Dinner with my Landlady

Today I finally went to my landlady's, Omahhamada, for dinner. She has been calling me almost daily begging me to come visit her. Of course, she does not speak any English expect for "How are you?" and "Bye Bye." As you can imagine, our conversations are very limited and center mostly around food and family. Beyond that, I have no clue what she is saying. As far as I know, I probably bought a car from her today or agreed to get her a visa.

Omahhamada is a rather large, nosy, intense woman who wears a full black hijad. She reminds me very much of my grandmother, Jojo - minus the hijab. I say that affectionately of course. Although she does have a disabled hand, unlike my Jojo. Her hand, of course, did not hinder her from ripping apart a whole fish and eating the whole thing, including the bones. A disabled hand would not have hindered my Jojo either. She did a lot of sucking as well(again, just like my Jojo). She strongly encouraged me to eat the bones too. I considered the fact that if I choked on any of the bones, she probably would not know how to give me the Heimlich, so I tried my best not to eat them.

Her adult daughter who lives in the building also came up to say hello. The two of us connected over her new MP3/telephone with camera. I safely left after a two hour visit.

At this time I would like to thank my Persian family. They have trained me well in how to say "no, I couldn't possibly eat another thing," which one usually has to be repeat at least three times. This lesson, among others, served me well today.