Rukhsana Khan's Blog, page 14

Assessing engagement…

I guess I have to change the way I measure how engaged the kids are when I’m storytelling or presenting.

I’ve always looked at how much they move.

If I can hold them completely spellbound, where they forget to even move, so they all start stretching when the last word is said, then I thought I’d completely engaged them.

And while that still happens a lot, I had a few incidences this week that showed me that even when they squirm around a bit, they might still be completely engaged.

Schools sure have changed since I was growing up! We were made to sit for long stretches at a time, expecting not to move and to LISTEN!

More often than not, we daydreamed, but still, we were quiet and externally, at least, we looked like we were listening.

But I do remember being in the living room when my dad was talking to the uncles about politics or other things, I’d be completely immersed in whatever little game I was playing and yet I had an ear out to what they were saying too.

Well…with the introduction of so many special  needs children into the classrooms, presenting to groups has really changed!

It took me a while to get used to some of the whoops and hollers of some of the autistic kids at the back. It wasn’t until I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time that it occurred to me that maybe the teachers were right. Maybe the other kids had learned to tune out those noises and concentrate, nevertheless.

And…what’s really important, is that you just can’t tell how much of the presentation those autistic kids are absorbing and gaining from the presentation.

When I was at the Singapore American School I remember the moment the librarian informed me that during my exercise on sentence structure and syntax, the autistic kids had been leaning in, enthralled when I talked about the focus of a sentence. She’d been worried about them being disruptive! (I hadn’t even known they were there!)

Well this week was interesting. I did a skype visit for a school in Connecticut. King for a Day is up for the Connecticut Nutmeg award. Skype visits are a whole other animal! They’re extremely hard for a presenter! To do them properly you have to kind of ‘amplify’ yourself without looking like an idiot. It’s not easy. And because your focus should be on the camera, not the screen, you only ever see the audience out of your periphery, so gauging their reaction is difficult. Half the time it feels like you’re overcompensating. And yet the feedback has been excellent! The teacher emailed me and told me how excited the kids were and how much they had enjoyed it! And here I’d thought I hadn’t done such a good job.

And yesterday I visited a school as part of my Artist in the Library residency. It’s just up the road from the library but because of the job action the teachers can’t walk the kids to the library so I went there.

I got there early, I was supposed to start at 10:30, so I offered to do a little program for the kindergarteners as well because I felt bad that they’d be excluded from the assembly.

Well! When we got into the kindergarten room and the teacher informed them of this change in plans, the looks on the teachers’ faces were not pleased. Apparently the kids had just had a lot of ‘sit down’ time, and one little kid even said, “Awww!” when told he had to return to the carpet.

Well, I just looked at the teacher who’d escorted me and said, “We don’t have to do this.” And she cheerfully agreed, so we walked right out again.

My husband’s always telling me that I shouldn’t be pushing myself forward like that. And I always tell him that I just want the kids to benefit. And he’ll say something like, “Do you want to work that hard? Get over yourself!”

And he’s right.

I was doing the rest of the student body in the gymnasium, grades 1-5. I did my A New Life/Coming to Canada presentation, that’s always a good bet for such a diverse group.

There were about a hundred and forty kids. My ideal number is less than a hundred, but I had wanted to do the whole school.

Those extra forty kids really make a huge difference! I think it would have been better and even easier to do two smaller presentations even though the time commitment would have been double!

It’s hard to include so many kids into the presentation if you know what I mean. Basically a presenter needs to reach out and bring all the listeners into the fold and it’s just hard when there are so many.

And it seemed that some of the kids had problems sitting still.

Like I said, this seems to be more the norm these days.

I don’t make an issue out of it any more. Usually if the teachers aren’t stopping them, there’s a reason for it.

It’s really hard to present to kids who are so rambunctious and my first assumption is it’s me. I’m doing a terrible job. So what do I do? I try to amplify myself. I go BIGGER!

But it doesn’t always work.

What should have clued me in though, was how at key moments in the presentation, the children did get quiet. They paused, waiting to find out what would happen next in my narrative.

I wrapped things up to very good applause, and then I gathered up my stuff to leave and then what happens if the kids have been engaged, I get little stragglers. A little boy who’d been thrusting up his hand at several points to answer my questions, came up to me to tell me some connection he had to one of my stories. And a couple of the other kids too, came up to me, and just stood there in front of me with shy smiles, but not really saying anything. Really cute!

So I asked them if they liked the presentation and they nodded emphatically, and then their teachers called them or something and they had to go.

And as I was leaving the school, pulling my case behind me, trying to get through a line of kids, several of them greeted me, and called out how much they’d enjoyed it.

At 1:00 at the library I had my seniors memoir writing program and the ladies said something that made me almost blush! They said that I was so encouraging, so helpful that they really enjoyed  coming and that I’d been able to raise them to new heights of creativity!

And then later, as I was leaving after the last of my workshops, some of the kids who’d been at the school approached me in the foyer smiling and saying, “You came to our school!”

