Carolyn Mckee Hackworth '68 and her puppet
both wear traditional Palestinian attire for story time
with children at her school in Abu Dhabi.

Beware of Wishing
by Carolyn McKee Hackworth ’68

The day I met Wafa Salloum, mother of four young children, at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi, she had stopped in the school’s library to offer her help as a volunteer. As the only librarian for grades K-12, I welcomed her offer and eagerly began to show her around. In a typical expatriate discussion of where we were from and where we had been, I learned that she was a Palestinian who had grown up in Jordan. A casual comment that I had always regretted not purchasing a traditional Palestinian dress when my husband and I were with the American School of Kuwait was to provide me with another lesson in Middle Eastern hospitality. Two weeks later Wafa arrived, carrying a package. Inside was a traditional black ankle-length Palestinian dress embroidered in tiny cross-stitch. After nearly eight years in the Middle East, I was still learning this lesson in Arabic hospitality: Beware of wishing.

This reminder of the extent of Arab hospitality took me back to 1979, when my husband and I arrived in Kuwait for our first year in international education. Our first dinner invitation was to the home of a Lebanese couple whose children were students at the American School. With another new teaching couple, we arrived at 9 p.m., the hour of our invitation. When the maid seated us with a message that the host and hostess were dressing and would be with us soon, we were a bit surprised. Even in their absence, however, we were promptly served drinks and had time to muse on this unusual beginning to our evening. Our hosts joined us within the next hour, but no other guests had appeared. Meanwhile, we had each been through two rounds of gin and tonic. By the time the remaining guests began to arrive, we were all a bit tipsy and the evening had just begun. Dinner was served at midnight and we left around 2 a.m., having learned our first lesson in Arab customs.

During the two years we spent in Kuwait, we again and again received displays of friendship and goodwill in the most unusual settings. Once as we left the Hilton Hotel late at night looking for a taxi,
a young Kuwaiti stopped his Mercedes to offer us a ride home. We didn’t hesitate to accept his offer, having long since learned that we were safer in Kuwait City than probably any city in the world. We never learned his name, nor did he or we feel any obligation to further our acquaintance. He was simply helping out a couple of expatriates in his country.

My portrayal of Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire with the American Community Theater in Kuwait led to an invitation from a Kuwaiti man who wanted to meet Blanche. He was kind enough to include my husband, and we made a date for a Thursday lunch at his home. I was seated—in Arab style on the floor—next to our host, who served me first with the best morsels of each dish. Though unaccustomed to squatting while eating with our hands, we delighted in his instructions and left that afternoon a bit stiff but having once again had a great lesson in the Arab way of life.

Following our two years in Kuwait, we spent six years with Saudi Arabian international schools. Those years in Saudi Arabia afforded us little opportunity to meet local families. As the home of the holy city of Mecca and the heart of the Muslim religion, Saudi society is much less open to expatriates than neighboring Arab countries. Though we had opportunities to meet families from around the globe, our contact with the host country was limited. Still, we encountered the full depth of Arab hospitality in Arab families from Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, and Egypt, whose children attended our school.

We learned, too, that the arm of hospitality extends to the shopping district. The offer of Arabic coffee and dates while shopping for a carpet is not a myth. The bargaining that accompanies it is done in the best of humor. Whether you buy something or not, you are a guest in the shop and treated as such. And honesty is assumed. If you would like to take home a carpet and try it for a few days, you need not even leave your name and address. You are trusted. Leave a piece of jewelry to be cleaned in a gold shop and again there’s no need to leave your name. It will be there, gleaming, when you return.

After six years in the Saudi kingdom, we traveled further down the Arabian Peninsula to the United Arab Emirates, where we were to spend the next 12 years. I continued in my role as librarian while my husband eventually helped to develop the first high school at the American Community School of Abu Dhabi. Those years were filled with the challenges and excitement of being part of a rapidly growing school. And, again, we found ourselves enveloped in the warmth of Arab hospitality.

As the capital city of the U.A.E., Abu Dhabi is home to a vast array of nationalities. Diplomatic families from around the world choose the American School for their children, realizing the opportunities that are opened to them through an American education. Other families involved in the development of the country, whether it be in banks, road building, or the oil industry, also choose an American curriculum for their children. Although the American Community School was created originally to educate the children of American diplomats and other Americans employed in the Emirates, the school eventually boasted a large international enrollment. During our tenure there, the student body was approximately 50 percent American, while the remaining 50 percent came from more than 40 different countries. While parents view the benefit to be entirely to their children, we realized the richness that these families brought to our school and to our lives personally.

Souvenirs of our 20 years in Arabia include wonderful photos of everything from the Arabian dhow that sails the Arabian Gulf to blazing desert sunsets, as well as Bedouin rugs, jewelry, and coffee pots, and representative clothing. But most treasured are the friendships that were a part of the experience and continue to be a part of our life. Perhaps the greatest compliment upon our departure from the Arab world was when a Lebanese parent said to my husband, “Mr. Hackworth, there is no doubt that you are part Arab.” The images of hospitality and friendship that such a description implies were a great gift to carry home.

Back in the U.S. now, we were recently visited by Wafa Salloum as she made a quick trip to check on her two oldest children, students at Vanderbilt. As Wafa snapped photo after photo with her pocket-size Canon, my husband commented on what a neat little camera it was. Two weeks later, a package arrived.

We never seem to learn.

Carolyn McKee Hackworth ’68 was a librarian at American schools in the Middle East for two decades. She and her husband now live in Lexington, Ky., where she tutors international students through Operation Read.

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