but I have a cold/the flu…. alhamdullilah!

I made it home.

So I was supposed to be home as of the 14th of january, but here it is the 16th and I am London.  How did this happen?

I missed my connecting flight twice I’A I will not do this the next time.  Both times were a mixture of leaving too late and jumbled information from British Airways.  Rest assured that God willing I will not fly with them again! Being in London has brought back all the memories of how rude the British are.  I can not tell you how many times people who are employed to help me or at least give me information have done so with much attitude and just plain rudeness.

My cousin who has been a darling through all this has said that she hadn’t recognized the rudeness until I came, argh! Here are a few of the scenarios:

1.  a British Airways employee asks me If I didn’t have “Enough sense” to look at my ticket and realize that it wasn’t checked in (even though another BA employee had told me that I was all set)— I guess it’s my job to do their job for them.   Now, I have a few choice answers for him,but the moment is past, i wonder if these people realize how rude they really act and sound?

2. I was given long-drawn out directions to get to where I could claim my luggage.  Made a wrong turn, and asked another British Airways employee for help.  His response and accusatory “didn’t you ask for directions?” my response “yes, but I’ve lost the way somehow” his response “well you didn’t bother to pay attention did you? “  or something really snarky like that.  The fool was not trying to be funny, he really meant to be the rude A(*& h&^^5 that he is.

Sometimes it’s not how you say, it’s the way you say it.  That ish might be funny on Fraiser, but it’s rude in real life.  There is no love lost between London and I right now, and I will definitely write a complaint letter to British Ariways about their largely incompetent, unhelpful and rude staff.  The sad part is that througout this I have met up with maybe 3 nice BA employees as opposed to the 6 or so rude horeses arses that I have met…. sigh.   This drama will be over soon.

Since I am on my wya back home and taking a brief break from studying and writing finals, I need to reflect on what I have accomplished, still have left to do and liked and didn’t like about the past 3-4 months.

On one hand it’s been a reflief to have such a great group of classmates.  It really feels like undergrad all over again, minus much of the uneccessary drama.  The weather right now is superb, and I am enjoying many of the little things: talks with other students for hours about random things (although marriage is a reoccurring theme…lol…) thinking about what to do after the program, hearing peoples past experiences etc… equals amazing.

On the other hand, I have met a few though not many super judemental folk and I feel like I need to keep it cool with them.  Casting judfement on people seems to be a favorite past-time for folks who don’t have much to do besides study, go shopping at the local mall and going to classes, so I have to learn to let people’s snide remarks go.  Also, I have to remember that most of the people I live with are younger than I am, and for better or worse they absorb the things I say and do… (I ain’t never signned up to be bobdody’s role model….lol)

Educaitonally things have been ok.  I am sort of ambivalent about my classes, my teachers for the most part were ok, but they did and said things that go on my nerves ( One bashed Sufis for like 15 minutes when no one asked or cared to know his feelings about them and another called Osama bin Laden a Sheikh!…).  I don’t know how I will deal with this next semester.  There were certainly aspects of Arabic that I wanted to fine-tuen and/or fix while here and I haven’t made as much progress as I would have liked.  Sadly, I know that put in a lot of effort to get assignments done and teacher lethargy resulted in very little feedback or none at all, none whatsoever

There is a class that I literally have only had two pieces of worked returned to me, for the entire semester, one of which was the mid-term.  In another course, the instructor waited till the last day of class and put everything in a nice folder with her comments how sweet?…. No!  how in the heck am I supposed to progress when you don’t inform me of my progress sequentially? Her comments would have been useful two months ago when I was writing assignments, I could have integrated them into my psyche and had them as spelling, and grammatical mistakes to be careful about.  now, they are just a bunch of b.s. to me.  I literally do not have time to read and internalize them the way I would like to.  Oh well.

Maybe I just don’t understand their instructional logic… Maybe they don’t really have any.

