Neighbours

My neighbours from the Sahara looked very dirty and filthy.

Their unclean clothing and smell made people misjudge them and think of them as a group of penniless, poor inhabitants.

The truth was, every Sahara family who could afford to be living nearby here had been given a good allowance from the Spanish government in the form of subsidiaries, most inhabitants here had a decent job plus they rented their houses out for the Europeans, they also had plenty of herds goats and some of them had opened shops in the town, they were living in a stable life with a very good income to live on with.

The locals always said that it was impossible for the Sahara people to move into this town ‘Laayoune’ without a basic economic foundation.

I had been travelling in the dessert since early last year up to just a few months ago. I was not then married.

I often made trips into the great desert, every time when I returned I looked like someone who had just been robbed by bandits and had nothing left.

The poor inhabitants of the Sahara desert would even pull up my metal tent pegs when I was camping. Needless to say everything I had brought with me would be gone.

It’s all started after I settled in on this long street called Catalonia, I heard that all my neighbours in the area were local wealthy landlords. Deep down, I felt lucky and was fantasising about the different advantages there may living with rich neighbours. 

Having said that, it was completely my fault for what happened afterwards.

The first time after I was invited for a cup of tea by our neighbour Hammdad, Jose and myself both returned home with goat’s dirt covering on our shoes, Hammdad’s little baby son also left a large amount of dribbled drool on the corner of my long dress.

The next morning, I began to teach Hammdad’s daughter how to use a bucket and mop to clean the floor and their mats, of course, the bucket, soap, water and the mop were all supplied by me.

It’s because we were so close and dear to our local neighbours that my bucket and mop would be passed through them all until nightfall and still then not even come back for me to use. This was not really a big matter because those two things would be returned back when they were finished with

I lived long enough on Catalonia street that despite not having a number on the door all my neighbours had no trouble finding me, no matter whether they came from next door or a long distance away.

I opened door usually only when it was necessary such as to apply minor medicine for them. Most of the daytime, my door was shut because I preferred not to socialise with any neighbours so often. I always agreed with the Chinese philosophy: ‘Friends agree best at a distance.’

As time went by my neighbours could clearly see what my daily routine was as I opened and closed my door and what sort of things I had at home. Whenever possible the women and their children would dash in.

Jose and myself was not stingy or mean types people, we treated everyone in a friendly and kind way, our neighbours slowly knew how to take advantage of us on this weak point we had.

Every morning about nine, there were children constantly visiting our home and wanting something from us.

“My brother said he wants a light bulb.”

“My mother said she wants an onion. “

“My father wants a can of patrol. “

“We want some cotton buds......”

“Give me your hair dryer. “

“Lend me your iron for my sister. “ 

“I need some nails and wire.”

Some others came to us and wanted oddities of every description, it was too bad we had all these strange things at home, it would feel bad if we didn’t give in to them, but lending things to them certainly meant no way they would return it back.

“Why don’t they go and buy it in the town? These annoying people!” Jose often said that but when a child came to borrow again, he would give it straight away whatever they asked without any thought.

Not sure when the neighbour’s children started asking for money but when we stepped out from our doorstep, we were surrounded by a circle of children shouting at us: ‘Give me five cents, give me five cents.’ The children who asked us for money included our landlord’s son and daughter.

We would never give them any money but the children patiently haunted us everyday. One day I said to my landlord’s children: “Your father rented us this hollow shabby house for ten thousand dollars, if I give you five cents everyday, I had better to move home somewhere else.” 

After I told them off that way the children stopped asking for money, instead they asked for candy; I was happy to give them candy. I guessed they didn’t want us moving house, so they didn’t not ask for money any more. 

One afternoon, a little girl came to knock on our door, when I opened the door a huge piece of a camel body was laying on the floor outside, blood flowing everywhere, the scene was very scary.

“My mother said put this camel in your fridge.”

I turned my head back and looked at my tiny little fridge, which more look like a shoe box; I made a big long sigh and crouched down to her: “Lybo, go to tell your mother, if she gives me her big house and magically changes the house into a sewing box, then I will put your camel into my fridge straight away.”

She responded me quickly: “Where would you put all your needles?”

Surely, the camel did not come into my tiny fridge but Lybo’s mother put on a long face to me for almost a month. She only said one sentence to me in a short manner: “You have refused me and hurt my pride.” All the Sahara people have a sense of self pride, I wouldn’t dare hurt their pride often and wouldn’t dare not to lend anything to them.

