At Queen Alia International Airport, I tucked away my laptop and lunged to the security check point before the gate. On my way I double-checked the flight departure monitor. It flashed: “RJ178 Gate 3 Last Call.”

Right before the X-ray machine stood an airport security guard that checked passports and boarding passes. Upon seeing my pass he said: “Montreal not yet open. Please wait in the other lounge.”

“But they just made the announcement,” I said in Arabic. He simply smiled and gave me a blank look, then pointed to the lounge. There were a few people behind me. Most of the Arabs, having overheard my conversation with the officer, stepped out of the line and headed back to the outside lounge. A few Canadians continued to proceed to the gate. They were really confused when the officer again pointed them to the lounge. This was not the first time that this had happened. I suppose this is a system or a process issue. Just poor communication and coordination between airport personnel.

In any case, I was happy that I had managed to book a window seat. It is a long flight to Montreal and this would help me try to get some sleep. Boarding the plane, I walked towards my seat. The configuration of the seats were 2-4-2—aisle next to a window seat.

I spotted my seat, 31A and yes, it was vacant! What a delight. So many times in the past on Royal Jordanian someone would be in my seat, usually playing dumb and asking me to switch with his seat, which invariably would be a middle seat. So many times I had to fight for what was rightfully mine. Luckily, not this time.

A girl in a veil sat on the aisle seat, 31B.

“Excuse me, I am sitting there,” I said to her with a courteous smile, pointing to the vacant window seat next to her.

Her face turned a bit red, she stood up but did not step to the side to let me in. Panic seemed to engulf her and she looked like she was fast cooking something in her head. She then looked at the man and woman sitting one row ahead and said:

“Excuse me. Are you ka-bel (couple)?”

The man and woman, who were non-Arab, looked at each other, as if amused at the suggestiveness of the question, gave a brief smile, then said to the girl in veil “No.”

The girl in veil looked at the woman anxiously and said: “Do you mind sitting next to me. It’s a long flight you know.”

It all happened so fast that I only realized what was going on after the other lady had stood up, went to sit in my seat and gave me hers—which was an aisle seat.

Then, a lady, walking from the front of the plane to the middle section, stopped a couple of rows ahead and asked a seated passenger to do a seat swap so that she can sit next to her friend.

Indeed, it was a very sociable plane, people would spot others they knew and pay them visits at their seats. The mother of the girl behind me came to check on her daughter, arching over me, resting her arm on the back of my seat and breathing down my neck. “Excuse me,” I said, but my words didn’t stir the determined.

I had to move my head a bit lest it gets bumped. Every three to four rows, there was one such visitor. The plane was still at the gate.

The flight attendant announced: “Everyone please take your seats and fasten your seat belts. We will not take off until everyone is seated with their seat belts fastened.”

Then another flight attendant, realizing that a speaker announcement was not enough, passed through the aisles, ushered lingerers to their seats and reminded them to fasten. An unshaved man a couple of rows ahead would not fasten his seat belt.

“Fasten your seat belt please. Just for fifteen minutes then we’ll be up in the air and you can unfasten.”

“Why don’t you fasten it for me,” he said with a smile that she quickly returned with a smirk.

The flight’s final destination was Detroit with a stop in Montreal. Roughly half of the plane was filled with Montrealers, the other, Detroit passengers.

Seconds after the plane touched ground in Montreal, the beast was still bumping on the ground, air brakes still laboring at full throttle to bring the plane back to steady motion, but people stood up and started opening the overhead compartments. A couple that were being jerked around, looked like drunkards desperately trying to regain their balance.

“Please sit down and remain seated with your seat belts fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop and the seat belt sign has been turned off!” The voice of the flight attendant sounded fiercer than usual.

People reluctantly went back to their seats. Then as soon as the plane stopped, and before the seat belt sign went off, people sprang up and claimed their carry-ons and filled up the aisles, ready to exit the plane.

“Passengers headed to Detroit are to remain on-board. You cannot leave the plane,” came the announcement with some other information.

There were some visits here and there, some seat swapping by the Detroit passengers, and it seemed that the flow of people out of the plane was impeded. Apparently, some Detroit passengers were standing in the way because soon, another announcement followed.

“Detroit passengers, please take your seats, let the Montreal passengers exit the plane.”

Finally, there was movement again.

“Would you stop pushing. Where are you going to go. Look! You going to jump over all these passengers?” One man scolded another behind him.

Just when I was about to disembark from the plane, a flight attendant, standing by the gate, asked me if my final destination was Montreal and I confirmed. Apparently, some Detroit people had stepped out of the plane and had to be escorted back so a flight attendant had to act as gatekeeper.

***

On another long RJ flight, I was seated in the middle seat section, with three empty seats next to me. As soon as we were airborne and the fasten seat belt sign was extinguished, a lady in her late forties popped up and asked me if she could sit on the other end of the empty seats. Had I acted like the other passengers, I would have claimed the territory at the earliest chance, extending my legs or placing objects and securing my sleeping space, but I did not want to be desperately opportunistic.

I said okay. I was sympathetic. She was an older lady. After dinner and when the lights went off, she made herself cozy, curled sideways and extended her legs, claiming all three seats—her toes almost touching my side while I sat squeezed in my one sorry seat.

Feeling a burning sense of injustice, I finally spoke out.

“Can we at least share?”

She withdrew her limbs from the third to the second seat and I extended mine to that second seat, so we sat from the outside seats with knees ridged upwards, each claiming two seats and facing each other. Every once in a while she would doze off and her legs would seamlessly slide into my territory and I would have to push back, so over the course of the flight, far from getting any sleep, we were throwing contemptuous glances and playing a hostile game of footsie to fend off intrusion into this tough turf, part of which almost became a no man’s land.

***

I’d been consulting for over ten years on international assignments, travelling on average once every three weeks across the U.S., Europe, and Southeast Asia. The travel experience with my fellow Jordanian and Palestinian brothers and sisters is truly unique.

In some cases, adults act like children. Their behavior ranges from lack of common courtesy and consideration for others to outright self absorption and selfishness— me first in line, me the all-deserving of better service, of a better seat.

“Madam, you are requesting a first-class service, but you’re paying economy,” a flight attendant told a passenger once. I thought that summed up best this aspect of my culture—over expectation, under contribution.

The irony is that one would expect this selfish individualism to take place in a culture known for that, not in a culture famous for being anti-individualistic. We are a self-conscious people, obsessed with what society thinks, with reputation, image, and with something we call ‘honor.’ We are also very sociable people, flocking to weddings, funerals, newborn baby parties. And as such, Arabic culture probably ranks one of the highest in hospitality.

