Driven by Curiosity…

Probably we are the first generation to grow up with the Internet as a routine part of our lives. We have taken to this technology effortlessly. But unfortunately, the same can not be said about our parents… This knowledge gap is very intimidating for our parents, who have to scramble to keep up with this very weird world.

I honestly get very impressed when I talk to my parents on skype, because I remember the first time they bought a computer for themselves, and what a big deal it was for them. They would rotate in calling me or one of my brothers or sisters every day wherever we were to tell us that a disaster happened and something is not working! My parents decided to face their worst nightmare and learn how to use this terrifying … terrifying … TERRIFYING thing because they wanted to stay in touch with us my sisters, brothers and me… we happen to be one of these families who are scattered around the planet…… and since I have spent my entire life fighting relentlessly with my dad, given that I always thought we are SO different… now I have been comprehending that maybe the problem is that we have always been too similar…… I think learning how to communicate using the Internet is the sweetest thing that my parents or anyone have ever done for me!!! Because I can imagine how hard it was, and I know it was done for pure love.

I mean the patience and effort my parents have put to learn how to print, where to find the letters, how to open the internet, how to check their emails and reply to them, how to chat with us, and now to skype is simply remarkable. I remember once at the very beginning of that computer days…I was chatting with my mom, and I sent her a photo on the internet, it took me TWO hours on chat to tell her how to open the bloody thing… we got stuck at drag the window to open it, she just could not comprehend the coordination between clicking the mouse and dragging the window at the same time… after the two hours she really got frustrated and told me “ khabast il dinia… I will wait till your dad comes” which means I screwed up, I have no idea what I have done, leave me alone! and I just laughed from the bottom of my heart, because for the first time I understood that we take this whole internet for granted, but actually it is not that intuitive.… we waited till Mr. Man our hero Mr. Dad came to save the day.

Now I see that not only they know how to use it, but they BRAG about it to their ignorant friends, which is always enough to bring an amused smile to my face…. I know that I have been talking a lot about my parents, but I am having a feeling that I have not felt in a really long time… I am homesick!

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I would still write after my silly emotional outburst yesterday… but I promise it was not a cry for attention as much as a strong emotional reaction to some feedback I was given when I was off guard…. In a bad moment I wanted to throw everything out of the window I sometimes react too strongly and feel stupid afterwards Anyway… to answer a question Nader asked once, where do I know these people from? I have always been involved in social work… and through this work I have met many interesting people that do not follow the same streamline we follow in our daily routines… also, I am the type who chats with everyone, maids, sales people, doctors, taxi drivers… and oh boy the stories you hear… but really the best well of stories you could ever imagine if you are one of those people who have a natural eagerness to learn from life is available in Saudi, when all these women are sitting around without anything to do… just open your ears and indulge….

Anyway… I caught my friend S. online few days ago. S. appears to have made an awful mess of her life. I don't know any one who has covered so much ground in such a short space of time. Since her graduation she has been married, has had a baby boy and lost him at birth, divorced her husband, quarreled with her family. There seems to have been no reason for her divorce from the ORDINARY point of view; the marriage just simply didn't work. They weren't compatible… She was brought up on the theory that MARRIAGE is not only siter for a women but an achievement… “siter is another word that I hate especially when coupled with the word marriage, as if women are daireen 3ala 7il sha3irhom waiting for this Mr. man to yustorhom! ikh… sometimes our culture has hateful expressions.

When she finished university, she was naturally eager to start on her career, but M.’s family presented themselves in the old fashioned way. Her family scanned him and his family closely, and found him perfect in every respect…good family, good morals, good Financial position, good looking. S. was in love with him. Ever since she was 16 her mother was taking her to every wedding in Amman maybe ibn il 7alal would see her… She had a big wedding and lots of new clothes and dozens of embroidered towels. Everything looked propitious.

But as they began to get acquainted, they realized they were fundamentally different… they didn't like the same books or jokes or people or amusements…. they did not share the same political opinions, or religious principals or even methods of children raising…. they often found themselves on two different extremes. I suppose most traditional, orthodox people would think it awful to break up a marriage on such innocent grounds. It seemed so to me at first; but as she went on piling up detail on detail each trivial in itself, but making a mountainous total, I agreed with S. that it was awful to keep it going. It wasn't really a marriage; it was a mistake. So one morning at breakfast, when the subject of what they should do for the summer came up, she said quite casually that she thought she would research on how she could get a divorce without so much fuss… and for the first time in years he agreed with her.

You can imagine the outraged feelings of her ultra conservative family had. In all the seven generations that have been tracked on the family tree. They have NEVER had anything so scandalous like this to record in the family history. It all comes from giving women too much freedom…. “If he had only got drunk and dragged me about by the hair,” S. wailed, “it would have been legitimate; but because we didn't actually throw things at each other, no one could see any reason for a divorce.” The pathetic part of the whole business is that both she and M. were admirably fitted to make some one else happy. They just simply didn't match each other; and when two people don'tmatch, all the ceremonies in the world can't marry them…. I told you guys society IS changing!

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