There were four of them. Two little girls and two little boys. And again it was like the shy stragglers at the assembly, and I realized right then that they really had been engaged! And this was them finding me ‘cool’ and wanting to be around me so that some of my ‘coolness’ would rub off on them, kind of, I think. (Just like I did with my grade five teacher Mr. Harrison.)

And I smiled and thought to myself, “Cool!”

Mid-residency…

Time flies when you’re really busy!

And having fun!

The second statement, the ‘fun’ one, I’m not so sure about right now. You know how when things are so intense, you’re just trying to keep everything straight, that you can’t really know if you’re actually having ‘fun’ or not.

Well that’s where I’m at right now.

I told my Public Speaking adult class that when you get nervous before a presentation, it means that you respect your audience. You care about doing a good job, not wasting their time, and it’s a good thing.

Well from the anxiety I feel before each and every workshop, I think I respect the workshop participants a LOT!

It’s been busy the last few weeks.

I’ve been continuing with the programs at Downsview Public Library. The turnout ebbs and flows. Just when I’d resigned myself to having one very determined journal writer for my adult Writing program, a bunch of people showed up! It was almost crowded! One of the ladies was working on a thesis and wanted help, the others wanted to know about writing fiction.

Each group is so different, and the people are so interesting! From the kids who come to the writing and public speaking programs, to the teens, fifteen year old boys who are eager to hone their public speaking skills (one of whom wants to be a sort of motivational speaker!) to the seniors who are working on their memoirs.

I’m seeing so many little breakthroughs!

The girls who are a little shy are really blossoming! The boys who are sometimes full of a few too many antics are calming down. The fifteen year old boy who wants to address social issues chucked the powerpoint he’d developed and spoke from his heart about his experiences in such an effective way that it brought tears to my eyes!

And there were tears in the seniors’ program too as some of the writings were coming very close to home. One of the ladies remarked that the writing was almost therapy. And another lady was surprised when I remembered details of her story from last week. She said I had such a good memory, and I told her it was because they were all so interesting!

And I told them that I find people, in general, fascinating. And that when I meet them I’m trying to reconcile their character and personalities with what I see of them.

I encouraged the ladies to give me some of their writings so I could comment and give them feedback on them, and many of the ladies took me up on the offer. I’ve been reading pages and pages of an Asian lady’s memoir. It’s fascinating! She’s been through so many interesting experiences. And as I read I’m thinking of how she can further shape the story to make it even better.

Part of the residency involved inviting schools in the area to partake of free author presentations at the library. But because the TDSB schools are still involved in job actions, I got permission from my supervisor to instead do outreach in the schools.

I’ve been to two different schools so far. I went to Ancaster P.S., a small school of about 105 kids, and I went to Blaydon P.S. which had closer to 170.

At the Ancaster school I did my A New Life/Coming to Canada presentation where I talked about the immigrant experience and how I became an author, always bringing it back to how very valuable libraries are! And of course mentioning my residency and the programs that I’m doing–for free! I was supposed to do the grades 1-5 but when I got there, I found out there were only about fifty kindergarteners so I did another presentation for them, a short one, where I focused on Big Red Lollipop, just so they’d be included too.

I did the same at Blaydon P.S.. Just did a mini presentation for the kindergarteners.

But at the Blaydon school they gave me the choice of which presentation to do for the older kids so I decided on The Roses in My Carpets. It’s funny but these days I haven’t had as much chance to do that presentation and it really is my favorite.

We went up to the library, and the kids, grade three to five, came in so it was pretty crowded.

By the time everyone was settled I only had about forty-five minutes, but I’ve done it in less so I just went ZOOM!

What I’ve learned is that doing the presentation quickly can actually be more effective than doing it slowly. I think it’s because with all the techno gadgets, kids are actually used to be engaged at a faster level than what they experience in school. In school teachers try to take their time, really get them to comprehend things.

But actually what I find is that the kids will only get so much anyway. You need to tell them a good story! Information sticks so much better in anyone’s mind if it’s attached to a story, so my Roses presentation is perfect in that regard!

It’s basically a story of me writing a story, and the reason why the kids care is because they realize the personal investment I have in writing the story.

Honestly, I always say my Roses presentation is a presentation I would pay to watch! I do think it’s that good. And the fact that I’ve been able to do it in some pretty sketchy schools, where kids can be pretty scary, speaks volumes!

Usually it even gets to the point where if one kids starts talking, the others will shush them because they want to hear what I have to say.

One of the girls in my workshops was in the audience. She’d already seen me do the presentation in the public speaking workshop she’d been attending and I worried that she might find it boring to see again. She assured me afterwards, “Not at all.”

It was neat having an insider who knew the other kids at the presentation. She told me that one of the teachers had started crying. I told her that wasn’t unusual.

And she said that one of the girls who hates reading and books had pronounced my presentation ‘excellent’.

It turned out she was one of the kids who’d been clamoring for my autograph at the end of the session. And the funny thing is when the kids ran out of paper, they had me sign the tops of their hands.

The first time I’d been asked to sign body parts, t-shirts and hats, I refused. But now I just do it. What the heck?!

