Family Values, real and imagined
A funny thing happened on the way to the forum, prompting me to switch from my original topic (Arabic TV) to something a little more inspiring. The Arabic soap operas, commercials, Al Jazeera, and MTV videos will have to wait, in other words.
Salameh is one of my drivers who accompanies me to the airport whenever our flights are scheduled. He's been doing this for some time, you can tell. He knows the rules at the airport, the authorities, the solution to every problem. In short, he's a real pro. He is about middle-aged with thinning hair and facial features that suggest that somewhere in the family tree a branch did not grow in this area. He is a typical born-again Muslim. Having raised hell as a young man, he has now settled down to become a respected family man and a father of four.
On this day, we took the road through the downtown area. As we were waiting in traffic behind one of these little busses that could pass for an old minivan almost anywhere else in the world, he told me about his oldest daughter, how she was working on her finals in High School and would start at the University next year. Salameh, though proud of his kids' education, knows he will be in a bit of a bind when she enrolls, as there will be some serious cash that will have to be plunked down.
Although I sympathized with his financial enigma, I told him to look on the bright side. In this part of the world, he is almost guaranteed to be taken care of later in his life by his children. This goes without saying. The options here are not which nursing home to stick him in or which useless retirement plan decides to squeeze you out of which benefits, but exactly what the working rotation will look like among the children when that time comes.
To fortify that theory, he mentioned his mother. She is 87 years old, but still in good health, Salameh's mother still has ten children she can look forward to seeing throughout the week, not to mention seventy (seven-zero) grandchildren. Her sons, seven of them, each contribute a certain amount of money each month to pay for a maid who can watch over her when they can't, which is rare, to hear him tell it. Salameh claims that his mother's hearing and sight are superior to his own, which she owes to a lifelong of healthy living, in particular organic foods.
Then Salameh launched into the story of his late father, who died at 96 about fifteen years ago. I quietly did the math. Assuming Salameh was telling the truth, then he was conceived when his father was past 60! This man clearly didn't need Viagra. He settled for a teaspoon of olive oil per day, some strong coffee (Jordanian only), and cold showers in the dead of winter. This guy was making Rocky look like Little Red Riding Hood. He did not smoke or drink, loved his family, and, like his wife, only bought and ate the healthiest foods. Salameh told me that his father was in great shape until maybe the last six months of his life, when his health slowly began to deteriorate. His sons and daughters would regularly drop by, and Salameh recalled the day he brought his father to the hospital in what proved to be the last week of his life. Though in pain and discomfort, he was giggling like a schoolboy. He had only been to the doctor three times in his life, and he knew this would be the final time. He thanked his children and his wife and eventually passed peacefully, the entire small town of a family at his bedside. He was lucky, I told Salameh. Lucky to have been born here in Amman, believe it or not.
As we were waiting at a traffic light, I looked at a lone old man wearing a white skullcap gingerly pacing down the sidewalk. I already began to feel jealous toward him. Surely he had his own family somewhere who would fuss and fight to ensure that he could live his late life with dignity, minus the lawyers and insurance companies.
I am also aware that this is not an isolated case. My barber, for example, saved up all of his money so he could put his younger sister through college... for just the first year. Am I missing something here?
I am aware that a family's love can't be measured by material wealth, but we're talking about two years of income that this guy just spent to keep his sister's dream alive. I could name dozens of other cases here, as relayed to me by the most common people. I am also aware that in some families altruism does not necessarily rule, especially when there is a lot of money involved and the children already start to shred each other over an inheritance that has become their very reason for being. I still claim that this is the exception and not the rule that we have seemed to firmly embrace in the west.
While politicians in the western world continue to parrot lines about family values, people like Salameh here will give a leg to save a leg over here, it seems. They have not forgotten what it was like to be children, children dependent on others. Maybe the do-it-yourself approach is the key to happiness and success in life. Maybe pride is not a deadly sin but a virtue that created the Henry Fords and Walt Disneys and assembly lines and Mickey Mouse hats. Maybe we should resign ourselves to the fact that we are ultimately alone and responsible for our own destiny. In the meantime, the Arabs will continue to cherish real family values as practiced by real human beings.
