DC Moments (of near insanity)

It's true - we'd been up since 3 AM. But we'd riden on a plane, we'd had a 2.5 hour delay in Des Moines, and we'd spent 2 hours in the hotel resting. So when we exited the West African restaurant and everyone was droopy, I understood; yet, I didn't expect what happened next. One particular woman (cough - Saudat) from our group rushes Martha and I as we step out of the door and onto the busy sidewalk.
"You didn't make sure we had time to pray!" she throws her finger in Martha's face then swings it to mine. She is one of the Muslims, and I have been doing my absolute best to remember what times they are supposed to pray. However, I had told them all at the previous week's debriefing that they would need to remind me about an hour before each prayer time so that I could find them a private place. I'd even looked up the times that Muslims pray in Eastern Standard Time and handed out copies to these women. So when she charged us (physically and verbally) with not respecting her or taking care of her (and so disrespectfully!), it was a little infuriating.
"You didn't tell me when it was coming up," I said calmly.
"You can't just yell at us right here - you could have even taken time in that restuarant to pray, but you didn't." Martha asserted.
"Nooooo..." S replied, violently shaking her head and glaring at us.
"Yes," I replied, and looked to the other two Muslim women. They were refusing to join in with S. One even piped up, saying, "She told us we needed to tell her beforehand - how is she supposed to know when we need to pray?"
She backed down, but a few minutes later, on the crowded bus, the person who had been sitting next to her got off the bus, and a man with his adorable young boy got on the bus. The man sat his child on the seat next to S. The child squirmed around briefly so that his legs were folded under his bottom, and he was facing the windows so he could watch DC come alive in the night. S made this sickening face. She stiffly turned her head away from the child, upward, and she closed her eyes as if it was all too much for her. She lifted herself halfway off of the seat and leaned into the person on the other side of her, as if, if this boy moved any closer to her, she might die.

Throughout the weekend S would disappear from our group, and I would have to backtrack our steps a block or two to find her buried in a DC souveneir kiosk. The first time I simply reminded her to let us know if she wanted to stop. The second time, a little more frustrated, I explained that I always need to know where she is. She reminded me that she'd been to DC before, and she wouldn't get lost; I returned that it didn't matter, that if something happened to her, I would be in trouble. One morning Martha and I were surprised to find out that she had called her brother, he'd driven to DC (from over an hour away), picked her up, taken her ome, fed her, and brought her back. Hey, we would have been fine with it - if we'd KNOWN about it! On the last day, she disappeared again. I saw her at a distant kiosk, and had Martha and the rest of the group keep walking. Looking at my phone, I realized that we were going to miss our train back to Crystal City because of this. When I reached the kiosk, she was paying for something.
"Did you buy something?" I asked, exhausted with this routine.
"Yes." she smiled to herself.
We walked a few seconds in silence. "Listen, S," I said. "It doesn't matter anymore, because we're headed back to Des Moines now. But I REALLY need you to let me know if you want to stop."
"You were walking too far ahead of me."
"Well, I've told you all you have to do is call out and let us know."
"How was I supposed to keep up?"
"I wasn't that far ahead of you, and I'm not asking you to keep up-"
"Yes, you walked too fast, I won't yell!"
I shook my head. "I don't want excuses, S. I just need to know where you are."
"No, you would leave us for dead! I know where I am, I don't need to be treated like a child!"
"We don't want to treat you like a child, but-"
"No! You can't talk to me like this, you are so disrespectful! I'm your elder, you can't tell me what to do!"
I'd known she was not listening to me because of this, even though none of the other women had been acting like that.
"S, I'm being employed by IRIS. If you respect IRIS, then you need to respect me." She stiffly shakes her head and refuses to look at me. She mumbles about how disrespectful I am, and that she can do what she wants.
"No, S, I'm sorry. But if you won't listen to me, I'll talk to Del (our executive director, who she is respectful of). And if you won't keep up and let us know where you are, you'll have to stay in the hotel when we go to Chicago."

After that, I had this AMAZING feeling inside of me. It felt really good, and yet with a twinge of guilt. But the great feeling completely overwhelmed the guilt. Guilt? Was I supposed to feel guilty for sticking up for myself and trying to do my job? SERIOUSLY? No, I don't think so.

And that isn't even half of the really great stories.

Ah, you know, this is one of the less infuriating stories, yet I'd better not write them all down here. Ask me about them. It's been a LONG week. I look forward to the weekend.