Between a sunny yesterday and a rainy today

Rasha Almaqaleh

During our childhood, teenage years and adult life, we had our fair share of sunlight. That’s because in Yemen it is sunny most of the year and you can catch up a 

Anis and Adham in Yemen,Sunny the whole year , no need for heavy clothing

lot of sunshine every day. Living now in Northern Germany, where the sky is usually leaden with overcast most of the year, we still want to avoid the direct sunlight! When my husband and I go out in those few sunny days, we still search for shades as we would do in Yemen. What adds to our confusion is that the weather in Germany is so unpredictable.  It’s perfectly normal here, and wittily bewildering for us, to find ourselves wearing sunglasses and summer shirts and holding a jacket with one hand and an umbrella with the other one!

Hamburg

  It frequently rains here and the rain comes in different forms, from drizzles to downpours. As a result, Germans are very well prepared for the rainy weather; they have umbrellas, rain jackets, rain pants and rain shoes. They also have rainproof covers nearly for everything such as for backpacks, baby strollers, carts, etc. Moreover, the roofs of their houses are usually very sloped which indicates the expected large amount of rainfall and snowfall.

Houses with sloped roofs

Consequently, people here are fed up with the rainy and cloudy weather and they wish for more sun! A sunny day in Germany is a happy day and whenever it’s sunny, Germans will go out to enjoy the sunlight and soak up the sun. They will turn into sunflowers tracking the sun all day. 

Germans usually feel disappointed and a bit depressed if it’s cloudy and if you ask someone here: “Do you think it’s going to rain today?” they will pull a face and say: “Hopefully NOT!”

On the other hand, in Yemen if it’s cloudy and you ask someone the same question, they will answer with a delightful smile: “Oh, let’s hope so!!” And if it does rain,

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Yemenis literally cheer up and celebrate. They gather in front of the windows to watch the rain fall and to take pictures! Then, they post those pictures on Facebook praising the ‘magical’ weather and amusingly the cloudier the better! Some may even go outside to get wet and play under the rain! Yemenis are fed up with the sun and they want more overcast and rainy spells!! In other words, a rainy day in Yemen is a happy day, while a sunny day is NOT! It's also impressive how Yemenis still manage to enjoy the smallest things despite the war and the unfair blockade. I guess that's because life goes on and it has to, no matter what!

 

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While Germans consider the rain just a ‘bad weather’, Yemenis think of it as a blessing and a sign of mercy. Based on religious beliefs, they consider the time of the rain as

Social Media :Yemeni people enjoying the rain in Sana'a

one of the best times to pray to God and they believe that prayers are more likely to be accepted during the rain. That’s why when it rains, people in Yemen and in some other Arabic countries pray to God for what they desire or need; they pray for guidance, forgiveness, help or whatsoever. There is even a joke about women and rain in our culture. It says that when it rains in America for example, an American woman would make herself a cup of coffee and would sit calmly on a chair to read a book while a Yemeni woman would ‘furiously’ take advantage of the rainy time to pray to God to cause harm to all those who have done her wrong!

 It’s interesting to watch how the sun and rain are variably received by different cultures. It’s also remarkable how the weather shapes the moods and emotions of people. However, living today under daily overcast and watching Germans celebrating the sunny days and Yemenis celebrating the rainy ones, we feel a bit emotionally confused. We find ourselves stuck between a very sunny yesterday and a very cloudy today.

My story with Qat- Part two

Anis Albasha

When I was a little boy, my father took me and my siblings to one of the fruit markets on a Friday morning. We bought different kinds of delicious fruits. On our way home, my father told us that, sadly, most people would rather pay the same amount of money we paid for these fruits to get a bundle of Qat. He told us that there was no comparison between the benefits we get when we eat fruits and the bad effects people get by chewing Qat. His words have lingered in my head for a long time and they made me look negatively at this plant.

As time went on, the more I got in touch with Qat, the more I hated that ugly plant along with all the distasteful and repulsive rituals that accompany it such as chewing, spitting and smoking. It was fortunate that I grew up in a house where Qat had no daily presence like most of the Yemeni houses. My father was not a regular chewer, and the few times I saw him chew Qat I noticed that his cheeks were not as puffed as other chewers. I could hardly know that he was chewing Qat since it seemed as he was chewing gum. My mother also was not a Qat addict and she only chewed Qat in some social occasions. This semi Qat-free environment helped me and also my two other brothers to stay away from Qat.   
    

