THE HOUSE THAT REMINDS ME OF MY MOTHER

THE HOUSE THAT REMINDS ME OF MY MOTHER

My mother on the Balcony of the House

My first house is the house where I was born. It is an apartment in a simple three storey building that is still there to the south of Hamra street near Commodore Hotel.

We lived in this house until I was four when we had to leave. That's when my mother passed away. She died of Jaundice I was told. Didn't know what Jaundice was, except that it was what killed my mother.

How did your mother die?
She died of jaundice. 
Jaundice was a word that found its way into my vocabulary at the age of four. 

The only Picture I  have with my Mother

 The last memory I have of being inside this house is of many people sitting on chairs around the main room coming offer their condolences. I did something very strange. I passed around the people extending my palm to them facing upward as if begging for something. Was I begging for money, for sympathy. That behavior still puzzles me. I believe now it was an expression of the abject misery I felt myself in, at the time.
Losing my mother at the age of four gashed a deep wound in my heart that never healed. 

Jiddi Abou Yousif

My grandparents, having seen my father's predicament, took me and my sister Umayma to live with them. They lived at the end of Bliss Street near the Manara............. I can still remember the day we moved. The picture is always there in front of my eyes.  My grandfather carrying my one year old sister in one arm and holding my hand in another, walking us to their place.

My father, who had to travel away from Lebanon to earn our living, leased the house to a friend of his whom I knew.

Not long after we moved to my grandparents’ house, I had a longing and a strong urge to go back to that house. I missed my mother. I missed the house. Thought the house was where I could connect with her again.

Sometime, I do not know how long after, but definitely before I became five, I saw myself walking all the way from Manara to our house, go up the stairs, and knock at the door. The occupant opened, recognized me, and was surprised to see me standing there by myself. I asked for his permission to go into the house and recollect the feeling of living with my mother again. Of course he obliged. I went inside and started staring at the walls and the ceilings went from one room to the other. How can I, now in my  seventies, describe my feelings there and then as a four year old??? I then thanked the tenant and walked back to my new home.

The Building as it Looks Now

Now, when I pass by that house and look at it, I still have the urge to go up the stairs, knock on the new occupants and ask if I can go inside and again repeat that encounter and connect with a mother whose loss had gashed a hidden deep wound in my heart that never healed. How sweet that would be if I can get into the inside of that house again. But I lack that courage of the four years old.

I am afraid the building will be knocked down before I get back that courage.

ROOTED DEEP IN IC SOIL

The Glassware Shop of my Grandfather
 manned by my uncle  Mohyeddine

Some time in the past during the first world war year of 1916, an American foreigner, window shopping in the back street of what is now the Beirut Municipality Building, known then as the Glassware Souk or  القزاز)  سوق ,) went into a shop and was welcomed by a ten year old boy. The American shopper struck a conversation with the young boy and was impressed by his outspokenness and eloquence. In those days, foreigners living in Lebanon had to speak the Arabic language to be able to get along. Upon asking the owner of the shop, the boy’s father, of the school he sent his son to, he got the answer that it was one of the local “Sheikh” schools the Moslem residents of Ras Beirut used to send their sons to. The shopper advised the shop owner to send his son to the then preparatory school of the American Syrian College. The shop owner went by that advice and that is how my father Salaheddin Omar Yamout joined the Preparatory School of the American Syrian College. I do not know what exactly the name of the school was then. Definitely it was not the International College, now better known as IC. A couple of years back, I was fortunate to obtain my father’s transcript from IC (Fig. 1 below.) No heading for the name of the school appears.

Interesting thing about this transcript are the grades that my father got. Highest in ethics and lowest in Turkish and French. The teaching of the Turkish language was mandatory then, as Lebanon was still under the Ottoman rule.  It reveals his character as a highly ethical Arab Nationalist, a family trait. Also interesting is the nomenclature of the progress of class grades. It starts from II Grade, III Grade, IF, IIF to IIIF. I guess the F stands for “Freshmen” contrary to the present referral of Freshmen as the starting year at University level.

My father would tell me that during those days, the principal knew the names of all the students. He used to reminisce his association with his teacher Farid Medawar ( One of his daughter later became Mrs. Thomas Schuler.) Mr. Medawar was my father’s ideal teacher, and in addition to teaching, he used to organize a theatrical group of the school and teach them the fundamentals of acting.

