ihath

When I immigrated to Canada, I went to the Motor Vehicle office to apply for a Canadian driving license. I showed the employee there my Kuwaiti driving license. Here is the conversation that followed.

emplyee: Ah! You are Kuwaiti.

ihath: no! I am Iraqi.

employee: Ah! So you were born in Iraq and then you lived in Kuwait.

ihath: no! I was born in Czechoslovakia (Czech republic now).

employee: gets that puzzled look, ok, is this woman crazy? either that or she is just pulling my leg?

ihath: look I know this is all confusing, I find it confusing myself, but it is a long story and you don’t want to hear it.

Few days earlier I was standing at a bus station, waiting for a bus. A young man starts chatting. After a while he pops the question.

young man: So! where are you from?

ihath: Iraq.

young man: Which province is that?

ihath: Iraq is not a place in Canada, it is a country in the middle east.

young man: O!

Those were the good old days when people didn’t know what Iraq was - is that a kind of food? Now everybody knows where falujah is. Lucky me, I don’t have to explain that Iraq is a country in the middle east any more. Thank you, Bush.

Few years later, I am married and my husband didn’t have his Canadian citizenship yet. We were about to take a trip to the US and since I worked in downtown, he asked me if I could apply for a visa for him. So I went to the American consulate in downtown Vancouver and stood in the line to apply for a visa, holding his passport in my hand. A man with a red beard approaches me smiling.

red beard: moof moof blem blem blem.

ihath: I am sorry I didn’t understand that, can you please repeat what you said.

red beard: moof moof blem blem blem.

ihath: I am sorry I didn’t catch that, can you repeat. (Now I come really close to him and try to listen attentively.)

red beard: moof moof moof blem blem blem.

ihath: (realizes he is speaking in a foreign language), I am sorry I don’t understand what you are saying. Can you please speak English.

red beard: (yelling) How dare you speak to me in English you bitch! (other profanity followed, walks away in a huff).

I stood there completely shocked. I don’t understand? What did I do? Why was he upset? After about 5 minutes, I finally look down and I see my husband’s Israeli passport in my hands. Aaaah! He thought that I was Israeli, he was probably speaking Hebrew, which I didn’t know at all at that time. When I got home I told my husband the incident.

husband: He thought you were an Israeli pretending not be Israeli.

ihath: But why would I do that?

husband: Some Israelis when they move abroad pretend that they are not Israeli and attempt to blend in. Others become annoyed with such people because they feel that they are selling out.

ihath: But If I was an Israeli and I spoke Hebrew why would I pretend not to speak the language? I still don’t understand.

husband: You have to be Israeli to understand Israeli logic, I don’t know how to explain it.

When I first moved to Canada I was living in student housing on the university campus. Sometimes I would stay late in the library or the computer lab to finish an assignment. Afterwards I would have to walk to the residence in the dark. It was only a 20 minute walk but I always felt a bit afraid. There had been several rape cases on campus reported in the news. So I bought a huge sturdy umbrella. One of those annoying umbrellas that take up too much space when opened. I bought it not because of the rain but rather as a weapon. If anybody tries to attack me I will hit them with this umbrella.
I named the umbrella Saddam, like you would name a pet. Dogs were not allowed at the student's residence. I thought it was an appropriate name considering what I bought it for - banging somebody over the head. In the end, I never did use it for that. I carried Saddam with me everywhere. The first American led war on Iraq happened and Iraq was mentioned on the news every single day. In Canada they keep talking about Iraqi terrorists that will try to do nasty things in North America. I am standing at the bus station holding Saddam and leaning against him. A big, tall and strong man starts chatting with me in a friendly way. We are laughing about something, when he decides to pop the question

tall man: So! where are you from?

ihath: Iraq.

tall man: (takes a few steps back, looks horrified, puts his hands on his head as if somebody is about to hit him), oh my god!

ihath: (thinks to herself) Hey this is cool, it is amazing that a woman can scare a big guy like that just by saying the word “Iraq”. I don’t need to carry Saddam with me anymore. If anybody bothers me, I will just tell them I am Iraqi. That will scare them away.