At one point of the presentation I raised my voice because I was saying something pretty passionate about video games. She told me that I had scared some of the kids when I did that. And yet it was appropriate.

I turned it into a public speaking lesson, pointing out to her the different techniques I’d used.

Ah, teachable moments!

I haven’t had a chance to do much writing. Honestly between lesson planning and organizing stuff and just keeping the house half decent, I don’t have the time, but I’m sure everything I’m learning is all grist for the mill!

Life, death and Tenterhooks…

My cousin died last week.

Inna lillahi wa inna ilaihi rajioon

It affected me deeply.

This was not just any old cousin, he was three months older than me, the second oldest in my generation, and now, with my older sister gone and him gone, I’m the oldest, and it feels…weird.

It feels kind of lonely. Like I’m at the edge of a precipice.

And then I did something silly.

I have a deeply held belief that once a person is prepared for burial, washed and wrapped in their shroud, no one should look at them again.

I would definitely not want anyone gawking at my dead face while I’m laying there helpless.

It’s even in my will.

Once I’m washed, I don’t care who they are, they’re not seeing me.

I drove all the way down to Hamilton to attend my cousin’s janaza prayer. And while I was mingling with family, my auntie, his mother, told me to go take a look at him, they’d be closing the lid of the pine box soon and wheeling it to the head of the congregation, and being curious, I went to take a peek.

That one quick glance is etched in my mind. It’s the last glimpse of him and I’ll remember it over all the other times I saw him, and I deeply regret it.

I do believe you have to take yourself to task.

Once you’ve established a principle, you need to try to stick to it, and yet yes, there are times you will be weak and violate your principle.

Mostly everyone does. I know I do.

I slip up at times, despite the best of my intentions.

And at this moment, curiosity got the better of me.

When I was telling a friend of mind about my lapse, she kept trying to insist that it wasn’t a lapse.

And that got me frustrated. I wanted to tell her that look, the biggest sin is not sinning, it’s not being honest enough to own it.

When I sin, and I do sin, I try to own it, and ask God for forgiveness. And then I try not to do it again. I think that’s a heck of a lot better than pretending I never did anything wrong.

Anyway, I was so sad about my cousin’s death I also lapsed in terms of my determination not to eat sugar. Ooh nelly! Boy did I ever! Doesn’t help that halloween candy’s on sale!

Anyway, I’m going to try to get back on track.

As for the tenterhooks, my Blue Jays, Toronto’s baseball team, of which I am a huge fan! Were on the brink of elimination from the ALDS series. They came back to even the series and tomorrow is the final game that decides it all.

On tenterhooks!!!

Oh, and there’s an election coming up. I really really hope we have a change of leadership!

I’ve never hoped it more in my life!

May God have mercy on us!

 

Ego checks and balances…

The first time I did my Saturday storytelling session at the Downsview Public Library I did it in the children’s section because I thought the kids would gravitate over and listen.

Two kids did, and their mother sat with them and one person peeked at me around a bookcase, from where she was sitting, so I counted her too.

The other people in the area basically ignored me, the intrusion, and I felt like a fool.

Thing is, in this business, you will feel like a fool, often.

It’s got a very humbling aspect to it.

And that’s going to be true no matter what, because basically you’re putting yourself out there. And when you put yourself out there, you risk getting ignored and basically feeling like a fool.

Luckily though, the feeling doesn’t last long.

I think it comes down to the ‘stigma’ of libraries. People really do think if it’s free, it can’t be very good.

Not realizing that no, my programs are not free. I’m getting paid for them, and I’m getting paid well.

And yet I still feel almost guilty when no one turns up.

So yesterday, when I showed up early for the Saturday storytelling again, I went into the office and made the announcement that the storytelling was going to start myself. I used my sunniest voice, and I told them that I’d be in the program room, (no more trying to make myself heard in the children’s section) and then I went into the program room and I waited for anyone to show up. Unfortunately they did not.

So I spent the time working on a picture book idea that’s been niggling at me for a long time.

At least until the kids in the writing program showed up.

This time we tackled a ‘real’ story, not a ‘magic mittens’ type of fantasy. I asked the kids what they were afraid of and one of them said snakes, so we began an adventure story where he went to Africa, Egypt to be exact, because he wanted to ride camels and then a spitting cobra showed up.

I took a few moments to explain that Egyptian spitting cobras are extremely aggressive and will attack you even if  you leave them alone, spitting venom in your eyes to blind you.

So the boy decided that the spitting cobra bit his camel and it fell and died, and he landed underneath it, trapped and calling for help.

I started the exercise with the one boy who arrived first and as three other girls arrived, I added them to the story.

The biggest lesson they got from the exercise was that any story has to make sense.

Two of the girls were going to try to distract the spitting cobra and we decided they’d brought swim goggles because they were going to go swimming later, but when one of the girl’s wanted not only to put on the swim goggles but to change into her swimming suit I said, “Wait a minute! That doesn’t make sense.”

And she said, “But we’re going swimming later.”

