We took possession of our apartment on Saturday, July 12, though we wouldn't move in until the 21st. On that first day, I met my dear friend Diana at the apartment office, where we had to wait quite a long time for the key. It turned out that a window in the master bedroom had been broken, and the leasing agent, Stephanie, had to get a maintenance person out to fix it.
"Your apartment had been vacant quite a while," she explained. "Teenagers like to break the windows in vacant units. After you move in, it shouldn't be a problem. "Also, there's a problem with the air conditioner. I've opened a ticket, though."
My heart sank. Was this going to be my life now?
When we arrived at the apartment, things immediately started to look up. In the building across the breezeway from mine, a woman, two young girls, and a toddler leaned out the window to get a better look at us. The girls had glossy black curls, and the mother's hair was covered with a beautiful scarf. They made a lovely picture, framed on each side with beautiful, fluttering curtains embroidered with maroon flowers.
"Hi! Do you have kids for us to play with?" the oldest girl called down.
"No, my children are grown up," I said. "They don't live with me. But my sister and my mother will stay with me."
"Oh," the older girls chorused. The mom smiled wordlessly and waved, and so did the toddler.
As Diana and I approached the apartment, we saw a man standing outside the door, watching curiously and grinning from ear to ear.
Stephanie, who was waiting for us inside, said, "That's... oh, I can't think of his name. That's your neighbor upstairs."
"My name is Basir*," the man said.
"Oh, yes. Basir!" Stephanie said. "Good morning, Basir."
"My name is Sarah," I said, extending my hand. "It's good to meet you."
"Good morning, Sah-dah!" he said in a booming voice that seemed out of place given his slight frame.
"There's a lot of glass," Stephanie said. "Did you bring a vacuum cleaner?"
"No," I said.
"What you need?" asked Basir.
"The window broke," I said. "There is glass. Do you have a..." I mimicked vacuuming. "...vacuum cleaner?"
"Yes! You can use." He hurried upstairs to the apartment where we'd seen the three girls and the pretty mom.
Diana and I spent the next hour or so vacuuming glass from every room in the apartment and spreading boric acid along every baseboard, in the walls behind the outlet covers, and in the cabinets and drawers. (I have put out boric acid in every dwelling I've lived in ever since I discovered how effective it is at preventing cockroaches.)
We'd been working about ten minutes when we heard young voices calling hello in the hallway. The two girls had come downstairs and let themselves in the front door. "What are your names?" I asked.
"I'm Ariana,*" the older one said. "I'm seven. And she's Safya*"
"I Safya," the little one echoed. She held up five fingers.
"You're five?" I asked.
She nodded vigorously.
As I gave the girls a tour of the four small bedrooms and two bathrooms, Ariana could not stop exclaiming over it. Seeing it all through her eyes changed my own perspective of this small apartment.
"This is a good house!" she said.
"Yes, it is," Diana and I agreed. And then the two girls were gone, without a goodbye.
A little later, several of my Bible study friends came by to pray over the house with us. We were praying in the master bedroom when Ariana and Safya reappeared. I knew then that I would need to keep the door locked if I wanted any semblance of privacy here.
"What are you doing?" asked Ariana.
"We're praying for my house," I said.
"Why?"
"We want God to bless everyone who comes in this house, and we want Him to protect us," I explained. "Do you want to stay with us while we pray?"
She shrugged and nodded.
"You'll have to be very quiet," I said.
The two girls moved from room to room with us while we prayed the most wonderful scriptures and blessings. They were indeed very quiet, which was probably the only time that would ever happen.
After everyone had gone, I carried the vacuum cleaner and the roach powder upstairs; Ariana had informed me that they had lots of roaches, which made me shudder in dread. I hoped those bugs wouldn't cross through the roof to my house.
At the top of the stairs, I found an open door with a pile of shoes of various sizes in front of it.
"Come in!" Basir called out in his booming voice. I shook off my flip flops, adding them to the pile, and stepped onto a colorful Persian rug.
"Sit!" Basir urged, gesturing to a long cushion that lined the wall under the windows. I eased down onto the cushion and leaned against one of the velvet-covered pillows. It was surprisingly comfortable, but I hoped my creaky knees wouldn't protest when it was time to stand up.
"I'm Sarah," I said to the woman. "What's your name."
"Sediqa*," she said.
"Sa-dee-kah?" I repeated.
"Yes!"
Then she asked me something that I couldn't understand.
"She says, did you eat?" Basir explained.
"Yes, my friend and I went out for lunch," I said.
"Tea?" she asked.
"Yes, please."
About five minutes later, the woman unfurled a sheet of plastic onto the rug and set a saucer and a tiny teacup on top of it. Then she set a large hunk of naan at my feet.
My stomach was still full of cheap Mexican food, but I felt I couldn't refuse. I tore off a piece of the delightfully soft, still-warm(!) bread and took a bite. My reaction was both involuntary and absolutely sincere: "Mmmm!"
"My wife made," Basir said proudly.
"It's delicious!" I said. She grinned from ear to ear. Clearly, she knew that word.
The tea, too, was fabulous. It reminded me of the chai tea that my cousin Leslie had made for my family many years before. "Milk tea," the woman said.
I couldn't stop smiling, incredulous that I was actually sitting cross-legged on a Persian rug, eating freshly made bread and drinking sweet tea from a tiny cup while conversing awkwardly with my brand-new neighbors. I'd heard from my friend Angie about this warm hospitality, but I'd never experienced it for myself. To think, I'd been worried that I might be sitting alone in my new apartment with no friends!
No, despite the broken window and nonfunctional air conditioner, I could already tell that this adventure would bring far more joy than sacrifice.
*Names changed to protect privacy
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| Diana Took This Picture of Me That Morning |