After that, I discovered that I can have lots of fun by telling people I was Iraqi, I could make them gasp, choke on their food, run away and strike the fear of god in their hearts. Thank you Bush senior for giving me these super powers. It has been so much fun. I have put them to good use..... well! most of the time.

Person at a cocktail party: So where are you from originally?

ihath: I was born in the Czech republic.

Person at a cocktail party: Ah! Beautiful country, been there once.

ihath: (thinks to herself) now I understand why red beard yelled at me at the American consulate. Maybe he could see my future selloutidness in my eyes.

But then there were the people who reacted to my newly acquired super powers in scary and unpredictable ways. Let me illustrate with an example. I was sent with my co-worker Steve to attend a five day training in San Jose, California. There are about 10 people in the class. All of them professional geeks, like me. Steve elects to sit next to the pretty girl in the right row and leaves me sitting on the left row by myself. I get the hippy looking dude with the long pony tail. Thanks, Steve. Well! we are in California after all.

hippie dude: Where are you from?

ihath: I am from Iraq.

hippie dude: (looks at ihath adoringly) Wow! you are a wonderful person, I want to get to know you better.

ihath: How about we go get some coffee.
We stand up to go to the coffee table, I introduce hippie guy to Steve.

hippie dude: You are so lucky to be working with such an amazing person.

Steve: (gets a smirk on his face, he has been working with ihath for a year and knows how plain un-amazing she is).

Steve: Yes! working with her has been… ehm!... interesting.

ihath: (gives Steve a look that says…please come sit beside me….help me!)

hippie guy: (spends the next 5 days looking adoringly at ihath and listing attentively to every single word she says, as if a simple hello coming from ihath becomes a divine word of wisdom. Maybe he is expecting ihath to produce a flying carpet.).

From adoration to revulsion, I have encountered the full spectrum. However, once in a while there are encounters that make it all worth it. My husband and I were visiting Jerusalem on a vacation. This was my first visit to the city and the country. We were on a public bus driving through Jerusalem’s city center. It was a day before eid al-adha (muslim holiday) My husband and I are chatting in Arabic. An elderly Jewish woman is sitting in the seat in front of us. She is wearing a head scarf and a long skirt customary to Jewish women of eastern origins. The woman turns around and says to my husband.

elderly woman: I wish you well on your upcoming eid. May you spend it in joy and happiness.

husband: Thank you.

elderly woman: Where are you from?

husband: I am from Nazareth area.

elderly woman: (looks at ihath) are you from Nazareth as well?

ihath: No, I am from Iraq.

elderly woman: (her eyes widen and shouts) I am Iraqi too. I left Iraq in the fifties as a young woman and came to live here. My children and grandchildren were born and raised in this country.

The elderly woman starts touching my hands, touching my face and caressing my hair. As if she can’t believe that she can see a real Iraqi in front of her.

elderly woman: I grew up in Baghdad. Here in this country we just spend the days, one day after the other. In Baghdad I was really alive.

An elderly man wearing grey jacket, stripped shirt, keppa (head scalp customary for Jewish men) and holding a walking cane gets up from his seat and walks towards us.

elderly man: I am Iraqi too, I left Iraq about the same time.

Me and elderly woman stand up and all three of us stare at each other. After few seconds we all hug. A triangle hug, as if we are all long lost friends. We stand there for several seconds while the bus bounces us back and forth and sideways.

husband: We reached our bus stop, time to get off the bus.

[Advice for kids: Do not give hugs to strangers you don’t know on a public bus, a professionally trained wacky Iraqi was involved in this incident.]

