Adventures in English

This year, I want to read and write more, so here I go.

The responses to my last post made me realize that people actually read what I write. As wonderful as this is, it also shows me that I cannot just ramble on aimlessly and that there should be substance to what I write.

I acknowledge that my last blurb was a low point, and I promise if you decide to stick around, it will be much more uplifting from this point on. We’ll laugh, discover new places, disagree on things, learn, love, cry a little, and grow. Why the hell not?

This post includes another bit from my memoir, and I decided to call this chapter “Adventures in English.”

Enjoy.

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Babajoon Buys Crack

Baba racks up points on a credit card that can be used in a Sony Rewards Program. If he goes to the website and enters the final phrase from Wheel of Fortune, he gets bonus points.

My grandfather, who will be referred to as Babajoon from this point, has a very particular schedule, which includes watering the plants twice a day, eating copious amounts of peanut butter mixed with honey, praying, and watching YouTube videos featuring animals or babies. Well, eventually, Babajoon incorporated discovering the final phrase for my dad into his daily routine.

Every weekday, when Babajoon’s alarm goes off, he will hurry over to the TV and watch Wheel of Fortune for the final phrase. Once he reads it, he will jot it down in his planner and he reports to Baba later on.

One day, as Baba was leaving my grandparents’ house, Babajoon said, “Oh, I have the final phrase!”

Baba responded, “That’s right! Well, what is it?”

“Buy crack.”

“What?”

“Yes, buy… crack.”

“Buy crack?”

“Yes! Buy crack!”

At this point, Baba is thinking that the regulations on what they put on television have gotten very lenient. While he processed everything, Babajoon repeated “buy crack” in the background.

Finally, a confused Babajoon explained, “You know, where you park your bicycle.”

“Bike rack. Oh my God. BIKE RACK.”

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Como se Dice ‘Kayak’ en Español?

In Cancun, the resort we stayed at offered free activities throughout the week, including kayaking at certain times.

After breakfast one day, we marched down to the beach and Baba went ahead to wave down one of the employees. He approached the gentleman and slowly said, “Excuse me, señor, do you know where the kayaks are?”

“Um. Ka-yak?”

“Oh, well you know… Uh… Kaaaayak.”

At this point, he began making motions from side to side with an invisible paddle.

The gentleman shook his head and responded, “No comprendo… Ka-yak?”

“Um… Kaaaaaayyyyyyaaaaaaaaaakkkkkkkk…”

Baba began careening down an invisible river in his sturdy invisible kayak, and steered with his equally invisible paddle while making whooshing water sounds. He actually started sweating because of the anxiety and his movements.

My mom, sister and I observed this spectacle from afar, watching my dad gyrate in his slowly sinking kayak. I imagined this was what it would be like to watch Ray Charles play charades with a mime.

After a few minutes of this madness, the guy laughed and said, in perfect English, “The kayaks are right over here, man.”

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Mamanjoon is Trying not to Give a Shit

My grandmother, who will be referred to as Mamanjoon from this point, is a very sweet woman with boatloads of maternal instincts and an incredible turnaround time for witty comebacks.

When you first meet her, you notice that she resembles Grumpy Cat, and everyone wonders why she yells all the time. First off, I think the permanent scowl resulted from raising four rowdy boys and having two bad knees. Second, there is only loud and louder on that side of the family. We are always shouting.

Also, it is important to note that Mamanjoon doesn’t speak English. To this day, I still do not fully comprehend how she received her citizenship. From what I understand, they told the system that she had a learning impediment, which made her unable to study for the test. I suppose her smile and continual nodding helped (she does this whenever cashiers talk to her).

My senile Uncle Jamal enjoys teaching Mamanjoon words and telling her that it means something completely different.

One day, I came home from school and my uncle told Mamanjoon to show me what she learned today. She said, “Chiyeh (what)? Ah, I… don’t… give me no shit.”

“Nah. Behgoo (say) ‘I don’t give a shit.’”

“I… doon… give me a shit.”

“Nah. I don’t give a shit.”

“I… don’t… give… a… shit.”

“Afarin (bravo)!”

I don’t give me no shit.

That’s the only full English sentence Mamanjoon knows to this day. Well, more recently, Jamal attempted to teach her, “You son of a bitch, I don’t trust you.” For whatever reason, though, that one was much harder for her to catch on to.

God Bless America.

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Mothers Know Best

My mother is adorable and I love her to bits. However, popular culture swept her away and now she uses literally in almost every sentence in every wrong way possible. It drives me nuts.