I said, “But you’ve got … (the boy character) stuck under this dead camel calling for help, and this spitting cobra coming at you, are you really going to take the time to change into a swim suit? And,” I added, “How are you going to change out in the open like that? You going to let … (the boy character) see you change?”

She said, “He’s under the camel, on the other side.”

I said, “Nope, you still have to make it make sense.”

It was pretty funny when the same girl said they’d taunt the cobra to get him to chase them by saying, “Cobra! Cobra–Obra!!!”

These kids! They’re so funny!

So we finished up the story and it came out pretty well. The boy did complain a bit about being stuck under the camel for so long, but all in all, it was an enlightening exercise.

When the other kids showed up for the public speaking it was almost crowded with seven of them.

We didn’t even have time to hear all of their stories, so it occurred to me maybe it is better if there are fewer.

I had them practice telling their stories with ‘microphones’. I explained the difference between universal and directional mics and I gave them two different types of markers to represent each kind of mic.

When they lowered the mics or didn’t pay attention to them, I’d call out, “I can’t hear you!” And they’d immediately fix the mic position.

I think next week I’m going to give them the assignment to bring in a factual presentation, like a power point about anything they find interesting. During one of the public speaking sessions, I ended up telling scientific ‘stories’ of how the universe formed to the two kids who attended. I was priming the kids for just such a presentation.

Oh they had so many questions! I could barely tell them how stars would burn out and if they were large enough they’d collapse upon themselves and turn into supernovas and when the supernovas exploded they created all the heavier elements and caused the dust that we’re all made of, before they had other questions.

I want to make sure that the kids can not just tell stories up on a stage, but rather they can deliver informative presentations too.

The sessions go for about eight to ten weeks but I’m starting to wonder if that’s going to be enough time!

There’s so much to cover!

I can only do my best, but with the erratic attendance, I find myself repeating myself a lot.

Again, it’s all very humbling. But fun! Lots of fun!

Little victories…

Maybe it helps that I do believe that everything I do, and everywhere I am, I am meant to be doing or being in that specific moment in time.

There’s no such thing as no impact.

I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that there are times I wish more people would take advantage of the free programs I’m doing at Downsview Library. It feels weird to be paid so much when only a handful of people show up for your program.

You almost wonder if the library will think, forget it! It’s not worth it. And yet it seems the library system doesn’t think in that way. They think more in terms of impact.

As long as even a few people are benefiting, really benefiting, they’re happy.

It almost feels like the library system is the biggest kept secret in the city.

But anyway, I just have to share something that happened this last week.

In my last post I talked about a painfully shy ten year old girl who had reluctantly come to my public speaking workshop.

Well… I feel like I had a huge breakthrough with her! And with her counterpart, the ten year old very boisterous boy.

And I realized that it can be really nice to have fewer kids in a session because then you can tailor the lesson to their needs more carefully.

Last spring I was chosen for the Toronto Library Sophie’s Studio workshop series. In developing the writing sessions for the kids at Downsview Public Library I built upon my experience there. This isn’t ‘school’. The workshops have to be fun enough that the kids want to come! They want to play mostly and learn secondly.

When I gave the children (5-8) time to do some writing in the last session, I realized that some of them were so young they lacked basic writing skills. So for this last Thursday’s session, I decided I’d take the writing ‘work’ out of the equation. I’d do the writing, and they’d simply do the story creating.

Basically I was the ‘secretary’ jotting down their story as they created it, guiding them through the process where I had to and in the process they’d learn organically what works in creating a story.

One of the creative exercises I’ve always used to show children story structure is creating a story about one of the kids in the group having a pair of magic mittens that when they put them on, they can make any wish they wish.

I went back to that premise with the two little boys that showed up. One was a very young boy, about six years old, and he had his little brother (about three years old) with him. His mom was in the background. Since nobody else had arrived at that point, I let the toddler stay and contribute to the story.

Within five minutes the boisterous ten year old boy, who has been coming to almost all my writing and public speaking sessions, arrived and I added him to the mix as one of the characters in the story. And then the very very shy girl, that I mentioned earlier, she arrived as well.

The six year old who began the story process, wanted to use his magic mittens to blow up the world. The shy girl said, “No, then everyone will die!” and so I added that to the story. We had conflict!!!

The six year old boy and his three year old brother ended up becoming the antagonists of the story, and the other three worked at what they could do to stop him.

The ten year old boy said his character kept falling asleep, which was funny, but not very dramatic.

Then another nine year old girl arrived and she too was added to the mix. Her job was to search the cave for magic potions.

The ten year old woke up and decided to use ‘picks’ to defuse a bomb that the six year old had created and the shy girl was poking the six year old with the magic mittens, who had turned himself invisible.

Oh it got heated!

And exciting!

The extremely shy girl was actually shouting out her plot suggestions all in good fun!

And so we created a nifty little story that even had a sweet little resolution!

In the end, the shy girl got the magic mittens away from the six year old, wished that all of them would have their own pair of magic mittens and that the six year old and his little brother were sent to a planet of their own with their own magic mittens so that they could blow up their own world as often as they liked!

And later, when that shy little girl, actually stood up to tell a story to the rest of us…well I felt very proud! That within three sessions she had come such a long way!