Recently, I have accidentally lost my Saddam, the huge umbrella I mean. I left him at a bookstore near Alma and 4th ave in Vancouver. I am gonna miss him, he has traveled with me to many countries and held the repository of my sense of security for a long time. To whoever found my lost Saddam, please keep him. He never shielded me from bothersome people, not even once. The one time I was almost physically attacked, he wasn’t there. A strong kick to the assailants leg helped me get out of that sticky situation. I was rather surprised by how well I could protect myself without my trusted umbrella. He wasn’t completely useless though. I remember vividly, long walks under the rain while holding my husband’s arm. My husband explaining something about his work or world events and me looking back in adoration, listening attentively to every single word my husband uttered. I can still hear the tapping of rain on top of the umbrella as we huddled together underneath. Sometimes an umbrella is just an umbrella. Those were moments of tenderness and sweetness, I have no regrets.

Psst! 8 is a luckier number than 13!

Shehrazad had to tell a story in order to survive. She told such interesting and compelling stories that Shehrayar couldn’t resist but let her live one more night and then another and then another. After one thousand and one night , Shehrayar gets attached and forgets his murderous desire.

In December of 2001, my husband and I went on a three day vacation to Victoria city on Vancouver Island. I was feeling depressed about the “about to happen” war on Afghanistan, thinking about all the orphaned children and widowed women. That country has been through so much, Russian occupation, civil war, Taliban regime and now the Americans. On our last day in Victoria, we visit a bookstore. Browsing around I notice a poetry book on sale for 10.00 dollars. The introduction said that the poet was born in Afghanistan and that the poetry has been translated from Persian to English. I wanted to read something beautiful that came from Afghanistan to offset the haunting images of refugees on the news every night. I am tired of seeing images of women that look like walking tents and men with long beards saying harsh words. “For 10 dollars it will be a cheap diversion”, I thought to myself. Plus I haven’t read much poetry since I was into Ahmed Muttar in my teens. While waiting for the ferry to take us back to Vancouver, the loud speakers announce that our ferry will be delayed by 3 hours due to windy weather. My husband and I move to the main terminal and after walking around a bit and drinking coffee, we get bored. Both of us sit down and start reading; I pull out my newly purchased book.

How does a part of the world leave the world?
How can wetness leave
water?

Don’t try to put out a fire
by throwing on more fire!

Don’t wash a wound with blood!
No matter how fast you run,
your
shadow more than keeps up.

Sometimes, it’s in front!
Only full,
overhead sun
diminishes your shadow.

But that shadow has been serving
you!
What hurts you blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.

Your
boundaries are your quest.
I can explain this, but it would break
the
glass cover on your heart,
And there’s no fixing that.

You must have
shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of
awe.

“The Essential Rumi ” a translation of Rumi’s poetry by Coleman Barks. I started reading it every night before going to bed and I would have beautiful and vivid dreams like I never had before. One night I dreamt of a beautiful garden with flowers of every color. Peacocks walking around and a full rainbow stretched across the horizon.

George Bush tells us about fighting terrorism and evil, Osama Bin Laden wants to convert the infidels and Rumi says.

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and right doing
there is a field. I’ll meet
you there.


When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is
too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn’t make any sense.

I read in an article that Rumi’s poetry is the most commonly read poetry on Afghani radio. I also read in a separate article that Rumi is the most sold poetry in the US. People in both countries must have something in common. The thought warmed my heart.

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu,
Buddhist, sufi or zen. Not any
religion
or cultural system. I am not from the East
or the West, not out
of the ocean or up
from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not
composed
of elements at all, I do not exist,
I am not an entity in this world or the
next,
did not descend from Adam and Eve or any
origin story. My place is
placeless, a trace
of the traceless, Neither body or soul.
I belong to
the beloved, have seen the two
worlds as one and that one call to and
know,
first, last, outer, inner, only that
breath breathing human
being
There is a way between voice and presence
where information
flows.
In disciplined silence it opens.
With wandering talk it closes.

It took me so long to figure this out on my own. Why wasn’t I given this poem when I was 12? Right at the time I started asking who am I? and where do I belong? It might have saved me years of turmoil, oh well it doesn’t matter, I have arrived at last.

I never thought that a book of poetry could change my life. That it would change my perspective so.

I don’t feel sorry for Afghani people any more, I envy them, because they can understand the original Persian these poems were written in. I will try to learn as much as I can by quietly observing on the side.

