Abulublog

Ramadan has come and gone. I met only a few of the resolutions that I made for myself at the beginning of the month. One of them was to dress nicely. This was inspired by my Aunt Samreen.  She told me I’d never get married dressing the way I do. I’m not sure what I was wearing the day that she told me that, probably my baggy sweatshirt. Ironically, just the other morning I was walking to work and for some reason I looked down at my outfit and laughed to myself thinking that I bet if she saw me now she’d shake her head and tell me something to that effect.  Subhanallah! No joke, just as the thought left my head, she called me. She called me across time zones, across oceans, and thousands of miles from Ramullah, Palestine at that very moment.  I answered the phone laughing and shaking my head as I turned around and went home to change.

So, I dressed more “nicely” and  I got through reading about three quarters of the Quran. Not exactly my goal, but now I have the resolution to finish the rest of it bit by bit each night. I’ll have you know that I tried my hardest to get through it all by the end of the month but I kept getting interrupted.

Last Friday I was sitting in the park reading a few chapters when a man walked up to me and asked where the Bank of America was. I told him I didn’t know after glancing around to see if it was nearby. He apparently wasn’t only interested in the Bank of America because he then proceded to ask me if I was Muslim. I nodded, that yes I was and he further inquired as to whether I was fasting or not. I told him I was, and he said, “oh, you are almost done right? A couple more weeks?” I answered that no, in fact, there were only a few more days left.

It would have been nice if the conversation had ended there, but alas, it did not. I noticed just as he began his next sentence that his entire demeanor changed. It was almost as if he said to himself in his head, ” Ok, here goes, put the smooth on, try this one out.” as he said, “So…what do you think about calling me up and celebrating your holiday with me?”

I looked up from my book…gave him a quizzical look and then proceeded to read…thinking to myself, “enough of this dressing nice thing!” But then I realized I was in my baggy sweatshirt as I had failed at that resolution when getting dressed in the morning.

He pressed on. “So…do you think you could do that? Do you think you could give me a call and we could celebrate together?” To which I replied. “No” and smiled as I went back to my book. The poor man… I think he got the “hint” then. As he turned to leave, he said the oddest thing. He pointed at me, chuckled and said, “You…you are a good girl. You are a nice lady.” I guess I passed that test.

I might have gotten a few more chapters read if not for him. But really, I’m the only one to blame when it comes to not completing all of my Ramadan resolutions. Despite this fact, I feel very satisfied with my efforts. I really had a great month. Though the days were long and I was mentally spent by the end of each one, I feel as if I tried harder to milk it for all it was worth than any other year. There are blessings in being able to organize your time more freely. When at home, you are bound by the schedule of your family, when in school, you are bound by the schedule of your syllabus. When single and living “alone”, it really becomes your own fault when you can’t find time to do the things you need to do. For example, practice for the GRE and update your blog.  Ahem…

So I spent Eid away from my family this year. I was really anxious about doing that, because it’s such a family time of year, or it should be, in my opinion. In order to chase away those invading feelings of lonliness and homesickness, I resolved to continue my family’s traditions away from home. When we were growing up each of my siblings chose a cookie recipe (mine was gingersnaps) and we made dozens and dozens of cookies and wrapped them all up and gave them as Eid gifts to all of our family friends.

So this year, on the last day of Ramadan, I ran to the store and bought some molasses and the rest of the supplies (except for ginger powder…I somehow forgot the ginger powder, you know, that powder you put in GINGER snaps?), and went home to bake a batch to give to my friends. It felt right. It felt Eid-like and it made me realize how important (to me) these little traditions are. It made me so thankful to have grown up in such an intentional family. It made me so grateful to have such great parents who thought about these things. It made me more homesick than I was before…

I got lucky though. I was invited by a friend to celebrate Eid day with a community out in Maryland. I could go on all day about them but I shouldn’t because you’ve probably stopped reading already. I think the best way to explain the community of people is like this: You know that person who is always doing doing doing? Always working to better everything for everyone. They are the first to arrive, the last to leave. They have the minivan filled with everything you could ever want or need. They are always on hand with a bandaid, or a frisbee or a magnifying glass. You know that person? Well this group was completely filled with people just like that person.

Many of them homeschooled their little blond half Iranian, half American children. Many of them had brought fresh vegetables and homemade apple crisp to the potluck brunch. Many had blasted Dawuud Wharnsby Ali and Native Deen nasheeds on their way to the community center where they held the Eid prayer. Many were still singing along as they decorated the room with prayer rugs, Eid banners and colorful cards. Many had carefully hand made a gift to give in the family gift exchange. And many had won my heart as I helped set up tables and laid out rugs with this constantly moving group of, what I felt were like-minded people.