Oh, and with regards the boisterous ten year old boy…I got him to look at a story with some depth. My own booklet Not Guilty.

My first real week of the Artist Residency

Alhamdu lillah, this is the second week of the Artist in the Library residency. I’m feeling a little better about the refugee situation.

As soon as possible, we’re going to be donating to some refugee camps in Jordan. We’re budgeting for about $500. (I wasn’t going to say the amount but hey, if it encourages anyone else to donate, why not? right?)

Our masjid is sponsoring some Syrian families and the donations are good alhamdu lillah!

I have contacts who know trustworthy people there who can distribute funds. They are saying the situation is dire, many refugees are starving and since the Ontario government and even the stingy conservative government has finally opened up to accepting refugees coming here (thank God!!!) then I try to see where the need is the greatest.

I’m so fortunate to get this grant! For three months I’ll be doing writing and public speaking programs and opening myself up to the community that is served by Downsview Public Library. It’s quite different from Fairview library that I did last year. This area seems a little less affluent.

It was a busy week of the residency and although the numbers have been small (compared to Fairview) the impact has been interesting.

On Wednesday afternoon a mother dragged her daughter into my writing session. In whispers she spoke to her, and I could see the girl trying to argue back but eventually the mother left to wait outside in the main book area.

I was still in the midst of teaching two little six year olds some writing skills. We were talking about stories, and how they need to have a problem and I was doing my ‘magic mitten’ exercise. Every once in a while I glanced over at the girl and I could see her eyes were shiny with tears, although she was able to keep it together enough so that I never actually saw any teardrops fall.

“Are you all right?” I asked. And she nodded hastily.

I continued working with the two children, one a boy and the other a little girl, and I tried to keep it light and funny, and as we worked, the older girl unfolded her legs from the chair she was sitting on and let them touch the floor.

She was actually here for the tween public speaking workshop. But she’d been dropped off early for the children’s writing session.

So at 4:00 the only other kid who’d registered for the tween public speaking, a bold little guy who had attended a lot of the other sessions, arrived and we started the public speaking workshop.

Both of the older children couldn’t have been more different! The boy was outspoken, I had to actually reign him in to be a better speaker and the girl was so shy it was painful.

I highly doubted I’d be able to get her to open up enough to tell a story. And at one point I said that if I could just mash the boy and the girl together I’d have a perfect public speaker, I saw the girl smile.

At the end she did tell a story. She told a version of the three little pigs (a staple when it comes to storytelling) and as she spoke, very quietly, but distinctly, she was unsure of which version of the tale to use showing that she was quite knowledgeable.

When her mother showed up to pick her up, she asked me about other public speaking sessions her daughter could attend and I told her about the Saturday session but then I told her also about the writing session. The girl spoke up, she wanted to attend both of them! And her mother scolded her with an ‘I told you so’ that she’d enjoy it!

Sure enough she attended both sessions on Saturday, but this time, because there were more children attending (six including the outspoken boy who’d been at the Wednesday class) she was too shy to participate in the telling. I have hopes she’ll open up more by the end of the program.

One thing that has been surprising to me is how popular the seniors’ program “The Essence of Memoir” has been. I had eight people registered and the stories these seniors have to tell are amazing!

One of the ladies wrote about leaving Seoul during the war when the North invaded. The family had left without finding out what happened to her sister. They’d been informed that she had died only to find out decades later that she was alive, but in North Korea.

After many bureaucratic hurdles they were able to visit her. The sister is in her eighties!

The seniors were very enthusiastic about writing! And in fact one of the ladies wrote a piece that was so poetic, I told her there was nothing I could do to improve it! It didn’t need to be turned into found poetry! The Korean lady had written a piece and I illustrated how I wanted them to turn it into found poetry.

At the end of the session, one of the other ladies, from Taiwan I believe, had questions and stayed behind to discuss them with me.

Her memory was from something her mother had told her, and I helped her transcribe it into a found poem that was quite remarkable in the power of its imagery. I was particularly happy when she said that she didn’t like the way I’d transcribed one of her statements. She thought it should be written in a different way, and I thought to myself, “Good! She’s taking creative control of this herself!”

The experience of dealing with these seniors was very rewarding for me as an artist. Writing often includes sketching different types of characters and these were people I’d never come across before.

I learned a lot from them and I look forward to learning more.

The residency is such an intense experience! I work so hard, but alhamdu lillah, it gives me a lot to ponder over as well.

Writing through heartache…

I know I promised more posts about my trip to Spain and Portugal.

I had it all planned out, I’d write about Don Quixote, that most famous of Spanish heroes and his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza, but life interrupted.

It was funny.

All during my time in Spain and Portugal, I was having such a lovely time and yet underneath it all, I had a feeling of impending doom.

All this summer in fact, I felt like something very bad was coming, but I did not know what it is.

I often get premonitions that warn me ahead of things or even reassure me that certain things will work out just fine.

They’re not something I count on in any way. I just get feelings that either something hard is going to happen or something good will.

And when the Syrians started walking, it began.

