*ok, I know y’all have been waiting years for this, but…WARNING: THIS POST IS LOOONG. IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE IT, READ IT IN INSTALLMENTS!* :)
Now I remember why I always used to get all frustrated with keeping a diary or journal when I was younger…once life catches up with you and you’ve got a bajillion things going on at once, you fall behind in writing stuff down, and then it just becomes such a hassle to keep track of everything that went on. Aaaahhhhh!!…
But let’s try anywayz. Shereen and I were talking earlier about how the past week has been so amazing and fun…Something exciting going on nearly everyday, so that it’s seemed like a week-long Eid celebration. Wednesday was Eid, of course, and everything about that is kinda fuzzy in my mind by now, so if you wanna know what we were up to, check out the Feb. 13th post on Shereen’s blog regarding our crazy day. =) Thursday, I…ummm…went up to school, even though I had no classes. Tutored for a couple hours, and had lunch with Somayya too...my favorite cousin-by-default, friend-by-choice, partner-in-crime, yeeee-uhh!. =) Funny thing is, Soms and I always try to take most of our classes together, but once in a while we hit a quarter where we have NO shared classes, and we get all sad, cuz then we have to resort to making appointments in order to see each other. So we had a yummy lunch, and an amusing chat about my no-boys policy. Yes, it always comes right back to that, doesn’t it? :-p Somayya and I were laughing cuz she pointed out that I have majorly high standards when it comes to guys, while her criteria is basically “silly boys with goofy smiles.” LOL. Actually, I think HER criteria is majorly awesome too; I’d just like to add on to it a bit, that’s all. :-D
Friday was cool cuz I went to the daycare in the morning. The little kids said, HI! Or I’m sure they would have if they knew you. =) When I was leaving, one of the little boys, Adrian, handed me a sheet of construction paper, saying, “Here, this is for you, ok?” It was a drawing of a snowman, painstakingly executed with orange crayon, no less…a wobbly little snowman complete with a top hat and long, scraggly fingers. I call them “Freddy Krueger fingers.” Hehehe. I remember how I used to live in mortal fear of Freddy Krueger when I was little. Oh, the days… In the afternoon, I came home early from school, and Shereen and I drove down to the South Bay for the Eid celebration there. I already kinda talked about that in my last post.
Ahhh, Saturday. Zaytuna Institute, my favorite place to hang out. Anyone who wants to get a sense of the strong presence and the awesome vibe of Muslims in the Bay Area should head to Zaytuna. I was checking out the comments to my last post, and there seems to be some…uhhh…disagreement about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. I’m not about to infringe on other people’s opinions about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza and start a full-scale debate here, so all I’m going to say is this: I don’t know much about Zaytuna’s involvement with schools, etc. overseas, so I’m not going to address those comments, but I do see the impact that Zaytuna has had on the lives of Muslims here in the Bay. All I know is, our Muslim community in the Bay is Masha’Allah very strong, and the credit for that can be attributed in no small measure to Zaytuna and the amount of effort that Shaykh Hamza has put into educating our community, both Muslim as well as non-Muslim, about Islam. Maybe it’s because I live in this community that I can appreciate the full measure of our Muslim presence and involvement here, and yes, I do take it for granted much of the time… I didn’t realize before that there was so much controversy surrounding Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza’s teachings, etc., so it’s pretty eye-opening. All I can say is, everyone’s entitled to their personal opinion, and I respect that.
