In a recent literature class, we were talking about whether or not parents apologize to their children if the adults have made a mistake. This led to a discussion about how people express forgiveness and care/ concern in indirect ways. For example, a person might bring someone a cup of tea instead of saying the words, “Are you ok?” or “I am sorry.” This conversation reminded me of a short interaction with the research guys and, like most interactions here in Dhofar, it takes much longer to explain than the time of the actual experience.

(photo by S.B., I know that’s a dragonfly but I don’t have a photo of a grasshopper)

After a dinner together, I was sitting in a chair to the north side of a small, plastic, woven mat. My truck was directly to the east, four of the research guys were in chairs on the south side of the mat and there was a fire about 2 yards away to the west.

 Suddenly something that felt like 6 or 7 pins, a few millimeters apart, sunk into my right hand. I yelped, stood up and took a few steps forward onto the mat; one of the men gave a short vocalization of surprise. By the time I was standing still on the mat and pulled my hand up close to my face, two of the men had their phones’ flashlights aimed at me. I could not see any mark on the back of my hand, but it hurt a lot. There was nothing on my sleeve so I started to shake out my long dress; I stamped my feet, hitched up the hem to look at the cuffs of my leggings and scanned the mat. There was nothing.

I said, “my hand!” and started to panic. Faster than I can explain, my brain was processing possible threats but, since I couldn’t think of any likely explanation, my fear grew. I had not felt anything on my wrist or arm before the pain started, nor had I felt something move away as I stood up so it could not have been a snake, spider or scorpion. The fire was too low and far away for it to be a stray spark. There had been no noise and several points of pain all at once so it couldn’t have been a mosquito, sand fly, bee or Jack Spaniel wasp. If it were a group of biting ants, I would see them on my dress. And the pain was far too specific and severe to be a sudden hand cramp.

I kept shaking my dress and scanning the mat, trying to figure out what had happened, when I heard a man say, “Here” in Arabic. I looked to my right and saw that that the man closest to the fire had stood up and was shining his phone flashlight on my chair and the ground around it. There, at the edge of the mat, was a large grasshopper calmly walking along.

I exhaled. I could now process what happened: a grasshopper had jumped on my hand (no noise, no pressure on my wrist or arm), its tiny claws had sunk into my skin and when I moved, it flew off. “Shukran,” I said and sat back down.

In silence, we watched the grasshopper walk across the mat and disappear under my truck. I opened the cooler next to me, pulled out a can of cold soda, balanced it on the back of my hand to numb the pain and I leaned back in my chair. There were a few more seconds of silence, then the men started to talk again.

The whole event took less than ten minutes and there were only 5 vocalizations: my yelp, the man’s expression of surprise, “my hand,” “Here” and my “thank you.” Their concern was expressed through actions (they stopped talking and had their phone flashlights instantly pointed at me), not speech. No one asked “what’s wrong” or “what happened”? They could read the situation perfectly and didn’t need to communicate in order to act effectively. Only the man closest to me stood up and, since I was scanning the area in front of me, he moved to my right side to get a different perspective without anyone saying “look over there!” When he noticed the grasshopper, he trusted that I only needed to see it to put together what happened, so he drew my attention by saying “here.”

Once I had seen the grasshopper, the man sat down and there was a pause so that I could speak if I needed to. There was no reason to kill the bug as it is not dangerous and no one asked “are you ok” or “does it hurt”? If I was pulling out a can of Mountain Dew to set on the back of my hand, of course it hurt. When I leaned back in my chair without talking, I was signaling that I was ok and, from their point of view, there was no need to discuss such a small matter, so the issue was over and normal talk could resume.

Thinking about the incident as I was driving home, I realized that it was a great encapsulation of interactions with the research guys. They can talk for hours about subjects of interest but in the moments of (my) panic, they don’t to need to speak. They instantly assess what is going on and what needs to be done without words.

If I squawk and jump out of a chair, they didn’t have to ask me a question. Clearly something startled me so the best thing to do is stay still, shine light and figure out why I was scared. Once the cause was clear, it wasn’t necessary to say “Wow, you were really scared” or “Gee, you sure moved quickly.”

They don’t have the habit of verbally expressing care. Their concentration, speed of getting lights on me and silence, waiting to see if I needed to say anything once I sat down, proved their concern. 

[As with all of my musings on ethnography, after I wrote this I checked with one of the men who was there that night to ask for permission to write about the event and to check my understanding of what happened. He gave his permission with the usual comment of “don’t use names” and agreed with my opinion. “Why talk?” he asked after I explained this essay, “with something small, there is no need to talk.”]

A good poem for hard times – “Atlas” by U. A. Fanthorpe

Antigone and Ismene – Making Difficult Choices

Reflections on Ethnographic Work – Trying to Make Sense of Words and Actions

Conference presentation on fishing off the coast of Dhofar, Oman

Conference presentation about conducting research on the Arabian Peninsula