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[ Thursday, June 30, 2005 ]

 

Sharing Bread

Last weekend we had guests over so I went to the Afghan store to buy some naan. Although there was some naan left over from earlier that morning, I decided to wait an extra 8 minutes for fresh ones to be baked. Alhamdulillah they always make the best naan, and we usually order the soft, buttery, roghani naan. Nothing beats that (Well, except maybe freshly baked chocolate chip cookies if you're as addicted to them as I am). I browsed through the cramped aisles and picked up some spices and flour for my mom since she complains that my dad never brings home gram flour from the Afghan store. She needed some to make kabob.

Most of the people who shop at the Afghan store are regulars who can't resist the naan. I walked back to the front counter and waited in line. The woman in front of me chided her elderly father in unaccented English for forgetting his glasses on the counter: "Baba, I'm going to have to make you attach them to strings like old women wear them if you keep losing them all over the place." Her father didn't even bother to reply.

The naan still weren't quite ready when my turn came up, so I let an Iranian woman take my place. It turns out that she was also waiting for some naan while she paid for the rest of her groceries. I glanced at the cds lining the back shelf and asked the owner, F, if he knew of any good cds—Afghan, Iranian, or Indian…traditional or westernized. Obviously, I wasn't sure what to pick, so the woman helped me out: "Give her dance music...yeah she wants to dance!" We both laughed as I decided between a couple of mix dance cds that F placed before me.

As she smoothed back her stray black hairs, the Iranian woman told F that, insha Allah, she plans to make Hajj soon. He replied that he had gone on Hajj in the past. To my shock, a white-haired man in front of the woman turned back to them and made random comments about how Shiites have a different Qur'an and how it doesn’t say anywhere in it that they have to make Hajj. "But you're Sunni, right?" he asked F, trying to reassure himself that F is a good Muslim. It was so offensive. The guy was basically trying to provoke the woman, who must have been Shiite. F continued bagging groceries and calmly replied, "It doesn't matter if we're Sunni or Shiites; we're all Muslims. I basically echoed what he said. The woman turned to me and said, "It doesn't matter here, but in other parts of the world, Sunnis and Shiites are killing each other. And it's not Islam that's to blame. I tell my daughters that it's not Islam, it's all politics, but they don't listen." I didn’t know what to say because I know that she's right. I may have very close Shiite friends here and there are very few times when I feel any differences between us, yet in many Muslim countries, those differences do matter. We talked a little more before she left.

During that whole commotion, I had noticed a man walk in with his young daughter and couldn’t figure out why he looked so familiar. Surprised, I finally recognized him as the manager at the piercing parlor I had been to in Berkeley. When I asked him if it was indeed him, he smiled and said that he remembered seeing me there. I hadn’t known he lives so close to my own home. When I asked his daughter, P, how old she is, she shyly held up four fingers. I asked her if she'll be going to school soon, and she grinned and nodded, her curls bouncing around her face. Her father said that she's really excited. My order was ready so I paid for my groceries and said salaam to F, P, and her father.

The cd I had bought was disappointing, but it didn't matter. I still left the Afghan store smiling and in a strangely good mood.

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