When we have guests, we show off with our generosity. We are very supportive of our kids. It is unheard of to kick a son or daughter out of the house after reaching eighteen, even forty, regardless of economic hardships, while this may not be so unusual in the U.S. for example. We respect our parents and our elders. We are very supportive of family members, extended family, members of the clan or tribe, our friends. Abandoning a friend or relative in need is considered a taboo.

Inherent in all this is compromise and sacrifice. If anything, it is more selfless than selfish. We are willing to give more to our loved ones than are others in the U.S. and Europe, perhaps.

Yet, once we step out of the circle of friends and family, another personality takes over.

My explanation for this is that there is no sense of the collective, a sense of a common identity, of a common people working together. There is no belief in a fair and equal system that we belong to, adhere to, that represents us equally. There is no participation.

The common man is someone that gets trampled on. The common man in our culture does not get much respect, while the common man in a first world country is as good as any. In the absence of democracy and a system that works for the one and the many, we end up with dog eats dog. To each their own. That helps us remain divided. The perception is that the gain and success of one is at the expense of the other. Though conceptually this is not unique to us, or to people of the third world as a whole (i.e. rich at the expense of the poor,) the extent and degree are more severe for us.

Rather than the sense of: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you, we get: Do unto others as others have done unto you. And ‘others’ have treated you unfairly and gotten away with it, so the exploited becomes the exploiter in a never ending cycle.

The other exhibited behavior, that of restlessness, might be symptomatic of people’s frustrations and sense of powerlessness—those whose lives are not within their control. So to compensate, they make up for it by taking it out on others. All this is consistent with the way people drive in Amman.

Little common courtesy is given to the ‘common’ man in shared, common spaces such as airplanes and streets.

Amman is famous for its villas and mansions, burgeoning out of most beautiful gardens. Unlike any city in Europe or the US, though, there are no beautiful common areas, just disconnected islands of beauty fenced behind walls. Similar to what Robert Fisk observed about Lebanon, people don’t feel a sense of ownership of their streets and neighborhoods and cities. They have no problem littering outside the fence while their gardens and houses are kept immaculate. There is no sense of ownership of that which is shared.

Though the aforementioned generosity, hospitality and selflessness may not always be genuine—often done in response to social pressure or for a desire to show off— they are still something to be proud of. A less turbulent journey, and a more cohesive society would emerge if we changed our mentality and realized that we are in this together. If I don’t fasten my seat belt before takeoff because I am too busy chatting with a friend, I won’t just be delaying others, but also myself.

Jordan and Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1994, they maintain diplomatic relations, and even before the peace treaties, relations between the governments of Jordan and Israel were friendly. As far as Iraq is concerned, it is true that historically, Saddam’s Iraq had been in conflict with Israel. Iraq also supported the Palestinian resistance movements financially and politically. But since that time, and especially after 2003, Iraq has been too occupied with its own problems to have an actual conflict with Israel.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and UAE don’t enjoy formal diplomatic relations with Israel, but neither have they engaged in actual conflict. The practical life of the average citizen in any of those countries is not in the slightest impacted by Israel (or vice versa). The only other countries in the Middle East that have a palpable problem with Israel today are Lebanon and Syria. On any average day, the life of a Lebanese or a Syrian is nowhere impacted by Israel, though. Existentially, it is the Palestinian’s day-to-day life, particularly in the West Bank and Gaza, that is made unnecessarily so much more difficult, if not unbearable, by the Jewish State.

Referring to this situation as the “Middle East Conflict” exaggerates the scope of the conflict, making it appear that twelve countries are at war with Israel, though only three are involved, and at best partially. The term works to draw sympathy towards the Jewish State, a lone country surrounded by hostile Arabs, where in reality Israel wields so much power that it can choose to bomb sites in other sovereign countries like it did in Iraq in 1982, and Syria in 2008, actions that amount to acts of war, without seemingly worrying about reprisals.

Naming it the “Middle East Conflict” has the added effect of diluting the Palestinians’ stake in the discord, the specificity of their suffering, and the uniqueness of their plight to protect their precarious identity.

The term “Arab Israeli Conflict” is also misleading. Again, it serves the purpose of exaggerating the discord, insinuating that all of the Arabs are out to get Israel. There are 350 million people defined as Arab. While most of them, just like many other citizens in the world, may oppose Israel because of its human rights abuses and violations of International Law, not a mere 2% of them are “officially” in conflict with Israel.

To the surprise of many in the U.S., many Jews are Arab themselves, including Egyptian, Iraqi, Yamani, Moroccan, Lebanese, Syrian and Tunisian. These Arab Jews, known as Mizrahi, mostly live in Israel today, while some also live in the U.S., some still in Syria, and many in Morocco. These Arabs are definitely not in conflict with Israel. In Israel, they have full rights, unlike the non-Jewish, Palestinian citizens of Israel.

According to Ella Habiba Shohat, an Iraqi Jew and Professor of Cultural Studies and Women’s Studies at New York University, the story of Israel and Jews only takes the European narrative into consideration, most notably the Holocaust, and assumes it for the collective memory and experience of all Jews. This story excludes the experience of Arab Jews.

Mizrahis spoke more Arabic than Yiddish, ate and looked more like Middle Easterners than Europeans, and were immersed in some of the Arab traditions. They had more in common with Muslim and Christian Arabs than with Polish or German Jews. Mizrahis largely lived in harmony (though there were times of tension) with the non-Jewish Arab communities, contrary to what some Israelis would have us believe.

According to Shohat,

“In Egypt, Morocco, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Tunisia, Jews became members of legislatures, of municipal councils, of the judiciary, and even occupied high economic positions. (The finance minister of Iraq in the ’40s was Ishak Sasson, and in Egypt, Jamas Sanua–higher positions, ironically, than those our community had generally achieved within the Jewish state until the 1990s!)”

The different communities that once co-existed were not so consumed by their religious affiliations.

Terming the Palestinian-Israeli conflict an “Arab Israeli conflict” unnecessarily invites more people to join, politicizes and segregates people further, and emphasizes our differences instead of our similarities. It pushes us to identify ourselves in terms of binarism, us versus them, good versus evil (how good and evil are determined is another story), instead of acknowledging that we are the same people and that we all demand to be treated with respect and dignity.

What if Christian Arabs formed a state and called it “X,” brought European Christians to live in it and suppressed the indigenous non-Christian population in that state? Would they call the ensuing conflict the Arab-X conflict?

