As I walked the winding and narrow streets between the old mud houses on the tel I was taken back to another time and century when the only means of transport were donkeys or horse and cart. There was only enough room to fit two people walking side by side and the surface of the ground was rocky and dusty. Sometimes I felt as though I was an intruder walking around the narrow passageways of the closely knit hill dwellers. Although, I did have two older female friends who seemed to be the matriarchs of the hill society. They were huge in stature, loud with laughter, strong in defiance and with hearts of gold. Whenever they saw me taking one of my strolls or shortcuts through the tel they would call out to me to come and join them for coffee or tea and upon my arrival they would squeeze my cheeks with their huge earth worn hands, then proceed to suction the moisture from them with kisses to the left, right and left again. By the time the two of them had finished their greeting on me I was in need of a strong Arabic coffee. They would talk and laugh and cuddle me and most of the time I didn't have a clue as to what they were talking about but I loved them nevertheless.

Once, on one of my afternoon walks I came across a pool of blood that was trickling down the narrow passageway. As I approached the source of the blood I could hear music and the sound of merriment coming from one of the courtyards. A goat had been sacrificed and its blood spilt at the entrance to the bride's family residence in honour of her intended nuptials.

When we moved into our new home Fawaz's mother wanted to kill a chicken and spread its blood over the front entrance for good luck but thank goodness Fawaz told her it wasn't necessary.

The Skelbieh women were very superstitious. They believed in the evil eye. If a child fell sick or a lady had a miscarriage or someone was losing too much hair then it was often blamed on the evil eye. They would say that a woman without a child was jealous and if that emotion happened to be directed at a particular person then the power of their thought combined with their feeling would cause something bad to happen to the individual. To protect a baby from the curse, the mother would pin a tiny blue glass replica of an eye onto the infant's clothing to reflect any negative thoughts that may have been directed towards it.

Once the family had decided that a curse had been placed on the child then they would take means to remedy it. A ball of lead was then placed in a large spoon and heated over an open flame. Once it had melted a pot of cold water was safely held over the head of the child .The lead would then be dropped into the water and a popping sound could be heard. That meant the curse had been lifted and the child was safe. The lead would form into a new shape in the cold water and that would give the family a clue as to the perpetrator of the curse.

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