Chapter 24 "Lessons from a Nalgene Bottle"

May’s purple Nalgene bottle had accompanied her through many experiences in the desert. She found a certain sense of comfort in having it by her side during her journeys. Nalgenes were not found in the Sandbox and she guarded hers very carefully, as it was her main source of hydration during outings. So, it was uncharacteristically careless of her to place it on the dusty floor of the Amjad as she fiddled through her purse to find the correct change for the driver. She handed him the change and walked into the restaurant with the sisters and without the faded water bottle which had taken residency in the backseat of the amjad.

The sisters could see May’s annoyance at her absentmindedness and they knew she was not particularly fond of amjad and rickshaw drivers. Since the stranger incident, she had never thought anything kind about any one of them and she had never given the benefit of the doubt to a single one of them. The sisters ordered their lunch and talked about the night before when their bathroom sink broke. May laughed as she remembered Red walking out of her room and entering the bathroom, one second later exiting the bathroom and exclaiming, “We have a problem.” She had jumped out of her bed to look and she saw the bathroom flooding from a leak in the hose that attached to the sink. Red and McCaine grabbed a bucket to contain the water and May tried calling for help.

The phone and sink were in a plot to get the sisters, outgoing calls could not be made. The sisters each took a turn, with all their might, trying to turn the water off, only to find out the valve they were working so hard to turn, was merely a decoration. The house phone finally worked and they called a friend. Red and May went up to the roof to see if there was a way to turn the water off from atop the house. McCaine emptied the red bucket that filled every few minutes.

May was excited to use her headlamp, as if she were climbing into a dark cave. She stepped on top of the roof and looked over the edge. At that precise moment she realized two rather important things. She had somehow attained a fear of heights since she had gotten to the desert and being up that high while on Tylenol PM was not one of her smarter ideas. She became light headed and made her way to the corner of the roof too afraid to get back on the ladder to get down.

Red saw their friend pull up and yelled up to May that she was going to let him in. May, mustering up as much courage as she could, half crawled and half walked around the roof trying to find the right nozzle to turn off the water. Red returned and realized May was huddled back in the corner, the roof had gotten the best of her. After a slight pep talk Red had gotten May down the ladder and safely into the house.

The sisters were close to hysterics when Red noticed May had stopped laughing and was starring out the door of the restaurant. May stood up as the amjad driver opened the door and approached her. He placed the purple Nalgene in her hand without saying a word. He had come back an hour later to return it. In the best Arabic she could recall, she uttered a “thank you very much” as he turned and walked out of the restaurant not asking for anything in return for the Nalgene.

May sat back down in her chair. Red and McCaine knew this was “a moment” for her. They started tearing as they saw May cry, humbled that in a culture filled with people who seemed only out for their best interests, a stranger who she never gave the benefit of the doubt to in the first place, went out of his way to return her water bottle and asked nothing in return.