Again, this naming serves to obfuscate the idea of a Palestinian identity. The main distinguishing factor is whether a citizen in Israel is Jewish or not, not if he or she is Arab or not, just as in the example of the Iraqi, Yemeni and Egyptian Jew living in Israel. The whole burden of this racist design falls crushingly on the shoulder of the Palestinian. The “Arab-Israeli” is none other than a Palestinian, hence he or she should be called a Palestinian-Israeli. Similar to the Palestinian living in Israel proper, the one in Gaza and the West Bank happens to be a Muslim or a Christian, not a Jew. Hence, the Palestinian feels the wrath of the Israeli suppression machine.

At the core of it, this conflict is about a universal fight for human rights and social justice, an oppressed-versus-oppressor conflict. This is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

SOMETHING INSIDE OF ME died when I read about French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s proposal for a ban on burqas on the streets of France.

Beyond the usual platitudes about “respect for other cultures,” or “but what if the women choose them freely,” what upset me was the possibility that the women wearing whatever it is that Sarkozy deems objectionable—he wasn’t even specific about what he meant by the word “burqa”—might face harassment from law enforcement in addition to the stereotyping of mainstream society.

If a woman knows what it’s like to be harassed and stereotyped, if she has experienced the scorn of people who, based on just a few silly outside markers, have decided to debase her, how could she not worry about it happening to someone else?

I am the least likely person to support the total veiling of a woman’s face and body. Yet my experiences with sexual harassment in Amman have cemented my belief that there is something fundamentally violating about being bullied into trying to pass as someone you’re not.

In the early spring of 2009, I began wearing the hijab when leaving my house in Amman. I am a non-Muslim woman with a drawling American accent and Slavic heritage—and no, I don’t think “Russian Natasha” jokes are cute, just so we’re clear. I was trying to appear to be someone else. It started when I realized that the compromises I had originally expected to make when coming to Jordan—more conservative clothing, no alcohol on my breath, no smiling at strangers in public, and so on—were not enough to allow me to feel safe.

After a number of increasingly scary experiences in comparatively nice neighborhoods like Shmeisani and Abdoun, I was nearly run over by a man who was pursuing me in his car. He must have realized I was set on ignoring him as he shouted the standard lines: “Where are you going?” “Five JDs, baby!” Then he decided to impress me by turning sharply into my path at an intersection, screeching to a halt inches from my body. As it happened, all I could think was: “Am I really about to die or get maimed because of some guy trying to pick me up?”

I broke down in front of my Ukrainian hairdresser later that day, and was gently reminded that many people in Amman “think they know everything about you” if you happen to be young and conspicuously foreign. Out of desperation more than anything else, I decided to try getting around that.

I DIDN’T WANT TO appropriate anyone’s lifestyle, and definitely didn’t want to act like those non-Muslim women who put on Muslim garb to play at being the “exotic” princess they read about in the Arabian Nights.

So I got Fatemeh Fakhraie, the editor of Muslimah Media Watch, a website that critiques the portrayal of Muslim women in international media, to speak to me about the practice of being a “part-time hijabi.”

“I don’t like how the idea of hijab is fixed, as if once you take it on or off, there’s no going back,” she said, when I asked her about what it meant to put it on as a safety measure. “It doesn’t allow for the realities and differing circumstances of life.” We talked about how, beyond being a sign of religious expression, the hijab can function as a “do not approach” sign when one is surrounded by strangers.

I’m cool then, I decided. Sure, I’d known plenty of women who’d been coerced into wearing the hijab, and they all told me how unpleasant it was, but my situation was different, right? I’d be OK. Right?

Indeed, I felt the more aggressive episodes of harassment did become less frequent. But in my scarf I became even more miserable than before.

I could see the confusion in men’s eyes as they sized me up, and overheard hilarious debates as to the subject of my identity. I never ceased to look out of place, but I was no longer conforming to their expectations. I would have thought this would bring me some relief, but I began to feel lost and defeated, as if some fundamental part of me had come unmoored and was floating away.

Looking at my reflection in a shop window at one point, I asked aloud: “Who are you?”

The woman staring back was like a chimera. It was a small relief to find out that it wasn’t just me, when I spoke to foreign women who hadn’t had much success with wearing scarves either. One woman said she didn’t even see a difference in the level of sexual harassment. Another did, but said she felt there was something really wrong with having her inner person validated through dressing like someone else.

I quickly came to learn that when we try to disguise ourselves as someone else, the experience of being “found out” can be even more traumatic than whatever it is we were trying to escape in the first place.

Once, I found tears streaming down my face and destroying my over-priced mascara as I yelled at a construction worker who had whistled at me on the street as I passed by in my scarf.

“I’ll get my husband and he’ll beat you up!” I shouted. (OK, I’m not married, but I knew by then that jealous husbands are the scariest specter women can invoke on the streets of Amman). The construction worker looked genuinely shocked. Although I’m sure he eventually got over it, and maybe even learned a valuable lesson, I realized that my grief and pain had little to do with him.

IT’S EASY TO BELIEVE that one is fundamentally “safe” in a hijab. It’s a pleasant fiction propagated by those clerics who compare uncovered women to “uncovered meat” or candy, and by people who romanticize Muslim dress. Yet more often than not, the muhajabat I “came out” to in Amman when asked if I was also Muslim completely undermined this fantasy.

“My family didn’t believe me when I told them I was being harassed at my new place of work,” said Layla, who asked me not to use her real name. “My aunt finally said, ‘But you’re covered. You must be attracting attention by misbehaving.’ I didn’t talk about it anymore. I gave up.”

Only after Layla announced she was thinking of switching jobs did her boss threaten her harassers, and the behavior abated. Of course, it still took a male authority figure to demand dignity on her behalf.

So, seeing France’s anti-burqa rhetoric through the prism of my experiences in Amman, and the experiences of the women I have spoken to, I can’t help but return to the dreadful condescension behind the assumption that a woman does not have a right to construct her own identity and—horror of horrors—expect that identity to be respected by men in particular.

As for my own hijab, I took it off. In Jordan I have the freedom to do as much. Police officers don’t approach me and tell me to cover my hair. Aside from the usual harassment, I sometimes even get random compliments from passing women on my particular shade of straw-yellow hair (blame the bleaching effects of the Jordanian sun).

I can’t say that I’ve somehow learned to stop worrying and live with the assumptions made about me and women like me, but what I understand now is that you can’t challenge such assumptions when you’re compromising an integral part of your identity.

