Gate A-4 by Naomi Shihab Nye

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, 

after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, 

I hear an announcement: "If anyone in the vicinity of 

Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, 

please come to the gate immediately."

Well - one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. 

I went there. 

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian 

embroidered dress, just like my grandmother wore, 

was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. 

"Help," said the flight person. "Talk to her. 

What is her problem? We told her the flight 

was going to be late and she did this."

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke 

haltingly. "Shu-dow-a, Shu-bud-uck Habibti? 

Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?" 

The minute she heard any words she knew, 

however poorly used, she stopped crying. 

She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. 

She needed to be in El Paso 

for major medical treatment the next day. I said, 

"No, we're fine , you'll get there, just 

later, who is picking you up? Let's call him."

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. 

I told him I would stay with his mother till we got 

on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. 

Then we called her other sons just for the fun 

of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke 

for a while in Arabic and found out of course they 

had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the 

heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets 

I know and let them chat with her? This took up 

about two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, 

patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled 

a sack of homemade mamool cookies - little 

powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed

with dates and nuts - out of her bag - and was 

offering them to all the women at the gate. 

To my amazement, not a single woman declined 

one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from 

Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely 

woman from Laredo - we were all covered 

with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. 

There is no better cookie.

And then the airline broke out free beverages from 

huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran 

around serving us apple juice and they were covered 

with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best 

friend - by now we were holding hands - had a potted 

plant poking out of her bag some medicinal thing, with 

green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling 

tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to 

somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones 

and thought, This is the world I want to live in. 

The shared world. Not a single person in that gate - 

once the crying of confusion stopped - seemed 

apprehensive about any other person. They took the 

cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.

This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. 

Naomi Shihab Nye, "Gate A-4" from Honeybee