Needless to say, I spent the entire day with them. It was the best gift I could ask for. If I couldn’t be home with my own family, this was the best second best ever. I’m so happy to have met them and I’ve already started petitioning them to all move closer to the city so I can be nearer to them and their warmth and light.

So that was my Eid. I look forward to heading home this coming weekend to spend some quality time with my real family. I already bought my item for our family gift exchange. I can’t wait to blast some DWB and Native Deen with my brother, Zeki on our road trip up to my grandparents next weekend.  It’s amazing how you can find similar people all over the world. It’s nice to know what I’m attracted to. Thanks mom… I think it’s your fault.

God willing we’ll all be able to share another great Ramadan together. May all your thoughts and prayers be answered. May your lives be blessed and may you always be happy.

Sarrah

I want to be that girl…

that one who walks into a room and conquers it

I want to be that girl

who pulls respect out of the deepest of crevices

I want to be that girl

who is the matriarch of a meritocracy

who leaves people satisfied

whose absence is noticed and presence is missed

I want to be that woman

who stands her ground

who lets things slide

and has the peace of mind and intuition to know when to do what

I want to be that woman

who lights up the world

I want to be that woman

whose smile cures illness

whose caress heals open wounds

whose embrace ends evil

I want to be that woman

Friends,

Wow, it’s been a while. Sorry, about that. Well, I’m still here. MPSN took over my life this summer and wow, did time fly. I can’t believe it’s already September tomorrow. I’m not ready for that. I mean, I still want to wear white and labor day is around the corner…and you know how much of a fashionista I am. Gawd, it’s so limiting.

I suppose a lot has happened since I wrote last. I mean, Casem, my older brother got married, that’s sort of big. He had a little courthouse ceremony in NY with plans of a reception next summer. Hasan (younger brother) flew out to the East Coast for the occasion and him and I were able to attend. It was so nice. After the minute-and-a-half-ceremony-by-a-bubble-gum-chewing-justice-of-the-peace, we walked all around New York City taking pictures and just having an all around good time. We had dinner at this Korean Grill and spent the evening eating wedding cupcakes in Central Park. It was a marvelously simple, yet just perfect for them. I’m so happy I was able to make it.

So, about the rat. Listen kids, it started raining a couple of weeks ago at the MPSN house where I was helping pack up the last of the house. We (Mrs.K and I) noticed that there was this board covering the drain outside and the last time that happened we had a flood in the basement. So, I headed outside in the pouring rain and reached down in the little gully area to pick up the board and….much to my dismay, the rat jumped out at me and proceeded to run right at me, (dumb rat)…I’m embarrassed to say I screamed, so Mrs. K ran out to see what was the matter and the dumb animal proceeded to run after her! The two of us ended up screaming and laughing in the rain for the next few minutes. I have been having bad luck with animals jumping out at me as of late.

In other news, Ramadan started a couple weeks ago. It’s honestly been kind of rough. I think it’s because it’s been so hot here (in the 80’s for the most part, with high humidity). I feel like such a slug by the end of the day and I have no appetite, I just want WATER! It’s actually been kind of an experience having Ramadan in the summer again. I was so used to it being around the Holidays that I’m craving egg nog and Christmas Carols in August. Weird. More seriously though, it’s been interesting actually struggling to fast.

I mean, not gonna lie, it’s pretty easy to fast when you are breaking at like 4:30-5 ‘o-clock…this 8 PM business is a whole new ball game. In an odd way, it’s kind of refreshing finding hardship in this spiritual experience. I feel like I’m actually fulfilling something here. It’s hard to explain…but sometimes it’s just good when things are hard.

The Ramadan culture here in DC is great. There are so many iftar (evening meal) programs all over the city and beyond. Already I’ve been out to Maryland to the Iranian mosque and I’ve been to an Italian and a Pakistani and a Sudanese restaurant. I have plans to go to the Georgetown and the George Washington University MSA sponsored iftars this coming week. I even got an invite to go to the Capitol Hill iftar later this month (I’m not that special, everyone gets invited.) The problem with all this awesomeness is I’m not with my family. I’m not going to be able to make it home at all this Ramadan and it’s kind of killing me. This’ll be the first time ever that that’s happened. Though my awesome fam is irreplaceable, I have found quite the community of friends out here. Well, saying found might be a stretch…So you know how I moved out here in February? Well a bunch of my college friends from UW have found themselves on this side of the country as well. Also, a bunch of people I met in Egypt are for some reason all living in DC now. It’s crazy how our life-paths keep crossing. It’s really nice to have a core group of friends from other parts of my life so close at hand. I keep telling them that it was really nice of them to follow me out here. They keep telling me not to flatter myself.

