The story goes like this:

When i started blogging I was so far from home.  I felt alone and isolated. Natasha Tynes, a childhood friend, and a passionate journalist since the early years, told me about blogging, and asked me to write about my experiences while traveling… for months, she was my only reader and commenter. Bless her; she has always been a supportive friend. 

On the 27^th Of July, a few weeks later, I received two comments from a new commenter… Ahh the happiness I felt … I realized instantly the irony of the situation, an anonymous commenter had just validated my existence…  I never knew who those people were, but I am thankful to them.  Without their comments, my life would have taken a completely different turn.

Blogging has been very important to me. Through blogging I found friendship, I  found my career path,  my different hobbies and passions.  It forced me to examine my surrounding,  question my environment and to want to know more about the world. I met great people through Jordan planet and now 7iber.   However, I think the most important thing I found through blogging is love ( as in all the meanings that this word could possibly entail)

Reflections on blogging

The thing is at least  12 Centimetres long… As a matter of fact, I am not sure I saw a screw this long before ( are they called screws?) Luckily we were driving uphill on the road that takes you from the municipality to Deir ghbar… and the car was not fast.

Out of curiosity, where could  it have come from?

These wonderful people came to give the people of Natheef a concert. I was very worried, as the consensus here is that music is 7aram. At the time of the concert the hall filled with people, mostly children… they heard about something called a “concert” and curiosity drove them there.

Like me, these children realized that their lives have been unmusical. I felt a pang in my heart for our children who are deprived of everything, while in Scotland children start learning music at the age of 8.

In our schools music has zero importance… hell, in some schools children are zero important! People are too busy with contradictions… they are still debating whether music is 7aram or halal…. but they don’t mind trashy commercial music… (If it is Arabic, then it is less 7aram for some odd reason)

It truly saddened me to see how happy the children were after the concert. I wondered how we are expected to be creative or to think out of the box… ?

This child asked a very inspiring question: “What do I have to have in order to be able to play music” Donald answered: “ you have it! What would you like to play?” “ The guitar”, Mohammad answered.

February: Armenia
In February, I got to visit a truly exotic place. Armenia… Outside the boring meetings, I got to visit the harsh mountains, be a tourist in charming Yervan and learn about the history, Ararat mountain, the culture, the food… In the evenings, we played games that we used to play as children such as (names, animals, countries all start with one letter)… looking back, the trip was not as bad as I felt then.

On my way back, my flight had a technical problem and I thought I was going to die… I sat straight in a yogi position, transmitting a “I will survive” signal to the universe a la “The secret” motif! I did not want to travel for a while after that, but then March rolled in and I could not resist the temptation of London.

March: London
I was invited to speak in a conference in London… In the last slide I told my audience about the most searched for term in the Arab world… can you guess what it is?

Even though I lived in London for 3 years, during last March, London finally made sense to me. I walked and walked and walked. I finally connected all the dots on the map. Because of this trip, I know where Covent Gardens is in relation to Trafalgar Square, and I know where Piccadilly Circus is in relation to Oxford Circus, and I know how to get from the strand to Leicester Square on foot. As I walked, I recalled Asia’s trip in London. Asia from the book “In the Eye of the Sun”.

April: Citizen in My City
The month of hard work and acknowledgements. My project of two years was coming to an end, to my sadness. I knew I was going to miss it because it was one of the richest projects I had managed throughout my career in sustainable development. The project got a regional recognition during April. Aljazeera made a reportage about it in a program called عزم المبادرة(I can’t find it online) and the LBC made another reportage in a program called Europa Jaratuna.

May: France
A trip to the south of France as part of a Jordanian delegation to exchange on citizenship. Whoever said that the french “Provence” is  one of the most colorful places on earth was right! The light there is amazing, the food is brilliant, the art is superb…. I seriously enjoyed the cities, the markets, the sea, the people, the shopping, the scenes…

Vive La France

June: Camil
Little camil blessed us with his entrance to the world… what can I say about Camil? his curious eyes and ready smile, make him a true bundle of Joy.

