Country Dancing

... We were told to tell people, if they were curious at our big dark hair and eyes that we were Greek or Italian or Spanish- NEVER say you are Arab and definately not Iraqi. ...

My sister and I were the only Arabs in the Irish dancing class in the cold school hall. Irish Dancing involved high kicks and holding your upper body straight. I think we would have prefered Arab (belly) dancing in shiny kaftans than the prancing in white knee socks and gillies. My mum said tradition was passed down the female line, like language. That made us East End Irish, not German like her dad's family or Iraqi like our father:arab definately not Kurdish like his mother. So we learnt to sing Irish folk songs, to dance and visited Eire whilst she discovered her, then very fashionible, roots. We were told to tell people, if they were curious at our big dark hair and eyes that we were Greek or Italian or Spanish- NEVER say you are Arab and definately not Iraqi.

My sister was born in Baghdad and had to take out UK citizenship. She was naughty and my mum worried she would be deported by some senile judge. My older brother had faint memories of uncles and aunts and a father with a ball. Years later he visted Cyprus and Iran on bussiness and was overpowered by smells and sounds, catches of belly dancing music arabesques. He lives in Washington DC now with my sister-in law who is from Grenada. His kids have taken on the traditions and language of their mum, not even the East End Irish ones. Its not the place to say you have a Iraqi Grandad or Jidu.

I went to Uni and studied Middle Eastern Archaeology and worked in the Middle East on an off for years. I got a post-grad research fellowship and lived in Jordan for over a year with my husband and eldest child. The language still defeats me, the food takes an age to make, but now I can dance to the arabeques (badly) in very snug kaftans called dishdasha-s. My eldest son, with his anglo-arab name has a faint memory of smells and sounds and a love of rare visits across town to the Edgware Rd to eat felafel.