And the picture, the famous picture of three year old Alan Kurdi hit me like a truck going 70 mph.

And I cried for days.

One night I couldn’t sleep, all I could do was imagine my spare room as a home for Syrian family, and then part of me thought, no, it will never work. And then I thought of other means, and practicality just kept hitting me in the face.

And I thought of when the companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who were being tortured so much by the Qureish, left their homes in Mecca for the long walk to Medina and how the Ansar took them in, into their own homes, and for the first time in my life it really hit me how generous the people of Medina had been.

How do you open your home to a strange family?

What if they turn out to be jerks? What if they take advantage? What if they steal? What if they don’t clean up after themselves? What if they refuse to leave?

All of satan’s whisperings when you want to do something good but you know you’re not capable.

And I thought what if I just donate. Donate time, donate books, donate part of my weekly allowance. Money I’d normally use to buy a coffee or get my haircut, I don’t absolutely need a haircut, I can live with it in my eyes and just tie it and clip it back and look shaggy right? I’m wearing hijab anyway, it’s not like anyone will see!

And I thought no, that’ll just be a drop in the bucket. And I thought why is it so different from before?

Before the government would step in! We wouldn’t have had to individually step up and promise to cover a refugee family’s costs for a year, a sum of about $27,000 which is a burden on any family.

And I still kept thinking of ways we might manage it, what if my whole family pitched in? What if? What if?

And then I realized why it’s so hard now. It’s because of Stephen Harper. He only wants to let in the Christians.

No Muslims.

And apparently he returned 235 million dollars which was budgeted for refugees, because they never spent it this year.

And I thought, Aha! So there is a budget for this!

And with the election coming up he’s bragging about a billion dollar surplus not revealing the fact that it’s because he cut so many veteran programs and refugee programs and social assistance programs, he’s skimming off the backs of the poor and I cry again for what Canada has turned into.

Cold.

Heartless.

And when I logged on to write this blog, I see this long message from this woman from New Brunswick who says we don’t need refugees or immigrants and I can understand why many people feel that way.

And then the other day, I saw a cartoon by that horrible Charlie Hebdo, mocking the death of that baby Alan Kurdi, and I posted it on Facebook saying I was never Charlie and I wonder, of all my Facebook friends, who still #jesuischarlie and I thought of all the latent racism that exists and I wondered for a moment if I had the guts to challenge them all, ask them to reveal themselves.

http://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2015/09/167835/charlie-hebdo-mocks-the-death-of-syrian-child-aylan-kurdi/

I wanted to write:

“Who is still Charlie Hebdo? Who agrees with this? Tell me, so I can know who is for this despicable cartoon??? And I can be warned against you!”

But I didn’t, because that would not be gracious, and us immigrants, we need to be ‘gracious’. We need to turn the other cheek.

Outrage is not our right or privilege. We are supposed to be grateful just to be here.

No matter how many years we’ve lived in Canada (50)!

No matter how many taxes we’ve paid!

No matter how much we follow Canadian politics and not Pakistani politics (I don’t even know who’s running!)!

No matter how much we’ve invested in this beautiful country, we’ll always be immigrants and we need to tread carefully!

Right?

We need to be grateful!

Right?

We need to not be angry at every injustice.

Just swallow it, and be patient!

Right!

But sometimes it’s hard.

And you have to do something to let it out, or it will poison the writing. It will leach into the story, so I’m writing it here, and I will be fine, really I will.

But it will take some time. That’s all.

And I will do my best to help the Syrians, like I would have helped anyone who was running from war.

Because we’re all one race, the human race, and we need to be kind to each other.

That’s the Canadian thing to do.

And then I saw this beautiful video and it made me cry more, but also it gives me hope because despite all the ugly bigots out there, there are still that businessman who’d never helped anyone but handed out water for the Syrians because his heart was moved. And so there is hope. Watch this video to the end! It’s worth it!

https://www.facebook.com/suliman.m.abdalla/videos/10203451222560113/?pnref=storyhttps://www.facebook.com/suliman.m.abdalla/videos/10203451222560113/?pnref=story

 

Portugal…

This is what I wrote in the little journal I took with me on the trip:

Subhan Allah, what an amazing trip it’s been.

I guess places have different associations in your mind.

In terms of Portugal I kept thinking of this delicate Portuguese storyteller I met in Iran, who blew everyone away with the power of her stories.

Her name was Anna Sophia and all while we drove through the hills of Portugal, I thought of her. And I kept wondering, even though it was HIGHLY unlikely, if I’d run into her.

What surprised me the most was how run down Portugal is. We were in the main square of Lisbon and there were buildings in need of maintenance and repair, and it just looked tired.

The countryside had yellow grass and looked parched and at one point in Lisbon, at a time when it should have been rush hour, the streets seemed empty.

But then it was Sunday.

It was downright chilly in Portugal, which I of course loved! Everyone else complained. Some of the ladies had brought nothing but t-shirts and shorts so they were cold.

I loved Cabo de Roca, basically the western-most point in Europe. We were warned not to go outside the hand-railed areas, which was hilarious because people were doing just that, all over the place.