A fake muhajaba is merely participating in a charade, no matter what appearances may tell you. Perhaps, in time, President Sarkozy may also realize that appearances can be deceptive.

The key messages of the report are as follows. Education is at the crossroads for the future of MENA. It plays crucial role in promoting poverty alleviation and economic growth, both at national and household levels. Various stakeholders in the region regard education as their most important development challenge, and education reform is on top of the reform agenda of many regional governments.

Having succeeded in expanding the education systems to include most eligible children, boys and girls, the MENA region is now ready to travel a new road. While the exact configuration of this new road will not be the same for each country, all countries, irrespective of their initial conditions, will require a shift from “engineering inputs” to “engineering for results”, along with a combination of incentives and public accountability measures, as well as measures to improve labor market outcomes.

Finally, labor market reforms will need to be implemented hand in hand with those for the education system proper. In the case of MENA, the relevant labor market extends much farther than the confines of any country or even the region because of important migration trends and opportunities.

The report is 399-page long and is starting to stimulate quite a bit of discussions, in particular in the countries members of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). Public authorities are reviewing the details and assessing which analyses and recommendations are relevant to their own country.

Probably the best feature of this report on education is precisely that it is not (uniquely) about education, its own internal debates and inward-looking theories.

Granted, GCC countries have achieved a tremendous growth over the past thirty years. And their transformations do not seem to slow down. It is actually hard to think of a field in which nothing has been attempted: science, media, transport, education, art, sport, infrastructure, trade, e-government, the world is hearing from projects popping out from the western side of the Persian Gulf – a palm-shaped man-made island, a one-kilometer high tower, the Louvre, a couple of Formula One Grand Prix, English Premier League teams, television networks challenging CNN, local branches of top-tier universities and research centers. We cannot wait for the Football World Cup, the Olympic Games (at least the summer Olympic Games to start with), a landing on the moon…

This accumulation has been made possible by two fundamental God-sent gifts. The first one is obviously fossil fuel reserves. Albeit at various levels, the GCC countries have had access to cheap and abundant oil and gas. The second aspect is the peace and stability that the GCC countries have enjoyed.

Now, at the risk of spoiling the fun, two issues would need highlighting.

First, the rapid stockpiling of material assets biases the focus of life away from culture and heritage. While religion plays a central role in the societies of the Gulf and in spite of the many public initiatives such as festivals, competitions and museums, people do not seem to be genuinely interested in high culture or art.

Think about fine arts in everyday life in the main capitals of the Gulf – sculpture, painting, literature, theatre, music, dance, photography, filmmaking – and it is fair to say that they are not often the main topics of interest. The occasional buzz occurs (Paris Hilton in Dubai) but even the most educated people do not seem to have a deep interest in art. If it can be used as anecdotal evidence, compare the Friday edition of the local newspapers to the Sunday issue of any European newspaper. Locally, art attracts almost no attention.

This is not to say that endless passionate debates on the latest modern art exhibition, a new novel or an art-house film are the only signs of development, but simply that exposure to culture is a source of positive inspiration. It gives a meaning to societies and personal lives.

The second missing element in the GCC landscape is a collective memory of entrepreneurship, innovation and business initiative. The history of the Gulf is filled with great traders but the current development phase has principally been about the management of an immense rent and its distribution to populations who wanted to import A/C, cars, televisions, etc.

Compared with Europe in the 19th century and many other countries around the world in the first half of the 20th century, the Gulf has not yet accumulated any significant long term industrial experience. Harvard professor and development specialist Alice Amsden argues that:

“On the eve of decolonization, manufacturing experience was greatest in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey. […] While not every country with prewar manufacturing experience succeeded, no country without it could create a diversity of advanced industries in the half-century after World War II.”

Only time and continuous effort can create the required experienced elite class with large cohorts of entrepreneurs, managers, engineers, lawyers and accountants.

While experience is indeed needed, there is one prerequisite: education is the absolute requirement for society to develop peacefully. There is probably no need to reiterate the importance of knowledge acquisition – awareness is actually quite high in this area – but it seems that the public attention regarding education is crystallized on a flawed debate.

Most of what we hear or read is about the inadequacy of rote-learning and other old-fashioned methodologies. It is as if children where going to learn mathematics through a series of modern, cool student-centered learning by doing. The time has perhaps come to go over this debate, which in any case will never be closed, and reorient the education strategy towards what is missing in the region. Not enough is done to inculcate the love of art and culture and not much is even attempted to foster a culture of innovation, research and entrepreneurship.

If that is what the GCC lacks, it is more than urgent that significant resources, efforts and commitments are aligned with the real challenges of the region. The Road Not Traveled? Indeed. And the journey is going to be long…

Olivier Renard is an advisor at the Secretariat General of the Research Council of the Sultanate of Oman.

Rana Husseini, whom I first interviewed in 2007, is an investigative reporter and world-famous campaigner against the cruel phenomenon known as honour killing – both in Jordan and beyond. Her book, Murder in the Name of Honour, recently sold out upon its launch in Amman. Before the launch, I sat down with Rana to talk about everything from local politics to Orientalist imagery.

Natalia: So, this book was a real labour of love!

Rana: Yes. I wanted to get this one just right. I wasn’t about to let anyone sensationalize the subject matter. Thankfully, Oneworld Publications worked out really well for me and my agent, because they understood where we were coming from.

N: The cover looks great, by the way. It’s so different from the usual covers that are used on books about this region.

R: I told them right away, I wouldn’t have any seductive, veiled women on the cover! And no camels, and no sand and no menacing men in traditional clothing either! I wasn’t going to play into any of the stereotypes.

N: I meant to tell you, I have found some people to be strangely uncomfortable with the idea of an Arab woman speaking out about issues such as honour killing. It’s like they want all this phenomenon to be filtered exclusively through Western eyes.

R: Well, you can’t please everyone all the time. If we worried about what people said 24/7, we would get nothing done. There would be no progress.

When you speak about this mistrust, I can’t help but think of the Norma Khouri nonsense [Norma Khouri, real name Norma Bagain Teliopoulos, released a fraudulent "memoir" on honour killing in Jordan - a book that deal a blow to the local anti-honour killing cause]. There are a lot of people out there who still believe the lies that Norma Khouri spread about Jordan. And they don’t want those lies to be challenged.

You know, I’ve been attacked by many different people over the years. I’ve even been accused of being a government agent. This issue of honour killing has been politicized, which is why this happens. But you need to keep going, because there are women who need help.

N: Speaking of help, what are some of your goals for the book?

