Going Visiting

My sister, who is not Muslim, for some reason knows this particular hadith and used to happily remind me of it in the days when she needed her washing done or a bed for the night. Recently it has been our turn to be guests a various homes, although it never turned out quite as we expected.

We started by visiting the local shop to ensure we had some snacks – the man who had the misfortune to enter immediately after us was instantly attacked by Asim (3), who decided to cling onto him between the ankle and the knee with a vice-like grip. Apparently Spiderman does this all the time, and this man was kind enough to empathise. We left the shop as soon as humanly possible; no doubt Spiderman would have been much quicker.

On our first house visit, we made an impression before we had even entered. The children were vying to be the first to press the doorbell and Asim got knocked over in the rush, tripping backwards over a step and landing on his head on the concrete path. I had brought some Fairtrade olive oil with us, which came to an instant demise. We fell into the house, enveloped in wailing children and spilt olive oil. Fortunately, everyone calmed down a little after that.

We then visited some of my non-muslim family, for whom Safiyya (7) very thoughtfully drew a picture showing 2 semi-detached houses sharing a wall – leaning out of one house was a person saying ‘we celebrate Christmas’ ; out of the other came a little girl saying we don’t. This could be taken negatively as being divisive and judgemental towards the ‘other’. Or it could be taken positively as a child comfortable with her identity and stating a fact in the same way a vegetarian might state she doesn’t eat meat. Either way, I really would have preferred a less deep and meaningful picture – perhaps I can suggest butterflies next time, what could possibly go wrong with that?

We went on to visit various Muslim families: one family who was immersed in helping the state education system at a number of different levels; one family who was home-educating their children with some very tactile and imaginative materials; and one who was sending their children to a Muslim school and who was being very careful to use environmentally friendly products and minimise exposure to branded children’s characters. I came back very aware we are all making choices in the way we live, and have so much to learn from each other. The children came back thinking that it was fun to play with lots of other children but good to be back in their own beds. There really is no place like home – especially if you are less than 3 feet tall and you are missing your toy dinosaurs.

When we finally arrived home, we visited a few neighbours who had been kind enough to scout around the outside of our house for potential burglars when our alarm had gone off in our absence. We stopped at the first neighbour, her house an oasis of peace and civilisation as her own two children had grown up and moved away. We gave her some homemade shortbread and she bravely –and it seemed genuinely- offered to look after the three children while I delivered another batch elsewhere. The children happily piled in. Returning after approximately 90 seconds, I found pandemonium in my neighbour’s house. I was briefly relieved that my house was not the only one in chaos until I realised that there was a common element to both houses - the three kids! Amaani (2) had climbed onto the sofa, leant over to reach something, fallen off and her teeth had cut deep into her lip. She was now covered in blood. As we left, Safiyya checked the neighbour’s lounge to make sure we hadn’t left anything and thoughtfully tried to take the shortbread with her.

I think that our friends, family and neighbours will be happy to hear that we are now going to take a bit of a break from all that visiting but, as my sister will tell you, if you do want to come by we will certainly honour your visit – at least for a day and a night!

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