Chewing Qat in Yemen is considered a sign of ‘manhood’. Therefore, after finishing the primary education, almost all of my peers wanted to show their manhood by starting chewing Qat and also by trying smoking. That was the first crossroads Qat put me at and I chose not to go with the tide. Besides my early hostile attitude towards Qat, there was another reason behind my reluctance to join my friends and chew Qat as a sign of manhood. At a very early age of my life, my mother made a smart attempt that most Yemeni mothers at that time wouldn’t usually care to do. She had bought me a number of kids’ books and comics in order to make me interested in reading. She did that even before I joined the primary school where I am supposed to learn how to read.  


Those illustrated books were so interesting and I was fascinated by them! I loved reading since then and when I was 8 years old, I started reading adventure books. One of my most favorite action series back then was called ‘Ragol Al Mostaheel’, which can be literally translated into ‘the man of the impossible’. That book series is about a fictional Egyptian intelligence officer who has incredible physical abilities and he can also speaks many languages. His name is Adham Sabri and he doesn’t smoke, drink alcohol, and of course doesn’t chew Qat. The author of that action series is Egyptian and his name is Nabil Farouk. In fact, Mr. Farouk's books were very popular among the youth in different Arab countries in the nineties. I was so lucky to have the opportunity to meet that author in person when I visited Egypt in 2002. I told him how his writings have influenced me and how much Adham Sabri was inspiring to me. In fact, when my wife and I had our first child in 2010, we named him after that character, Adham!

Me (left) with Dr. Nabil Farouk (right) 

Imaginary drawing of Adham Sabri

During my childhood and teenage years, Adham Sabri was my role model and I dreamed to be like him one day. Undoubtedly, chewing Qat did not look as a helpful factor that could help to fulfill my fanciful dream. So, instead of engaging in Qat sessions like many of my peers, I joined Karate, Taekwondo classes for some time. I also played football and tried to learn swimming. In my simple perception back then, I thought that by doing so, I was paving the road to be like Adham Sabri one day. That's why I felt isolated from kids my age since all of them not only showed no interest in reading or in sports, but also they didn't dream to be heroes one day!

As a kid and as a teenager, I didn’t have to attend Qat sessions which are usually for adults or for those who pretend to be adults. Though we didn’t host daily chewing sessions in our house, I wasn’t totally excluded from Qat's atmosphere because many persons from my parents’ families chew this plant madly. Therefore, I found myself being in touch with Qat chewers from time to another. But I couldn’t stand the smell of Qat or endure the repulsive sight of the bulging cheeks of chewers which are stuffed with Qat leaves, let alone the smokes rising from cigarettes and shishas which are always associated with Qat chewing sessions. But I had no choice because in certain family gatherings I was forced to be there or at least to be around.

My family and I  used to visit the city of my birth place which is called Hodaidah, a beautiful coastal city on the Red Sea. I was so in love with that city and I have a lot of beautiful memories in that city. But I also had my share there of bad memories with Qat! In our neighborhood of that city, I saw people chew Qat in small rooms which have open doors onto the narrow alleys. Whenever I passed by one of those rooms, I couldn't help glancing at chewers who looked to me like lifeless statues which stare into the void. Given that Hodaidah has a very hot and humid weather, I was always wondering how these chewers could bear the wet and stifling atmosphere of those cramped rooms. “Are they really enjoying their time or they are just indulging in the illusion of having a pleasure because they had nothing else to do?” And when the smell of the tobacco sneaked into my nose, I stopped wondering and quickly moved away trying to avoid such unpleasant odorous views. I noticed that while I spent hours playing with other kids or just roaming in the neighborhood, those chewers were glued to their spots while their cheeks were getting beefier. The whole view seemed to me as a stagnant bleak scene that needed a miracle to bring it to life.

I have also observed that when chewers finished their 4-8 hour session of Qat chewing, they had to deal with some post-chewing symptoms. I personally saw some people who suffer from severe depression, restlessness or sleepless nights. One of the most horrible post Qat symptoms I saw myself was when one of my relatives intentionally made slight cuts on his arm with a small blade while uttering some poetic lines!
I've noticed that, chewers were in a talkative mood as long as they chew Qat; but once they spit it out they immediately switched into a silent and sulky mood. 'I am after Qat' is a common phrase in the Yemeni daily language which describes and summarizes those changeable conditions people go through when they finish chewing Qat. If someone says that phrase to you, it means that you should excuse them no matter what they do! It means also that you probably should leave them alone until they feel much better. It is really weird how Qat keeps people in a vicious circle which fluctuates between a fake climax and an expected collapse.  