Salah Yamout Boy Scout 1921

Likewise, one of his reminisces involved a young boys’ prank in class. It happened during one of the daytime recesses after the teacher and students vacated the classroom in Bliss Hall. One of the student who belonged to the prominent Salam family, a brother of the late Saeb Salam, arranged with a shepherd whose sheep were grazing on campus to have his sheep herded into the classroom. So imagine the reaction of the teacher when he came back to the class, opened the door to get in, and rather than face students on their seats waiting for him, he is swarmed with a flock of sheep rushing to get out. One thing that strikes me about this story though, is the presence of a shepherd with his sheep on campus. Tells how much the campus was an open place at that time. None of the security issues that plague our times.

My father loved and knew by heart and used to sing to his last days the song “Stop for the Hours are Flying.” In those days, as in ours, it used to end with “Ever live our AUB,” revealing the affiliation of IC with AUB. From time to time, I would spot him murmuring with enthusiasm to himself  VICTORY….. VICTORA ……….  V..I..C..T..O..R..Y and I would know that he was relishing one of those sweet moments of the victory of their football team over some other visiting team.

I have here with me shown below a picture of my father as a 15 year old boy scout holding his patrol flag (dated 1921.)

Graduating Class of 1924

My father graduated 1924 from class FIV. His grades for this class do not show in the transcript above.

Below is a photo of the graduating class for that year. My father is first row second from right.

Notice how the students were all well attired…. suits, neckties, bowties, you have to remember these are students of what now is equivalent to Bac 1. Notice this class FIV is referred to as  (إستعدادي الأحداث قسم  الرابع الصف.)

My father later joined AUB and graduated with a BA in 1930. To be able to support his studies at AUB, he went to the village of KARAK in Jordan and taught in a Bedouin school for one year mostly of the Al-Majali tribe. He had to dress as a Bedouin as shown below to be accepted by the Bedouin community.

A funny story my father recounted to me that happened during his teaching year at Karak. It shows the consequences one met when trying to plant an IC tradition in the inlands of Arabia.

Dressed as a Bedouin Teacher
circa 1927 

My father wanted to form a group of boys for a school choir to sing the Arabic national songs of that time. He tested his students one by one for the quality of the voice and picked those who qualified to from the group. The morning of the second day there was a lot of commotion outside around his residence. Bedouins on horses were circulating his residence in the way we see Red Indians circulate a caravan in western movies. They were calling for “he whose name is Salah” to come out. As it turned out, my father had failed to pick the son of the tribal chief to join choir.. This was considered a big insult to the whole of the tribe. The only retribution was for the son of the tribe chief to join, a viable way out of this quagmire.

Members of the Faculty
Preparatory School
circa 1935

After graduating from AUB, my father taught at IC sometime in the thirties. I d not have the date. Following the track of his beloved teacher and mentor Farid Mudawar, he again organized theatrical groups of students for extracurricular activities. The photo below shows him with other members of the faculty. Among his colleagues who should be in this picture but I cannot identify were Shafic Jeha, Musa Suleiman, Atef Karam, Faiz Assaad, Ahmad Qawwaf, Alexandre Wuthier, and Emile Najjar. All were there except Ahmad Qawwaf when I joined IC in 1952, Four of them taught me. My father is front row seated second from left.

After graduating form AUB with a BA in 1930 and joining the IC faculty in the thirties, my father married, lost his wife five years later, worked with IPC (Iraqi Petroleum Company), came back to AUB for two years as a student and obtained a BScE in engineering, travelled to S. Arabia, came back to Lebanon and worked with the Ministry of Public Works as an Engineering Inspector, and passed away in 1968 at the age of 62.

It was my father who initiated me into IC, where I joined in 1952 to graduate BacII 1958. The French teacher Monsieur Alexandre Wuthier who I suspect to be the tall man in the middle of the picture above, taught my father and 35 years later myself. He would always comment to me “Yamout, your fazer was better zan you.”

Eventually, I myself was able to initiate three of my children Sani, Sawsan & Karim into IC.  To continue the chain, Mr. Nadi Nader, who taught me math for both Bacc classes also taught my son Sani.

We are now three generations of IC and the fourth is on its way Inshallah, all thanks to the chance delving of that American foreigner, probably a teacher, into my grandfather’s glassware shop a hundred years back and my father being there at that time.

I have dwelled mainly on my father’s association with IC, not much on mine or my children’s. While there are many individuals around to reminisce on my period and that of my children, not much for the period of the generations before.

Recently, I received from my second cousin Hassan Yamout, who knew Daniel Bliss Jr., a letter he received from Bliss written in 1962. In this letter, Bliss mentions a very good boy Yamut boy he taught at the Junior Department of AUB in 1920. A scan of the excerpt of this letter is attached.  It aches my heart that my father, who died six years later in 1968 never saw this letter. How happy it would have made him and made us all.