Dear Zeyad, some of us are feeling a bit down, tell us something beautiful from Iraq. Tell us a story. If we tell interesting and compelling stories, shooting us becomes harder. There will be another day and another and another and another.

“You are a tough Iraqi girl”, my dad tells me at age 16 as I am about to undergo a minor surgical procedure. “I am a tough Iraqi girl”, I repeat after him. My dad gives me the thumbs up and smiles. “That’s my girl” he says, “Don’t worry it is a minor surgery, everything is going to be fine” he continues. As the nurse hauls me away on a bed on wheels towards the surgery room, I look back. My dad looks like a deflated balloon. He is hunched over and looks worried. The smile is gone. He doesn’t look all that tough any more.

I am a tough Iraqi girl. I have told myself that through out my life, especially during trying times. At age 8 I decided that I wouldn’t cry anymore, because crying is a sign of weakness. Initially it took an effort to fight the urge to cry, over time I lost the ability to cry completely. I have a tendency to smile or giggle even in the most stressful situations; a reaction that puzzles and sometimes disturbs people around me. It took even more effort to regain the ability to cry later on, but that is another story.

In September of 2000, I was 8 months pregnant with my third child, recently moved back to Canada and working my tail off at a high stress job. My husband is traveling all over the world with work. Finally, he comes back from what I thought to be his last trip for a while. I felt relieved to have him back home. He can help me bathing the kids in the evening as bending over has become hard, he can also help me carry the 1.5 year old to the car in the morning as she is becoming too heavy for me. One evening right after dinner, his graduate student calls from Jerusalem. He is writing his thesis and freaking out, as many students do during this stage. My husband tells him not to worry; I will grab the first flight to Israel and spend a week with you. Later he tells me that his student needs emotional support, he has to be with him. “What if the baby comes a week or two early? You will miss the baby’s birth” I say. “I am starting to get tired and I need some emotional support too”, I continue. My husband chuckles and says: “I am not worried about you at all, you are as strong as a horse.”, Damn! I fooled even my husband with the tough act, so strong as a horse I had to become.

[tip for married men: Don’t tell your wife that she is strong as a horse when she is 8 months pregnant and asking for your help.]

One year later my co-worker comes into my office and tells me, “how do you do it? You have three young kids, a more difficult job, yet you come every morning with a smile on your face and you look great, I have a much easier job, just one kid and there are times when I think I am gonna go crazy, so how do you do it?”. “Oh piece of cake” I tell her, “You just need to be organized that is all.”. She leaves my office looking even more puzzled. I don’t tell her how I get up at 5 in the morning to get everything ready and run around like crazy till 10 pm. I don’t tell her that there are days when I don’t feel like getting out of the bed but I force myself. I don’t tell her that there are days when I feel I am gonna go crazy too but I force myself to smile. That is the tough girl’s trick. When everything is falling apart, smile and keep saying, this too shall pass. This too shall pass, this too shall pass.

Few days before the second American lead war on Iraq, we call my uncle in Baghdad. We try to be cheerful but everything we say sounds like we are saying good-bye. My uncle asks my dad if we are doing well. He had heard over the news that in North America people of Arab decent are being harassed. “I am worried about you”, he tells my dad. Uncle is in Baghdad, days before the war, and he in worried about us living in Vancouver. My dad asks uncle why he doesn’t move out of Baghdad before the war as the fighting is bound to be intense in Baghdad the most. “My son is in the army and he is stationed in Baghdad, how can I run to safety and leave him? If Baghdad is nuked I want all of us to die together”, is his response. We hang up the phone and look at each other, “Do you think we will hear his voice again?”… This too shall pass, this too shall pass. We have been through this once already, no problem, piece of cake.

