I had never attended Eid at a mosque before. Never knelt to bow my face to the earth for salah or prayer. I could hardly recite al-Fatiha, the opening and most principal verse of the Quran. I’d only ever observed as an outsider. Situated in New Orleans’ suburbs where my parents had settled more than four decades earlier was an enclave of Palestinians. But for our family, far more than Islam, food was our faith. Home was our community.
Dinner was where we gathered each night. Sometimes crouched atop plastic milk cartons in a small corner in the back of the neighborhood grocery store that my family tended to. Other times it was home amidst the clamor of four kids. Wherever it was, food was the one constant in our family, while Islam remained a distant blurry concept for most of my childhood and adolescence.
Yet as Eid approached this year, I found myself thinking more and more of a mosque I’d once glimpsed in passing in Lisbon. On a visit years before my husband, Rodrigo, had pointed it out to me. At the time we were in the early days of our long-distance relationship and on the way to meet many of his friends for the first time. He had stopped to earnestly admire the mosque’s ocean blue azulejos, or tiles, and its white Arabic letters spread above the doors. Its small crescent sat atop a teal dome claiming its stake in the sky. He was moved by its beauty and simplicity. But lacking any real connection to the Islamic icon and preoccupied by the prospect of our budding romance, I impatiently looked on, eager to continue to the dinner and friends that awaited us.
But now here I was, hungering for a sight of it, mining my memory, and regretting not having stood still to observe it that day, unable now to clearly recall its curves and colors.
Rodrigo had heard through one of his soccer mates that the mosque would be holding Eid prayer. We had just emerged from a four and a half month COVID lockdown and a cold, wet winter that lingered too long. When he’d told me, I’d hastily decided to go, even though I was unfamiliar with the city and couldn’t tell one cobblestone street from another.
That morning, I’d dragged myself out of bed before sunrise in our cramped cluttered apartment and rummaged through my half-unpacked suitcase for the most modest clothes I could find. I felt around for the flimsy paper in my pocket where I had written the instructions that Rodrigo had explicitly laid out for me the night before. I was to take a train and a bus, and I had a very small window of time between when the train would arrive, and when the bus would depart.
As I exited the train station at my stop, I could see from a distance the bus arriving and I bolted towards it. I heaved myself onto the bus, panting without a spare minute to double check if I was on the right track. Out of breath and relieved, I thought to myself that mastering public transportation in Lisbon was a skillset I would have to develop. And boy was I out of shape. I settled into the ride, looking wide-eyed out of the window at the myriad of sights that were all new to me.
But after about 20 minutes into the bus ride, something felt off. By the time I had realized it, we were approaching the outskirts of the opposite side of the city. It turned out I had taken the right bus in the wrong direction. I glanced at my watch and knew I was too late. The final stop on the route was approaching, and I had no choice but to exit. I stood alone at the bus stop disoriented and wholly unfamiliar with my surroundings as I considered what to do next.
I knew there was no way I could make it to the mosque in time for the Eid prayer. I knew I should just turn around and take the next bus back home. I knew I had no idea what I was doing there in the first place. But instead, I pulled my phone out of my bag, ordered an Uber, and continued to the mosque anyway, unsure of why.
I arrived just in time to watch the vast mahogany doors of the mosque close. The tiles that formed an archway around its entry gleamed beneath the morning sun. I sighed, partly disappointed, partly relieved. There was no telling how many people were inside, and COVID was still alive and well. Unsure of what to do, I sat down on the curb and waited. What was I waiting for? And why? I didn’t know, but I could not bring myself to stand up and leave in that moment.
Half an hour later, a crevice appeared in the mosque doors. A wave of people emerged with bright colorful, patterned fabrics fitted snugly against men, women, and children with deep, lustrous hues of Black and brown skin. The women donned lavish, traditional African head-wraps with bold oranges, bright yellows, fluorescent greens. I marveled at the sight which was new to my eyes, as the very few memories I had of Eid prayer in New Orleans were attended by Palestinian families with women wearing modest hijab and men dressed in suits. Here, women emerged, impeccably dressed with perfectly painted lips and high heels. I wondered – how could they kneel to the ground in salah in those heels? Some carried children on their waists effortlessly. No one seemed bothered by the heavy heat that was beginning to settle in the late morning. Even their masks could not diminish their elegance. Their dresses bore intricate bold prints, but unlike the red and black tatreez, Palestinian embroidery, worn by my mother and aunts to mark special occasions, I couldn’t recognize these. Lisbon, as I would later learn is home to thousands of people from the African diaspora, many of whom comprise the Muslim population, and some of which gathered at the mosque that day.