R: I want this book to save lives. Women in vulnerable situations will hopefully read it and see how they can protect themselves. There can be warning signs, and I illustrate many of them when talking about specific incidents. And we need to keep spreading awareness and pressuring global society to do more about this issue. God created us, and God takes us, and there is nothing defensible about honour crime when you think about it like that. More and more people must realize this.

N: Karim Kawar, Jordan’s former Ambassador to the United States, told some years ago that one of the central problems with honour killing is how certain parties view them as a case of “the family has suffered enough, so we should not be punishing them harshly.” Knowing what I know about life in Jordan, this certainly rang true. What do you think about it?

R: Based on how a lawyer presents the case, it could arouse sympathy for the killer and the family that encouraged the killer. In Jordan, we are making headway on this issue. The decision can be appealed, and I would stress that these attitudes are changing. People now discuss honour crime very openly. This wasn’t the case when I started out.

N: And what about the “it’s their culture” argument? I’ve had highly educated people say that to me when honour killing is brought up, as in “it’s their culture, you can’t change it, you’re a bigot for even thinking about it in these terms.”

R: First of all, I would say to you – violence against women is part of global culture. It’s not isolated to any religion, class or country. However, some societies develop quicker than others and have better mechanisms for coping with it and discouraging it, and people there can’t ignore the struggle going on around the corner.

We need to remember that we are all human beings, and honour crime goes against human dignity. Ending this violence means a better world for everyone.

The Amman launch for Murder in the Name of Honour had the atmosphere of a county fair. There were laughing children, balloons, lemonade. Rana sat in the center of it all, and glowed with accomplishment. She has much to glow about. The fight isn’t over, and the troops aren’t going anywhere.

The moment of impact is black. The moment after flooded with emotion—anger, confusion, acceptance, detachment, strength—all in one rush of adrenaline. The rest of the punches all blend together; after one, ten more aren’t all that unique. I don’t remember pain or blood or the feeling of my face breaking in three separate places. The touching, the grabbing, the clawing, the choking, the screaming: clouded and surreal.

What’s vivid was my reaction. It’s the first time I have ever proven to myself that I wanted to live, that I valued my existence. It’s the first time I have actively recognized my rights, the complex role of being a woman, and the sacred ownership of my body. I took it all for granted before that day. I’ve thought about it every day since.

I went abroad to change my views. On the sixteenth day of my year-long life in Amman, Jordan, my perspective of myself, of social roles, of the world changed forever.

American women abroad – especially in the Middle East – all seem to find themselves trapped by the same stereotype: easy, promiscuous, inviting, and naïve. Nearly everywhere I went in Jordan, in Syria, in Egypt, and even in Qatar the stares, the shouts, the touches all confirmed my unwavering place in society: an object first, and a person second. It became clear to me that being a white, blonde woman in the Middle East seemed to mean two overarching things: free sex and the possibility of a green card.

For most foreign women I knew, it was something that slowly sunk in. The first weeks were too overwhelmingly exotic for much of the cultural and social norms to appear. Then began a gradual but gnawing process realizing that with every blatant stare, every rude comment, provoking grab, or lack of acknowledgement, we were different. This wasn’t America, and we were nowhere near equal. What’s more: the majority of the population seemed to accept, and even expect, it be this way.

However, my initiation was sudden. It was fast. It was painful. And there was nothing subtle about it. In the second week of my life abroad, I was abducted by a taxi driver on my way home from the grocery store. It was broad daylight, in the western, trendy Abdoun neighborhood of Amman. But that didn’t matter. I didn’t know much Arabic and I was obviously foreign. I smiled too much, I laughed too loud, I talked and made eye contact. I realized I wasn’t headed home when it was much too late.

We ended up on a dirt road on the outskirts of Amman, no houses or people in sight. In one swift motion the cab doors locked shut, the driver hurdled over the front seat to pin me down in back, and my clothes were ripped and torn. I managed one call on my cell phone before he threw it to the front seat, and we were alone. I screamed, he punched. I kicked, he choked. I bit, he hit.

It probably lasted all of ten minutes; I blank on most of it. I just remember an intense will to live, coupled with an outrage and disgust at the injustice of being so objectified. Ultimately, I remember the look of astonishment in his eyes when he realized I would not submit.

Lost in translation between the Paris Hilton images and the Britney Spears music videos, my personal empowerment, my individuality, my self-reliance had never been part of his consideration. I was not the easy American woman, the promiscuous American woman, the inviting American woman; I was the enabled, proud, and independent American woman.

Thanks to him, I am also now a much less naïve American woman.

He stopped and I jumped from the cab. I grabbed my groceries. I demanded my phone. He offered to give me a ride home, and I almost laughed between sobs. I looked him straight in the eye as he slammed his door and barreled away.

Three young Jordanian men happened to drive by soon after, finding me bloody, in shock, and crying in the middle of the road. Without realizing it, they offered me the first in a series of second looks at a culture I almost dismissed. They called the police, bought me water and ice, stayed with me for an hour to wait for help. In broken English, they managed to string together one sentence: “No worry, it will be okay.”

The next two weeks were spent between hospitals, police stations, and Arabic classes. I was contacted by the American Embassy, the UN, the royal family. Everywhere I went, with my battered face and my known story, it seemed someone wanted to apologize, to excuse, to sympathize.

An old Bedouin man found me soon after the attack. He took one look at me, shook his head, and said sadly, “There are good men, and there are bad. In the whole world. This man, he was bad. But we, we are not all bad. You understand?”

A woman, her face covered and her head down, came up to my translator as I waited at the police station for a medical exam. She said something in Arabic. My translator turned to me and said flatly, “She wants to know if your husband is beating you too.”

Everyone stared, and it was a much different stare than I received before or after my face was healed. The women stared with understanding and pity, the men stared with a mix of shame and anger. I realized that I was in no way the only person struggling in my story. While my pain may have been more recent, my situation more extreme, I was only a piece of a continuous, daily strain on society—man or woman, American or Arab.

The author in Jordan.

Going back to America never really crossed my mind; in fact, three days after the attack, I petitioned my home school to let me stay abroad the full year, instead of the one semester I had planned. I wanted to make sure that awful cab ride was the beginning of my time in Jordan, and not its definition. I consider that one of the best decisions I have ever made. The resulting year was one I’ll reflect upon indefinitely.

Still, throughout the year, my feelings about being a woman—an American woman—only became more distressing. The catcalls, the grabs, the assumed inferiority never stopped. I learned to keep my eyes down, to smile less, to speak to men only in Arabic and only when addressed.

