Day one: Tayta

My grandmother is an elderly woman of eighty-four years, and has been a widow now for more than ten years. So, although she has her own home, my father and his siblings fear for her welfare and insist upon her staying at one of their homes, most nights. My father has ten siblings though, and only three live abroad, so it takes quite a while for our turn- to have our grandmother stay over at our family home- to come up. It is a time that we look forward to, and cherish. My grandmother, or tayta as we affectionately call her in our Arabic tongue, came to stay last night.

I love the fact that, when she's here, her presence has the effect of bringing my immediate family closer together. Not only do we dine together, but we also remain in our places around the dinner table long after we've finished our respective meals; exchanging stories, jokes and opinions with one another. Tayta always seems to have these fitting anecdotes up her sleeve. The one I most enjoyed hearing last night went along these lines:

Many years ago, my grandmother's mother and mother in-law went to watch a film at the cinemas in Lebanon. This was when cinematic film had first reached the country, and so my great-grandmothers were unaware of how exactly it worked/ what to expect. My great-grandmothers both used to wear the niqab, which is a garment that covers the entire body, including the hair and face, except for the eyes. But because Muslim women do not have to dress this way in the presence of females, and because each cinema was sex-segregated (remember, this was the early-to-mid twentieth century), my great-grandmothers took off their respective face coverings during the film. They, and many other women, were thus startled to see a man appear in their cinema, just minutes into the course of the film, and as a result, they hurriedly replaced their face coverings. It was only later that they realised that this man wasn't actually a person in the flesh, but rather, one of the actors on screen! I guess my great-grandmothers really were naive about cinematic film. They must have assumed that it would be more like live theatre.

I enjoy hearing such personal accounts from tayta, as they not only shed light upon the greater context in which she once lived, but they also shed light upon my grandmother herself. She is a remarkable woman, who is selfless, patient, pious, inquisitive, humble and humorous.

The photo I've added was taken this morning, after breakfast. As i mentioned, we tend to have large collective meals when tayta is over. So there was a table-full of pasta, fried eggs, oregano and cheese pizzas, olives, labneh (a form of Arabic yoghurt), shangleesh (a form of Arabic cheese), and Lebanese bread. Not that my photo caught much of that, since it was taken in the aftermath of our meal, haha. My father's brother, sister and two sister-in-laws also came to join us during breakfast, so something the photo did catch were the little black-and-white cups that my aunts and uncle sipped Lebanese coffee from. There's also a bottle of tomato sauce, as one of my aunts insists on eating her cheese pasta with it, lol.



In reading this, I guess it's fair to say that my grandmother's presence not only brings my immediate family, but also my extended family, closer together. Because, her children and their families will always make an effort to see her, regardless of whose home she's staying at. And this, in effect, allows us all to interact with one another frequently. She is the figurative backbone of our family, and a person I admire and love.