As I watched from the curb, I suddenly felt foolish, slightly desperate even as a lone, awkward outsider. Did I, a stranger, expect to be suddenly ushered into a community that I had never set foot in? Yes, the attendees were Muslim and we shared that common thread, however loosely it was bound, but our cultures varied as wide as the spectrum of Muslims. I wanted to walk right up to any one of these women and say introduce myself and ask, can I just stand with you here for a moment? But how would I say it? I could barely mutter a few words in Portuguese, let alone have a full-fledged conversation. Maybe they would find me as an unwelcome guest intruding their sacred space and community. Or maybe they were just wondering who the weirdo was sitting stupefied on the curb.
Instead, I watched from afar as attendees exchanged greetings hugging and laughing with one another, airing an effortless sense of comfort and familiarity that I craved.
As much as I wanted to walk up and join them, I sat and looked in awe, unable to move or peel my eyes away, paralyzed by a feeling I could not quite comprehend. It was a feeling which had become more poignant with each passing day since I’d moved to Portugal. Slowly the crowd dispersed, and I remained there, feeling more isolated and alone than before.
I was surprised, disappointed even, that at 33 years old, I found myself feeling this way. Hadn’t I crossed these waters already? As a teenage outsider when I had attended Catholic high school in New Orleans where I felt awkward and out of place; the turbulent 20s in newsrooms where I encountered real life Mean Girls; the so-called quarter-life crisis when I felt that my in my late 20’s I was nowhere near any milestones in life where I was supposed to be. Hadn’t I already done the work, the digging, the searching to find out who I was and make meaning of it all? Yet there I was, feeling more insecure and awkward than ever, quietly, desperately wanting a place to belong, and wondering if it lay behind those closed doors. Had I still not settled into who I was?
After the greetings were finished, the attendees scattered, and I eventually left. Deflated by the day and discouraged to attempt to navigate a web of buses and trains to get home, I walked and wandered for a while. When I returned home, Rodrigo asked me how Eid prayer was. I told him I’d missed the prayer and quickly masked my disappointment by describing the array of fabulously dressed Muslim women, burying that sad longing that was gnawing at me.
But I was still hopeful to salvage the day. We had planned a lunch to celebrate Eid with Rodrigo’s mother, Teresa. I had wanted and was looking forward to introducing her to traditional Palestinian food, of which I lacked both the skills and time to prepare. So ,we’d made a reservation at Jafra, a Palestinian restaurant in Lisbon’s Arrois neighborhood, a cluster of various cultures and cuisines nestled in the center of the city.
When we arrived at Jafra, my eyes wandered around the restaurant searching for something on the walls that elicited the familiar feelings of home. But I found the ceilings adorned with fanoos, traditional Moroccan lamps, emitting their ethereal light onto the Bohemian inspired décor. Not quite home, I thought. As we waited in a mostly awkward silence, Teresa and I were seated waiting for Rodrigo to arrive. (It’s difficult to make small talk with your mother-in-law when you don’t speak the same language.)
When Rodrigo arrives and joins us, he and Teresa almost immediately begin to bicker about something which I cannot comprehend. Though I can sense the tension rising between them. Reluctant to interfere, I sat idly and hoped the food would arrive quickly. Later that day Rodrigo would explain that he was being chastised by his mother for arriving a little late to the restaurant.
By the time the heaping piles of rice sprinkled with roasted pine nuts, and kufta wa bandora – tender lamb kabobs swimming in thick tomato sauce arrived, the mood had soured. Any lasting hope I had for an Eid that might bring me just a tiny bit closer to the comfort of home had languished. We ate in mostly silence, except for the occasional remark about how good the food tasted.