At any rate,  I’m not happy with the program.  I don’t hate it, it’s  a hell of a lot better than  some other Arabic learning (or lack thereof) experiences, but it’s not the most conducive to the kind of development that I NEED.  So much so, that I am really thinking that if I can find something else to do, I might just come back next semester to get the rest of my things and move on…

But God knows best, it’s weird because there are plenty of things that I like, but time is precious— and I want to use whatever time I have left on earth and in my twenties for the most fruitful prospects possible.  At any rate, seeing as how the unemployment rate is ridiculously high and jobs are scarcer than green leaf lettuce at Mcdonalds, I might just be back here anyway :-/

In that case, I will be a lot more judicious about the teachers and assignments that I actually focus on/complete…

As for social life, well it’s non-existent here, There are few people on the outside I guess I should try to meet up with more oftern, seeing as how We have finally been granted a midnight curfew on the weekends, but I don’t know.

The past few have been weird.

So we had a “field trip” yesterday and one of the bus drivers refused to drive the female students (yes, we travel in segregated buses here).  I was so annoyed at this jackass.

The school bus is not your private car, how the hell can you refuse to drive women?  and why didn’t anyone protest, but let him roll on with his bs?  Fool is you don’t want to interact with women, maybe you shouldn’t be an f&**8( driver for a University that has both male and female students!  I hate it when people treat people as if they have some sort of disease… trust me no one was going to jump Mr. Bus drivers bones… argh!

Only in Qatar have I ever encountered this mess….. at least it’s only happned once.

but the bus driving incident is connected to a larger aspect of my experiences here and that is male-female interaction here, it’s so awkward, I mean I feel awkward, so the best way to deal is to just not talk to them much or hang out outside of class.  This makes me sad, Most of come from countries (No ALL of us) that aren’t this strict on the male-female interaction.  So why do people act so strange?

I am actually not the worst one, there are definitely guys who are Joe cool on facebook but try to act like one of the Companions now that we are in Qatar…. I don’t get the dichotomy…. I’m not trying to be down anyone’s throat but some people act like having a conversation with a female classmate will ensure a place in Hell for them… which is why I prefer to just not deal.

It’s a shame because I’m sure they have perspectives and insights that I don’t…. and I am here to learn Arabic but to learn more too

Another aspect of the weird cross-gender interactions here is that unfortunately interactions however innocent can easily be blown out of proportion…. it’s like we ‘re living by the Qatari standard…. Since when is studying or talking to someone make you  a couple?!  We need to grow up…lol…..

Oh home sweet home here I come….lol

don’t know how this happened, but this was supposed to have been posted in 2009 not 2010!…lol… oh well, the questions are still salient as afar as I am concerned.

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So Been a week or two I guess. I had a very merry Christmas, as merry as can be expected when you’re in an Arab country that doesn’t even do Eid up big time…. Things are soooo dry here!  I went with a friend to a Catholic church, which I have never been in for Christmas anyway and it was nice.  I felt normal, like some of the ridiculously high levels of gender segregation didn’t apply… it was good for the hour or so it lasted.  Catholicism to me anyway is filled with so much symbolism form the pictures in the churches to the different parts of the services…. my friend who is Polish said that this doesn’t happen in her church so I don’t know how often it happens around the world, but they pulled out baby dolls and people went up to kiss them as symbols of the baby Jesus.

The thought came to me that Catholicism is like Christianity for dummies…  I have been missing my family like mad, and can not wait till I go home for vacation (or is it forever?…lol).

I also realized how much I miss Amreeka (America) and value religious freedom.  I knew it wasn’t going to be all that similar here, but dang, really, all the churches are in the middle of now hwere is the same compound.  It litterally took us like 8 hours to get there and back.   REally Qatar?  BUt at the same time Qatar never professed to be  beacon of religious freedom at least they allow more than one kind of church to exist/hold services, unlike Yemen (who only let the Catholic church, but at least that church was in a more central location).  Religious freedom in the Arab world is an interesting topic to say the least.  I said in a class discussion a few weeks ago that I don’t think it exists, not the way I define it anyway here.  I guess some folk were offended…. oh well, the truth hurts!

the two main rebuttals were a christian guy who says he feels just as free to practice his religion here as he does at home… perhaps we should ask the Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and Bahai’s how free they feel… At the same time, he noted how strange it was the the churches were/are not allowed to have crosses outside the buildings.