Life has its ways. 

Ziad Yamout

SITTI IMM YOUSIF

Sitti Imm Yousif.

When my mother passed away, I was four years old. My sister was only one. Our maternal grandparents took us into their custody to raise us. They lived at the western end of Bliss Street, known as the Manara area. My grand mother, whom I would sometimes be referring to as Sitti Imm Yousif took charge of raising us.

Sitti Imm Yousif had the face of a saint with a halo around it. She looked very much like mother Teresa. A pure thin radiant white face adorned  with the beautiful white wrinkles of age, on an apparently frail but resilient body. She never allowed herself to be photographed. That was against her religious convictions. Seeing mother Teresa in pictures and in the news  always stirs  my emotions for my grandmother.

Sitti Imm Yousif took care of the house, cleaning, cooking, hand-washing, planting  the Garden with vegetables. She taught me and my sister how to sweep the floor. Tile by tile she would instruct (blata blata.) And for the time of the day that was left, and that was plenty,  she dedicated to praying and reciting the Quran to herself. 

One of the arduous house chores of those days was the preparation of bread at home. There always was a big sac of flour in the house. Brown flour. Sitti would haul a certain amount oh this flour into a metallic tub, mix it with water, add some yeast to it, knead it with her fists, and roll the dough into pita loaves. The local bakery  delivery boy would pass by the house on the morning of two appointed days of the week to take the rolled dough to the bakery, and deliver it back in the afternoon as bread ready for consumption.

Her only indulgence was a "kazooza" from time to time. This is what would be carbonated sweet soda. They used to come in green bottles shaped similar to that of present "Perrier" bottle. Sitti would open one and immediately cover its top with her thumb to keep the gases trapped inside, and keep it trapped  in-between gulps. From time to time she would release a subdued burp and feel pleased about it.

For her, a warm glass of milk with a spoon of sugar was a cure for all ails. Headache, stomach ache, backache, nausea, insomnia, give him/ her a glass of milk. That's how I grew to love milk.

My Mother with the Red Cherries imprinted Dress

From time to time, I would watch her sit cross-legged on the floor, spread a bundle of my dead mother's  clothes, her daughter's, raise them to her face, press her face into them, draw a long  breath of air passing through them, and then exhale with a sigh mixed with silent tears flowing down her cheeks. She would do that for ten to fifteen minutes, then wrap the bundle and put it back in its place. One of the items in the bundle was a white dress with small imprints of red cherries that I remembered seeing it before on my mother. Eventually, I got to associate small  imprints on blouses and dresses with my mother. Later when I married, I found myself always favoring dresses and blouses with miniature imprints for my wife. 

                                              

Sitti Imm Yousif never used eau de cologne or perfumes. She would rather pick fresh roses and jasmine and "fill" flowers from her garden and stuff them into her bosom, in-between her bedsheets or inside her pillow cases. She went for the real thing. How I loved to slip in-between the sheets of her  bed and savor fragrances like I was in the garden of Eden.

Other times I would, see Sitti Imm Yousif sitting on the floor cross-legged. I would, crawl up to her, lie down and burry my tiny head in her lap. She would then gently stroke my hair.

How can I describe paradise.

Later, and to live those moments again, I would lie down by my sitting wife and try to burry my head in her lap. Doesn't work. My head is too big for that. Wouldn't sink.

Please..... No misunderstanding....... I am passionately in love with my wife. It's just that my head is now too big to sink into her lap.

My grandmother's lap??

Paradise lost.

Sitti Imm Yousif would leave her house to visit two persons only. Her neighbor Imm Najib and her daughter Ridha. Otherwise, relatives would come to visit her, kiss her hand and ask for her blessing. To visit her, a female had to be decently dressed. Long sleeves, collars up to the bottom of the neck and skirts way below the knees, otherwise she would be sent back.

Whenever I walked with her to make one of those visits, she would make me pick up from the pavement every piece of paper with writings on it, and squeeze it into a niche  in the joints of a nearby wall. Her reason  was that the name of God might be written on this piece of paper, and somebody is liable to step on it. If not the name of God, then the Arabic letter of Alef, or the number of one, both being representations of God.

She would also make us wipe our plates sparkling clean with a morsel of bread before we are finished eating, to make sure that none of God's bounty was wasted.