It’s a very windy area, and the plants have thick succulent leaves and lie low to the ground, as if even they’re afraid of being blown off. Our guide told us that with the wind there were people who’d fallen to their deaths.

I think Cabo de Roca was my favourite in Portugal although there were other beautiful sights too.

We did go to see the Our Lady of Fatima site, and I have mixed feelings about that.

I really don’t want to be disrespectful towards the Catholic community so I will try to put this as delicately as possible.

I just was very skeptical about the whole miracle behind the Our Lady of Fatima business.

Basically the story goes that way back, when Portugal was being purged of Muslims there was a famous knight who fell in love with a local girl whose name was Fatima. He wanted to marry her so he went to the church and they said he could if she converted and changed her name, which she did. They got married and during childbirth she died, and he dedicated a forest or something to her memory, under Fatima.

Well centuries later, in 1916 I think, these three very poor shepherd children saw a vision in the hills of either the virgin Mary, or Fatima, not sure. And from that, came the miracle.

When we went to the actual site of the miracle it was basically a paved area where there was a shrine on one side. It’s a place of pilgrimage and they were preparing for the hundredth anniversary when the Pope would arrive to do a mass.

I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make much sense to me. To take the word of three children, and make it into a big miracle.

Mind you, when I went to Pakistan and India, there was all kinds of similar stuff. “Miracles” and ‘holy’ sites and stuff, and that’s just not what religion means to me.

I’ll probably touch more on this because I saw an awful lot of similarities between the Catholic cathedrals and masjids in Pakistan where they have adopted a lot of superstition.

Basically I came away from that area with a better understanding why so many atheists view religion with such suspicion.

Back in Lisbon, they’d built a “Christ the King” monument on the top of the cliffs above Lisbon, on the other side of the river. It’s a HUGE statue modeled upon the statue of the same name, that looks down over Rio de Janeiro, and has become such an icon for Rio.

Since Brazil was once a colony of Portugal and is the only South American country that still speaks Portuguese (I think) it’s a bit of the case of the father mimicking the son, if you ask me.

Oh there was a sticky bit when we went to the Christ the King monument. Going up the 80 m. elevator  to the top then requires you to go through what kind of amounts to a crawl space that’s meant for single file, perhaps for maintenance workers but now they charge admission and you’re basically forced to squeeze past other people waiting for the elevator going down and then up a tight claustrophobic spiral staircase to an upper level where the view is, I have to admit, quite pretty. But I’m still not sure if that horrible climb was worth it!

It was a Chinese tour group and a lot of the people have asked us what a Muslim couple was doing on a Chinese tour.

What has been surprising to me is how unfriendly to Muslims these countries are. They don’t label pork products whatsoever! And often pork is side by side permissible items and with the way many people use the same tongs for different stuff on the buffet… it makes me squirm.

Today we went to Gibraltar and my older sister Bushra and her son, my nephew, were in my thoughts all the time.

She had wanted to take her son Tariq to Gibraltar on his 20th birthday or something as some sort of symbolic act but she never lived till the day. I wonder if Tariq has been there.

Gibraltar is named after Tariq bin Ziad who arrived in 711 from north Africa and famously burned his ships.

Gibraltar is an English colony. Very tiny, very dramatic with the huge rock of Gibraltar looming over the lower town. They brought maqaques to colonize the rock, and they’re everywhere when you get off the tiny bus that takes you up the mountain.

The rock seems to be a big hunk of limestone and is riddled with beautiful caves, especially the cave of St. Michael which they’ve turned into a sort of natural theatre.

We had the most lovely British style fish & chips in the shop casement area, which used to be a prison with iron maidens and stuff but now it’s a posh little shopping tourist district.

Spain and Portugal…

I’m sorry for taking so long to do a blog post. I’ve been away on vacation and it’s been so overwhelming catching up upon my return that it’s taken me a while.

It’s like I’m digesting all the things I saw in Spain and Portugal, all the ideas that percolated through the sand in my mind to be refined into new ideals within myself.

Interestingly enough my husband said that after Spain, Toronto seems kind of boring. And there’s some truth in that. But at the same time is that necessarily a bad thing?

You don’t want the place you call home to be too dramatic, do you? Safe is kind of boring, and you definitely want it safe.

The funny thing is that it’s gotten to the point with me, that getting on an airplane is not my idea of fun. But at the same time, I’ve always wanted to see Spain, and particularly the Al Hambra, ever since I read the final bit of The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery where the Barney Snaith character praises it and tells Valancy Sterling (the heroine) that it’s as close to her blue castle as she’s ever going to physically get.

I’ve seen documentaries on The Al Hambra. I’ve seen numerous pictures, especially of the lion fountain in the women’s quarters where the lions (that look kind of like sheep) spout water out of their mouths. It’s the highlight of the Al Hambra apparently, and I wondered if it would be like Stonehenge, where I’d immersed myself in the significance of the place so much that actually going there would be a huge let down.

It was not.

