DANCING INTO THE LIGHT

The daughter of an American mother and an Arab father recalls her years growing up in the Middle East.

In 1951, Abdul-Baki’s parents met in a grocery store in Washington, D.C., where East Jerusalem–born Khalil Mohammad Karjawally was working one of two jobs to supplement his income while he completed his master’s degree in economics from George Washington University. At the time, Jean Ashburn Pedigo, the lively, red-haired daughter of a prominent Southern family, was in the city as an adventure. They were married in 1951 when Jean was 19 and Khalil was 22, and one year later, the author was born. Khalil, who Americanized his name to Kal, went on to work for the U.S. government, and in 1956, the family moved to Tehran, where Kal was sent to establish an English language program for Iranian military officers. For two years, they lived in luxurious accommodations, enjoying the perks of the foreign elite. When Kal’s contract ended two years later, he secured a job with the American Independent Oil Company, and the family moved to an expatriate desert compound in Kuwait on the Persian Gulf. The author’s mother was committed to her daughter learning to speak Arabic, so the girl was enrolled in a Kuwaiti girls’ school outside the compound in the village of Shuaiba. Abdul-Baki vividly recollects her early feelings of loneliness and the struggle to find her place as a 6-year-old outsider: “I was the only red-haired and half-American girl in the school, and I was not a part of the village life of my friends.” This eloquently composed remembrance has a musical lilt and emotionality, and it effectively relates the joys, fears, and tragedies the author experienced during a youth spent learning to navigate two cultures. In abundant personal vignettes, the memoir also lovingly portrays Kal’s family in Jerusalem and their welcoming embrace of the author and her mother. The narrative is filled with detailed descriptions of Arab food and dress, and of the warmth and closeness of family connections, while offering an intriguing view of expatriate life.

A well-composed, poignant reflection on an international childhood.