Top instances where Mama used ‘literally’ incorrectly:

“He literally took the words out of my mouth.”

“In 15 minutes, I need you to, literally, take the banana bread out of the oven and put it on the range, then turn off the oven.”

“I literally slept all day and night and afternoon.”

“I literally cannot stand when she does that.”

“This bread is literally too hot.”

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As an added bonus, I'll include a bit that includes technology. One time, my aunt accidentally put her phone on T9 and, for the life of her, could not figure how to turn the damned thing off.

My cousin came home and tried to figure out where her parents had gone, especially since they were not answering their phones. Finally, she received a text from her mom that said, “We are watching taking of trains.”

Massi responded, “The Taking of Pelham 123?”

“YES”

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

I am not writing this for sympathy or a response.

I could talk about so many things and issues at this point. For instance, I recently graduated from graduate school. I am now 25 years old, have three degrees and the job hunt is going on six grueling months. I took part in my first Critical Mass last Friday, and felt a rush as I joined hundreds upon hundreds of other bikers in a ride pulsing through the city’s veins and literally stopping traffic for three hours. What else? Local elections are in full bloom and Ben Hall’s campaign is a joke. Obamacare, U.S.-Iran relations, future vacations, and the list of potentials continues.

Unfortunately, all I can think about is how the past two months and ten days have been hell without her.

I have come to realize that there is nothing more devastating than a relationship not working because of little things that could have easily been resolved or prevented. It didn’t fail because someone fell out of love or you were polar opposites, but because you couldn’t get your shit together and you thought you had all the time in the world.

We always joked about how I should write a manual about her. I don’t have that much time, but I thought maybe I could narrow it down to the top things I would do differently. I am hoping that by getting this out into words, maybe they’d stop plaguing my every thought.

1.     If in 48 hours you aren’t going to remember what the argument was about, then it isn’t worth it. This is so much easier said than done. Also, if you are dating a Latina/Latino, this one is superduper vital. It took tons of meditation and reflection to realize that none of the arguments we had really mattered, and that I could have easily put my pride to the side and compromised. Really resolve the problems and really get past them. Don’t save them up to use as ammunition in the next argument.

2.     Write letters. Nothing beats a genuine hand-written letter. At the beginning, this was easy because we were in a long-distance relationship. Most times, it took me an extra 30 minutes to write her a letter because I wanted to do it in cursive. I look back over our letters and postcards, and it is really something to read just how crazy we were about each other. The writing slowed down my last semester of school and stopped completely once I moved back. If I could do it over, I would leave her little notes and letters taped to the smoothie I’d make her in the morning, in her apron pocket for work, or on the pillow before my run in the morning.

3.     Don’t get so jealous. You are with this person for a reason. Something attracted you to him/her and odds are that someone else will find it just as attractive. She is the most beautiful soul I ever met, and everyone is bound to fall in love with her at some point. She can’t help that smile and personality, and she was yours. She loved you. She chose you. You get to go home to your partner every day, so stop worrying about that infatuated coworker or friend she spends a little time with. It’s obvious who she’s with and she has never given you a reason to worry.

4.     Show and tell your love. Every. Damn. Day. I would make sure that she never questioned my feelings for her, because I would tell her and show her all the time. I wouldn’t assume that she must know since we live together and have already been together for two years.

5.     Support their dreams from start to finish, and don’t let them get distracted. She had a million and a half brilliant thoughts running through her mind about what she wanted to do. She wanted to cook, dance, travel, fight against human trafficking, get a bike with gears, open up her own refrescaria, paint, and so many other things. We would make lists upon lists of how to approach them and what we needed to do. A few days later we’d get distracted by the upcoming rent, having to pick up extra shifts, etc. If I could do it over, I would make sure that we followed through on every one of those things and motivate her every step of the way.

6.     Don’t let yourself go. My low point includes gaining almost 20 pounds after the start of graduate school and not caring even when I graduated. Also, I would make sure my eyebrows and legs were always taken care of, even in the winter.

7.     Take date night seriously. Delegate one night out of the week just to take her out and show her off. Staying at home and watching a movie would not count. Also, I would actually look for all the free events throughout town when money was tight, so no excuses.

8.     Learn how to dance. I mean, really learn how to dance. Sure, I would get up and dance whenever she asked me to (I would make a complete ass out of myself without hesitation), and I’d do a basic salsa with her, but I would learn how to spin and dip her. I would get good enough to where I could get out there and not have to look at my feet and count in my head the whole time. I would make sure that she was really enjoying herself and spend hours lost on the floor.