Another day in the afternoon, a few women came to me and asked for some ‘Red mercurochrome’ I insisted not to give it to them and just said: “Anyone who has minor broken up skin, come to me and I will apply some medicine to the wound.” But they insisted they had to take it home and medicate themselves.

After a few hours had passed, I heard the sound of drumbeats and I went up to the rooftop, I saw all these women painted with my red mercurochrome on their faces and hands, they were moving up and down with enthusiasm, happily singing and dancing away. Having seen the ‘Red mercurochrome’ have that sort of super power result on them, I simply could not be mad at them at all.

More annoying things were to come, there were not far away from us, a guy from the Sahara who worked in the hospital as an assistant nurse, he refused to use his hands to pick up food to eat with his family because he was baptised by civilisation; therefore when dinner time came, his son would knock our door and ask: “My father is going to have supper, I have come to fetch the knife and fork.”  This was the same routine opening line everyday.

Despite that the little boy returned the cutlery everyday, I still felt pestered beyond endurance, so I gave him a new set of cutlery and asked him not to come back. I couldn’t believe my eyes when after two days, he appeared on our front door again.

“How come you are back again? Where is the set of cutlery I gave you?” I asked him with a straight face.

“My mother said the set of cutlery is new and she has to store them away. Now my father wants his supper….”

“Why is that any sort of business of mine, do I care about your father having supper….” I yelled to him.

The little boy instantly shrank like a little bird; I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings therefore I lent another set of cutlery to him AGAIN. I know that having dinner was an important business after all. 

Our sweet home in the desert had a big hole in the middle because there was no roof on the top. Whatever we did in the house such as eating or sleeping, our neighbour’s children could look down from the hole in the roof top and see us easily. Sometimes when a storm came, the sand would drop inside the house from the hole like rain; In this sort of weather, Jose and I could only act like the Sand Monk who lived by the quick sand river and had no alternate to choose whether to come and go at all.

We requested our landlord put on a roof on this part of the house many times, but the landlord was unwilling to build a rooftop on it.

In the end we bought the materials to build one ourselves. Jose put a yellow glass panel on the roof and worked on it for three whole Sundays. When the rooftop was finished, the sunlight came through the glass, it looked very pretty and clean. I happily put my lovely potted plants under the new roof, there was a total of nine pots altogether which I had been extremely careful to look after them very well. I felt my life here had improved slowly bit by bit.

One day in the afternoon, I was concentrating on reading a cookbook and baking a cake in the kitchen while listening to music. Suddenly, there was stepping sound just like someone walking on our glass top. I headed out instantly and a shadow of a goat clearly appeared over my head.

“That damn goat!” I said to myself. The goat was walking on our sloping roof top just like a steep hill! I picked up my chopping knife and ran up the stairs to the rooftop, but there wasn’t enough time for me to act, I heard a cracking noise from a strip of the wood, what came next was a huge big bang, followed by pieces of wood and glass dropping down on the floor like it was raining. Of course, this big goat came down from the sky too and landed in our small home. I was extremely nervous, quickly shoed the goat off and was left angrily looking at the blue sky through the broken hole.

We did not know who to ask for any compensation, only how to buy materials to repair it by ourselves.

“How about using an asbestos tile as the material this time?“ I asked Jose.

“No we can’t, this house only has one window facing the street, the sunlight will not get in if we cover it with asbestos tile.” Jose was distressed because he didn’t like working on Sunday again.

Not too long after that, a new white semi transparent plastic replacement was fixed on the roof. Jose built an extra half man height wall, it separated our neighbour’s rooftop from ours. The wall wasn’t merely a goat proof fence but also for the girls of our next door neighbour, because the girls often took away my drying underwear from the rooftop, they were not stealing, a few days later they would throw the used underwear back to the rooftop, pretending it was the wind that blew them off. 

Although the new roof was made of plastic but just in half a year, the goat still fell down four times. We could not suffer in silence any more; we confronted our neighbours telling them next time if we caught the goat falling through our roof, we wouldn’t let it go easy, the goat will get killed and become our food, so we asked them to shut their gate tight for the goat. Our neighbours were rather clever people, despite we protested and raised our voice, they did not respond to it, they just cuddled the goat and looked at us with their smiling faces.

