Chapter 1- About Me

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معلومات عني

  The city is a busy place. I'm glad I don't live here, but I've lived in busier places. Cairo was over-populated. Beirut was almsot like Cairo. But this is San Francisco. Yes, it's more populated than the little town I live in, but Cairo and Beirut are more populated than San Fran. Everyone in my town calls it "the city".

   As I walk down the street to my audition, I think about my childhood. Living in Cairo for eight years, living in Lebanon for five. Moving to Santa Rosa, CA was the biggest change in my life. Right after Beirut was bombed by Israel, my family and I went to our family in Syria to stay there for a week. We then left for America.

   See, I'm a quarter Egyptian, a quarter Lebanese, a quarter Syrian, and a quarter Moroccan. That makes me full Arab, but each countrys' culture differs.

   For example, each dialect. There's one dialect for each countrym plus the standard dialect. I speak all of my countrys' dialects and standard. I can also speak French and English.

   I learned French when I was seven. I had a private tutor after school. I learned English when I was thirteen and a half. If I didn't learn English, I wouldn't be able to survive in America.

   Thank goodness I learned French too because if not, I wouldn't be able to read Roman letters.

   About my family, I have four older siblings and two younger siblings. There's seven of us in all, including me.

   The oldest is Hussein, born on March 3, 1984. Khadijah was born on August 10, 1985. Amal was born on Janurary 14, 1987. Ahmed was born on June 30, 1991. Rahim was born on Februrary 2, 1999. Mila was born on September 5, 2002. I was born on April 28, 1993.

   My mother is half Lebanese and half Moroccan. My father is half Syrian and half Egyptian. That's why we have family in all four countries.

   My mother's mother is Lebanese and her father is Moroccan. That's why she was born in Beirut.

   My father's mother is Syrian and his father is Egyptian. That's why he was born in Damascus.

   All of my siblings and me were born in Cairo except for Mila. She was born in Beirut. Also, all of us know Arabic, English, and French except for Mila. She doesn't know French, but Hussein is destined to teach her. We all live in the same house.

   Hussein, Amal, Ahmed, Mila, and I have darker than ebony hair like our father. Khadijah and Rahim have dark brown hair like our mother.

   We all have hazel eyes (except for Hussein and Amal) like our mother.

   All of us have tan skin with some light skin. My father has a little darker skin than my mother.

   Back to my childhood, it was great. I used to travel to Morocco, Syria, and Lebanon twice a year when I was in Cairo. I had awesome friends and stayed in the same school. Life was great.

   Then, that sad day came. My father got home from work one day in May. It was just after my eighth birthday.

   "We need to have a family meeting tonight." he announced. I could tell that my mother knew something was wrong.

   After dinner, all of us gathered in the living room. The walls were light green with a simple TV in the middle. There was a tan couch and four tan chairs. My father, my mother, Hussein, and Khadijah got the chairs because they were the oldest.

   "I have something to announce." my father spoke, "I have gotten laid off from my job. It's hard to find jobs here in this crowded city. With that in mind, your mother and I have decided that we will move to Beirut. Part of your mother's family is there. We will live with them until we find a house of our own."

   "When will we move?" I asked.

   "After all of you complete this school year." he replied.

   After our school years ended, we started to move to Lebanon. Yes, we had to go back and forth a few times to get our stuff.

   The country we had to pass to get to Lebanon was Israel. We had to be careful each time we passed through. Despite the danger, we made it fun. We stopped in Jersalem once to visit some holy mosques. It was amazing seeing three different religions in one city. Of course I was only eight though. I grew up in a Muslim and Christian city. I strictly followed the Islamic rules while understanding that I had to start wearing the hijab in sixth grade. It was a tradition for all the women in my family.

   When we first moved to Beirut, we had to live with our family. I loved seeing my Lebanese family. They were so kind. My other families were kind too, but I liked their attitude the best.

   We finally got our own house six months later, still close to the family. It was a nice little house in the heart of Beirut. You could smell the food of the resturaunts. I liked that the best.

   I continued going to elementary school and then moving on to middle school for seventh grade. Seventh grade was an extremely amazing year. I met my first crush. We became best friends, but I liked him as more than a friend. The thing was that in the Islamic faith, you couldn't date. If you met "the one", your parents and the guy's parents would discuss to see if there would be a wedding. I obviously was too young to marry.

   His name was Matthew. He had dark hair with almost the sane skin tone as me. He had ebony eyes. He was taller than me by an inch. He was the one with the most crushes from his looks, but his looks weren't the only thing I liked about him, his personality was wonderful.

   I kept day dreaming about marrying once we're older. The huge ceremony would be in the mosque than outside in a titanic field with flowers everywhere. The only thing was that he was Christian and I was Muslim. Technically, we could have gotten married, but I thought that I should get married with a Muslim guy.

   The year that Beirut was bombed hurt me the most. It was scary since we were in the middle of the city. Houses near us were bombed, but thankfully ours wasn't. We didn't want to stick around for the worst. I told Matthew the news. My family and I were going to go to Damascus. He was devistated.

   We stayed with our family in Syria for a week until my father decided that we should move to California. Since flying nine people to California was expensive, our family helped us out a little.

   When we got to California, my parents selected the right city and that was Santa Rosa. It wasn't too small, nor too big.

   The house we got was in the middle class thanks to our Syrian family. Without them helping, we would've lived in poverty.

   High school there was different. It seemed like no one was Muslim. I was the only hijab-wearing girl in the whole school. I got made fun of a lot. They also called me racist things like terrorist or camel-rider. I've never even owned a camel nor ridden one.

   I made some awesome friends. Too bad one of them was in gang, provoking me to try some "stuff" if you know what I mean. The friendship quickly ended.

   My friends supported me through thick and thin. Everytime someone made a racist comment, they quickly had a clever comeback.

   During those years, I sang in my friends' families' weddings and quiceanaras. Everyone loved my voice and the different type of music.

   That's brought me to watch the show "American Idol". It was a singing competition. The person who won got a record deal. But the top 5 i think got recorddeals too, but usually the winner ended up popular. I dreamed of going on that show and winning, being the first Arab and first Muslim person to win. I talked to my parents about it and they were okay with me auditioning when I turned sixteen. That's why I'm here in San Francisco this summer day. Hopefully this audition will change my life.

 

  

 

Author's Note

please tell me if there's any spelling errors, grammer mistakes, typos, etc.

Reviews

[Huggy Bear]

Interesting chapter and I can not wait to read more:)

[Coyote Poetry]

You had a very exciting young life. I travel to each of your country of your heritage. I like the Arab world. I found it more safe and less confused then my life here in the USA. I believe you have great opportunity. Some culture know education and strong minds are very important. You are very smart and I hope you do very well in what you desire to do. I like your story. Family made us stronger and we must help and be kind to our family and the people who are willing to support us. We must be proud of our heritage.
Coyote