“I Didn’t Teach You That!”
“I didn’t teach you that!” I exclaimed, mentally reviewing everything we had learned together in the last two years. This girl was SMART. If she learned this from me, I had to think carefully when I taught it – she was smart, and she remembers things.
We had just finished critiqueing a presentation she was about to make, in English, on quitting smoking. She had prepared puppets, and a dialogue, and oh! She did a great job! We were sitting in a restaurant, in a private room, where we could eat and still have fun without worrying about embarrassing ourselves.
“No, khalti, no, you didn’t teach us that in words. But that is what you DID,” she responded.
Hunh? Hmmmm. I had to think about that. While I was thinking, she continued.
“When we would say we wanted to do something, you would say ‘OK, what does your week look like? How would Monday after schoool work?’ and we would DO it. You didn’t just talk about things, you did them. When you start a project, you finish it. This is the most important thing I learned from you.”
There are some things you can’t teach; it’s just words. There are things you teach and you have no idea you are teaching. I have to admit, I got choked up.
And I have no idea where this smart young woman is going to go with her life, but I can’t wait to see.
Learning Opportunities
“Oh! I am so sorry!” I exclaimed. I caught them grinning as we worked on a project, and remembered the article I had read that morning in the Gulf Times.
“Sorry?” they looked puzzled. “Why khalti?”
“I’m humming! I’m so sorry! You are fobidden to hear music during Ramadan!” I apologized.
“No, khalti! Where did you get that idea?”
“In today’s Gulf Times” I replied, and went to get the morning paper. The three of us read through the article, on the religion page, together. It was in English, and I secretly rejoiced – a perfect opportunity!
I hate classroom teaching. I trained as a teacher, and actually, I loved my students, but oh, the classroom just overwhelms me. For one thing, I must be a little ADD (attention deficit disorder) because when the bell rings, and I know I have fifty five minutes in the classroom, I feel TRAPPED. I bet you didn’t know that some teachers feel that way, too!
What I like is living learning, and that is why I think those who are home schooling are enjoying so much success – really small classes, individual attention, and hands-on examples to illustrate what is being taught.
“We have to check with our Mom and Dad, they can tell us why, but we don’t believe this” they said, as we finished reading the article. (Teacher secretly dances for joy! They are reading in English with full comprehension!)
Later they came back to me and explained – in English – that while some believers felt that all music was forbidden at ALL times, not only during Ramadan, other believers felt that it was not forbidden, as long as it did not deal with forbidden things, like sex. This time, I really did dance. They could explain a complex subject to me in English, and I learned something too. This is the best kind of teaching, when the teacher also gets to learn from her students.
John Milton and Freedom of the Press
John Milton wrote the Areopagitica in 1644, in protest of a law passed in England which required all books and pamphlets to be OK’ed by a group of censors before being published. He believed that if England allowed licensing of books – who could be printed and who could not – it would be an attempt at controlling what the people were thinking. Milton is not easy reading, but I still get a thrill reading his defense of freedom of the press.
This comment on Milton is from the St. Lawrence Institute:
“While knowledge of this context is important to an understanding of the nature of Milton’s passion in writing this pamphlet, it is not essential to a modern appreciation of its contents. Milton’s words are just as powerful today in their call for freedom of thought as they were in his own. The issue he is addressing is still with us: the debate between legitimate societal control and freedom – whether of printing, speech, or thought – is on-going, and will continue to be of central importance in our media-dependent culture.”
This is John Milton’s most often quoted paragraph:
“And perhaps this is that doom which Adam fell into of knowing good and evil, that is to say of knowing good by evil. As therefore the state of man now is; what wisdom can there be to choose, what continence to forbear without the knowledge of evil? He that can apprehend and consider vice with all her baits and seeming pleasures, and yet abstain, and yet distinguish, and yet prefer that which is truly better, he is the true warfaring Christian. I can not praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race, where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat.”
If you are looking for a challenge, you can read the whole Areopagitica here:
Change Two
It’s a continuing theme – the Locard Exchange Principal in every day life. We live in foreign cultures, we pick up foreign ideas. Change 1 was one of the earliest entries in the blog – investment. Investment is not alien to my culture; investing to protect yourself against an uncertain future, as insurance and as protection for your children – that got through to us and accelerated the investment process. Starting early in our married life paid off big dividends.
Change Two came in Jordan. We had finished an amazing dinner at a private home, mezze’s, a mensef (huge platter of rice flavored with leban, spices and sultanas, with meat – in this case, lamb, but we have also had goat or chicken served as mensef). The host was peeling an orange and had that look in his eye that tells you he is thinking about something and isn’t sure whether he should voice it or not. He struggles, and then he goes ahead . ..