Suddenly in that moment, I wished it was my mother sitting across the table from me instead. I wanted to hug her and smell her skin, that sweet and pungent odor of cigarette smoke and the floral perfume she used to conceal it. To hear her describe how she could cook the food even better, instead of simply relishing in a delicious meal, in the irritable way she often did when we ate at restaurants. I wanted her. I wanted home.
At the end of our meal, I withdrew from the table, wiggled my way into the tiny, tight corridor of the bathroom, and quietly cried. What was I doing there – a stranger in a place far and foreign to me, foolishly trying to replicate a sense of home?
Months passed after Eid, but that nagging feeling persisted, manifesting in many ways. Like one Saturday afternoon when I find myself alone and decide to walk a bit further into our coastal town of Paço de Arcos and explore the local shops in our neighborhood. When I spot a floppy straw sun hat wrapped in delicate pink lace in the window, I decide to enter. A middle-aged Portuguese woman with leathery bronze skin and suede mules with shiny gold buckles greets me. I attempt awkwardly to make small talk with her in my concoction of “Portugish”—a mixture of the basic Portuguese I’ve picked up and English.
I don’t need another hat. I have hats that I haven’t worn toppling over in my wardrobe at home. But I find comfort in the small talk with her, strained and awkward as it is. And I am sure that she likes my tendency to spend money like an American. So before I know it, I am walking out of the boutique with an oversized sun hat, wondering what I have just said in my jumbled attempt to carry a conversation in a language I am thus unfamiliar with. It is a very cute hat, I say to myself.
But that nagging longing always drifted back to shore, sometimes when I least expected it. Like at dinner with Rodrigo’s friends, at a joke told in Portuguese which I cannot comprehend. Or on the train, when I found myself surrounded by groups of young, carefree teenage girls in crop tops and shorts – and feel what I think is maybe a tinge of envy. Envious of what, I am uncertain. Their youthful nonchalance, their confidence, or the joy of their friendships that I have yet to find here. Perhaps it’s all of these things. It feels eerily reminiscent of high school days—that long-ago feeling of watching the cool girls from afar.
The next Sunday, I fumble around in the kitchen trying my hand at my mother’s mujaddarah – a mash of rice and lentils. I try to imitate her effortlessness, but I am eons away from her skill and experience. Our kitchen back home is a mélange of hummus and red beans and rice. Maqluba and jambalaya. Grapeleaves and gumbo. But I just can’t manage to capture the right consistency or strike the right balance of cook time and heat on our little gas stove. So I resign myself instead to music and fill the house with the sounds of second lines and old classics by Umm Kulthum, whose Arabic prose I cannot even fully comprehend. The feeling of home evades me.
And now a stranger in a country longing for a culture I paid very little attention to for most of my life, I struggle to find that sense of belonging so far from home.
It leaves me reflecting on my parents’ experiences. My parents, who left their own country in pursuit of an elusive dream, yet who clung to scents, songs, and sentiments that reminded them of home—the place where they belonged. It is precisely in this moment, when I am in the kitchen that day burning the lentils when suddenly my heart swells with an empathy for them that is new to me. I wonder what they felt—and perhaps still feel—over four decades after leaving their home behind. My parents, who spent more time in New Orleans than anywhere else in the world. And I wonder to myself if they ever found the place where they felt they belong. Or do they still long for it after all these years?
The next morning, as I browse for plane tickets home to Louisiana for one of many trips to come in the following years, I consider if I will ever find and nurture my own community in Lisbon, or if I will always go eagerly running back home. I worry that much like my parents I may never strike that balance between two worlds.
As I close my laptop with a sigh of frustration, I am brought back to that morning when I waited outside the mosque. Was I waiting for, and in some subtle way reaching out for my parents? Was it after all these years, a quiet moment of empathy and understanding of their longing for a world, a life they left behind? And then a tiny shift occurs within me—the gap that I have always felt between myself and my parents lessens just a little as I realize that no matter where I am in the world, I might always yearn for a place to belong.
Summer Suleiman began her career as a journalist with CNN before returning home to chronicle startups and underrepresented founders in New Orleans for over five years. She is the author of the Substack SummerSundays, where she explores life as a writer, mother, and first-generation Palestinian-American in Portugal. She currently lives in Lisbon with her husband and son.
