Muslim culture’s tradition of taking off one’s shoes at the door before entering someone’s home leaves this Western girl feeling insecure and uncertain about how best to move forward. In my culture shoes are essential. I’ve been taught that feet are dirty, that you can’t walk into a restaurant, convenience store, or any kind of market without them or if you do, you take a serious risk of either being kicked out or at the very least reprimanded by clerks and/or forthright patrons. It is an unwavering rule – No shirt, No shoes, No service. I’ve even found myself having acrimonious thoughts towards little children who sashay barefoot into places with their thoughtless mothers. How could any responsible mother allow her child to be subject to the many hazards and germs that foot to floor contact elicits? Worse, how could any responsible adult let another person leave germs and other hazards behind for unsuspecting, shoe clad people to muck through? If it weren’t a big deal, then why do shoe stores offer hosiery for trying on shoes? “Forget your socks? No problem. Have a footie,” reads a sign at DSW. It comforts me. At least I know that if someone tried on a pair of shoes I might buy, I can rest assured that probably no one’s stinky feet have actually touched my inner soles. Even in my childhood household, shoes were required in the kitchen, just as hairbrushes had to stay out.
It is these thoughts that hung over me as I stood on my sweet Muslim friends’ doorstep yesterday. Without more than a couple of natural movements, four people breezed through the front door, leaving their shoes in a nonchalant, cluttered pile. I, on the other hand, hesitated.
At least three years have passed since I remember walking into their home, not noticing that everyone had removed their shoes but me. Several hours into the visit I realized my error. Of course, the family was too nice to mention it, but I felt incredibly rude for being insensitive to that particular cultural norm. I remember trying to tuck my clunky shoed feet underneath furniture so as to hide my faux pas, and yet all I could stare at was everyone else’s toes.
And here, again, came the moment; it was time to behave as everyone else did and take off my shoes at the door. I felt like the others were watching me in anticipation. I was sure they were thinking, “Will she do it right this time?” or “Remember last time when she left her shoes on? They were sliders. She easily could’ve removed them!” or “Westerners. How arrogant!” Of course they weren’t thinking those thoughts. They’re much too kind to expel that kind of venom. Plus, rationally I am aware that not everyone has such specific memory about my flaws as I do. It probably wasn’t important to them in the first place. Still, as if I were stepping over a gated fence, I put one foot through the door and then the other. I slid into the nearest chair close by, and leaned down to take off my shoes. I kicked them to the side into the pile at the door and quickly curled my toes under my feet, afraid to look up and see if anyone noticed my angst.
Just then, a neighbor apparently walked by, as all of a sudden one of the little girls popped up and said, “Look! It’s so and so and her son!” She was pointing out the window behind me and hopping up and down excitedly. Everyone else perked up, too, looking around my form out the window. “Invite them in,” my friend said. “Yes do! Hurry!” another echoed. The little girl ran out of the front door, skipping over the pile of shoes, and insisted that her neighbors come in for a moment. Of course they did, as the hospitality of Islam encourages, and they also took off their shoes, adding them to the pile.
The woman stayed for a cup of tea and immediately drummed up a conversation about the circumcision of her 9 year old son which would be happening next week. She asked questions about what circumcision entailed, specifically, how to keep the “affected area” treated and dressed immediately after the procedure, and what the benefits of having it done were. They talked about the Islamic philosophy of circumcision, of characters in the Bible who had it done (one very specifically with an axe while he was in his nineties), the fact that someone’s grandfather did the procedure so rapidly, that he engaged in a competition with a local medical doctor to see who could circumcise the most boys in the fastest time. It was a circum-size-off! Boys lined up in two rows – one for the doctor, one for the grandfather, and someone ran a timer. Apparently, and according to the reenactment gesticulations of “snip and throw,” everyone in the living room smiled and nodded, one person even applauded, at the news that the grandfather won by a landslide.
During this entire conversation – which happened to be as bizarre and non sequitur as it is to you, the reader, as it was to me, the listener - all I could think about was finding a pair of socks.