“I don’t understand one thing about your culture” he says. I am surprised; this is a very sophisticated man, well educated, holding a high position. He has travelled. . . it will be interesting to see what comes next.
“Why is it you kick your children out of the house at such an early age? You love your children – I just don’t understand.”
We had observed the opposite – that in Jordan, young people lived with their parents, even after graduation from university, sometimes even after being married. . . and it seemed very alien to us, very uncomfortable.
We are raised knowing that the goal is to be independent, to live on our own. It is very very scary, but a rite of passage. You leave school, you find a place to live, you pay rent, you pay your own bills, you look for a mate – all on your own. You are supposed to be educated and wise, but you still feel very young and not at all sure of your own judgement. You can ask your parents for advice, but you are expected to make your own decisions. Eventually, you get the hang of it.
But . . . through the years, that question nagged at us. It opened us up to a new way of thinking. It would come up from time to time. Just that one little question, popping into our minds. Having friends from other cultures who helped their kids out well beyond college gave us some different ideas, a different model.
It’s a fine line. We don’t want to intrude on our son’s privacy; we want to be close without being interfering. And at the same time, he will inheirit everything from us – why should we not be helpful now, during the years of struggle, when he and his wife could use the help?
At the same time, we don’t want to be so generous as to preclude them from developing their own financial strategies, from learning thrift, and the thrill of finding a good buy. We want them to know the thrill of discovering for themselves how to balance spending and savings, investment in major purchases and investment in family.
We are so thankful for that thoughtful friend, a friend with the courage to risk asking a question that might be perceived as impolite.His question caused us to do things a little differently. It wasn’t immediate, but a long term effect; it caused us to question our own way of doing things and moderate it into a more supportive approach.
Ramadan Fastathon
While I have learned to stream NPR (National Public Radio) on my computer in Kuwait, nothing beats listening to it in “real time” here. Today, while listening, I learned that university students locally are fasting in support of their Islamic brothers and sisters, and they call it a “Fastathon”. They sign up to fast for a day, and can attend that night’s Ifthar supper. Local merchants will donate money to some charity for every person who signs up.
The interviews – some students got it – that fasting cleanses the system, that it is to experience sympathy with the poor . . . and then there is one poor sap who says “Yeh, I heard of Ramadan. I think it is a political party that causes problems in the Middle East.” Doh.
My Mother just called to ask if Omar, my father’s health care aid, can eat the lentil soup I fixed for their supper. “No! No!” I cry, “it has Jimmy Dean sausage in it!” but Mom says it is no problem, as Dad really wants the chicken noodle soup from last night, and that one is totally halal. Omar can’t eat until seven, so they are waiting so they can all eat together. Ramadan awareness is definitely on the rise here.
Opposite World
I need to write this post while I am freshly back home, because it wears off, you forget the sharpness of the differences . . .
You have to think about how you will manage your bags when you get here, because there will be no willing men with carts to do it for you.
Getting on the highway . . . people are so polite. People drive exactly at the speed limit, or maybe up to 4 miles over. If you put on your turn signal, they slow down and allow you to enter their lane. No one weaves back and forth, no one gets on your tail and insists you get out of their way. Traffic flows smoothly, predictably. People are wearing seat belts; their babies are in baby seats and their children are buckled in the back seat. It’s five lanes, and it’s all very tame. Our testosterone drivers in Kuwait would find it very very dull. I didn’t see a single accident, or single wrecked car all the way home, about twenty miles.
At the grocery stores, there are places for inviduals to put their grocery carts back – and they really do. There are also enough parking places. The cashiers also put the groceries in a bag for you, but there is no one who carries them out to your car.
The streets are immaculate – not because we have hoards of people to pick them up, but because people here have a horror of littering – and huge fines that discourage the rare few who would toss a kleenex out a window.
Service providers are more helpful, and less servile. There is a sense of interchangeable rolls – the guy behind the counter at Starbucks might also be a full time IT student at the local university, just piling up a few barista bucks to pay his way through school. (There is always a tip jar in every Starbucks – Have you ever noticed there are no tip jars at the Starbucks in Kuwait?) The gal behind the counter at the grocery store might live just up the street from you. The guy at the Half Price book store has kids at the same school where your child goes to school. It’s different when all the workers are part of the same community.
The health care worker living with my parents to take care of my father is treated like family. He’s from Ghana. I watch him watch us as we gather. I imagine some of it is very familiar to him – the way women communicate when family gathers, laughter, tears, family business, making plans and arrangements. And I imagine some of it is very . . . foreign. I would love to read HIS blog!