The war starts and we listen to the news everyday. Somebody at work tells everybody that he has been watching the war and isn’t it cool? Does he realize that thousands of people are getting killed and that many more are being maimed? What could possibly be cool about that. I sit at my desk trying to resist the urge to cry. When I feel that it too strong I go to wash my face in the washroom. I can’t be seen crying, I am a tough Iraqi girl. Somebody I know starts telling me some of his personal problems, he is unhappy in his job and other aspects of his life are not going as he would like them to be. I want to tell him that his problems seem incredibly trivial at this point, but instead I listen carefully. I give him the pep talk about how life has its ups and downs and we need to face each stage with courage. Later I email him Gobran Khalil Gobran’s poem “Joy and Sorrow” from his book The prophet. I am sending the poem to my friend, really I am sending it to me. I really want to believe that there is joy at the end of this sorrow, I want to believe that there is a flip side to this coin, I want to believe that there is a light at the end of this tunnel.

Raed, another tough Iraqi guy, wants to erase a name from his phone book and make it disappear from his heart. He wants to hop around Iraq documenting the collateral damage without it cracking his spirit. You go Raed, you show us the way, you are a tough guy indeed. If he ever finds the erase button, I hope he shares it with us. There are a few things I would like to erase from my life as well.

And then, the ultimate tough Iraqi guy gets captured. Only he turns out not to be tough at all. In fact he looks pathetic, he looks disheveled. I should be happy, I should be celebrating. How I dreamt of this day, how I fantasized about Iraq with out this man. Only now I feel depressed. It takes me a long time to figure out my strange reaction. Fair trial, not a fair trial, I don’t care. I hope they hang him upside down and kick his head in. Why did we let this pathetic loser rule our life?

To all of you who know me in person, I have a confession to make. I am not tough at all. It is all a big act. Really I am a big wimp. I am gonna spend the next two weeks sulking and feeling sorry for myself. Yes! I know that feeling sorry for myself is unproductive. But, I have been productive since I was 8, I deserve a break. I am contemplating not taking a shower over the next two weeks, perhaps if I look and smell like horse shit, it would give people a good indication of how I feel on the inside.

I used to feel frustrated with the way mass media covers the middle east. I would read our daily newspapers and feel just so mad with superficial reporting, Here is a sample of letters I have written to The Globe and Mail, Canada’s leading newspaper. This is only a sample, I have written so many and not just to the Globe and Mail.

September,2002




Dear Globe and Mail Editor,


In an article titled "The Palestinian intifada has been a disaster", Palestinians are urged to stop the intifada for their own sake (Editorial, Sept 3, 2002). The article fails to mention that Israel is a country that spends 11 billion dollars a year on its security and uses its fine arsenal to oppress a largely hungry and unarmed population. Had black south African's stop fighting apartheid, had the civil rights movement stopped fighting discrimination in US, we would all be worse off in this world. Perhaps the next advice column for Palestinians should be titled, “Get used to oppression with the use of drugs and alcohol”. Just look how well that advice has worked for our local Native Indian population.

September , 2003




Dear Editor,


Our media mogul Izzy Asper decides to bank roll the visit of Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, in order to raise funds for a state that already spends billions on oppressing a largely hungry and unarmed native population. When activists decide to challenge the ex prime minister, who by the way is a vocal proponent of the so called "transfer solution" for the Palestinians. Surprise, surprise, all the media outlets belonging to the media lord call these activists goons and compare them to terrorists without any mention of the denial of basic human rights to 3.5 million people living in the occupied territories. Yellow journalist at its best. Why bother with journalism school when dog obedience classes will suffice.

October 2002




Dear Editor,


I am writing with regards to the article titled "Settlers fear prospect
of Palestinian state" , by Timothy Appleby on October 29, 2002. The article never mentions the fact that Israeli settlements inside the west bank and Gaza strip are
illegal settlements according to international laws. The article also
fails to mention that Israeli settlers are involved in a daily harassment
campaign against Palestinian civilians. Their actions include, shooting at
civilians including children, damaging property, uprooting trees, burning mosques
and preventing farmers from going to their fields. I believe that these facts deserve a mention in any discussion about Israeli settlements in the west
bank and the Gaza strip to help provide the reader with some context.