A bunch of us actually all went out to a 24hour IHOP the other day for sahoor (the morning meal) at like 3:30 in the morning. It was crazy-fun. One of those friends from both my Wisconsin crowd and my Egypt crowd is my friend Mona (she’s the one I stayed with while in Cairo). She’s moved out here to look for work and is staying with her sister. They invited us over for iftar the other night and it happened to coincide with an all-day interview Dalia was doing for the Al-Arabia news channel. See, Dalia’s kinda famous because she co-wrote Who Speaks for Islam?: What a Billion Muslims Really Think with John Esposito and she’s also a White House advisor. Oh, she also has two of the cutest kids in the whole entire world.

Ok, so I brought all that up to tell you a funny story. So this camera man and an interviewer were at the house while we were breaking fast taking shots of the evenings happenings. They zoomed in as my friend Rizwaan did the call to prayer, they zoomed in as Dalia walked down the stairs after washing for prayer, and they zoomed in as we all stood in rows and started praying. It is my hope that they then stopped filming (and thank God they were filming in front of us) because just as I bent down to prostrate, the air vent that I happened to be praying on top of started blowing out AC and up went my skirt!! I had to stifle a giggle as I grabbed at my clothes. Seriously…I mean, that stuff can happen to anyone…but on international television?…That only happens to me. I’m really excited to hear what you all have been keeping busy with. I know lots are in the midst of Ramadan as well. I hope that is going well for you. Let me in on any tips for hydration! Keep in touch!

-Sarrah

Goooood Morning!

MPSN (The Muslim Public Service Network) has once again, taken over my life. It’s a good thing though. Being around such amazing people always inspires me to get my act in gear and move forward with my life. I’m RA-ing for these kids (a couple are older than me, I shouldn’t be calling them that) and they are great. It’s a group of 11 of us living in two sections of a house. They come from all over the United States and ethnically the backgrounds range from Britian to Malaysia, to America, to India, to Pakistan, to Afghanistan, to Egypt, to Bangledesh. It’s a great range of cultures, ideas, perspectives and most importantly, recipes.

I’m really enjoying the discussions surrounding loyalties to soccer teams (America just beat Egypt, and it was painful to watch the agony of our Egyptian American fellow) and loyalties to regions of the United States. We’ve got a pretty decent Midwestern crew that has stuck together through these hard times.

In fact the quote below started a over 100 email chain reaction for and against the concepts outlined below: “After a long and hard deliberation these past few days I have come to but one conclusion. Wisconsin is not as bad as many of us in the MPSN house have made it out to be, quite the contrary. It is a place full of luster, joy, happiness, and nice friendly people. Wisconsin like Michigan and like much of the Midwest, has not lost its idyllic sense of all American homeliness (I think he meant to say homey-ness, not homeliness) that makes this country great. This is not to say that we are a backwards people. We are a people with a connected sense of warmth that much of this country has long forgotten, coupled with a forward thinking progressive attitude that places us smack dab in the middle of the American Dream. In fact the Midwest is the American Dream, every other part of the country is just emulating. Wisconsin and Michigan are neighbors, and I am glad that this is the case.”

I hope you all enjoyed that. I know I did. The retort from the East and West Coasties of the group were hilarious, as I’m sure you can imagine. The interactions in the house are not much different. Each night after work and class, we all get together and cook and clean and share and bond and it’s such a great platform of exchange of ideas, opinions and perspectives. I have learned so much in such a short amount of time and I love every minute of it.

I can’t believe that once again, my summer is almost half-way over. Time has a seriously bad habit of just running away from me. Speaking of time and life and how short it is and can be, I’d like to touch on the tragedies that befell the DC area these past few weeks. First, we had the shooting at the Holocaust Museum which shook me to the core. I don’t know what it is, perhaps all my encounters with belligerent people who seem to have something against me personally, because they connect what I look like with an overarching stereotype. The fact that one man just up and went on a shooting spree based upon his twisted idea of right and wrong scares the living daylights out of me. It was such a weird day for me. I had just finished texting all of the fellows in the program who worked on the Hill to stay indoors because there was news of a shooter on the loose. I then went outside to have my lunch in a park and as I was sitting there on the phone, a man walked by and started yelling profanities at me (Go %^&*-ing home, etc, etc) and then he took his hands and put them in the shape of a gun and yelled “BAM! BAM!” as he pretended to shoot me.