There are seasons here. You need to have socks with you to keep your feet warm, and closed-toed shoes. There are trees that were green two months ago, and are now a flaming red, or orange, or yellow. I need a sweater outside, over a shirt. It’s cool, but not yet really cold.
Part of the transportation system here is ferry boats. People take them to get to work. My home town is, like Kuwait City, on the beach, but the water is not jade green, but a deeper, colder blue.
Karma Payback
When I started this blog, one of the first posts I wrote was about getting an upgrade. This trip, it was karma payback. I booked a ticket and paid online, and later when I tried to reserve my seat online, I kept getting an error message. When I got to the airport, (confirmation in my hand, thank God) the clerk said my reservation had been cancelled. I had paid extra to have an upgradeable ticket, and to be able to change dates if I need to – it took the fixer-guy over an hour and a half to figure out how to re-instate my reservation.
And I asked for an upgrade – I have thousands and thousands of frequent flyer miles; I don’t need a free ticket but it helps on the night flights to be in business class because you can lie down and sleep! Makes a difference when you have a long way to go. But they didn’t give any upgrades – and when I got on the place, the entire business section in front of where we were sitting was . . . EMPTY. Go figure!
In Europe, I asked for an upgrade for the next leg – not free, I am willing to cash in miles, but the snotty desk clerk told me my ticket was the non-upgradable kind. It doesn’t do any good to lose it in those circumstances, but I was steamed. What did I pay extra for??? When the guy who fixed my reservation fixed it, I guess he didn’t put in the right code. I’m screwed.
After the next flight, which was very long (had a good seatmate, though, quiet, like me, but when we talked it was about books and families and comfortable stuff) I went through immigration and because this was my fifth trip back home this year, when I filled out the immigration form, I listed that I wasn’t bringing back anything. And I wasn’t. I barely have the right clothes. But that got the attention of customs, and I got the full inspection, which after you’ve been travelling for more than 28 hours is annoying. They were cordial enough, but they went through everything, suitcases, carry-ons and purse, very thoroughly. And found nothing.
Last, but not least, I went to pick up my rental car, only to discover I don’t have my stateside driver’s license with me. After half an hour of desperate searching (I am an organized person; things are where they are supposed to be! but it wasn’t!) I offered her my Kuwait license, which she couldn’t read and said she couldn’t accept, and then, miracle of miracles, I came across my old Germany driver’s license. A German license is good for life. And, thanks be to God, she accepted it. And on top of that, for some amazing reason, using a German license made the rate even better than renting in my own state with a state license. Again – go figure.
And I just figure all of that is karma payback for all the good luck I have had in previous trips. We have a saying: Every monkey gets his turn in the barrel. I guess it was just my turn.
Tradition of Aunthood
We have a tradition of aunthood in my family. I remember my aunts with so much admiration and fondness. They took me to art museums, taught me about having lunch out with the ladies, taught me about civic commitment and good works, set examples for us with family celebrations, dinners, and even contests. We had an annual dinner on Christmas at which we each, no matter how young, had to come up with a poem for someone whose name we had drawn at the feast of Thanksgiving. Oh, the laughter! And each of us had our first exposure, at that time, of having to speak publicly, as we read our poems.
And now, my sisters and I get to be aunts in our turn, helping to raise, and now mentor, one another’s children – children? Young adults!
As my son and I were IM’ing the other day, I came up with a dream team – all our young people in the next generation. My superheroes.
LawNOrderMan: He wanted to be Superman when he was young, and put away the bad guys – now he is a felony prosecutor.
AmbassadorGirl – she speaks several languages fluently, gets published with regularity and loves living in Beirut and Damascus.
GlobalGuy – he holds nations accountable by exposing them, in graphic detail, to the rest of the world.
BrethalyzerLady – She manages a state-wide program and instructing others how to install alcohol detecting devices which disable cars.
BioGenius – Fearless explorer of the human body on a molecular level
EnviroGirl – Working to make the world a better, cleaner place.
Can you feel my pride in this next generation? Not that we are willing to pass the torch yet, but we feel such joy in seeing these young people achieve their full potential. WooooHoooooooo!
We Make a Difference: Incremental Change
Here is what the experts have told us:
Germany and France can never live in peace with one another.
Northern and Southern Ireland can never live in peace.
Germany reunite? Unthinkable. They are too far apart.
Black and white will never be able to live together in South Africa.
The Serbians and the Moslem Croatians will never find a way to live in peace.
The European Union will never work.
The Soviet Union is impregnable.