Salameh is one of my drivers who accompanies me to the airport whenever our flights are scheduled. He's been doing this for some time, you can tell. He knows the rules at the airport, the authorities, the solution to every problem. In short, he's a real pro. He is about middle-aged with thinning hair and facial features that suggest that somewhere in the family tree a branch did not grow in this area. He is a typical born-again Muslim. Having raised hell as a young man, he has now settled down to become a respected family man and a father of four.
On this day, we took the road through the downtown area. As we were waiting in traffic behind one of these little busses that could pass for an old minivan almost anywhere else in the world, he told me about his oldest daughter, how she was working on her finals in High School and would start at the University next year. Salameh, though proud of his kids' education, knows he will be in a bit of a bind when she enrolls, as there will be some serious cash that will have to be plunked down.
Although I sympathized with his financial enigma, I told him to look on the bright side. In this part of the world, he is almost guaranteed to be taken care of later in his life by his children. This goes without saying. The options here are not which nursing home to stick him in or which useless retirement plan decides to squeeze you out of which benefits, but exactly what the working rotation will look like among the children when that time comes.
To fortify that theory, he mentioned his mother. She is 87 years old, but still in good health, Salameh's mother still has ten children she can look forward to seeing throughout the week, not to mention seventy (seven-zero) grandchildren. Her sons, seven of them, each contribute a certain amount of money each month to pay for a maid who can watch over her when they can't, which is rare, to hear him tell it. Salameh claims that his mother's hearing and sight are superior to his own, which she owes to a lifelong of healthy living, in particular organic foods.
Then Salameh launched into the story of his late father, who died at 96 about fifteen years ago. I quietly did the math. Assuming Salameh was telling the truth, then he was conceived when his father was past 60! This man clearly didn't need Viagra. He settled for a teaspoon of olive oil per day, some strong coffee (Jordanian only), and cold showers in the dead of winter. This guy was making Rocky look like Little Red Riding Hood. He did not smoke or drink, loved his family, and, like his wife, only bought and ate the healthiest foods. Salameh told me that his father was in great shape until maybe the last six months of his life, when his health slowly began to deteriorate. His sons and daughters would regularly drop by, and Salameh recalled the day he brought his father to the hospital in what proved to be the last week of his life. Though in pain and discomfort, he was giggling like a schoolboy. He had only been to the doctor three times in his life, and he knew this would be the final time. He thanked his children and his wife and eventually passed peacefully, the entire small town of a family at his bedside. He was lucky, I told Salameh. Lucky to have been born here in Amman, believe it or not.
As we were waiting at a traffic light, I looked at a lone old man wearing a white skullcap gingerly pacing down the sidewalk. I already began to feel jealous toward him. Surely he had his own family somewhere who would fuss and fight to ensure that he could live his late life with dignity, minus the lawyers and insurance companies.
I am also aware that this is not an isolated case. My barber, for example, saved up all of his money so he could put his younger sister through college... for just the first year. Am I missing something here?
I am aware that a family's love can't be measured by material wealth, but we're talking about two years of income that this guy just spent to keep his sister's dream alive. I could name dozens of other cases here, as relayed to me by the most common people. I am also aware that in some families altruism does not necessarily rule, especially when there is a lot of money involved and the children already start to shred each other over an inheritance that has become their very reason for being. I still claim that this is the exception and not the rule that we have seemed to firmly embrace in the west.
While politicians in the western world continue to parrot lines about family values, people like Salameh here will give a leg to save a leg over here, it seems. They have not forgotten what it was like to be children, children dependent on others. Maybe the do-it-yourself approach is the key to happiness and success in life. Maybe pride is not a deadly sin but a virtue that created the Henry Fords and Walt Disneys and assembly lines and Mickey Mouse hats. Maybe we should resign ourselves to the fact that we are ultimately alone and responsible for our own destiny. In the meantime, the Arabs will continue to cherish real family values as practiced by real human beings.
0 comments