Walking through the enchanted halls of the Al Hambra was like nothing I had imagined! At every turn, in every quarter, I kept uttering, “Wow!” automatically, without realizing it was coming out of my lips.

It is simply something that needs to be experienced.

It was so beautiful in fact that the Spanish people did not destroy it.

Oh it became derelict over time but even through the ruins and the looting people like Washington Irving could still see the romance and beauty of what it had once been and the Spanish government took it upon themselves to restore it and not only is it a world Unesco heritage site it is the most famous tourist destination in Spain.

They limit the number of people who go there though to about eight thousand. The tickets you purchase are time stamped and if you are late by more than twenty minutes you miss your turn to enter.

And yet I have a strange reticence in revealing all the things I’ve been up to.

Came across a hadith of the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) where he said something like: Be discreet in order to achieve what you want for everyone who is blessed is envied.

And it’s funny but I’d been coming to that conclusion on my own. I’m tending to hold my projects a lot closer to my chest, letting fewer and fewer people see them until they’ve come to fruition. I didn’t even want to mention I was going to Spain and Portugal before I went. But now that it’s a fait accomplie then it’s kind of safe.

The most curious thing was that as I was making my way through the beauty of the Al Hambra complex I kept wondering, and I kept asking God, “Why? Why did you allow these people, who created such beauty, to fall? And fail?”

And as often happens, the answer came in the form of an inspiration, a little while later. A little voice that said, “Because they were not good.”

And even as it occurred to me, I thought of how my own life’s journey has molded me into the person I am, and I often wonder, if I hadn’t been so persecuted, and known the pain of persecution would I have become someone who vows not to perpetrate it on someone else?

And having grown up in the shadow of western society, instead of only admiring its accomplishments, I have also grown to see its shortcomings and seen where my own Muslim upbringing has aspects that are superior and that sustain me through the mess of crass materialism.

And growing up, didn’t I view it as a competition? Didn’t I feel for the first stage of my existence that I was hopelessly outclassed by my Judeo-Christian environment? Didn’t I feel inferior? And didn’t I gradually come to see that true value has nothing to do with material possessions but rather has to do with the evolution of one’s character?

If I too had been born to the opulence of the Al Hambra without having seen any other reality, how would I have ever learned such lessons?

The original Moors who carved so faithfully into the marble walls, “The only conqueror is God” must have believed that adage faithfully, but for the generations that followed, such a text must have been no more than a sweet sentiment and part of the decoration.

My feeling of horror grew as the tour guide told us about some of the things that happened in those beautifully carved halls.

There is a verse in the Quran that urges believers to travel through the world and see what became of the people who have gone before, and it’s one of the reasons why I love to travel so much. I love history! I don’t care about the beaches on the Mediterranean we visited. Sure I could appreciate the sunset on the beautiful waters and the peace of it, but what I really love is to see the ruins of former civilizations and figure out how they went from so great a stature to such rubble.

It is both humbling and illuminating, and it reminds me yet again of the adage that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

I will be writing more about my Spain and Portugal trip. There is SO much to say!

But this is enough for now.

 

 

 

Out growing friends…

Had lunch with a very dear friend over the weekend and during the course of the conversation I told her something, just in a matter of fact way, and afterwards I was struck with how true the statement was.

I was telling her how the more successful I’ve become, how certain friends and family members had basically dropped me.

It’s been difficult because I never planned to change.

Haven’t we all seen TV shows that demonstrate how fame and success can change a person, turn them obnoxious and snooty?

Well I vowed that wouldn’t happen to me, and as I’ve always mentioned on the blog, I’ve been really fortunate to be surrounded by down to earth family members who love me enough to tell me like it is, and prick my bloated swelled-up head if need be, to let the steam out!

Such modest success that I have had, hasn’t changed me, and yet I have felt a difference from both family members and friends and I told my friend that it’s become rather lonely, that it really is ‘lonely at the top’.

Not that I’m at the top yet, but I’m significantly more successful than some of the people I grew up around.

But why?

When I’ve been constantly reaching out and trying to maintain our relationships to the point where I felt like it was one-sided so I stopped.

It’s always been my policy that when people say negative things to me, the first thing I do is ask myself if what they said is true. So when a close family member started in on me, “Oh well, you’re a world famous author! And you travel all over the world! And …”

I couldn’t believe what he was saying. This is a very successful professional.

Oh well.

I guess you can’t have everything.

I could have given my writer friends the support they needed to be successful too. I even tried with one person in particular.

This person was absolutely fantastic at marketing, social media and ideas! It was her writing that wasn’t that good.

I urged her to develop her writing skills, and yeah, I probably didn’t handle the situation in the most diplomatic way, but my advice was good.

I always give good advice! Even to people I don’t like, but this was a person I did like–a lot! And so I gave her extra special good advice, work on your writing! But alas.

And consequently she dumped me as a friend. It still stings.

But it was nice to get together with this dear old friend.

And I plan to keep it that way.

She said that as she’s aged she thinks it’s important to keep in touch with friends and I couldn’t agree more.

We’ve planned to meet again in about six months.

You’d be surprised!

Six months comes faster than you’d think!