To Wordpress, or not to Wordpress? Now that is the question!
So I've been contemplating, once more, getting a different blog for my "public" entries about Korea. I think I might actually go ahead and do it this time. I love my lj, but I think I might want to keep it for more personal observances this time. Keep most of my posts friends only. Mostly I've been doing that recently anyway, because I have some serious philosophical things that need exploring, but that I don't want the whole world to see. Why not write that in my written journal then? Well, mostly because the keyboard lets me get the ideas out before they are gone.
Anyway I had a magnificent day at the center with the ladies on Friday. I love it there so much. I'm really going to be sad to leave. I don't usually go on Fridays, but this Friday was the English Teacher's baby shower, or as they kept saying "Baby Party!". They cooked a huge east African meal, complete with injera and rice and tasty beefy (goaty?) stew. The older women all sat on chairs in a row along the wall, not facing each other, which is something that seemed SO quintessentially African or Middle Eastern, but I couldn't place why. They were all hijabed in the most beautiful colors, and lined up along the wall they just looked so amazing.
Of course there are children running around and screaming everywhere, and the kids are all sitting on a plastic sheet on the floor that one of the older ladies put out. She's the one that seems in control, but in a stoic kind of control. I think she might be the wife of the imam, or the daughter of a respected imam. I once saw her direct her daughter to an older man, which her (five year old) daughter ran over and hugged. It might have been her father, and he was wearing imam clothes. Anyway this woman has power in the group not because of charisma, but because of a central agreement, and it is a somber one. She is kind of a somber woman. Beautiful, but somber. Her daughters are gorgeous too, but also very quiet and reserved, unlike a lot of the other children. Anyway, she was praying for the English teacher, and the whole room would give up resounding a "Amin!". I haven't heard that since I was at that lecture in Commonwealth hall. It was great. They were praying for the health of the baby, I think, but it was all in Somali. Every so often, Congo, or another one of the leaders (she leads by pure charisma, it's clear, I've never seen so much energy!) would attempt to translate for us--the three non-Somali women in the room.
Later on was dancing time, and the ladies made me dance, which was HYSTERICAL, because not only was I being watched by thirty Somali women as I attempted to do their own dance, but because they loved it! It was fantastic. I haven't laughed that hard in such a long time. Then they got me up to do a group dance. I loved that I am able to be with them. I just love it. It means so much to me. I may love to travel, and I may love the rest of the world, and I may always need to "get out of here", but in the end THIS is why my country is the country that I believe in most. Only in this country can we really, sincerely share these experiences as one nation. I just love it. Maybe within the century, it can make up for how we've hurt each other.
Anyway, after my last post (friend locked) the revelation I had at this party was apt. I was sitting there, where all these women were having the most fun I can imagine, dancing and laughing and sharing eachother's babies, I looked around at the little boys in the group. I wondered if they would miss these kinds of parties when suddenly they became 'grown men'. Then I wondered if maybe the whole reason for oppression of women at ALL was because they just wished they could come back into the fold like this. It was a cosmic topsy turvy for me. Obviously it's the other side of a black and white coin, and the real answer is gray, but it is moments like that which make me see oppression of women not as a dark, hateful reality, but as a stab in the dark against something that cannot be killed--that is the communities that women make. It makes attempts at keeping us down simply elaborate charades.
Because, really, in the end it wasn't men that Muhammad said deserved your honor. After God and the Prophet, the person you are most obligated to honor is your mother.
Anyway I had a magnificent day at the center with the ladies on Friday. I love it there so much. I'm really going to be sad to leave. I don't usually go on Fridays, but this Friday was the English Teacher's baby shower, or as they kept saying "Baby Party!". They cooked a huge east African meal, complete with injera and rice and tasty beefy (goaty?) stew. The older women all sat on chairs in a row along the wall, not facing each other, which is something that seemed SO quintessentially African or Middle Eastern, but I couldn't place why. They were all hijabed in the most beautiful colors, and lined up along the wall they just looked so amazing.
Of course there are children running around and screaming everywhere, and the kids are all sitting on a plastic sheet on the floor that one of the older ladies put out. She's the one that seems in control, but in a stoic kind of control. I think she might be the wife of the imam, or the daughter of a respected imam. I once saw her direct her daughter to an older man, which her (five year old) daughter ran over and hugged. It might have been her father, and he was wearing imam clothes. Anyway this woman has power in the group not because of charisma, but because of a central agreement, and it is a somber one. She is kind of a somber woman. Beautiful, but somber. Her daughters are gorgeous too, but also very quiet and reserved, unlike a lot of the other children. Anyway, she was praying for the English teacher, and the whole room would give up resounding a "Amin!". I haven't heard that since I was at that lecture in Commonwealth hall. It was great. They were praying for the health of the baby, I think, but it was all in Somali. Every so often, Congo, or another one of the leaders (she leads by pure charisma, it's clear, I've never seen so much energy!) would attempt to translate for us--the three non-Somali women in the room.
Later on was dancing time, and the ladies made me dance, which was HYSTERICAL, because not only was I being watched by thirty Somali women as I attempted to do their own dance, but because they loved it! It was fantastic. I haven't laughed that hard in such a long time. Then they got me up to do a group dance. I loved that I am able to be with them. I just love it. It means so much to me. I may love to travel, and I may love the rest of the world, and I may always need to "get out of here", but in the end THIS is why my country is the country that I believe in most. Only in this country can we really, sincerely share these experiences as one nation. I just love it. Maybe within the century, it can make up for how we've hurt each other.
Anyway, after my last post (friend locked) the revelation I had at this party was apt. I was sitting there, where all these women were having the most fun I can imagine, dancing and laughing and sharing eachother's babies, I looked around at the little boys in the group. I wondered if they would miss these kinds of parties when suddenly they became 'grown men'. Then I wondered if maybe the whole reason for oppression of women at ALL was because they just wished they could come back into the fold like this. It was a cosmic topsy turvy for me. Obviously it's the other side of a black and white coin, and the real answer is gray, but it is moments like that which make me see oppression of women not as a dark, hateful reality, but as a stab in the dark against something that cannot be killed--that is the communities that women make. It makes attempts at keeping us down simply elaborate charades.
Because, really, in the end it wasn't men that Muhammad said deserved your honor. After God and the Prophet, the person you are most obligated to honor is your mother.