June 2002




Dear Sir,


I am writing with regards to the article about the baby dressed in
suicide bomber outfit, published by Paul Adams on June 29. The Israel government
pounced on the photograph as proof that the Palestinians are brainwashing
their young. It has long been trying to convince the outside world that
the real reason Palestinian suicide bombers are murdering Israeli civilians is
not primarily because of Israel's actions: occupation, settlement
building, curfews, assassinations, the killing of hundreds of civilians, and the destruction of property or farmland, but because of the wickedly, fanatical Palestinian mentality. The killing of six Palestinian children, several as young as six, in a week by Israeli forces might have had some bearing on the timing of the baby bomber photo's release. The question that needs to be asked is why is the Israeli army going through the personal photo albums of a Palestinian family? Why is a newspaper like The Globe and Mail publishing this photograph without the permission of the child's family?

June 2003




Dear Editor,


I bet you got a chuckle while looking at the cartoon published on Saturday June 14th. On father’s day, an Arab father gets an explosives vest. What amazing sense of humor. When I look at the cartoon, I see years of colonization that have passed and many years of military occupation to come. I see a road map to nowhere and copious quantities of lies of mass destruction. I suppose I would find it funny too, if my family wasn’t suffering with thirst in Baghdad and my friends in the west bank weren’t being shot at for sport. So go ahead, laugh at us. Laugh at our misery. Perspective is everything.

The more I wrote, the more frustrated I felt. Then I realized that I was causing my own heartache, I stopped reading the daily newspapers and stopped writing letters. Criticizing is easy, actually attempting to do something about the things that you believe in is much harder, so I started writing articles and making efforts to publish them. Two days ago I got a phone call telling me that one of my articles will be published in the next issue of Adbusters. Adbusters is a magazine I truly enjoy reading, It is very unique, it focuses on presenting ideas using images and pictures rather that the old academic writing. Their website doesn’t do them justice, you have to look at the actual magazine. Now! that is way more fulfilling than those unpublished letters I wrote.

Now that I don’t read the newspaper on a daily basis, every once in while somebody brings an article to my attention that is a nice surprise. Like this article about a talented young Palestinian man from the west bank that was not able to get to university due to the closures. The Globe and Mail published a story about him in August,2003 and subsequently UBC (a local university) decided to give him a scholarship to study here. I met the young man in person last week. A brilliant young man, full of ideas, oomph and zest for life. Meeting him made me remember myself when I first arrived to study at UBC at age 19. I wish him all the best and my heart aches for all the talented young men and women living in the occupied territories that will never get a chance.

Good job Globe and Mail, you made a difference for at least one person. Sorry about the nasty letters.

********************

On a different note, I have been reading the Iraqi blogs for quite some time now. I find them more informative than reading a newpapers, it gives me a down to earth sense of what is going on in Iraq. Each has his or her own perspective on things, but they all have one thing in common. They all like to talk about food. Lets take Healing Iraq, he shows us the left overs from a meal he had. Notice the uneaten single orange slice on the side. Jeez! there are things we don't need to see. Then river bend, has a whole seperate blog for recipes. The biggest foodie is Salam Pax, look at this. Doesn't that look like a heart attack served on a plate? Notice the single tomato on the side. I sure hope he ate at least the tomato. So here is some Iraqi logic for you, bombs every where, long lineups at the gas station, no electricity, we hate Saddam ..................... lets eat!



More seriously though, they are all a good read, give them a look.

My husband has the weirdest looking nose in the world. It is round the way baby potatoes are and slightly raised up, the ridge of his nose is fairly short. His nose is not his only unique characteristic. He is a mild mannered, patient, good-natured and very compassionate; He constantly gives money to every single panhandler we encounter on the streets of Vancouver. To the point where some pan handlers know us already and smile at us from a distance. He can’t say no to anybody who asks for help. I mean he has put up with me for 12 years for Pete’s sake. My parents believe that he deserves a medal for that. I am really not that bad, plus I think that my husband enjoys the challenge of taming a wild woman. One day he will figure out a way.