Kuwaiti women will never get the vote.
There will never be peace in Lebanon.
These were not lies. The experts who told us these things were wise people, making their best guesses. When experts say things, we tend to believe them.
And here is what I saw – before the fall of the Soviet Union, things didn’t work. Toilet paper was rationed. There were no lightbulbs in the lamps. There were no hangers on hotel closets. In the market was only cabbage, sausage and tuna fish. The people were told that the West was failing, and that the supermarkets and stores were fakes, “Potemkin” villages, special effects to fool good Communists in a desperate attempt to make them think Democracy was working. But in every hotel room, when you checked in, the TV was already on – the chambermaids watched CNN, and then went home and told their families what was REALLY going on in the world.
And word of mouth, the truth spread.
There are some wonderful things happening in the world, technologies that could be used for good or for evil.
Cameras. Video cameras. Cell phones. Cell phones with cameras and videos. Google Earth. The Internet. It’s hard to cover up the truth when people can freely share information.
With these tools, we can hold ourselves, our leaders and our society accountable. Keep your cameras handy. Blog. Share your thoughts, your suspicions. Hold your leaders accountable for their actions. Read the news, and read the blogs from other countries. Refuse to believe there is no hope in appearantly hopeless situations, no matter what the “experts” tell us.
Here is what some experts are telling us today:
There is an imminent clash of cultures between East and West.
The Palestinians will never live in peace with the Israelis.
We can’t do anything about global warming / There is no global warming
Be afraid. Be very afraid.
+ + + + + + + + + + + + + + + +
There are small things we can do, right now, to make incremental changes. Pick up a piece of litter. Buckle your seat belt, and buckle up your children. Give an enemy the benefit of the doubt. Smile at your neighbor, and greet them. Stop and help that poor man broken down by the side of the road. Feed a stray cat. Donate clothing to the poor. Do one small thing, every day. Hold ourselves accountable in small ways, and the overall effect tilts the balance in larger ways.
Mining the Kuwait Times: 4 October 2006
Ya gotta love the Kuwait Times. I admire their spirit so much, I forgive their weak editing and poor grammar.
Six KAC Officials Quit
Six officials were transferred from their posts by the operations manager at Kuwait Airways, so they submitted their resignations, which were accepted without any investigation, so says the Kuwaiti Times (and also the Arab Times). Appearantly, they were transferred because they refused to recommend for promotion two unqualified candidates for captain, and were horrified to discover that these assistant pilots were promoted – verbally – to full airplane captain flying A310 aircraft in spite of most of the training officers having (previously) rejected this decision.
(This is actually a compilation from both Arab Times and Kuwaiti Times. They seem to be saying these six men resigned because unqualified pilots will be flying planes they are not qualified to fly, and the Director of Operations and his deputy know this and promoted them anyway. Arab Times adds that the director and his deputy are also jeopardizing KAC’s reputation in the international community when they refuse to investigate technical flaws found recently in some KAC aircraft. )
Think I’ll pass flying Kuwait Air for a while . . . .
Driving Sheepish
I actually speak English fairly well, and I don’t have a clue what “driving sheepish” is. The article states:
Policemen suspected a motorist driving sheepishly in Kabd. They ordered the Kuwaiti to stop his car and found a hunting rifle and a number of drug tablets inside. Police registered a case and referred the man to authorities.
Non-Halal Meat
“While residents of Kuwait are still reeling from shock, where cases of contaminated fish imported from Iran were allowed in by the municipality’s food imports division, a new scandal has just appeared on the horizon, reported Al-Seyassahl. A report indicates that one of the officials in the same department tried to cover up a crime he was involved in, by permitting some local foodstuff companies to import frozen meat without being slaughtered in accordance to the Islamic law. They presumed they could get away with the deceit, as, since no one was aware of the fact, could get away with murder.”
This is buried way down near the bottom of page 4. In most countries, it would be at the top of the first page, and heads would roll.
And last, but not least, to the tune of “La Vie en Rose” . . . French Smokers Fume as Public Ban Looms
My husband and I hate breathing second hand smoke so much that we will request another table in a restaurant if someone should be so gauche as to light up near us, disregarding the no-smoking signs in a restaurant, or pay our bill and go. It just isn’t worth it, not for our health, not for our state-of-mind. And all the same, it is very hard to imagine a France with a smoking ban in public places.
French cigarettes just smell different. French smoke reminds me of early mornings at the flea markets, picking up a cup of cafe au lait and a fresh buttery croissant, watching the early risers through a haze of smoke tossing back shots of Pernod to get their day started. I guess, because they are French, I can forgive them just about anything.
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