July: Germany
Another great youth program in Germany. It was musical, artistic and creative. The highlight of this one was spending time with my cousin Mais, who accompanied me there. Her intelligence, sweetness and love will always move me.

We created a rap song! It was a cool video that I could not upload because of the great Internet connection in Jordan. This picture was taken in the City hall. The mayor is a smart, witty and classy lady.

August: Youth of Jordan
In August I finally conquered the youth scene in Jordan… I was part of a project that worked on developing criteria for youth centres in Jordan.  I visited many youth centres in different cities and towns… I know one thing for sure, if serious changes don’t take place, we will be screwed.

This  is how it looks like! (I particularly like the little boy on the right… I think he must be saying to himself… ohh boy!)

September: Ramadan
Finally we got to chill in September. Ramadan was sweet this year, I am not sure I can remember a Ramadan that I enjoyed as much as this one…During Ramadan, I started becoming closer to Reem. Reem’s kindness and capacity to nurture is unique, her determination to give and achieve and deliver is simply impressive. But what makes her special to me, is that I have finally found my twin sister when it comes to absent mindedness…

October: Work
October was a tough month in terms of work. I am not sure I worked as much as I did in October for a really long time. But the work ended successfully. I learnt a few things during the project, which is always a good thing. When i say work, i mean a number of projects, among which is 7iber, which has been something that I love and appreciate dearly.

November: Cairo
I got to go to Egypt (I was there when the legendary Algeria, Egypt game took place). I knew this game was going to mark the beginning of a new era for the Arab world.

December: Beirut/ Research
Beirut left an impression on me. I had a great time with some of my favorite people. We also had a good discussion about the research that we have been working on last year. The research is about emerging E-identity of Jordanian youth… and the results are exciting. I am sure, we will share them soon.

With this post I say good bye to 2009, which was a good year for me Hamdulilah. I see myself waiting for 2010 with so much hope.

Happy New Year Everyone

The hospital is full of people who have come to visit teta.  The first thing you see when you walk in the long corridor is that people have poured into the corridor out of the room.  It is almost surreal!

I always thought that we are a small family, I often joked that we are so few, we won’t fill a bus.  Oh boy! how wrong I was. 

Modernity and family ties

First thought that occurred to me during last few days is  that I have not seen most of these people during the Eid, even though it was .. what…less than a month ago?   As a matter of fact, I have never seen at least half of the guests.  It hit me that people in our culture don’t share other people’s happy occasions; they share their sad ones only.  Ya3ni, I have never seen most of these people’s in family weddings for example (my analysis is that this is an economical issue;  happy occasions are more expensive, so people keep guests at minimum.  Sad occasions, on the other hand are cheaper, how much do they cost? dark coffee?)

The second thought that occurred to me is that modernity has affected our communication skills so severely, that we no longer talk each other… and consequently, we have no ties with our communities.  

I was examining those who came to the hospital, and their relations to my grandmother.  Among the relations are the following:  her sons and daughters,  their spouses, her grandchildren, their spouses, her daughters and sons in laws’ brothers and sisters, and their spouses,  in some cases their cousins and their spouses.  Her grandchildren’s in laws (including sisters and brothers  and parents in law) her cousins, their spouses,  their spouses families,  her nephews and nieces, their spouses,  their spouses families.  Her husband’s cousins and their spouses. Her sisters and brothers’ in laws,  her sisters and brothers daughters and sons in law and their families. 60 years worth of neighbors, friends and their families (daughters, cousins, daughters in laws… etc.)

The thing is I realized that I don’t know most people who have these relations to me…   and if I know them, I have never put any effort to maintain such relations…  it is modernity, it is that we no longer inter-marry, and we don’t live near each other…  it could be many many reasons…  but the main thing is that I realized that we lost something very valuable…  communities.

On a different note, teta is hopefully better,  the left side of her face is still  hanging slack, she still can’t move, and she keeps coming and going in consciousness… she is with us a minute and in a far away land another,  she talks to me as if we are cooking, while she is laying in bed…

Hope she will get better.