I held off on learning to dance, taking care of myself, letters, date nights, and dreams, because I thought we really had all the time in the world. I didn’t push myself to be better because I figured I could get started on it tomorrow, next week, or next month. I love her with everything that I am and she loved me for everything she knew I could be. In the end, she told me I was the one who broke her heart.

Now that I am in the future looking back, all these things seem so simple. Unfortunately, it took losing her for me to realize it.

Fools Rush In

I am thinking that I am just going to drop out of school and write my memoir. Here's the start.
____________


I grew up in Texas with an Iranian father and Filipino mother.



Let that marinade and simmer a minute.



After nearly a quarter of a century, I have grown accustom to the how-the-heck-did-that-happen response. I love telling the story of how they beat the odds, and yes, they are still married.

Mama was born in a house somewhere in Cebu, Philippines. For whatever reason, she makes it a point to remind me that healthcare professionals delivered all her four younger siblings in state-of-the-art hospitals. Her family moved to Chicago when she was seven years old, so she is more American than anything.

She rarely talks about Chicago and she lived there until the start of high school. Somewhere around this point in her life she was dating a family friend’s son, and his name was Fidel Castro. I know.... I know. They once lost Fidel at the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, and his mother nearly had a heart attack when the airport employees refused to page Fidel Castro over the intercom.

Fast forward a bit and my grandparents packed their five children and belongings into a station wagon and moved to Channelview, Texas, a town stuck somewhere between Houston and Louisiana with plenty of racial slurs for Asian families at the time. Nevertheless, Mama danced on the drill team, played on the volleyball team, and was a social butterfly. The only thing questionable about all of this is her volleyball team ordeal, especially since she is only five feet tall (on a good day).

She secretly wanted to be a designer, which I never knew until recently, but was sent down the path most common to Filipinos, which was towards a career in nursing.

______________

My father, who will be referred to as Baba from this point on, was born in a small town called Khorramshahr near the border of Iran. He would always tell us stories about growing up as the youngest out of four boys in Tehran (complete opposite of my mother, who was the oldest of five children). By the end of his stories, I usually have tears in my eyes from laughing so hard, and from wishing I had been there to experience Iran the way he did before the Islamic Revolution.

My grandmother already had three rowdy pre-adolescent boys when she started developing an intense pain in her back. Her doctor told her to get pregnant and that would cure it, so she did and that was the end of her ailment. Nine months later, there was a ten-pound bouncing baby boy. That was Baba.

His two older brothers went to the University of Texas in Austin, while the third one studied engineering in Iran. Baba was sent to Texas to avoid being drafted to fight in the First Persian Gulf War. He was 16 at the time.

On the airplane, he heard Stevie Wonder’s “You are the Sunshine of my Life” for the first time. Whenever he hears this song, you can see him transported through time to that very moment.

I am not entirely sure how he ended up at La Porte High School, but it was only 20 minutes away from Channelview. One time, he forgot his worn-out Persian to English dictionary on the bus home from school. When he called about it, the bus company informed him that they could only find a wrinkled copy of some foreign holy book, which was actually his dictionary.

As much as Mom was a socialite, I imagine Baba was just as socially awkward. He has always had an infectious sense of humor, though, and a love for puns.

______________

A couple of years later, Baba was taking a government class at a community college, which my mom took at a different time.  This class gave its students the option of writing a paper or volunteering at a campaign office for the local elections. Fortunately for me, the latter option was most appealing for both of them and that is how they met.

Mom was fashionable and had a cute perm, while Baba was thinner than thin with hand me downs from his much larger brothers. His hair was down to his shoulders and he had not quite discovered deodorant yet.

Three months later they were married.

Apparently immigration discovered Baba was living under his brother’s social security number and threatened to deport him. I think the proposal was something along the lines of, “They are going to send me back to Iran. My brothers have found a woman to marry me, but I would much rather marry you. If you don’t want to, we can keep dating after I get married.”

Mom would not hear of it and accepted his proposal. She laughed throughout the ceremony at the courthouse, to the point where the judge asked her to settle down.

He was 18 and she was 20.

______________

I Feel It All

This was typed last week, and I forgot to post it.


Someone told me that I'm beginning to look Palestinian, but my backpack gives me away as a foreigner.


I stared into the mirror for truth in his statement. I noticed a much darker complexion than usual, my braided hair with the split ends caused by the intense sun, and the fine lines between my eyebrows from squinting.


Bottom line: The sun did it.


