The Sheik's Guests by Elizabeth WarnockElizabeth Fernea entered El Nahra, Iraq, as an innocent bystander. However, through his stay in the small Muslim village, he acquired a cultural vision to pass on not only about El Nahra, but about all foreign culture. When Fernea entered the village she was viewed with a critical eye: "It seemed to me that many times the women talked about me, and not in a particularly friendly way"; (70). The women of El Nahra could not understand why she was not with her entire family and only with her husband Bob. Women did not recognize his American lifestyle as appropriate. In contrast, BJ, as the village called him, and Bob did not consider the El Nahra lifestyle particularly appropriate either. They looked at each other through their own cultural lenses. However, through their constant interaction, both sides began to recognize certain advantages each culture possessed. It takes time, immersed in a particular community, to understand the cultural ethos and ultimately the community as a whole. Through Elizabeth Fernea's ethnography of the Iraqi village of El Nahra, we learn that all cultures have unique and equally important aspects. In El Nahra, for example, the cultural ethic is family honor. All actions in the community are based on the strong family ties that exist everywhere. However, individualism drives most of America. Our actions appear to be the direct result of cultural ethics. Therein lay much of the confusion between Bob, BJ, and th...