 كنت عم بتحدث مع ستي قبل أسابيع، و من كل وسائل الإتصال الحديثة، كنا عم بنحكي عبر برنامج السكايب.. و

و مات جدي بعد سنين طويلة

المهم انها استخدمت وسائلها الصغيره ( اسلحة الضعفاء) عشان تقدر تحقق حلم بقي معها كل حياتها. و الشي الوحيد اللي بقدر اقوله عنها، انها انسانه مدهشه!
بس افكر باللي حققته بأسلحتها الصغيرة، بشعر بمدى عظمتها. هي قدرت تبني عمارة مطله بجبل اللويبدة. من مصاري هي جمعتهم قرش فوق قرش. و قدرت تبني هذا البيت لحالها، و توقف للعمال، و تساعد و تحمل. بينما جدي ،الشديد و الصارم كان منهك من المرض.

 On Thursday night, she was perfectly ok, and in a split of a second on Friday morning, we almost lost her.

 Teta has been mentioned in many posts.   Mostly, because of her controversial character; she is the matriarch, the sun that stands at the center of my family’s universe.  She is the kind of person that you can’t ignore; you must acknowledge her presence if you come across her.  And that I do.

Since my dad is the eldest son, she has moved to live in with us a few years ago.  At the beginning she shared my room. When I reached a point of either going crazy or committing a crime I moved out of my room into a state of homelessness.  I got my own room two years ago.

Teta is not chic in anyway… she is oblivious to the fact that other people live with her, and does as she wants without even wondering if what she does affects other people. She interferes in things that have nothing to do with her, and asks the most embarrassing questions in the most inappropriate times, as if it is the most normal thing in the world… and I can’t help but be amused by her incorrectness.

 But this is not all.

My grandmother is the ultimate queen of manipulation … she ALWAYS gets what she wants, I sometimes feel squashed under her constant demands and her unstoppable nagging.   If she wants something; it seems that it is the only thing in the world that really matters.  So usually the whole family ends up succumbing to her demands, if only to stop her. 

Among her tools are:  sulking, brooding, huffing, and taking the family in torturous guilt trips, dropping casual hints about the days, her sons and daughters were born and how painful that was! 

Yesterday, I stood outside her room at the hospital and watched her frail body.  A sense of love swept over me.   My tiny ferocious grandmother; she has always had the ability to shake her world and change it to shape it as she saw fit.  She has never allowed anyone to make her feel inferior because of her gender, even though she was not allowed to go to school because of her gender.  She has always spoken with so much confidence, reducing her illiteracy to a tiny insignificant obstacle. She has always been many things… but strength is the one constant attribute in her character.

 Hope you get better soon teta!

As some of you might know, my dad went to volunteer as a surgeon in Gaza during the war. There, he managed to get in touch with his long lost nieces.   After the initial shock and excitement, we managed to build some bridges of friendship between us.   During this last year, we started talking… our timid talks soon became long sessions of discovery and sharing.   We talked for hours and hours over the phone, trying to catch up on the lost years.  Our conversations range from discussing family issues to comparing hair types!

 Last week, Eman  decided that she wanted to defy the Israeli embargo and travel all the way to receive The Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prize 2009  that she was awarded  for her  sensitive photos on the condition of Palestinian women, and for which she was awarded the judges’ Special Prize.

 “Fourteen candidates from eight different countries were short-listed from 76 entries (Including prominent figures such as Alex Majoli and Gilles Peress from Magnum). They were selected as much for their extremely well-researched projects as for outstanding quality of their photographs, demonstrating thoroughness in their work.

The Panel’s discussion focused first on the quality of the photographic work together with the photographer’s chosen approach and unique perspective. Next, they examined the originality of the written proposals and the capacity of each candidate to present a fresh and meaningful view.

At the end of a first round of very lively analysis, the work of three finalists offering differing approaches was singled out: Kai Wiedenhöfer from Germany, Eman Mohammed from Palestine and Lizzie Sadin from France.