I take it as a compliment. Well, for now. We will wait and see when I have to go back through Israeli checkpoints and ridiculous amounts of security. I doubt I will be flattered and batting my eyelashes then.


On a side note, I just heard some squeaking and high-pitched squealing that sounded like machinery in need of some grease, or a donkey. I looked outside of the office window and see two donkeys grazing across the street.


Our neighbor's neighbor brought us a massive bundle of plums from her tree, yesterday. They are the best I have ever tasted. I packed a whole bag and made it a point to offer some to everyone in my day.


First, I walked out of the hostel and onto the main walkway to find a man sweeping the floors and wiping the sweat from his eyes. I bid him a sabah el-khear and offered him some fruit. He smiled and took a couple.


I continued my walk to the servis station and on my way I stopped at the candy shop on the corner. Laura and I were incredibly lost our first week here and the owner, Abrahim, helped us and gave us some candy. Every morning since then, I stop in to say hello and he offers me bonbons with coffee and small talk.


After chatting with Abrahim, I continue walking down the street, and the tea/coffee man is preparing a tray for his delivery boys, who are no older than 13 and finishing their own cups of coffee. We exchange smiles and a marhaba in passing.


When I reach the station, a gentleman in his fifties greets me and directs me to the correct servis, his name is Abbad. He is always  genuinely happy to help, and takes the time to double check with the driver's directions on where to take me. He teaches me a word in Arabic and he practices his English with me. He enjoys the fruit since it is always so hot in the station.


Our expert in agriculture at the Near East Foundation told me that the tree that produced these plums is often called the "poor man's tree" since it gives so much fruit and requires minimal maintenance.

If only there were more people who naturally gave the world their all without needing much.

Lost?

A few days ago, an elderly man accompanied me on a part of my usual walk to the servis station. He spoke a good amount of English and was eager to practice with me. As we passed by a wall plastered with glue and posters with the edges peeling, he stopped and pointed to the faces on the posters. He said, “This man went to Israel,” and then he made a motion with his hands that resembled Superman pulling apart his shirt to reveal the S hidden underneath.

I didn’t say much after that.

Ever since then, the eyes of the martyrs have weighed down on me. They are at the grocery store, restaurants, alleys, malls, etc. A majority of them look about my age. These young men with their whole lives ahead of them, and they feel that this extreme is the only answer.

I cannot imagine.

No more than 25 years old, thinking that you've gone through every other possible solution there is out there, only to end up at the option of committing suicide and killing civilians in the process.

In the end, the Israeli settlers use their actions as a reason to further repress the Palestinians.

Then the cycle starts, again.

Sexyback

It is hard to believe that I am inching my way to the halfway point of my trip already. Time seems to be optional here. When invited to juice or a coffee, the outing can last hours. Laura and I stumbled into our neighbor’s garden by accident one day, and the owner, a kind elderly woman named Mona, sat us down for lemonade and sweets. There were no questions, just persistent hospitality. “No” is never an option.

At about 3:45 every morning, I wake up to the call to prayer. Out of the five made throughout the day, this one seems the longest. I fall back asleep at about 4:30 and wake up again at 7:30 when Laura rolls out of bed for work. Now that we are on different schedules, the alarms and snoozes are all meshing together, and it is just a grumpy mess in the morning.

Laura started teaching English, yoga, and arts and crafts with a non-profit organization called Project Hope. Today they are going to refugee camps. She loves it. I am incredibly proud of her.

I have started taking the servis (group taxi) to the Near East Foundation, the organization I work with. I walk a few blocks over to the center and go to the taxi station beneath the mall. My new friend at the station directs me to the right lane, I jump into a taxi with four strangers, and show the driver a blue sticky note with a few lines of Arabic scribbled onto it.

Prior to the brilliant sticky note ordeal, I took a regular taxi with Laura and attempted to communicate where this building was to previous drivers in about four different ways, and failed every time. Each time resulted in me having to call my friend, Hadeel, to serve as my interpreter via mobile. Even though I said time seems to be optional, they understand it is money. I would be charged an extra five shekels for causing a delay.

Now, with the sticky note and servis, the trip is two and a half shekels, which amounts to about 65 cents.

Nablus, Palestine, is a very beautiful place. It rests in the middle of a bowl, a valley in the middle of mountains. The only way out is to take one of the winding roads up and over the steep slopes. The old city down the street contains a market within its narrow roads, and here you can find street vendors shouting about prices, fresh apricots and zucchini, halaal meat, and the newest sunglasses that everyone is wearing in Europe. The smell of freshly baked bread in this area is intoxicating.

