No-man's-land

"Miss Hannah, What is the difference between a tavern and a goblet?"
My other job is a grammarian and living Oxford English Dictionary.
The question prompts a discussuion of the drinking habits of Great Britain. While we don't have that particular brand of hostelry here, we do have tea houses, where I have glimpsed men gathering to drink well-brewed beverages in aged-oak cabins. Raskolnikov in Crime and Punishment eeked out his living, I imagine, in just such places, shabby, perfect for profound if gloomy reflection.
But I am the one feeling guilty. I am a thief, stealing glances. My eyes have trespassed into territory not my own. The decree is that they stay down-ward, to the gutter, but they stray. They creep up above the pavement when I hope no-one is looking, to grab fragments of colour and life and then retreat behind the dupatta again. Mostly I get caught, if not red-handed, then at least wide-eyed, for I am the obvious intruder, a female, behind enemy lines and the men have got their eyes on me first. Worst of all, I sometimes look up at passing soldiers and policemen and see guns before faces and look away quick before my eyes make it beyond the boundaries of their helmets to see who knows what expressions.
So the lines between the sexes have been drawn, but there are breaches and some sunny stretches of no-man's-land. Well, there are men there, but it is not their land.

Cooking greens, my company has been solely girls. One chops, another kneads dough, one wires a hob into a dodgy socket, another paints my nails with henna. Then it is time for the huge rounds of bread to be baked in the hearth. A brother is sumoned to wield the paddle, beat and flip the roti. I am in Naples all of a sudden, at the pizza oven in an alcove. And for the first time it's ok that boy meets girl. The kitchen, it seems, is safe.

We unfurl pink cotton and two different polyesters in blue. We discuss necklines and hems. "What's a fashionable cut of trouser these days?" I ask, and am given pen and ink sketches in reply. Very fetching. Then, with deft wrists and flourishes of a tape-measure, my vital statistics are taken. Last time I had this done was in the underwear section of M&S, but that was by an old dear, not by a burly man with a black beard and no English. This particular bit of intimacy is completely normal and I wonder how it is that women defended by so much swathing ever allowed this breach to occur.

But it is school where not even rumours of a battle between the sexes have been heard. We are at peace and I am at peace. As I enter the gates in the morning, tiny children and boys on the brink of manhood all extend their hands to salaam me. Twice I have been offered apples the size of a grapefruit and this afternoon Abdullah shared a couplet of Shakespeare's with me. That's what happens to real teachers, I think. I keep my head covered - but only till the sun shines enough to warm my face. At school I can raise my head and my voice. My spirits rise in turn. I am a story-teller and singer of songs. I am a sportswoman, director of plays and mathematician. I lead discussion and enquiry. I cut, paste, play in the sand and edit poetry.
Every day is a family get-together where the children whoop and run between trees and the legs of us who are in locus parentis while we try and catch-up like brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles. Sharing a bench, a kettle of tea and a loaf of bread for lunch, we discuss: algebra; the merits of porridge v roti for breakfast; childcare; the soul's struggle for perfection; the teachings of Buddha, of whom there is a statue nearby.
We teach too, but sometimes even then on adjacent carpets trying to catch the last of the autumn sun between the trees. The spirit of picnicing pervades.
We had our Eid Milan party last week, with the help of a fuzzy cassette player. I was in a mood to celebrate. Strutting and twirling, clicking and flouncing, arms wide, the children from these mountains gave me all the colour and life I could wish for and not, this time, as a guiltily stolen snapshot, nor even as a paid-for souvenir, but as a generous gift one would share with family.