Do I Really Want to Know?

For a very few months a couple years ago, I taught at a vocational school in Lawrence.  I taught Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel to older youth and young adults who were in the school’s program.
The classes I had were a very diverse population.  A couple of the classes had two women who were Muslim and who wore the full-length brown dress with a full head covering and a kind of crosshatch cloth covering their faces.
At first, they were somewhat difficult to get to know, as I am used to facial expression and observation of body language.  Both of these kinds of communication were virtually impossible with these women.
I soon learned, however, that voice inflection played a big part in how they communicated with the outside world.  I also listened closely to the actual words they said and the way they structured their sentences, although it was clear that English was a second language for them.
I learned to communicate with these women and pick up nuances from their speech and actions that told me things they had never actually said in words.  It was good for me to have these women in my classes, and I grew to like them and see them as more than anomalies or abnormalities that had to be dealt with somehow in the name of diversity and political correctness.
I wonder about Sadiqah and Abeer now.  I have not a clue where they are, what they are doing, or what their situation in life is like.  I think I would like to know, but then again….