In taxis, I used the same story every time: I was Lebanese and I had moved to Amman with my new Jordanian husband. As best as I could with my blonde hair and white skin, I assimilated.

It wasn’t until about six months in that I began to realize that my stereotypes, my assumptions of the average Jordanian woman were just as misplaced as my attacker’s thoughts of me. It took time, but I allowed myself to take another look. What I found were some of the strongest women I have ever met, women who had realized their rights and empowerment in a society where it was not an easy find. From filmmakers fighting harassment to journalists reporting honor killings; health care professionals teaching sexual education and female college students aspiring to study law in America, Jordanian women also proved that social norms and stereotypes are different than definitions.

That’s not to say I necessarily felt more empowered myself; coming back to America was a giant and much needed breath of fresh air. But I realized that I was not at all fighting the feminine fight alone. In fact, most of the time Jordanian women were fighting much harder than me.

Coming home, I was suddenly surrounded by things that had been taboo—short skirts, tank tops, male friends, individuality, and an expectation to be an independent woman with a job, a voice, and my own life plan. I felt like I was handed every social freedom for which those women in Jordan fought every day, but for the first time in my life I could fully appreciate them all.

They never found that cab driver, despite the hours I spent looking at lineups, mug shots, and impounded taxis. With over 10,000 registered taxi drivers in Amman, and probably thousands of others unregistered, it’s not surprising he disappeared.

I spent a lot of time being angry about what happened. Part of me still is, but a much larger part of me has tried to transform the experience into something meaningful, if not positive. That incident forced me to open my eyes early in my time abroad, and I don’t think I would have gained as much insight otherwise. America may provide me independence, but Jordan granted me awareness.

I probably won’t ever live in Jordan again, but I would visit tomorrow if I could. Jordan managed to become part of my identity, and I think it always will be there. Once a place is home, it’s home.

A previous version of this piece was originally printed in Abroad View magazine.

The first is a flyer for an event sponsored by The Egyptian American Medical Society, Egyptian American Professional Society, Egyptian American Business Association, Egyptian American Group, and the American Muslim Union.

I laud the efforts made by the community to form organizations that seek to enrich our lives in the United States of America. It makes me proud to be an American-Egyptian. One of the greatest privileges we enjoy in this country is the freedom to participate in civic life without government interference. It is a privilege we should never take for granted and always jealously guard.

Yet my pleasure at seeing such civic engagement was tempered by a factual error in the email. You see the event is intended to honor the Ambassador Sherif el Kholy who happens to be a nice man. The only problem is that as far as I can tell he is not the Ambassador. Nabil Fahmy is the Egyptian Ambassador to the United States.

This minor detail matters immensely. As an American-Egyptian I fret that our propensity to use titles that glorify figures of authority has been carried to our adopted country. Has this mindset, I asked myself, already become entrenched in our civic organizations here in the United States? Didn’t many of us come to the United States and achieve our success as immigrants precisely because we believed in America as a meritocracy?

Why use a title that hasn’t been earned?

Nor am I entirely sure why so many Egyptian-Americans are honoring the representative of a repressive police state that has become notorious throughout the world for torturing its own citizens. Again, this has nothing to do with Sherif El-Kholy, the private citizen. As I indicated earlier he is a perfectly nice man.

But it has everything to do with Sherif El-Kholy as the official representative of a government that has neglected the well-being of its people and is regarded as a repressive regime by large sectors of the population.

Nor is it altogether clear why the ’’Ambassador’’ was chosen instead of a prominent American-Egyptian who has served the community and contributed to its well-being. What are the criteria for deciding such matters?

This brings me to the second email I received. It is a Youtube video by a fellow named Amr Adeeb who laments a sycophantic birthday greeting for the Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak even as he alludes to the gains made during his rule. Mubarak has been in power since 1981 following the assassination of former president Sadat.

This birthday greeting appears in a state-controlled newspaper and constitutes what he characterized as a literature of praise for sultans. Adeeb, for all his concessions to a morally bankrupt regime, lamented the tendency to turn the ruler into a God, to overlook the simple fact that he is a human being and to use a national newspaper as a forum for personal praise. Therein lies our tendency to resent the praise of sultans and to simultaneously honor figures of authority regardless of how often we vent our frustration. In the small clip that I saw Amr Adeeb failed to mention the food riots in Egypt.

By the same token our community constantly circulates videos that protest the excesses of the Egyptian regime. It is not unusual to hear people complaining bitterly about the lack of democratic rule in Egypt. Yet these same people have no qualms about attending events that honor the official representatives of this very regime, often for reasons that are unfathomable and for achievements that appear quite nebulous to the general membership.

So like Adeeb I find myself asking a similar question; namely, why are so many American-Egyptian professional associations providing a forum for foreign diplomats or dare I say personal friends?

Now, it is common knowledge that this is something of a going away party for the ‘’ Ambassador’’. So why not host a party for him in one of those fancy Mcmansions favored by our community?

Such a state of affairs can be deeply demoralizing. It reinforces the notion that communal life is still dominated by the big man cult and a coterie of adoring minions. Together they tango, or belly dance at the end of every event, to reproduce authoritarian patterns of behavior and create what are often prohibitively expensive events. The Egyptian American Medical Society, for instance, often sponsors dinners accompanied by live entertainment that cost 200 dollars per couple.

At times, then, it becomes difficult to discern whether these are associations meant to benefit the public or private clubs intended first and foremost to entertain the self-designated communal elites and to curry favor with the powerful.

Is it déjà vu all over again? New Jersey as Masr al jadida? Or should I say el-kadama? I for one don’t wish to become a cynical spectator and fear that we may be building institutions that mirror our worst autocratic traditions.

Some traditions are worth preserving. Others, such as the obeisance to authority figures, threaten to impoverish our civic life and turn us into passive spectators. The gnawing cynicism can erode our faith in civic engagement altogether.

I know we can do better. We must. But not if we suspend our critical judgment and allow our budding associations to be run by non-democratic principles. Transparency is essential. The rulers aren’t always the only obstacle to participatory democracy. We are equally responsible for how our associations are run. Democracy is not simply a matter of rhetoric but also of practice.

It takes slaves to reproduce tyrants and sheep to keep the shepherds running the show.

Now will the real Ambassador please stand up ya Basha….

The only problem is we may not have an appropriate title with which to address him. Unless, of course, we revert to the regal one of your majesty.

Gharib is the pseudonym of the Egyptian-American author.