Guys are strewn about and use their broken English in an attempt to get Laura’s attention.

“Hi! Vat is you name?”

“Hovar you doings?”

“Vat is the place you are from?”

Last week, there was this kid, no more than 15 years old, who blatantly said, “So sexziii,” as she passed by. My initial reaction was to ask where his mother was, so that I can tell her to spank her child. Good grief. So sexziii.

So a few things:

-  Greetings in broken English are considered pickup lines

- Giving passengers exact change while weaving through traffic is a skill

- Tea and coffee are drunk throughout the day, even at noon when it is scalding out

- Kids want to play, even when they cannot understand a word you are saying

On a side note, ever since Laura signed into her GMail my home settings are now in Spanish, and since I'm logging on in Palestine all of the settings on my blog are in Arabic. This is getting out of hand.

I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For

I am currently in Nablus, Palestine, listening to the call to prayer resonate throughout the city. It has been two weeks since Laura and I jumped the Atlantic Ocean to begin this venture to see the West Bank and work with the Near East Foundation. I have been spending most of my morning and the beginnings of this afternoon reflecting on things.

We had to connect through Newark Liberty International Airport to get to Tel Aviv, Israel. First, all passengers were required to wait in the general terminal area away from the gate, which was a closed off area. Hebrew, Arabic, English, and French circled about us. There were Orthodox Jews, Muslims, Americans, Asians, and all other sorts of ethnicities waiting to board. As soon as they permitted us into the actual gate’s seating area, all passengers had to go through another security checkpoint. Everyone had their bags searched, belongings emptied, and bodies frisked. There was a small girl, no more than six years old, who went before me, and she was treated as if she was a 40-year-old man with a record. I remember wandering what I had gotten myself into.

Ten hours later we landed safely in Tel Aviv. Walking through the airport, the excitement began to build. This continued until we reached border patrol. I asked them not to stamp our passports since we travel a lot and anticipate on going to countries that do not permit the Israeli stamp.

Officer: “No stamp? Okay. This happens a lot.”

Me: “Thank you. I appreciate it. It is a shame that it has to happen.”

“What is your father and grandfather’s name?”

“Jalil Hakim and Syed Morteza Hakim.”

Within 15 seconds, he handed my passport to another officer, who had me go sit in a sectioned off area. Laura kept me company even though they let her through immediately. There was a Pakistani businessman, a white man who visited once a year, and the rest were Arabic. The tension was brewing and it was truly a frustrating time. They called each of us in one by one for questioning. The Pakistani gentleman became fed up after a while and booked a return flight for the same day on his phone.

The first interrogator asked for my father and grandfather’s name, religion, what I was doing there, who did I know, and so on and so forth. He was somewhat polite. The second was very rude and didn’t seem to comprehend my answers.

“Where is your mother from and when did she go to the US?”

“The Philippines and she was seven, so it was about 1971.”

“And your father?”

“He is from Iran and he was in his last year of high school, it was after the Islamic Revolution, but at the start of the Gulf War, so about….”

“Which Gulf War? You know there were two.”

“Yes, I know that. I am trying to give you an accurate time frame here. He married my mother in 1985, so it must have been 1984 that he moved to Texas.”

“So your parents are married?”

“Yes. They’ve been married for almost 27 years.”

“What is your religion?”

“I don’t have one.”

“Your father is Muslim. Why aren’t you a Muslim?”

“Yes, he is, but he obviously isn’t that strict since he married a Catholic.”

“I don’t understand. Are you baptized?”

“No. My father is Muslim and my mother is Catholic. They didn’t force a certain religion upon me. God is great, He loves me, and I need to be the best person I can be.”

“Why don’t you have a religion?”

“I feel like I just answered that.”

And it continued on like that for a while… They kept me in that waiting room and questioning me for four hours, which is not too bad from what I have been told.

We traveled for another five hours to get to Nablus. Getting through Israel was hell. I do not understand what is going on in their heads. More than half of the security force looks younger than me, and they have their guns in one hand while they are texting on their phones with the other. It is very a scary situation. I asked them for directions and they wave me off with, “Sorry, no English,” and they go back to sending their messages. If I ask a second question, or bother them again, then I get an agitated look and a stern, “NO ENGLISH.”

When we arrived in Palestine, I asked for directions. The man said he didn’t understand English, but he went out of his way to find someone who did so that they could translate for us. Everyone is like this. It is amazing how willing they are to help a foreigner from a country that helped give away their homeland and not help them towards statehood.