I used to think that my husband was pretty unique until I met his mother. It was a bit freaky meeting her at first. I felt I was talking with a shorter version of my husband only he was wearing a dress and a head scarf ….. I mean she. He really looks lots like his mom, not just the nose but the same eye brows, the same eyes, the same thick short fingers.

I met Alia (my mother in law) for the first time after two years of marriage. We decided to visit my husband’s home town of Mash-had which is a small Palestinian town out side of Nazareth in the Galilee, north of Israel. To say I was nervous about meeting my in-laws for the first time would be an understatement. We were picked up at the airport by a brother and a cousin. As we drove into Mash-had, Alia was standing in the doorway of their house waiting to greet her son, apparently she had been standing there for an hour. My husband jumped out of the car to greet her. There in the doorway she hugged her son, only because of the height difference she was hugging his waist. They embraced for about 10 minutes. It was very sweet.

“I am not from Mash-had” was one of the first things she told me. “ I am from Kufer Kana.” Kufer is colloquial Palestinian Arabic for village and Kana is the biblical Kana where Jesus performed the miracle of turning water to wine. She told me how difficult it was for her to move to Mash-had at first, how things here are different and the people are different too. “It is hard being a foreigner all my life by I got used to it.” She told me. Yeah! I could relate to her feelings, I have been a foreigner all my life as well. Turns out that Kufer Kana is a 15 minute walk from Mash-had. Since Mash-had in on a hill top you could see Kufer Kana by standing on the top of the house roof. Essentially she can wave to her sister in Kufer Kana from her house roof every morning. The two villages didn’t seem that different to my tourist eyes, but to her they were worlds apart.

Alia raised nine children, 5 girls and 4 boys. In 1948 when Israel confiscated lands from Palestinians, the land left wasn’t enough to support the family. My father in-law had to look for work in far away cities like Haifa, Tiberius and even Tel-Aviv. He would be gone sometimes for weeks. Alia would be left alone to raise the kids and farm the land. In the early days she had to walk an hour every morning to get a daily military permit to work in her own land then walk home, get the kids ready for school before she started farming work. At night all the kids would sit around a kerosene lamp doing their homework. My husband remembers that it would get so noisy sometimes that he couldn’t hear himself talk. He also remembers that his mother rarely ever raised her voice on any of her kids. There was no rest for this woman, even on days she gave birth, she had to get up, get dinner ready and work the land the next day with a new born baby in hand. In a town where it is common for boys as young as 12 to join the work force, Alia pushed all her children to finish their education. 8 out of 9 finished high school and most of them went on to get higher education. Alia has the highest percentage of educated offspring in all of Mash-had, something that has been a great point of pride for her. The fact that she herself was illiterate and didn’t receive any schooling makes me admire her that much more.

“You married the best of my children” she told me once while we were alone in the kitchen. She told me that my husband as a boy was the most mild mannered of the children and that he caused the least amount of trouble. He also would help her out in house work from a very young age. I wish I had told her that he is the one most like her. Alia spoke in very low voice, it was more like a whisper. You had to strain in order to hear her talk. She had a very unique laugh, she would start by making this sound “hmmmmmmm”, and then she would laugh with her whole body, like little children. One day she asked me to show her the gold that my husband gave me upon our marriage. It is customary in Arabic culture for the groom to buy piles of gold for the bride. When I showed her my wedding ring, “That is it!” she exclaimed. “I wouldn’t have agreed to merry him just for that”. I tried to explain to her that we didn’t have much money when we got married and couldn’t afford to waste much on jewelry. Few days later she presented me with jewelry she bought for me. “Every bride should have new jewelry, here, this is for you”.

Alia had many unique characteristics, besides the nose, she never gossiped about other people, a very unique feature for an Arab women. I never heard her say anything negative about anybody. When she couldn’t think of anything positive to say she would say nothing. She was kind and generous to everybody including young children. When I asked about how difficult it must have been to raise 9 children, she told me that if it was up to her she would have had 9 more. Wow!