Today, many people are busy lamenting the breakdown of such traditions. They exist on many levels of my native society, but there is also the fear that they will disintegrate. Alarmists paint a typically dystopian scenario: “elders” no longer exist and society is in shambles. Five-year-olds are snorting crushed Viagra pills, and houses of worship have been converted to seedy “massage parlors.”

I would like to take a critical look at traditional relationships between parents and children without falling victim to reactionary rhetoric that has little in common with reality.

Now, it is true that parents usually want what’s best for their child. However, do parents always know what’s best? If you have been around the block a few times, you know what the answer is.

Parents are people, and people make mistakes. This has been true since the beginning of time, and it will be true in any age and any culture.

When I was younger, my father was convinced that I needed to study engineering or medicine for the sake of having a stable career. It did not matter that I had absolutely no talents when it came to either one of these esteemed fields of study.

I shudder to think as to how miserably I would have failed if I didn’t stand up for myself at a crucial moment, and rejected my father’s well-meaning advice.

Am I a bad daughter?

The above is a rhetorical question, but goes to the heart of the matter. What should we value more in our children? Obedience? Or common sense?

Now that I am a parent myself, I worry about what my child will internalize, and what she will reject. Yes, I believe rejection is inevitable. When our children are very young, we reject their ideas and wishes all the time: “No, you cannot eat the glue! You cannot pet the stray dog! You cannot stick your fingers in the garbage disposal/watch the R-rated movie/repeat the bad word that your father was silly enough to say in your presence!”

As children mature, however, autonomous thinking must be allowed to take place. This is the only way for a child to become an adult.

As they grow, children begin to reject many of our ideas. If we can find a healthy balance between a child’s personal growth and anarchist leanings at this point in life, we can keep our relationship and our household relatively sane.

Children who are not allowed to think for themselves every once in a while will remain infantile and immature. I encounter this phenomenon particularly often when I go home. A thirty-year-old woman who cannot function without being told what to do is a sorry sight. Do not even try to tell me otherwise!

I still go to my father for advice, personally. He respected me enough to let me make my own choice regarding my studies, and he respects me today. Respect is an essential element of wisdom, therefore I know I need to take his opinions into account.

There is an important lesson in that, and it will stay with me as I go about my own life as a parent.

Amar is an Arab-American poet. For privacy reasons, she writes under a pseudonym.

Finding love isn’t easy in our day of age. It seems to be everywhere, and nowhere, all at once.

People have abused the term in every way; you almost never know if it’s ‘love love’ or just plain old ‘love.’ Is your fifth grade crush considered love? Most people would disagree, but who are we to define it for you?

I’ve heard people swear that they ‘fell’ at the first sight of their beloved. Others report that they joined the lovers’ club through arranged marriage. Perhaps these different stories are a sign that love can be found anywhere, regardless of your lifestyle, provided you look hard enough.

Instead of looking, however, we spend a lot of time fantasizing. Every girl, at one point or another, dreams of the one: that super hunk of a guy (who just happens to resemble her favorite movie star), possessing the awesome qualities of kindness and generosity. He will make her happy because he understands her like no other. Most girls will tell you that money doesn’t matter, love is what counts. Yet, as we mature, demands will become more practical.

A woman wants to be loved and cared for. And yet, why do women often make bad decisions when it comes to relationships? I believe that it is women in particular who want to make their dreams come true, and they often persist in illusions that soon end with divorce or a loveless marriage.

Society finds it easy to blame a woman if she makes a bad choice of partner, but I personally can’t. No one wants to be lonely. And what happens if you pass this opportunity and the next doesn’t show up at your doorstep?

I believe that women especially are pressured by society to look and act in a certain way. Unfortunately, if we don’t fit certain norms, we are often deemed unattractive and unwanted. No wonder women of the modern world suffer from low self-esteem and its consequences.

By ensuring that we are constantly under pressure to be perfect, society has conditioned us to clutch at straws wherein our relationships with men are concerned.

As candidly as possible, I say this: the one might never show up at your doorstep, dear female reader, but please don’t let that become a bother. You decide who the one, your soulmate, lover, spouse will be. He could even be that simple guy with a modest salary and crooked teeth.

Furthermore, simply falling in love is not the pinnacle of your achievement. It’s staying in love that counts.

A relationship entails a lot of effort, determination and prayer. Yes, you read that right: PRAYER. Relationships practically need a miracle to work, just as giving birth to a 9 lb baby does. Hollywood and other forms of entertainment may continue to brainwash and pressure us, advertising may taunt us with visions of bliss purchased via lavish presents from Burberry and Chanel, visions of the one on his white horse or Lamborghini will continue to be sold to us, but inside, we know the truth. Real life with real people doesn’t work that way.

So remember, love is what you make it, so make it right (and never lose your head… not even in the springtime)!

In the early morning, I took a walk across St. Petersburg that would take me all day, crossing the waters, landing on islands, and visiting both well-known and lesser-know tourist sites, not to mention discovering hidden surprises that the city still had up its sleeve.

I started on Nevsky Prospect and went up over two bridges, each adorned with a different sculptural theme. I saw a lovely church built in a style very similar to that of St Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow! Hmmm… Wasn’t the original architect killed? – I wondered

I then quickly realized that St. Petersburg didn’t even exist when he was alive. Whatever his destiny was, he and his vibrant style were revived when the St. Petersburg church was built in the late nineteenth century.

This Church On Spilled Blood, as it is called, was built on the spot where on the first of March 1881, Czar Alexander II was assassinated. His successor commissioned a magnificent church to commemorate his father in the Russian revivalist style.

A park nearby lead me to the Arts Square, where the Russian Museum is located and another weird story of murder was played out in the beginning of the 1800’s. The Mikhaylovskiy Castle was built on orders of Paul I, who was obsessed with the possibility of assassination. The castle was surrounded by moats and draw bridges and supplied with secret underground passages to help in rescue. Alas, all those precautions were futile in the face of destiny, and he was murdered only 40 days after moving into his fortified haven!

At the moat I saw many young Russians throwing coins at small statue under one of the bridges nearby, driven by the belief that their wishes could be granted if their coin balanced itself on the statue without falling into the river Moyka, a tradition that has endured since since long ago. I didn’t try my luck; after all, what more can I wish for?

I crossed a few bridges and passed through a park dedicated to the 1917 revolution up onto a another magnificent bridge and into the other side of town, Petrogradskaya, where the famous Peter and Paul Fortress is. On the way there, a small building hidden between grand empire style ones, stands where the most important house in St Petersburg once stood. This is where the orders to create St. Petersbourg were issued, inside a wooden hut constructed in three days for Peter the Great when he first stayed here. As the city started to grow, Peter ordered that humble wooden hut to be replaced with another stone building to preserve it for the coming generations. Preserving history is one theme the Russians are masterful at.