All in all, the more I grew up, the more I had to face the social isolation which was imposed on me due to my anti Qat attitude.  Not only my firm position against Qat has made it so complicated for me to enjoy a healthy social life as a child and as a teenager ,but it also kept causing further complications to my life as an adult.  In my story with Qat-part three, I will talk about that and also about a compromise I tried to do in order to cope with those uncomfortable situations. 

Waiting for summer in summertime!!

Rasha Almaqaleh
Last weekend, there were a couple of summer fests in Norderstedt, the city where we live. On Saturday, we attended a very nice fest at the church which our child’s kindergarten is part of. It was entertaining and there were many activities for the kindergarteners. Our child had so much fun that day with his peers. On Sunday, there was also another summer fest in the city park and it was stunning! Our son drooled over the variety of activities and games as he was joyfully screaming the entire time “look at this! Look at that!”

Those summer-related festivities were truly stupendous though there was only one thing missing, summer! The weather was not at its finest; there was no sunshine as it was cloudy, a bit showery and cold. Even though we are now in the middle of July, we are desperately still waiting for the summer to show up!


 
When we hear people around us say that it is ‘officially’ the summertime, I feel the urge to grab a magnifier lens and start searching for it. In Yemen, we hated that it was too sunny all the time; it’s sunny in wintertime and in summertime. But here we are now in Germany where we don't get to see the sun very often! It’s hard for us to cope with such unpredictable weather especially in summer. The sun here appears occasionally from time to time and it was surprisingly sunnier in the last winter than in this summer! 

  For the past two months, the weather has been unbelievably changeable and the funny thing is that it changes on an hourly basis! For example, it could be cold, rainy and windy at, say, 11 but at 12 it may become warm dry and windless! Just like that. Under those circumstances, we find ourselves wrapped up in putting on clothes and taking them off the whole time. 

  In a word, one of the most confusing things we have to deal with here in Germany is the baffling weather. It seems that we will spend what’s left of the ‘summertime’ waiting for the summer to pop up!

Yes...People come in different colors!!!

Rasha Almaqaleh
With the escalating police brutality towards black people in the United States, one cannot help but wondering what is going on with the world? Are we supposed to completely lose confidence in humanity? I’m in utter shock and I don’t understand how such accustomed racism still exists in Today’s world! Actually, such hideous racial incidents remind me of the racial segregation which took place many years ago in South Africa though in the U.S. it’s not enforced through legislation but through practices.

I believe that our world today might be suffering, more than any time before, from piling prejudices, stereotypes and hatred. Nowadays, modern media outlets play a major role in the process of stereotyping people, causing serious ramifications such as hatred which stems from fear. As a dreaming mother, who desperately wants her child to live in a better world, I keep asking myself: is there anything we can do to mitigate such evil influences?

 I remember the other day when my six year-old child was asking me about the black cashier in the supermarket and wondering about his color and why it’s different from ours. Frankly speaking, I was a bit puzzled by his question as I always thought that the best way to raise a non-racist child is to never point at peoples’ different skin colors. I assumed that this way he would spontaneously grow up to be ‘colorblind’ and hardly recognize skin-color differences. Well, I was definitely wrong!

Therefore, I decided to do the exact opposite which is acknowledging those differences. Therefore, in one of the daily coloring activities with my son, I started coloring the face of one of the figures in the coloring book with the dark brown color. My child looked at me and shockingly asked: “Mom, what are you doing? You are supposed to color the faces with this color as we always do!”  He pointed at a light skin coloring pencil we normally use to color faces, hands and legs. I said to him: “Yes but we were wrong because people do not come in one color; there are dark skinned people like the cashier you saw in the supermarket. And there are people whose color is medium like us and there are light skinned people like many people we see around us.” (Since we live in Northern Germany). I told him that some people have blonde hair while others have black hair. But colors don’t really matter. What truly matters is what we do and how good we are to each other. He listened to me carefully, and then he picked a dark brown pencil and started coloring! Yes, whoever said children learn by example was absolutely right.    

Ever since that day, we color the faces with many different colors. The good thing about the coloring books is that they have different figures with different careers; some of them are sport players, some are farmers, and some are police officers or doctors. We color the skin of those figures irrespective of their profession. For example, if there are two farmers, we color one of them with light color and the other with dark. I believe that this way my child can learn from an early age that people are equal and their color is not of any importance and this surely will help in eliminating the forming of stereotypes in his imagination.                 

On the whole, ignoring the different skin colors is not going to solve the increasing racial troubles of our world. We have to talk positively and openly with our children about such differences; otherwise someone else out there will take the lead and teach them that colors matter. And this will leave them with feelings of either superiority or inferiority. This is my sincere message to all parents in the different parts of our world.