So anywayz…Shereen and I went off to Zaytuna on Saturday morning, and we were there all day (got home at about 10-ish that night). It was an amazing day, masha’Allah. What I love the most about Zaytuna is how all the people I run into there are always so nice and polite and peaceful and happy. It’s just so awesome. I really can’t get over it. The peaceful vibe there is so cool. Anywayz, there was stuff there for people of all ages. Muslim artists had set up tents/stands diplaying their artwork for sale. Masha’Allah, we have sooo many talented brothers and sisters! I didn’t even realize. The photography, paintings, craftswork, etc. were simply amazing. Too bad I’m a broke-ass college student, or I’d be forking over the big bucks to support our Muslim bros and sistas. =) And then local Muslim businesses were tabling too, so we had a whole full-fledged bazaar deal going on…vendors selling their Islamic goods and stuff. Shereen and I spent a wayyy long time at all the gazillion hijab tables. Hehe. Checking out the hijabs is always fun, ok? You know it. ;) We bought our dad an "Eid Mubarak" coffee mug (sooo byootiful. Makes even ME wanna drink coffee, and that's saying a lot. hehe), this majorly cool lavender herbal body cream for our mom, and a wooden tasbeeh for a friend of mine. When Seher got there a little later in the afternoon, she and I made another round at the hijab tables AGAIN. I was her consultant, cuz every table she stopped at, she’d be all, “Oooooooh!” and I was like, “Buy it, just buy it if you like it!” I know, I’m an awesome consultant, aren’t I? Haha. Anywayz, Seher was having issues choosing between light green, dark green, light brown, medium orange-brown (“rust,” she called it), and orange hijabs. I was like, “Buy ‘em all!” I helped a lot, ok. :-D Seher was like, “Greeeeennn! Yay for Islam colors!” I love you, Seher. You’re a crackhead baby too, you know it. But I’m happy cuz I convinced Seher to buy a burgundy head-wrap. It’s all about the reds, yo! I was laughing at Seher cuz I told her, based on what I’ve seen so far, her wardrobe consists of only greens, browns, oranges, and grays…all those earth tones. I told her she needs some RED. And she was like, “Well you know what, you’re going overboard on this whole red deal. You need some more variety too!” So we compromised. I bought a burgundy wrap AND a gray one. :-D
Umm, what else…There were all these hecka fun kids’ activities. Shereen and I wandered by one of the stalls, and I was like, “Oooh, Shereen! Buy me a chocolate cupcake, pleeease??” (cuz I cleaned out my savings account towards my cell phone bill…more on that later…so basically the cool Bean child was paying for everything that day. Haha). She was like, “Okay!” but then, short-attention-span kid that I am, I looked over and saw this other table where one of the sisters was handing out sugar cookies to all the kids, who were sitting there personally decorating their cookies with frosting and sprinkles. I was like, Oh man, we gotta go there. So Shereen and I wandered over and the sister who was supervising saw us standing there allll wistfully, so she smiled and offered, “Here, would you like to decorate a cookie too?” We were all, YES!! Hehe. So we sat ourselves down and did just that. Shereen saved her cookie for later, but The Yaz doesn’t quite comprehend the concept of delayed gratification just yet, so I gobbled mine up right away. It was yummyyyyy. ;) Oh oh! And there was a petting zoo…with the cutest rabbits and chickens and geese and teeny-tiny goats the size of cats, and umm…yeah. And there were these 2 ADORABLE ponies…you know the ones that are small and short, with long manes? Shetland ponies, is that it? The little kids were getting rides on them. I wanted a ride too! I’m a small person…everyone tells me I look like a kindergartener anywayz! I shoulda wheedled a ride on the pony too. Haha. But no, I’m still taller and bigger than the real 5-year-olds, and I don’t think all that exertion woulda been good for the cute ponies. LOL. Anywayz, major cuteness, man. I took a picture of some kids on the ponies. I took lotsa pictures…insha’Allah they’ll come out right though. So yeah, we basically spent all day wandering around and talking to people. It was awesome, masha’Allah.
After Maghrib salah, everyone settled down to hear Imam Zaid Shakir speak. Amazing speaker, masha’Allah. According to Shereen, he spoke at the 2001 Zaytuna Conference…unfortunately, my memory fails me, so I felt as if I were hearing him for the first time. A couple of the things he touched on (I took detailed notes, but what’s below is somewhat paraphrased. And any mistakes and misinterpretations are mine, of course):
“As Muslims, we shouldn’t hesitate to be critical of injustice, violence, and cruelty. And if we oppose the impending war with Iraq, we should oppose it out of solidarity with the earth, because the earth will have her say. We are polluting the earth, and warfare adds to the pollution, because of nuclear waste. This is in addition to the pollution resulting from petroleum, steel, burning off the oil wells, and depleted uranium. We should protest on behalf of the earth and on behalf of the auliyah.” ...
“In the days of Rasul’Allah (saw), there were people who were willing to sacrifice everything they had for Allah. We, as well, should be willing to give up everything we have for Allah’s sake. Our devotions, our sacrifices, our struggles benefit ourselves, our families, our communities, society at large, and the world…they benefit humanity.” ...