another person a Muslim woman said that Muslims countries give freedom to Christians to practice their religion, it’s not a problem and they don’t put limits on them…. well, my rebuttal was a mix of the above, and letting here know the only places these churches are allowed to be built in Doha, or should I say on the hinterlands between Doha and the desert…..lol

I posted this above, Qatar is not obligated to allow any form of religious practice outside of Islam if it doesn’t want to, however I’m not going to give it a 9/10 for religious freedom when it doesn’t really have that…. (don’t get me started on the Sufi bashing that goes on here

At any rate much has happened in the past few, I performed a traditional Qatari Dance during the University’s National Day celebration.  After the performance (which was IMO a hot mess thanks to complete jacked up way that things were run… but that is another post) I noticed something strange among the swarms of female students…… they were hanging out in groups according to color.

I thought I was seeing things, but I have asked some of the women in the dorm about this, Arabs and Africans but none of which are Gulf Arabs, and the unanimous consensus is that DUH! that is precisely how things work around here.  The black girls pretty much only hang out with each other and vice versa.  As a matter of fact, White Gulf Arabs don’t marry black Gulf Arabs.

I don’t know how to breach the subject with the few Qatari “friends” I have (incidentally two good friends, one a black Qatari and one a white one).   But I would really like some perspective on this.  I certainly haven’t seen any white-black Qatari couples walking around the malls and such, but I don’t know how much attention I have been paying.

Life in the Gulf,   well it will be soon over, at least for a while, I am going home in about a week for about a month…. that will surely give me time to process some of this stuff.

and btw, to get to my house you have pass- A Hindu Temple, Baptist, Episcopal and Anglican Churches , A Muslims community center and a Jewish temple….. God bless America!….lol

Happy New Year!

New Year in Qatar was well, um interesting…. I saw Avatar in Christmas Eve, on one hand it’s entertaining on the other its filled with all sorts of symbols and such.  After which I spent the New Year as I have done every year, in prayer and contemplation.

I’A this year will be a good one for us all.

My little sister sent me some wonderful news…. She got into Mount Holyoke!

Since she applied Early Decision, that means the college application process is OVER!  no more sending apps, no more SAT- ACT no more writing samples, no more of none of that.

I think I was more emotional than she was but she’s young and I don’t think quite grasps how major this is to me.  It’s been a long road, and we have bumped heads, and I have chastised and been frustrated at choices she’s made, had to support her through them anyway—– and talked till I was blue in the face about certain things,  but Allhamdullilah it has paid off. I think of how my Wellesley years were transformative ones and think and pray that she will have similar if not better ones at MHC.

Funnily enough, I’m going to relish going up to MA and seeing what Mount Holyoke is like, after all it’s the school that I almost went to, I wonder how my life would have been different had I gone there….at any rate, I am happy to  have something special like this, the seven sisters tradition to share with my sister (one more to go, Wellesley College class of 2019 anyone…lol), I’m happy that I convinced to apply to women’s colleges and I am excited about the opportunities and vistas that await her.

On another note, I think I might want to do college admissions coaching down the line.  I know there are tons of orgs and companies that do it, but not many IMO that actually do it right.  That is a big problem.  I can’t tell you how many times I have been dumfounded by the type of advise and lack of resources that a college-bound student faces—- I wonder what would have happened to my sister if I had not been there to say, um no, that’s not true or yes, but you need to explain/spin things this way.

the Quarter-life-crisis continues—- But I’m happy for this early Christmas present, it’s a relief to be completely done with these darn application… now if I could only finish my own…lol

Okay well, they aren’t really Afro-Arabs per se, but I wanted to jot some thoughts I have about all these African Muslim women who were raised in the Arab world and how that changes their perspectives on their own countries, on Islam and even on beauty.

It’s one thing to read about the way expats change things in their host countries upon return from Saudi, Kuwait or wherever, and it’s another thing to sort of see it in action.  I don’t what to think, I guess I am still thinking out loud about it… you know remarking to friends and acqaintances here that “wow you know you look Eritrean, Somali, Sudanese, Mauritanian, Nigerian etc. on the outside, but you are sooooooooooooo A-rab!”

it’s not a compliment, it’s not a diss, but just an observation.  I think growing up in the Arab world, and in the Gulf in particular creates a connection and disconnect from the homeland that is sooo different from the immigrant experience in the US or even Europe.  I don’ t know how I feel about this yet, if it even matters.  At any rate let’s look at how/why?

