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169George W. Bush & Naomi Shihab Nye TalkBackused, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, %u201cNo, we%u2019re fine, you%u2019ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let%u2019s call him.%u201d We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it.Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamoolcookies %u2014 little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts %u2014 from her bag %u2014 and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo %u2014 we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie. And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend %u2014 by now we were holding hands %u2014 had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate %u2014 once the crying of confusion stopped %u2014 seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost. 2008 QUESTIONS Exploring the Text 1. %u201cGate A-4%u201d tells the story of an encounter in an airport. How does Naomi Shihab Nye establish tension before sharing the speaker%u2019s kindness to the Palestinian woman whose flight is delayed? 2. What does the speaker mean in line 5 when she says, %u201cWell %u2014 one pauses these days%u201d? Who is %u201cone%u201d? How are %u201cthese days%u201d different from those that came before? 152025303540 QUESTIONS Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.