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were not like any relatives Liyana had ever met before. In the United States their extended family (except for Peachy Helen, who always acted cozy) held back from them politely as if they might have a cold. Uncle Leo had never hugged Liyana yet. He shook her hand like an insurance man. Aunt Margaret spoke formally tochildren, about general subjects.
Are you enjoying the summer? Do you have nice friends?
    But this bustling group of aunts and uncles swirled in circles as Sitti, their grandmother, threw her strong arms around each one of them in succession, squeezing so tightly that Liyana lost her breath. “She’s blessing you,” Poppy whispered.
    Liyana had an impulse to stand very close to Poppy, for protection, and also for translation, so he could keep her posted on what was being said. Tears poured down Sitti’s rugged cheeks. Suddenly she threw her head back, rolled her tongue high up in her mouth, and began trilling wildly. Liyana had never heard anything like it. Aunt Saba and Aunt Amal began clapping a rhythmic beat. Mom looked startled. Rafik raised his eyebrows.
    Poppy shook his head, waving both hands in Sitti’s face to quiet her down. “That’s her traditional cry,” he explained. “She uses it as an announcement at weddings and—funerals.”
    “Which one is
this?
” Liyana asked.
    Poppy spoke rapidly to Sitti in Arabic, but she didn’t stop right away. She trilled and trilled and trilled. She shimmied her arms in the air like a Pentecostal preacher. The backs of her hands were tattooed with the dark blue shapes of flying birds.Liyana said, “Poppy! You never told us she had tattoos!”
    Poppy said, “I didn’t want you to get any ideas.”
    “I’m considering an eagle, myself,” Rafik said.
    Sitti pulled Poppy’s face close to hers again and again to kiss him on both cheeks. Liyana liked that. Two kisses seemed better than one.
    Liyana was being kissed by so many people whose exact identity was unknown to her, though Poppy tried to clarify names of aunts, cousins, and wives of cousins, to help his family out. Even he had trouble. He gave two different names for the same woman and everyone laughed. Liyana kept nodding and trying to kiss people back, even when she missed their cheeks. She kissed Aunt Lena on the scarf and felt silly. Still, after all that flying, the enthusiastic welcome was nice. At least Liyana knew they had landed in the proper hemisphere.
    The women’s long dresses were made of thick fabrics, purple, gold, and navy blue, and stitched brightly with fabulous, complicated embroidery. Aunt Lena had rich lines of multicolored rainbow thread wrapped around her wrists. All the women wore gold bangle bracelets. The older ones had long white scarves draped and knotted firmly over their hair. The younger ones had bare heads, which made Liyana feel relieved.
    They wore plastic, slip-on shoes in pastel colors. The modern shoes seemed strange with their old-fashioned clothes. Aunt Saba touched Liyana’s blue-and-yellow Swiss children’s watch that had little people’s heads on the ends of its hands. She put her face down to stare at it and laughed. The women even touched Liyana’s earlobes. She wore no gold earrings, as they did. But Liyana didn’t mind. She didn’t feel like a “specimen.” She liked their curiosity. The men wore dull gray or black suits, white shirts, and striped ties, more like men anywhere. Liyana wondered how men ever got such boring uniforms, anyway. Sometimes she looked at encyclopedia pages showing “native dress” styles from around the world. Elsewhere, in Zambia maybe, or Timbuktu, the men knew how to dress. In the older days, Arab men wore long, flowing robes and cloaks with golden edges, but suits had sneaked into their closets now. Poppy had told Liyana she would like the men’s elegant clothing in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates better.
    Two of the older uncles, Zaki and Daoud, wore black-and-white-checkered
kaffyehs
on their heads,