1. many of these girls were born in Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia etc and their parents lived/have lived in these countries for decades, but they NEVER had hope of gaining citizenship.  The end result is loads of people who are born and raised in a place but carry the passport of a country that they hopefully go to once a year, but a lot of times haven’t been there more than 5 times in their lifetimes.  How strange it is to have someone answer “I am from Eritrea” or Djibouti or Mauritania when you ask, but then they don’t know much mor e than you do about their country, or worse yet, talk about their African homelands as if they were the dirtiest, most corrupt place on earth.

At the same time though, I have found that most of the girls are not even trying to claim Arab identity at least not verbally even though they admit that their mindsets, muscial tastes etc. have more to do with what’s hot in the Arab world than it does in the African one… granted some of them are from Arab-African countries.

2. Islam. Islam. Islam. Well, religious practice is more like it.  I find it interesting that some of the girls here hold beliefs that are more in-line with the local Arab population’s practice of Islam than it is twith the realities on the ground at home.  This is sort of the What if situation for me.  More gender segregation, more hijab wearing— as a symbol of religious piety/following a religious edict, more abaya wearing— well not as much as the locals do, but I see more of that than people wearing whatever the national dress of their countries are … in general.  And of course there is Sufi bashing…lol….

It never ceases to amaze me when I see an African chick wigging out over a strand of hair/ piece of ankle/arm/leg showing or frowning/being scared to interact with men (I mean talk to a classmate kind of way) when I know and she knows people in her community don’t usually trip like THAT…lol…

BUt seriously, this is probably someone’s dissertation topic or soemthing, but the question that keeps coming up for me is why?  —– Why do you appropriate something that is foreign to your own culture, especially in the religious realm?

Is this the result of the primacy of (Gulf) Arab customs in the minds of these expats? or is it simply that they believe that the way things are done here, are correct? (which leads back to the previous question). Or is this just a natural part of living in a new country, adapting to a new environment?

I haven’t had a any straight,well complete answers on this one, I just want to understand people better, but I think/guess I am asking questions that people don’t think about/haven’t thought about so it’s hard for people to formulate answers…. or maybe I already have an answer in mind and I trap them with my own reasoning so they can say what I already assume (totally possible unfortunately)

3. language, well this happens in the states too, they can speak Arabic like water, but many of them can not string togehter a sentence in their parent’s mother tongue.  I think it’s sad when it happens in other places and I certainly think it’s sad here.  I wish I spoke my mother’s language, just because it’s such an important part of culture and such a beautiful way to keep future generations connected… but oh well, it’s hard to do in a foreign country, especially one where African languages don’t have the same sort of cache as Arabic would…

but still strange in the sense that I would think there would be more preservation of that part of the cultural tradition, because of the host country’s unwillingness to let people assimilate at least on the official level…

4. Food, goes in tandem with language, but it seems like a lot of the Afro-arabs don’t know a darn thing about foods from their homelands, but they can tell you where to get the best tabouli, shwarma, and random Khaleeji dishes etc.  this to me is a bit surprising considering that some of them come from countries that don’t really specialize in that sort of thing… but oh well.

5. Marriage— they still marry within their communities.  This is interesting to me at least… I don’t know what the stats on second-generation kids are in states whether they branch out or not when it comes to tying the knot… but I find it interesting that the women I have spoken toa bout it look at me like I’m crazy when I talk about them marrying a man not from their country… of course they say that they would prefer someone from their own culture (not a man straigght from Djibouti, Eritrea or Mauritania, mind you) but …. whatevs, I get the picture.

interesting stuff…. to me at least.

On one hand I do feel a little dissappointed sometimes, I look into a face that in the states would mean we had some common experiences/mindsets, approaches, that just doesn’t see that in me.  I either get the real conservative chick or one who likes to “Party all the time!…” whatever that means in a university in a country that is ridiculous about gender segregation and mkaing female students be back by 10pm.  It’s not like that with all of them, but it is for too many… I hope that I can look at more of them like my peeps and not these strange Arab women with black faces.