The marvellous sight of the ‘Flying goat down to the house’ happened so often but Jose was never at home to have a chance to witness how a spectacular and touching the scene was.

One evening on Sunday, a group of mad goats jumped over the wall, without any care they were climbing on to our rooftop.

I shouted to Jose: “Jose! Jose! Goat’s coming!!!……”

Jose threw his magazine down and rushed out to the sitting room, it was too late, a super size goat crashed through the plastic rooftop and landed heavily on Jose’s head; Joes and the goat, two of them were groaning on the concrete floor.

Jose did not say anything, just pulled out a rope and tied the goat up to the post, then went up to the rooftop to see who was the devil who had let the goats out. There was not a single soul on the rooftop.

“Good! We will kill and eat it tomorrow!” Jose gnashed the teeth and said it in anger.

After we came down from the rooftop and checked on the goat, this captive wasn’t make any baa noises at all but seemed to be smiling, I looked down, Oh my dear! I had spent the whole year working very hard with extreme care to look after my nine pot plants with twenty five leaves on them, all had been eaten clean by the goat.

I was outraged and surprised myself with my fury, I lifted my hand and used all my strength to give the goat a big slap on it’s face. I shouted to Jose: “You see, you see…..” I ran into the bathroom with teardrops running down my face while wrapping a big towel around myself. This was the first time I broke down in tears because of the frustrating life in the desert.

The goat, of course did not get slaughtered.

The relationship with the neighbours and ourselves, was still one of living in peaceful harmony between opened door, closed door and the business of lending things.

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There was a time, I ran out of matches, I went to my next door landlord’s home to ask for some.

“Don’t have any, nothing.” Mrs Landlord smiled while saying that. I went up to another neighbour’s kitchen.

“Give you three, we don’t have much left ourselves.” Hatiya said to me with a hard expression on her face.

“Wasn’t this box of matches the one I gave you last week? I have given you totally five boxes, how come you forget?” I was getting angry.

“That right but it’s only one left now, how can I give you more?” She wasn’t happy either at all.

“You hurt my pride.” I said that to Hatiya and imitated her tone of voice.

On the way home, I held the three matches in my hand and thoughtfully contemplated it was not easy to become ‘Albert Schweitzer’ himself. (He stood up for the indigenous populations against colonialism)

We had been living here for one and half year by now and Jose became our neighbour’s electric appliances maintainer, carpenter, plasterer….and how about myself? I became on their behalf a teacher, nurse, tailor….in all these jobs I was well trained because of my neighbours.

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The young women in Sahara have pale skin and have good looking faces too. They put a veil up on their faces whenever with their own group of people but they put the veil down when they came inside our home.

There was a sweet pretty girl called ‘Mina’, she was not only like me but also like Jose more, if there was any chance Jose was at home, she would dress up, clean herself and visit our home and just sit there. After a while she found sitting in our home no longer had any meaning for her, she would then find some excuses to ask Jose to visit her home.

One day here she came, stood up by our window sill and asked: “Jose! Jose!” We were just having our dinner, I asked her: “What do you want from Jose?”

She said: “Our door has broken, need Jose to repair.”

When Jose heard that he instantly put down his knife and fork, standing up and ready to go.

“You are not going anywhere, keep eating your supper.” I slid food from my plate to Jose’s plate in front of him, his plate was more full of food right away.

You can marry four wives here legally and I was not intending to share Jose’s wages with four wives.

Mina was not leaving and still stood by the window, Jose looked at her again.

“Look at her no more, treat her like mirage.” I scolded him in an irritating tone.

One day, this pretty mirage finally got married. I was very happy for her and gave her lots of fabric as her wedding present.

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The water we used for washing was delivered by the Municipal government. Everyday they only sent one delivery and not more. 

Therefore we had to be very careful how to use the water, if we had a shower then we couldn’t do washing at the same time, washing clothes but could not do both washing up and washing the floor. These sorts of matters had to be calculated carefully by the water level of the rooftop’s water tank. The water in the water tank was salty and you could not drink it. The daily fresh water for drinking had to be bought from the shop. Water was very precious here. 

