I live in a Druze community

The Sheik's Store
Originally uploaded by Jane Rubio.

Dilek bought a book called, On Being a Druze. It's an anthropological study of the "strange" Islamic Shia, Ismaeli sect that is the predominant religious community in Aley. Practically all of my students are Druze, and almost all of the teachers. Most of the people don't seem to know too much about their religion. Druze can only go to their house of worship, the khaluee, if they are religious. Which means they have to make a big decision to live a certain way--I don't know what it all entails, except for the dress. The men wear baggy, black MC Hammer pants, with some sort of white cap. It's higher and fancier, the higher up they are in the hierarchy. Women wear long black skirts and long-sleeved black blouses, with a white head scarf that only lets their eyes show. They are called sheikhs and sheikhas.

So the book is written by a Christian guy and makes the Druze out to be a strange, to-be-studied people group. But it says something in there about how the sheikh traditionally regulates conflict in the community.

Up the street from where I live, a sheikh and sheikha own a corner store. (You can see it in the picture) I buy about a kilo of tomatoes from him everday along with khibiz (bread), laban (yogurt), canned sardines, and other stuff. Also along the street are the SHEBAB. The Arab world is full of the SHEBAB. These are groups of boys, sometimes teenagers, sometimes a bit older, who just hang out. I'm used to the shebab. They always say something or make some noises when I walk by. I had been told to just ignore them. If I respond to them or even look at them, it would get worse. And then I'd get this bad reputation in this small town for being a loose American woman.

It was fine at first. But then they started picking up more English. When they asked my blonde American friend, "How much?" as she was walking back by herself one night, we decided we had enough. And then she remembered. . ."Hey, the sheikh regulates conflict in the community."

So we went into the store, and I related my big problem to the sheikh in my broken Arabic, but he definately understood. I know how to say "Shebab," "big problem," "they say things not good." He knew what I was talking about.

So a couple days later, we told a Druze friend about what we did. He was skeptical. First of all, conflicts have to do with divorces, problems between families, not the shebab harassing women. And then he told us the Arabic saying, "Don't count your beans before they're on the scale." I think we say something like that in English about chickens.

But really there have been no problems. Three of them walked right past me the other day and said . . . nothing. SCORE! That's a big deal. Way to go for anthropological studies.

Walid Jumblatt came to my neighborhood today to open the new Druze courthouse across the street from my school. To see pictures of the festivities and my school go to www.homepage.mac.com/janerubio/PhotoAlbum21.html.