9/15/2022

I was recently at a wedding, or rather the party before the wedding. That party is called a “henna”, which is part of Palestinian tradition. Despite how it sounds, henna is actually a type of dye used to paint some kind of pretty design on the hands of the bride. Since I don’t go around study the hands of brides to be wed, I unfortunately have to rely on glimpses and Google Images, to which I have deduced that the designs are usually flower-like. A “henna” party as it is called is really just a time for the family to get together before the big day, and to satisfy the Palestinian hunger for partying. This desire is no joke, they will party until one in the morning despite saying the party would end at eleven if you let them. I don’t have that desire and it only goes down with age. However, I was here on an operation called “mingle”, and not because my parents didn’t give me the option to stay home.

Never underestimate Arab families. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, and I don’t care to know, but they are massive. If I had to say, it’s probably due to how pretty much all of my family is Muslim, in which we are heavily incentivized to get married and start a family. Just to prove how big hat incentive is, everyday I’m learning about new relatives. Then again, my siblings say I live under a rock. What that ultimately meant, or rather explains, is that the venue was flooded. I could not hear myself, not even in my head. It was a war between my ears, the music, and the over five-hundred people that were attending. If you thought I counted that, you’re reading the wrong essay. I’m not an analytical guy.

Naturally half of the attendees were from my family and the other half were from the groom’s side. But what they both share that I don’t is one thing, and that’s Arabic. Now they could be very distant cousins, although at the end of the day we are all distant cousins, but they were not from the same family. Yet they got along like they were family, or at the least, friends. All I could hear were some smatterings of English, the five or so Arabic words I was taught as a kid, and static. My uncles were speaking to their uncles, my aunts were speaking with their aunts, and I was speaking with air.

My dad sent me on a mission to converse with one of his cousins. It was clear that my dad’s cousin knew English, but like most of my relatives and the older generation, it wasn’t their native tongue. I greeted him, told him that I’m going to college to study engineering. Then the conversation fizzled out, if you can call it that. It didn’t matter how well he could speak English, I was never going to get through to them, and so the mission failed.

I retreated and began to aimlessly wander around the venue as I usually do in cases like this. It was a pretty nice place. At the very end of the venue was all the dancing and henna painting. The rest of the main floor was divided between men and women, women being right were all the partying was happening. I have to admit that the venue was big, but it didn’t stand a chance against the onslaught of Arab relatives. A dozen or so people, primarily men, had to stand outside the venue if they wanted to avoid being suffocated. There was a second floor in the venue, but it was only a third of the size of the first floor. Now I don’t know why, and if I’m ever the host of one of these parties I will ensure this never happens, it was also where they decided to serve dinner. I was there early enough so that I wouldn’t have to wait on the line that extended well beyond the stairs, but what I could never for was the food itself. Hummus.

Now everyone loves hummus, right? No. The cup of hummus you get at the cafeteria or the supermarket is nice and all, but seeing an entire fish in a pool of hummus is real love. Palestinians are supposed to eat it, pretty sure it’s regarded as highly as clean water. Not me. I am the one percent, do not fact-check that, of Palestinians with an innate rejection of hummus. My body would rather start shutting down my throat than allow any hummus in, and so I was never able to enjoy that fish. Now they did have lamb, thankfully not drowned in hummus, and they had rice to go with it. There was one pot of rice with chick-peas (if you didn’t know, hummus is just chick-peas grinded up) and another pot of rice that was edible.

After dinner, I saw my dad talking with his cousin, the same cousin. They were having a nice talk. If my mission didn’t end in failure, I would’ve been the one having a nice talk. That’s when I uncovered the truth: I didn’t have the secret password. Now I did always have this suspicion that Arabic was the secret password that everyone else had but me, but I couldn’t prove this until now. If only I had it, I would’ve been the one having a nice chat.

I was able to talk to a few of my uncles, although I had talked to them before this party and will be talking to them after this party, inshallah. I didn’t need the secret password with them, or most of them at least. I didn’t have this bypass with the groom’s family, unfortunately. If only everyone was my uncle; no wait that’s nightmare fuel. I have an excuse to nag my uncles, it’s because I’m their nephew. If only I was everyone’s nephew, no wait that’s more nightmare fuel. Moving away from disturbing thoughts, I was able to talk to someone who wasn’t my uncle. He was around my age and claimed to be my dad’s cousin, yet another cousin. Although, that would technically make him my uncle and that would be too weird to admit, so I choose to think of him as my cousin instead. His first language is English, my first language is English, and we both don’t know the secret password. Perfect! So, we talked. Then he started to feel familiar, as if I already met this person at an earlier party and didn’t meet a new person. Unfortunately, I did. If I remember correctly, it was at one of my second cousin’s graduation party a few months prior.

I have to confess; this whole operation was a failure. What my parents didn’t understand is that I couldn’t mingle. Unlike them, I didn’t have the secret password. I could try talking, but I couldn’t stay talking because there was no common ground. I didn’t know these people; they didn’t know me. My dad could get along with them despite not being related. My dad could get along with the clerk at a Yemeni restaurant, a complete stranger, simply because they both share the same tongue. Meanwhile all I can say is a meek hello and stand there in awkward silence.

Now although the operation was a sham, the secret password isn’t, and it does more than open up conversation. The music played at the party, the speech given before the groom and the bride walked in, that too was simply noise to me. Funny enough, part of the speech was in English, but it seemed to lack the power it would’ve had if it was spoken in Arabic. It just didn’t feel right, the guy giving the speech seemed to force himself into speaking English. If I did have the secret password, and he spoke in his native tongue, the speech would have been powerful. I can prove this.

As Muslims, in which we follow the religion of Islam, we are meant to follow the holy book, the Quran, which are the words of Allah. Now the thing about the Quran is, it was originally written in Arabic. As you might imagine, this is a very messed up situation, for me.

One time my dad wanted to tell me a verse from the Quran. First, he spoke with the secret password, then he attempted to translate it. He attempted again, again, and again. He also attempted one more time for good measure, but it just couldn’t do it justice. There are many ways the verse could be translated, each with their own difference in meaning. My dad said it himself, that there is “the words themselves mean many things in English, but it has one profound meaning in Arabic.”

Now some speech given at a henna party isn’t going to be as grand as a verse from the Quran, but it was crippled in translation. The meaning wasn’t fully conveyed, it may as well have never been given.

I could’ve opened a conversation with these new people, we did share our ethnicity as Palestinians at least. However, it was never going to work. They could never tell me what they really meant; I could never convey what I really meant. It would be like filling an empty room with decorations.

Now even though I didn’t want to come to this party, I can’t help but resist the urge to talk with family. I have a lot of stories to tell. Even if it is something mundane, I can usually spruce it up and make it funny. It’s how I fit in. Take that away, like this party did, and I have no place there. Now the solution to this is to learn the secret password, but I would have to be late to the party by five years to have a firm grasp on it, and I don’t think even Palestinians can party for five years straight.