The dish I loved most was simple hot over-boiled  humus. My grandmother would pour it hot into a deep plate, melt into it a spoon of ghee then add some salt and pepper. That's it. We would crush a mouthful into a morsel of bread and haul into our mouth. A royal taste worthy of kings. I taught this to my wife, replacing ghee with butter, then with corn-oil, and dubbed it Hummus Sitti Imm Yousif. We mostly recite the Koranic Sourat  al- Fatiha for her soul before starting to eat it. 

Next to the humus came the Mulukhiyyeh. For Sitti Imm Yousif, the infusion of some hot pepper into the Mulukhiyyeh pot while simmering was an integral part of her recipe. Not very hot, but discernibly so. To induce our young budding palates to this, she would start with a small doze and with time increase it until we were able to tolerate the doze of her recipe. But there was another way by which I was induced to tolerate hot pepper. Whenever I cursed religion, and to curse religion is an  Arabic idiom, She would punish me by administering a dose of hot pepper straight to my mouth. Her version of an IV infusion therapy cum punishment.

Still, Sitti was not without a sense of of humor. A story she related to herself was as an innocent young girl playing outside with a piece of candy in her hand. A boy passed by, pointed to the piece of candy and said, "if you give me this, I will show you "my thing."" Not knowing what he meant, and out of curiosity she obliged. He took the candy and ran away. She went back home crying and reported it to her father, who in the fashion of those days, and much to her consternation, gave her a good beating. "Curiosity killed the cat," they say.  

 At the age of four, It was time for me to be sent to school. My father, being a liberal AUB educated person, enrolled me in one of Ras Beirut's non-denominational kindergartens. To Sitti,  a none- denominational school stood out as a none- Moslem  school. She objected to that. How would I be educated in my religion she would ask. Nevertheless, my father's stature in the family was such that his opinion was always respected, and often sought after.

So, Sitti Imm Yousef took it upon herself to  teach me how to pray and to memorize some of the short Koranic verses by heart. She put the fear of God in my heart with the moral values that come along with it. A fear that with time metamorphosed to a strong faith not out of fear but out of  a  personal conviction.

Santa Claus is coming ....With a bottle of Coca Cola in his hands

It was not long after I was enrolled into the kindergarten that the Christmas Season started. Santa Claus posters were all around the school.  That big, burly, large bellied  old man with a long white beard, wrapped in a bright red tunic was a novelty to me. For me, somehow, he epitomized  my first personal image of God as I imagined Him to be. (by the way, that character image of Santa Clause was invented by the Coca Cola Company in the early 1930's. Before that, he was St. Nicolas to all. As frail a person as you would expect a saint to be. Otherwise, how could he fit himself to slide down a chimney. A logistical detail Coca Cola did not bother to take into consideration)

                                                  

"Santa Claus is coming, is coming, is coming......." we would sing at school.

 I carried this song home with me, and would sing it again and again. Sitti Imm Yousif asked what was this I was singing. I told her it was about Santa Claus. And what is Santa Claus she asked?

He's a big large old man with a long white beard and he is the God of the Christians.......... 

Wow ........... Unbeknown to me then.......... I had planted a time bomb  inside the heart of my grandmother.

Not long after, I fell ill and had to be kept at home. The school principal, Miss Eleanor Qamar, missed me. Evidently, she worried about me.

As a note on the side...... what school principal nowadays would miss a student and worry about him/her.

Being the good Christian that she was, God bless her soul in heaven, miss Qamar came to the house of Sitti Imm Yousif to visit and enquire about me.

She knocked, and from behind the closed door identified herself.

That was when the time bomb I had planted earlier inside the heart of Sitti Imm Yousif detonated and hell broke lose.

She refused to open the door and screamed back

"Infidel ..........

go back to where you came from..........

You eat pork meat ............

You go into your church with your shoes on ..........

And you call your God ..... Santa Cloz  Skaymleh....."

(that was how she heard me sing Santa Claus is coming)

Silently, and without any further exchange, Miss Qamar  deposited a wrapped present at the doorstep and left. It was one of those beautiful colored hardcover children books printed in America. Titled "The Golden Dictionary." One page for every letter of the alphabet with colored pictures of animals and things whose words start with the that letter. A feast to the eye.

I felt that my grandmother had committed a grave injustice towards Miss Qamar and I also felt vaguely that somewhere along the way, I was to blame. I was very apprehensive about facing Miss Qamar again.

So when I went back to school, there was Miss Qamar, the first to receive and greet me at the school entrance..

"Welcome back Ziad.......... how are you now....... hope you are well......... we all missed you."

She held my hand gently and led me to my classroom.

I'll never forget this.

May God forgive me and have mercy for both Sitti Imm Yousif's and Miss Qamar's souls in heaven.