In its discussions, the judges made special mention of the quality and sensitivity of the work of 22-year old Eman Mohammed on the condition of Palestinian women for which she was awarded the judges’ Special Prize.”  Elsewhere

Last week, my family was praying in anticipation as  Eman  tried to cross the borders to come and meet us. All her attempts have failed, leaving us disappointed and heartbroken.

I will not lose hope that one day the Israeli occupation will allow me to meet my lovely cousins. Till then I hope they would know how much I missed having them in my life, and how sad I feel whenever I realize the size of this lost opportunity.

I quite often find myself being swayed into situations where I did not want to be in the first place, simply because I did not know how to say ‘NO’. As a matter of fact, I am so bad at saying no, that I looked into my dictionary recently only to realize that the word has disappeared! I erased it, not realizing the dramatic effects, evading this word have on my life.

Let me give an example here. I have been part of a project since last May. The project will end in October in–sha-Allah. And when it does, I will drive to the airport road, stop at the nearest jar market, buy the biggest jar and break it then and there! (In my home, we use this as an expression when unwanted guests leave…This project started feeling like an unwanted guest!)

The reason behind my frustration is that I was supposed to work for 30 days, but I have already worked 90… but…why? … every time, they call me and ask me, nicely to do something, I find myself avoiding the scary ‘NO’. I have been doing tasks that have nothing to do with me or my experience, tasks that I don’t even have time for…. tasks that  no one wants to do, so they throw them on the silly girl who says yes every time!

People, avoid saying ‘NO’ because they do not like the idea of confrontation, or maybe they just want to avoid the anxiety that is involved in refusing a request. In this particular case, I don’t say NO because I want to leave a good impression, sine these are the organizations i would work with as a freelancer….  But i think that i learnt my lesson… next time i will negotiate beforehand.

Yet, I wonder if things are more complicated than this…I wonder if there is more to it than the reasons I mentioned here…

Could it be that we are not built culturally to say “NO” … I am talking about hundreds of years of inherited traditions as Bedouins and travellers… Let me explain a bit… as we know, respect for the hardships of the desert has filled Bedouin culture with a celebrated sense of hospitality…  This generosity survived during our cultural evolution and with time it became so embedded in our collective memory that we forgot about our need and our right to say ‘NO’?

That was a farfetched thought? ok… Let me come up with another possible reason..I grew up in what I call a culture of consensus; the impenetrable shield of good manners and conventions. I was trained from girlhood to serve and please and abide by prevailing social norms.  The word ‘NO’ simply did not fit in that picture of loveliness and peace.  I say ‘YES’ to others because I want to please them, and ‘YES’ always marks the beginning of my problems; why? Well there is a trap that I manage to overlook every time I agree to a request. Eventually I won’t be able to deliver, I will let people down and I will end up losing my credibility… and of course no one will be happy.  

The one million dinars question is how can I say ‘NO’ without looking like a wretched human being?

 What do they say?

 Laila says that the answer itself does not matter… it is the attitude.

“Never commit, always say you will check your calendar… and that you will get back to them later…”

 Dina on the other hand suggested something along these lines..

 “Attach to it a difficult circumstance r condition” she said… “like ohhh… sure… but… if it would only take a couple of  hours”

 Omar advises

Don’t do it, but provide alternatives. (“I can’t do that task today, but how about next Friday,”  hopefully it would be too late!

 Good ideas… will start using them… and hopefully with time i would learn how to insert back NO into the dictionary.

I am trying not to be sentimental about it… because the word that would describe my feelings is thrilled! But it made me think about my life last few years… it also made me realize how blessed I am to be part of 7iber.  I truly love my colleagues… they have, over the course of six months, made the shift from perfect strangers into very close friends.

Watching how our thoughts turn from ideas into action, is like watching a sketch taking form and jumping to life in front of us… very surreal … a little bit like a Dali painting!

Not only we were recognized, but we had fun dressing up for the event! The guys felt like highschool all over again… well we looked great J