Last Sunday, we rushed back home after camping in desert from hundreds miles away, just because we wanted to take part in the ‘Camel run competition’ in town. It was a windy sandy day, I was covered all over with dusty sand and looked very shabby after camping in desert. I ran to the bathroom first thing as soon as I stepped home and hoped I could look clean for the Camels run competition. There was a journalist from Spanish television who had agreed to film me in the news.

When my whole body was covered with soap, the water didn’t come, I quickly asked Jose to go up and check the water tank on the rooftop.

“It’s empty, no water.” Jose said.

“It’s impossible! We weren’t home for two days, didn’t use a single drop of water.” I could not help but feel incensed.

I wrapped myself up and ran up to the rooftop. The water tank was empty like a nightmare. When I looked around at our neighbour’s rooftop, there were several dozens of sac bags drying up. I suddenly recognise that their washing of the sac bags had used up all our water.

I dried up all the soap on my body with a towel and went to the Camels run competition with Jose.

That afternoon, all my Spanish friends were playing wildly on the back of camels and running fast away, looking very splendid and only I stood up watching them under the sun. One of the camel riders ran near me and mocked me: “Coward! Coward!” 

How could I tell anyone I couldn’t ride a camel because if I sweated too much, my body would not just itchy but would a bubble up.

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Guccka was a good friend to me among those in our neighbourhood, she was a tender and clever girl also thoughtful; but Guccka had shortcomings. The way she saw things was very different from rest of us. Her reasoning shocked me.

One night, Jose and myself had been invited a cocktail party at the Parador Hotel. I ironed a black cocktail dress which I had not worn for a long time. I even found some jewellery that I normally didn’t wear often and a little expensive necklace. I put them together ready for the night.

“What time is the cocktail party?” Jose asked.

“Eight o’clock.” I replied and looked at my watch, it’s already fifteen minutes to eight.

I put the dress and earrings on, ready to wear my shoes but the leather high heels were not on the usual shoes shelf. I asked Jose and he didn’t know where they were.

“Can’t you wear any of your other shoes casually?” Jose never like waiting.

I looked at all the shoes on the shelf…trainers, wooden clogs, flat bottom shoes, canvas shoes, long boots….. None of them would match my long black dress, I panicked and searched again.

 “Ah.. What’s the hell is this?  Where did they come from, what are these?” 

There was a pair of dirty pointed desert shoes quietly sitting on the shelf, just by one looked I knew they were Guccka’s shoes. Her shoes were on my shoe shelf but where were mine?

I ran up to Guccka’s home and grabbed her, asked her fiercely: “Where are my shoes? Where are my shoes? Why have you stolen them?”

I also shouted to her: “Quickly go find them and return them to me, you silly!”

Guccka went to find my shoes unhurriedly; we looked at all the places in the house, such as the kitchen, under the mat, behind doors and even among the goats, but still no sight of them.

“My sister wore them and went out to play, can’t have them now.” She told me calmly. 

“I will come back to settle this with you tomorrow.” I gnashed my teeth and ran back home.

That night at the cocktail party, I changed into a white cotton dress plus a pair of sandals, it was ill matched when compared with Jose’s bosses’ wives who were bedecked with jewels all over themselves.

One of Jose colleague’s snobby wife came to make a compliment to me: “You look great, you look like a shepherdess tonight but missing a crook.”

The next morning, Guccka returned back my high heels to me but they were in a mess and out of shape. I gave her a hard look and grabbed my shoes back.

“Huh! You angry? Angry! I also angry.” Guccka’s face turned red with anger.

“Your shoes at my home, isn’t it my shoes at your home too? I should be more angry than you do!” She continues to say.

I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud with her ridiculous explanation.

“Guccka, you should go to live in the mad house.” I said to her and pointed at her head.

“It’s alright you don’t understand what I am talking about, Guccka, let me tell you first and then you go ask all the neighbourhood women; What have you not been to borrow from us in our home apart from my tooth brush and husband?”

She seemed suddenly recognised what she missed and quickly asked: “What’s your tooth brush look like?” I exclaimed with anger and yelled at her: “Out! Out!”

Guccka said to me while backing off: “I only want to see your tooth brush and not wanting your husband, really what are……”

When I shut my door up, I still heard Guccka talking to another woman on the street and loudly said: “You see! You see! She hurts my pride.”

Thanks to our neighbours, my life in desert was painted in brilliant colour by them and I didn’t even know what the meaning of lonely was anymore.