma she took the tops of the jars, dipped her finger in and tasted
it. Syb rescued the opened jars from the shelf where Fateeha had returned them
and put them in her trolley, explaining that it was not done here. Fateeha
continued on her merry (but reformed) way filling a second trolley with
everything she fancied. At the checkout she paid cash said something to Syb who
turned to Mum and said “Fateeha says they are all for you”. I believe Mum still
had some of things Fateeha bought for her when she died years later.
Pork is considered
dirty in the Quran and no Muslim would touch it or anything made of it. However
Mansour understood that we did not share this view and said we should not hold
back knowing that we had not been able to enjoy bacon in Saudi. He suggested
that we should have an English breakfast; next morning we took him up on it and
had what to us was the usual fry up. We were sat at the table opposite the two
of them and could see the discomfort on their faces as we tucked in, they were
literally on the verge of being sick. We hurried our breakfast and never
touched anything to do with pork in front of them again. It just made me
realize how psychological indoctrination can really affect the human mind but
it was a very low price to pay for our guest’s happiness.
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