Though the entire instance is completely ridiculous, what makes it so much worse, is that no one, not ONE person around me did anything or said anything, to the man or to me. I feel like all I do is complain about this kind of stuff happening to me, but please don’t take this as a complaint. I feel I need to write about it so that people know what is going on. It’s stuff like this, it’s people like that, that go unwatched, unchecked, unquestioned on the street and turn into the man who takes a gun into a museum and shoots up a place. Or maybe I’m overreacting…but I know I had no idea how to react when I was in the situation.

Also, as I’m sure you’ve heard, there was a fatal train accident on the Metro this past week. I (alhumdulilah), was not on the train, though that was on the same line I take to get home. It has truly changed the dynamics of the city. The buses are packed, the front and back cars of the metro are significantly less full. (I know I’ve self-selected out of them a couple of times, subconsciously). The trains are being driven on manual power and are so much slower as they come into the station. The biggest difference is the level of patience that people seem to have. I’ve never been is such a tight space and not had someone lose their temper. Last Tuesday I, not thinking, took the metro home from work and ended up in the most sardine-like experience of my life. Some one’s hand was on top of mine on the pole, my body was squished up against probably four others, nobody was making eye contact, and I saw so many people’s lips move in prayer (or…whispering along to their i-pods). It was a very surreal experience…much like I imagine Hajj is going to be like (minus the i-pods, I hope). On a more serious note. Mortality is definitely close on every one’s mind here. Everyone knows that those 9 people, could have been them. It’s amazing what that does to the human psyche. People treat each other differently…make different decisions about their interactions. It’s so interesting…and in some ways, comforting.

Contemplating the Human Condition,

-Sarrah

Salam Ya’ll,

I’ve developed a southern’ twang being here so long. No, I haven’t. They still make fun of how I say bag (pronounced bay-g). But, I have officially reached my one year anniversary in DC…well, kind of. I mean, if you don’t count those 4ish months I was traveling abroad, it’s officially been a year June 1st. It’s hard to imagine. It feels so long ago, but really it’s not, it’s just that people in my life keep growing up, moving on, getting engaged etc. Speaking of…the biggest news of my life is that my two brothers (on either side of me, the thirteen-year-old one is still single) have found themselves engaged within a month of one another. Good thing I really really really like the ladies they’ve chosen (see pictures), otherwise I might be a tad overwhelmed by it all…oh wait, I still am (in a good way).

In other news, I’m still at the Washington Scholarship Fund and have picked up another seemingly full-time job with MPSN (the Muslim Public Service Network). That’s the program that brought me out to DC in the first place. I was hired as the RA for the summer program and have since spent most of my free-time setting up the house, organizing the programing, unclogging mulberry filled drains in knee-deep water in the middle of thunderstorms and other, you know…normal activities. The new class of interns have almost all arrived and I was able to put my skills as a Girl Scout camper/employee to good use when planning the orientation that was held last weekend. It’s always fun to transfer fun-ness from one aspect of life to another. I’m really enjoying this year’s class. They are from all over and it is bound to be an interesting summer filled with great conversation, growth and laughs! In other news, I think I found my most favorite place to experience spring. DC is marvelous when it comes to flora. Each day I’d walk to work and have a whole new array of blossoms to ponder. At home, I think I knew what everything was named…I need to get myself a book for this side of the country! I have no clue what some of these flowers are! I’ve also had a close run-in with the fauna.

So…they have snakes on this side of those mountains. I was hiking at Great Falls national park the other day and one almost made a sandwich out of my ankle. After leaping away as it lunged for me (all that tai kwon do osmosis from having 4 black-belted siblings has really helped), I took a few pictures to figure out just how close I was to pain, death, etc and found out it was a Northeastern water snake (see picture). Apparently not poisonous, but painful. I’ll be more careful next time.

And finally… cow tipping. I never thought I’d have to have a serious conversation about such a silly concept, but sigh…these East Coaster’s just don’t know their stuff. Over brunch a couple of weeks ago, I was burdened with the responsibility of correcting their misconceptions about cow-tipping. I explained (ahem, *pushes glasses up on nose) that for one: cow’s don’t sleep standing up. For two: cows are huge and cannot be tipped by just pushing them over. And three: a cow WILL hear you coming and bolt if you come near it. When no one believed my cold hard facts, I resorted to wikipedia.com…which only confirmed my correctness. The trouble is…all this did nothing to help them stop making fun of me for being from Wisconsin. What can I say, I know my stuff and I love my state!

-Sarrah