Two Children's Stories

For one of the Middle East run student groups, we read two short stories, The Day of Ahmed's Secret, and Sami and the Time of Troubles. Both were written by team Florence Parry Heide & Judith Heide Gilliland and illustrator Ted Lewin, yet each is very distinct in tone and message.
The first of the two, The Day of Ahmed's Secret, is more a tool than a story. It follows the daily routine of a young boy named Ahmed who has a secret that he is very excited to share with his family. In the end, it turns out to be that he can write his name, but the important part of the story is given to us on the preceding pages. We see the sort of work that he does, the area where he lives, and while it is not a placeholder for every Cairo child, the reader gets the idea that it applies to at least some of the population.
The latter story is a lot darker, dealing with war in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Sami is a young boy who has to spend most of his day in the basement due to gunfire and bombing. We get a glimpse at the casualties of war not shown on the news, the murder of a childhood that should be spend laughing and playing instead of hiding in thick shelters for fear of death. The most chilling and telling scene in this book though is when we see Sami and his friend playing war, discussing when they will get real guns someday...
In class we talked about how the illustrations could be seen as "Arabland-esque," and how the stories should be taken with a grain of salt as only Ted Lewin had been to the Middle East, but at the same time I feel like the latter story might be a good thing to show children, to give them an idea that war isn't right. That said, I don't think either of these should be given to kids alone, but should be included with modern images of Cairo (or at the very least, point out to kids all the cars and whatnot.)

Dr. Mustafa Mughazy

When Dr. Mustafa Mughazy came to vist us the other day, I was upset that he had such a short stay. It was really nice to have someone actually from Egypt help us out with our discussion of the excellent novel, War in the Land of Egypt. More than that, it was really beneficial I feel to have someone from the area be able to tell us what their experience was like. Dr. Mughazy called Egypt home for a long time, and I'm sure he still considers it home on many levels, despite living in the United States.
At any rate, one of the themes in War in the Land of Egypt was that of corruption, and it seems that it was not a fabricated motif; Dr. Mughazy talked about how much of Egypt's bureaucracy was corrupt, and the only way to get things done was with bribes.
This seems ridiculous to us, I'm sure, but it's not that difficult to see how a system like that could spring up in any country. Take our own, for example. We're in an awful economy right now, and it's difficult to get a job, let alone hold on to one. Enough people start to need a bit more money to make rent, and the next thing you know, they've lost your records when you go to apply for a passport. They might be able to make new copies of everything, but it'll cost a bit of money as a "service charge."
However the case, I don't think we should be quick to judge Dr. Mughazy for charging hundreds of dollars for tutoring considering the hidden fees which get mysteriously tacked on for the most basic of things. If you had to pay your boss a quota equal to your salary and still needed to keep a roof over your head and food in your stomach, I'm sure all of us would find any means to make a bit of extra money.

To the Mosque

Hey all, sorry I haven't been keeping up on my blog posts...things have been a bit hectic lately, and while it's no excuse, I'm here again to post some blogs.
So, we visited the Kalamazoo Islamic Center, and it was definitely a great experience. I went in thinking it was just a Mosque, but our Imam quickly dispelled that myth. Much more happens in that building than just the regular Islamic services and prayers; indeed, it is an Islamic center, a place for the entire Muslim community to be able to call home and socialize.
We took off our shoes before entering the main gathering area, and it turns out this was one of the few things about Islam that I actually knew 100%. Most of the other things that I believed beforehand must have been what I had heard and not what I had read. At any rate, we learned about how close the Islamic community is in Kalamazoo, and how the Kalamazoo Islamic Center has been a vital part in that closeness. The Imam even said that he would have left Kalamazoo already had it not been for the Kalamazoo Islamic Center.
He dropped a bombshell on me, anyway, when he told us that he had to memorize the entire Qur'an in order to even become an Imam! And he did it at such a young age, as I recall. There are priests of most every other religion who can't boast even half of that.
We learned much about Islamic life and the many contributions that Islam has given to the world, including modern mathematics, medicine, and much more.
Unfortunately, our time was cut rather short, as the class period ended. I'd like to go back another time though as a class later on in the semester, perhaps. I think it'd be good to go back once we're all a little more educated on Islam and the Middle East as a whole.

The Road to Love

The Road To Love is an independent film from 2001 which explores homosexuality in the Middle East, but also the personal ramifications of coming out of the closet. A bold film, to be sure.
Or so I thought, that is.
I very much admired the film's ambitious message and statements, as open homosexuality is for some reason still a touchy subject after 12,000 years of civilization (you'd think that not caring who someone wanted to be with would be one of the first things we took care of as a species.)
At any rate, the film is...shall we say, less than satisfactory? A good message, yes, and one people need to hear, but it is overshadowed by some technical problems that severely hinder the film watching experience.
For instance, the entire film looks like it was shot by a very old home camera, and nothing is done to compensate for this. There isn't any lighting to speak of that would help the visuals except the sun, and even that just gets in the way sometimes.
Not that you'll spend a lot of time watching the screen. You'll be racing to read the subtitles at the bottom. There's nothing wrong with subtitles, and some of the best movies ever are in subtitles exclusively. The only issue here is, sometimes the subtitles flash across the screen for a moment, or aren't quite synced up with the audio.
While I could talk about the sound quality in the movie (or lack thereof,) I know that many of you might defend the movie, saying that the medium doesn't matter, but that the story told is what is important. Well, I'm sorry, but the story wasn't that interesting...it was nice to finally see a movie not afraid to show male nudity (is it more right to show female nudity? Hollywood thinks so.) and the information about the Siwa oasis was fascinating and informative, but moments after we hear about this fascinating area, we are thrust back into the predictable plot.
Maybe if it was actually a report about homosexuality in the Middle East (as the film claims) or about the Siwa oasis, but it was about the struggles of less than interesting characters as they try to find their place in the world. Because of this and the infrequent facts about the Middle East, I didn't really see the relevance of the movie. Not to be rude!