All along my journey I encountered stories of how they covered a whole palace in sand to protect it during WWII, or how they covered a certain historical statue in huge amounts of concrete for the same reason, and how they faithfully rebuilt everything as it used to be following destruction.

Now. another marvel of preservation is docked just around the corner from Peter’s old house, a testimonial to Russian pride and determination. The Cruiser Aurora entered active service in 1903. On the morning of October 25, 1917 it signaled the storming of the Winter Palace and the beginning of the end of the Revolution. The Soviets preserved it, then deliberately sank it to the bed of the river when the Germans approached to protect it. They rose it again as they rose themselves, reclaiming it as national symbol of not just the revolution, but persistence and determination in the face of danger as well.

After checking out the Aurora, I was approaching the Peter and Paul Fortress when I noticed a big blue dome. A mosque? Couldn’t be. Even if there were Muslims this far north, would there be enough to build a big mosque? Would the capital of the czars have a grand mosque among the hundreds of churches and cathedrals? No way. Curious, I took a detour, and saw a grand blue gate complete with calligraphic verses from the Quran and intricate mosaics and muqarnas. It is as if the genie of the lamp carried this mosque on the palm of his hand from Samarqand or Bukhara and brought it here in the blink of an eye.

It was not prayer time and that gate was closed, but I wasn’t going to leave without exploring. I found a rear entrance. There was a gathering of solemn people there, a funeral procession was on hand. These people didn’t look any different from the people I encountered on the streets, and they spoke Russian. They were Russian Muslims. As the funeral procession left, I walked towards the back door to find prayer times and the time of Iftar and Suhur and Imsak transliterated in Cyrillic alphabet using Arabic words. I saw a sign proclaiming, in Arabic and Russian, the headquarters of the Muslim community in St Petersburg and Northwest Russia.

I entered, and proudly using my clearly Arabic Asslamau Alaykum, greeted the men inside. Unfortunately, no one spoke Arabic, even though they were able to recite the Quran in its original language. Another language saved the day, it wasn’t Russian, nor the internationally esteemed English, but another important and influential Muslim language: Turkish. I found out that the Imam who answered me was from Turkey. He introduced me to the Tatar Muslim Imams.

I learnt from him that this mosque was built about a hundred years ago by the local Muslims in the capital of the Russian empire, significantly helped in its establishment by the Emir of Bokhara. I also learnt that there are about 800 thousand Muslims in St Petersburg alone, and they have their own local newspaper. By no means are the local Muslims only Tatar, there are Muslims from everywhere, including local converts too.

After that refreshing moment of contemplating the great Islamic civilization, I went back outside and finally arrived at the Peter and Paul Fortress. As soon as I went inside, I was transferred back to Europe after having my unbelievable sojourn to the lands of Islam. Many museums fill its old buildings; some dedicated to daily life in old St Petersburg, to the history of the fort and the navy. There are even torture chambers.

The main centerpiece is a little church with a huge golden spire than can be seen from all sides of the city. In this church lie the remains of the Romanovs, including those of the last czar and his family, that were transferred here a few years ago in an official ceremony. A lovely panoramic passage on top of the walls is sure to orientate any visitor to how this city is incredibly arranged around the delta of the Neva. There is a beautiful sandy beach where the people gather, swim, and tan in summer, and even enjoy the freezing waters in winter and New Year celebrations.

I proceeded to Vasilevsky Island. Facing from this side are two huge Rostral columns pierced by protruding boats, following a Roman custom to celebrate Naval victories. Just behind these columns is the Navy Museum, as well as the first and oldest museum in Russia: the Kunstkammer, home to Peter’s original cabin of curiosities and a more recent and very interesting ethnographic museum. And just in front of them are water fountains in the river and, of course, a long line of brides and grooms and their families waiting to take pictures against this national backdrop.

I took the suburban royal railway leading to Tsarskoye Selo, the magnificent palace of Catherine the Great. The palace is in the middle of a large estate, surrounded by rolling wooded hills extending for miles and miles, intercepted by streams and ponds in the middle of which are nice islands you can reach in Gondolas. The sun was shining on the fallen autumn leaves, making the pathways leading to the palace appear to be paved with gold.

Real gold did blind my eyes as soon as I entered this baroque palace. Reconstruction works are still going on since it was destroyed during the Nazi invasion. In every room there are pictures showing the stages of its life before the war, after destruction, and during the ongoing restoration. The most magnificent of all these rooms is the Amber Room, where verything is made of amber of different shades, arranged like a mosaic from the floor to the ceiling.

The next station on the same royal track was Pavlovsk. I didn’t even enter this palace because I lost myself to the charms of its densely forested grounds. I just kept on walking through the fairy tale forest.

The next day I discovered that I didn’t need to leave the city in order to reach the wilderness and enjoy nature. The Kamennyy and Yelagin Islands can easily reached by metro and a short stroll. They are like sanctuaries within the city where no cars are allowed. I spent my day there walking, resting, and marveling at the surroundings, while thinking that I understood why the Russian people are so great at art and music and literature. Such nature is bound to inspire, and the proof is the multitude of peopl who fill these parks: painting in oil, or playing the guitar, or reciting Pushkin love poems to each other.

I showed pictures of Jordan to the people I met; they marveled at my home country, and I marveled at theirs. And with such warm thought of home I started my return journey by taking train back to Moscow.

I had one day to spend in Moscow before my flight and had a hard time deciding what to squeeze in on my last day in Russia. To avoid disappointed looks when I arrived home, I decided to get gifts. Ismailovo park is the local flea market where traditional arts and crafts, furs and hand woven woolen scarves, matryoshka dolls and numerous other memorabilia can be bought at a nice price. All of that you can find in middle of an architectural park with huts, palaces, and markets made of wood in the traditional style.

I then took the metro to visit an unfinished palace of Catherine the Great. Tsaritsino was a lovely venue to end my visit. A romantic chateau in the middle of a lovely landscaped park with a huge lake and choreographed water fountains. History, nature, people, tradition and, naturally, many brides and grooms too. A good summary of my visit and what I enjoyed during my stay.

Russia is neither a mystery nor a riddle to me anymore. After being there, meeting its people, understanding its history, acknowledging its huge expanse and variety of cultures, I recognized it as a beautiful mosaic of people. In this, the largest country in the world, ethnicities are woven together to create a collective motherland each individual can be proud of.