Naomi Shihab Nye wrote this story about her experience several years ago in the Albuquerque airport. Upon contacting Naomi, she kindly allowed her writing to be shared on common-woman.com. With much gratitude and appreciation, thank you, Naomi, Shahib Nye. Curious about the cookies Naomi Shihab Nye describes in the story, I jumped on a quick search. Here are a couple of options:
1.) recipe for Mamool *Maamool) cookies at the food52 site. Click HERE for original recipe
2.) If you would prefer to try them without a mamool mold, HERE is a youtube video with the recipe and instructions. The spices are a bit different.
Guess what cookie recipe will be tried at the Spangler household? --Just as soon as I have dates. They sound delicious! Again, thanks to Naomi Shihab Nye for sharing the story of the privilege to connect as human beings, all due to a flight delay.
Best wishes for a fun cookie baking adventure as well.
Gate A-4
Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been detained four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well – one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.
An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the Flight Agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late, and she did this.” I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly. “Shu dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “You’re fine, you’ll get there, who’s picking you up? Let’s call him.” We called her son, I spoke with him in English, saying I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane.
She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for fun. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her?
This all took up two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies – little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts – from her bag – and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo – we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend – by now we were holding hands – had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.
And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate – once the crying of confusion stopped – seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.
Naomi Shihab Nye
Reprinted from Everything Comes Next, Collected & New Poems, Greenwillow Books, 2020
Previous acknowledgements - HONEYBEE, Greenwillow Books, 2008 and TENDER SPOT (UK) Bloodaxe Books, 2nd Edition, 2015
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