In Which We Get into a Fight

Aha! Do I see your ears perk up? Do I feel your heart beat quicken? Sietske in yet another one of her famous street battles?

Alas, I have to disappoint you. It wasn’t me this time; I was just an innocent bystander. But my professor in Journalism School always said; ‘The headline is half the story.’

But as far as street brawls go, boy, was it ever an epic one! It was like one of those standoffs in a western. The sheriff versus the cowboy on Main Street. The fact that the actual street was not paved, but sandy, only added to the authentic flavor!

So sit back and enjoy.

I was in Sour (Tyre or Tyrus in English) last Sunday. I had to drop off a play-date of my daughter (the 2 girls in the picture of my last post), and play-date lives, with her mom, in Sour. Her mom is Dutch, affiliated with the Unifil . When moving to Sour, they chose to live in a regular neighborhood. And this neighborhood happens to be filled with Hezbollah supporters.

Now it is well known that Hezbollah does not like the Unifil. They believe that it is just an extension of the American administration, and as such, they are not actually a peacekeeping force for both sides. They say the Uniful keeps the peace for the Israelis, not the Lebanese. There may be some truth to that claim. After all, I have always found it extremely odd, for instance, how come the Americans have a Right to Veto, but Holland (or Lebanon, for that matter) has not? So we’re not a permanent UN member, but somehow it eludes me how come some can decide over certain matters, and others not. This prime example of ‘Democracy American Style’ makes me somewhat empathetic to Hezbollah’s disdain for Unifil.

But another thing Hezbollah does not like, is dogs. And my friend has a big one. There, they lose my sympathy.

Before dinner, my daughter (8 years) and play-date (11) go for a walk  with the big dog on a leash. It doesn’t take long before the neighborhood children start throwing stones at the dog. Our kids - thinking the stones are being thrown at them - yell back. More stones are thrown, insults go back and forth, and play-date decides to let the dog loose. This particular dog, although big and seemingly ferocious, is really a sissy, and he loves a game of fetch. He wants to play, and off he goes, after the neighborhood children. They, in return, scurry off in all possible directions.

This is observed – from their balconies - by a number of well-covered women in the adjacent building. They start cursing the dog, and then our children. Noticing that their Arabic is insufficient to fully comprehend the insults, the ladies revert to English, telling the children to “go home to their own country.”

And thus we get two crying girls on the doorsteps, claiming that the neighborhood women are screaming at them, and telling them they have no business here, and to go back to their own country. Now I get this dog & Unifil thing. Your kids being chased by a big nasty dog which, as it turns out, belongs to a Unifil member, is maybe more than you’re willing to accept in your own neighborhood on a Sunday evening. I would have dropped it. You pick your battles wisely.

But not Dutch Mom (not me!). She is well known for her, eh, rather confrontational style, shall we say? She is having none of that. “Go home to your own country?” She’s paying the rent, just like the others, and her child has every right to play on that street, with or without damn dog. She rolls up her sleeves, and off she goes.

I follow. I’m kind of curious to see how this story will play itself.

It doesn’t take long before a mega shouting match develops itself on the street between the black clad women and Dutch Mom. Some ladies yell from the balcony, others walk onto the street. There’s a particular vicious one on the third floor who curses in Spanish. Why Spanish? Maybe she lived there for a while. ‘Ya puta’ this, and ‘ya puta’ that. But Dutch Mom knows her Spanish, and shoots back, in colloquial Arabic. Others fill in, in perfect Midwestern slang. Boy, where did these women pick up their languages? The ‘shlikkehs’ and the ‘charmoutas’ (go here for translation , thank you Mustafa) fly all over the place.

And I am standing on the sidelines, with some other ladies, observing this totally surreal scene that comes right out of a Fellini movie, where all the neighborhood women are engulfed in a screaming fit on the streets of Naples.

The highlight was definitely when one lady in black shook her finger in Dutch Mom’s face, and yelled; “Do you know who you’re talking to, huh!? Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, a black ninja,” screamed Dutch Mom back. Ouch. Politically probably not correct, but hey, if you enter a cheap street scrap, expect to get your feelings hurt.

“My husband is the head of the entire al Bass region” as she made a circling movement with her arm, “And you will see, you will see,” black ninja retorted. That message was clear. Her hubbie is a big Hezbollah shot, he runs al Bass, which is a large part of Sour, so better watch out who you’re picking a fight with.

Dutch Mom is not afraid of the ninja squad. “Yeah, why don’t you bring your Hezbollah husband in, huh? I’m ready.”

Well, Hezbollah hubbie did make the call. And in came the UNMP. Being that it involved someone of Unifil, that’s what they do. By that time, however, the brawl was over. They had exhausted their bank of insults. The housewives were back in their houses, the children at the dinner table, the dog in his house, and the street was empty again.

Yes, I know. A bit of an anti-climax. I have a feeling, though, that this story may have a tail. She might get a 'visit' one of these days.  I’ll keep you posted.