Gold Dust

I thought that the novel gold dust portrayed a heartfelt story of a young man and his camel. The one thing that I enjoyed about the novel was that instead of there being one moral to the story there were a bunch of morals and lessons that the novel displayed. I also thought Gold Dust was pretty easy to read because it shared many similarities with the novel that we have read previously Aunt Safiyya. I understood what it was talking about when it discussed the evil eye and how it followed those who were envied of their beauty.
The part about the novel that I had trouble with was the resentment it presented towards women. It pretty much said that all of life’s problems could pretty much be traced back to the women in their lives. For the piebald it was the beautiful white camel that caused him to become plagued with a disease. For Ukhayyad it was marrying a beautiful poet who he was forbidden to that caused him to lose everything in his life. It was like it showed women as the reason for pain in all men’s lives, from the moment they leave the womb till the moment they die almost each struggle could be traced back to a woman in their life.

“He could not escape the contempt he felt toward the woman, toward himself, toward children, toward the world. From the moment they emerge from their mother’s bellies, humans never truly enjoy a single moment in peace. As soon as they put one calamity behind them, they great the next…”

Ukhayyad’s only true bond he had in the story was with his camel. All of the struggles that he went through were pretty much all related to his pet. He demonstrated a loyalty to his animal and the camel did the same to him in return.

The Power of Childrens Novels

On thursday we had an interesting discussion on the two pieces of childrens literature that was assigned to us to read. The first piece was titled, The Day of Ahmed’s Secret, this piece seemed to be a heart felt childrens novel that showed the pride a young boy took in his day of work. It took you through different scenes of Egypt with it's illustrations. We debated as to weather or not the illustrator was presenting Cairo to look like "arab land", I do believe that some of the images may have been a little skewed from what Egypt today is actually like. However, I think that the author was just trying their best to present Egypt historically and currently. Egypt does have cars and newer cities, but at the same time it still has maintained some of it's historical aspects with camels and street markets which today can be filled with many different types of people. Most of them probably "arab land" like, but also more moderized arab people. So I do not believe that this novel was trying to send out a hidden message to children about sterotypes in Egypt.
The second piece of literature was titled Sami and the Time of Troubles. This childrens story talked about a young boy and his experiences during a time of war. This was almost hard for me to believe that it was a childrens book. The pictures displayed the depression that the boy and his family were going through. The hardships of living in a town that was being bombed and having to wake up with no house and no city because it has all be burned away. The one thing that I think the novel is trying to express to kids is that it is okay to have your own opinion. When the children were protesting in the street they were displaying their opinion of the war. If a child were to read this it may encourage them to speak out more abou their feelings towards global issues and encourage them to form an opinion of their own. I kind of almost think that this was ment to be written for adults. We found so many debatable topics in the novel among a college level class. I think that this would be a great novel to talk about in the book because it discusses a topic that can be debated between all ages.

Trip to the Islamic Center

I really enjoyed the trip that we took last thursday to the Islamic Center. I learned a lot about the history of mosques and also about the islamic religion in general. I liked how the mosque was set up and that there were seperate prayer areas for men and women. They definately take prayer very personally and seriously. Our class was lucky to be able to become more educated on mosques from such an intelligent individual. I was amazed by his accomplishments and his dedication to the religion.
The people who visit the mosque seem to be a tight knit community.
Our leader kept refering to Ramadan and about how their community provides meals during the religious holiday for everyone at the mosque. During Ramadan men that participate Iʿtikāf which requires them to remain in the mosque for ten days while they worship and learn more about Islam. All muslims are supposed to offer five prayers per day. While many people visit the mosque multiple times per week to perform in prayer, the prayers can be performed anywhere. However friday mid-day prayer is considered manditory.
I would recommend to anyone who is curious about the islamic center to visit it. They seem to be very kind and welcoming to teach anyone that is willing to learn.

The Road to Love

I thought that the film that we watched on Tuesday The Road to Love was very interesting. It was shot from a very different point of view then normal documentaries. It was strange to me that it started off like a documentary and then turned into a memoir of Kamir’s life. It showed that there are similarities in emotions between Americans and Middle Eastern homosexuals. The part that was very similar was that the men who are ‘passive’ in homosexual relationships are seen as week where the men who are more ‘active’ in homosexual relationships are still accepted in society. The different part about the film was how they talked about in the past in certain societies it was okay for men of power in their forties to marry younger boys for a period of time. I have never heard of something like that occurring an interesting fact to learn.
This film could create a lot of skepticism among people. Especially those who have different beliefs could be very intimidated by this film. I thought it was a very interesting choice to show to the class however, it would not be an appropriate choice to show to children that are of middle school and high school age.
The film had an interesting technique of filming. I liked that while he was interviewing certain men he would have the camera on them catching their reactions to the questions he was asking, but at the same time he would have a camera on him that would catch his reaction to their answers. The part that I enjoyed most about the film was that you got to see a young man transform. I think that the film would open many eyes of people who are insecure with their status as an individual, and possibly even give them the courage to discover who they really are.

Blood and Oil

Oil is one of the most important resources that Americans use today. We have been struggling ever since World War II to recover from all of the oil that we consumed, but has our attempt to recover more oil due to the war caused a war of it’s own? The film blood and oil explained how the war in Iraq could be because of Americas attempt to control oil supplies. One interesting point that was made was that America always wants to take part in everything. That we do not trust other nations to do things and we always want to do it our way. We have so many government ran facilities and military bases in other countries because we always have to be involved. However if other countries wanted to be involved in America, they are seen as a threat. One thing about the film that interested me was that when they discussed the writings and quotes they found from Osama Bin Laden. How a lot of his materials showed that his anger towards America was caused by oil. If America was not so oil greedy, would September 11th ever happen? If America had not put these leaders in power because of our struggle for oil, would the world be at peace? I would like to hope that in the future we continue to research methods for alternative oil uses and stop trying to regain all of the oil that we lost. By creating our own resources and saving oil by using greener methods we would be able to leave these Middle Eastern countries alone and save a lot of conflict from happening.