I just finished a conversation that makes me want to …. think…lol.

Apparently I’m not the happy bubbly person I was was when I first got to Qatar (I’m not sure if I ever was that person but, whatevers)…. Apparently living here is not all it’s cracked to be and no one had to warn me about this, I knew it from jump.

A thing that well, bugs me about being here is adjusting to a different mindset of those around me.  I think at home I take for granted that other people’s beliefs, ideas and heck even feelings matter, but apparently people approach it differently here.  It’s not neccessarily Qataris either, as I mostly interact with exapats from Arab countries and their children.

There have been so many instances like these but the ones I guess that stay with me are:

1. People talking about hijab as if it were the 6th pillar of Islam…. and I mean randomly, I’m doing Sharia or Islam coursework,but if I had a Qatari riyal for everytime someone said something about Hijab being the foremost obligation of a Muslim woman, and I mean saying this randomly without much connection to the discussion at hand— I could at least get myself a meal at one of the fast-food chains. But this is a slight issue, that I think stems from the class being a “western” or western-like audience…. whatever.

2. People hating on Sufis, and I mean hating hard.  I guess that’s to be expected in a Wahhabi-like country, but a few days before vacation, my professor was the straw that broke the camel’s back as he went on a 15 minute diatribe about how Sufis suck and do ridiculously non-Islamic things like pass wine around during religious services/gatherings and that some of them have even said that they aren’t Muslim and that they are in league with demagogues and despots… oh and they don’t have any great thinkers or poets anymore… blah, blah, blah… mind you we were doing a listening excercise (that he picked) an al-jzeera clip on Suf music or something… tangentially related, but his little speech was random, boring to most of the class and a bit annoying to at least myself and one other classmate (well we were the only two that challenged his assertions).

I just don’t like people bad-mouthing whole swaths of people especially, when they are not their to defend themselves.  This is probably the worst scenario, but I hear jibes at Sufis all the time here and it’s annoying.  I get it, Sufism and Wahhabism don’t mix, but bringing his personal grievances into a classroom setting was not called for.

This made me look at my teacher in an entirely different way, a wtf sort of way… what a waste of class time.

3. People feeling like they can say whatever they want to you about anything and not thinking that perhaps this is not the person/situation for that.  Case in point someone remarking to me about how ridiculously stupid evolution is and how dumb anyone who believes it is stupid… TMI hunny, I don’t want that kind of debate at home and I sure as hell am not going to engage in it in Qatar.  A classmate telling another classmate that all the people in his country that are from her country are prostitutes. (yes ALL)… really dude, really?  or someone else declaring that the Danish Cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed were funny… really?… really? is this the place to say that ish?

4. the daily injustices/inequalities that go on and people just become immune to it… I am afraid that being here makes people feel like, eh, what can we really do? Whether it’s the treatment of the guest workers here or just how resources are unequally distributed in the university or just just how ridiculously inefficient the bureacracies are here (and everywhere to be honest) people just sigh and keep moving.  The university loses your paperwork, oh well, no need to put your foot down, just go through the process all over again, pay money again, for something that is not at all your fault. The thing is though, that sometimes, insisting on being heard does work here.  Sometimes it does change things even in Qatar, but too many folk are too dissillusioned to care

lol…. whatever!

I am sick!  I thought it might be swine flu, but supposedly it’s just a cold. But a pretty bad one.

It was good to see the Qatari national healthcare system at work.  MashAllah! 12 dollars to see the doctor and get prescriptions (granted for things that are over the counter in the states.. but whatevers).   I think it was Panadol that did me in, as soon as I had cold symptoms I went and got some cold and flu version of the drug.

Unfortunately, I think I it made me even more ill (I had never taken it before)— i.e. nauseous and slightly delirious.  The day before yesterday was the worst,  I literally couldn’t sleep the entire night because I felt so horribly awful.

I missed out on seeing a Qatari wedding due to being ill, but it’s all for the best, maybe I needed some R and R time.

at anyrate, God knows best.  I am keeping my head up, getting ready for classes (argh!!!!!!!!!!) and dreaming about winter vacation…. sigh.

So much to write about, but that will have to wait, I guess…. :- (