Alia passed away on Dec 19th , 2003. None of my children inherited the unique nose but hopefully they will inherit some of her other unique characteristics. I will always remember her standing in the doorway of her house waiting longingly for her son.

Some people like to collect stamps; in my family we collect passports. Would you like to see my impressive collection of passports? not one of them is forged and each one has a picture of me wearing my signature smile, hey, hey!

My mother was beaten black and blue when her dad found out that she was dating my dad. “You are forbidden from seeing that Mohamadan (Czech speak for Muslim) ever again”, were my grandfathers instructions. So my mom married the Mohamadan and followed him around the world, first to Algeria and then to Kuwait. How she managed to fall in love with a person she had no common language with, is beyond me. My mom tells me that I get my stubbornness from my dad, yeah right!

My grandmother was beaten black and blue when she became pregnant with my mom. She was in a Nazi work camp and my grandfather worked in the kitchen. He used to sneak food to the starving Russian slave workers in the factory. So, if the shortest road to a man’s heart is through his stomach, then the shortest road to a woman’s heart is what? Well you can guess what happened next, they fell in love and she became pregnant. The Nazi soldiers wanted to know the name of the father so that he would be executed. When my grandmother wouldn’t tell them, they decided that they would let her have the baby and execute her after the birth. Luckily Germany lost the war on the day my mom was born. My grandparents got married and lived in the Czech republic. Hurey!

I wasn’t beaten black and blue when I met my husband, though it would have made this post more interesting. Instead, I got a long speech from my mom about how I should merry a young man from one of the nice (my mom’s speak for wealthy) Iraqi families that we know in Vancouver. I reminded my mom of the nice fiancée she left back in the Czech republic for an Iraqi political refugee that she met one day at a lakeside resort. “That was completely different”, my mom asserts. Ehm! Ehm!

My husband was referred to by “Hatha ele beihki zei el yahood”, (Arabic for the one that speaks like the Jews), by a participant at a charity for Palestine. See, I couldn’t just merry the average Palestinian man: refugee or living in the occupied territories, no, no, no, no, no! That would be too average, too ordinary, too boring, for a Palestinian that is. I had to merry a Palestinian that grew up inside Israel, held Israeli passport and spoke Hebrew fluently.

I sometimes fantasize about traveling with all my passports. When the customs officer at the airport asks me for my passport, I spread them all in front of him and then say "pick one". I remember the good old days, when traveling with the Iraqi passport was preferable to traveling with the Czech passport. Iraq was America's ally and communism was the world's greatest evils. That was then, this is now. Today I travel mostly with my Canadian passport.

So, the one that speaks like the Jews married the Czech/Iraqi concoction in April of 1991. On our wedding day we were all in pain over the recent bombing were of Iraq during the first American led war on Iraq. I oscillated between happiness of a young woman in love and depression over seeing the most powerful countries in the world bombing a third world country. I wanted to cancel the wedding and go to Iraq and get bombed with the rest of the people there. I told my dad I wanted to die with the rest of the Iraqi people. My dad talked me out of it, he told me “that is what George Bush wants you to do, he wants you to lie down and die. You must go on with your life and get married”. Since, we didn’t know if our relatives in Iraq where alive or dead, and many of the family friends were in a similar situation. We had a small wedding, 12 people, only the closest friends and family. We celebrated quietly in one of the fanciest restaurants in Vancouver. The mood at my wedding was somber, but we all tried to make the best out of it. With my husband, I ended up living in Glasgow, Scotland and Jerusalem, Israel, not the most logical places to live in for a Palestinian and an Iraqi but love is blind. Finally we moved back to Vancouver. Where we live happily ever after.

When my first daughter was born, I told my mom that when she grows up it would be unacceptable if she brought home a nice average Canadian boy. No, no, no, no, no! My poor daughter has to find some nationality not encountered by my family yet and do a masochistic trip around the world with him. I don’t know, maybe a Buddhist monk a tribal chief from Zimbabwe, the nice Canadian man would be totally unacceptable, we have family traditions to uphold. The hunt for fresh passports must continue.