“Dedicate yourself from a young age to serving Allah (swt). What do you have to lose? You are not missing out on anything by giving up wordly pleasures, but rather, you are gaining everything spiritually. Pursue the pleasure of Allah. Follow the example of Ibrahim (as)…Have the imaan to smash idols. And idols are not necessarily concrete physical things…they can be human beings (rock idols, pop idols, idols of the silver screen, etc.), but they can also be actions and ideas that are against the teachings of Islam.” ...
“Muslims too have put their blood, sweat, and tears into building this country. So if someone tells you that you don’t belong here, and you’re scratching your head and wondering if they’re right, then you don’t understand the history and contributions of Muslims in this country.” ...
Following that was Isha’ salaah, and then Shereen and I stayed a bit for the recitation of the Burda (Poem of the Cloak). The Burda is a lengthy poem praising the Prophet Muhammad (saw), written by Imam al-Busiri between 1260 and 1268 CE in Egypt.
So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we slept in a bit, and then Shereen and I got ready for the peace march/anti-war rally in San Francisco. She was wearing this black t-shirt that says “TERROR WILL NOT END TERRORISM” in red lettering (I bought it off the Afghan Student Association after Sept. 11th), and she wanted to make a sign with the same slogan, so The Yaz had to get down on her hands and knees and put her mad block-lettering skillz to good use, really quickly before we left the house. ;) It was funny though, I was laughing at Shereen because her sign was this thick piece of cardboard attached to a broomstick with what seemed like a gazillion miles of tape…I was all, “Duuuude, that is SUCH a ghetto sign!” She was like, “Oh, you’ll see real ghetto once we get there. This is nothing.” She was right too. :) So anywayz, we left home at about noon, and took BART (not “Simpson”… BART=Bay Area Rapid Transit… like the subway, but aboveground) into San Francisco. Instead of getting off at the Embarcadero, where the march was supposed to start, we went one stop further and got off at Montgomery, so instead of being at the tail end of the march, we were somewhere in the middle. It was way more fun that way. ;) Funny thing is, we were expecting major crowds on BART, so needless to say we were kinda disappointed when we got on and the cars were almost empty. Leave it to our complacent preppieville folks. *tsk tsk* But as we progressed, more and more people kept getting on at every station, until the train was PACKED. It was awesome. Finally the train was so jam-packed that there wasn’t even any standing room left, and still there were people trying to squeeze on at every stop. Luckily, we had this no-nonsense driver, and although I guess she was obligated to continue stopping at every station, she made effort to make sure no more people got on. Every time she made a stop and the doors automatically opened, we could hear her voice booming over the loudspeaker at unsuspecting new riders: “This train is out of service! Get back off the train! NOW!!” Shereen and I were totally bustin up. We ended up getting into some cool conversations with the people around us too. The woman squeezed into the seat next to us exclaimed, “Nice lettering on that sign!” One man peered at our sign and remarked, “Yes, that’s a wonderful concept. We were just discussing that over dinner last night.” Another man shared with us a Quaker saying: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Alhamdulillah. Someone tell that to George Bush and Ariel Sharon and all the other jacked up leaders of our world, please.
Once we got off BART, we basically hit the march right at the steps leading up out of the BART station, so it’s not like we had to look really hard to figure out where the fun stuff was going on. The streets were jam-packed, masha’Allah. It was so amazing. One of the coolest things about the whole march was the vibe…it was kinda like the same vibe I got at Zaytuna the day before…people were sooo nice and polite to each other, even though we were all strangers. For example, Shereen, being the short and oblivious child that she is, kept hitting various people in front on her on their heads with her sign. I was like, “Duuude, WATCH that thing,” and the people in front of her would turn around all confused and she was all, “Oh no, I’m sorry!” and since they were facing us anywayz they’d look up and read our sign and smile at the message and be like, “Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s ok!” and it was just so nice! It was like a shared sense of humanity and brotherhood, even though, as far as I know, most of the people were not Muslim. It was simply amazing how people from such diverse races and religions and backgrounds came together as one voice to protest U.S. policies and actions, and to articulate their hope for peace. The organizers' estimate was that close to 300,000 people showed up to march. Masha’Allah, it was a wonderful experience. So we slowly wound along with the massive crowd, from Montgomery, past Powell, past Market, and finallyyyy all the way down to the Civic Center, where the march culminated with speeches and stuff. I say “stuff” because Shereen and I stuck around for only a couple of the speeches before we decided we were majorly hungry and had to EAT. It was past 4 by then. So we walked towards the Civic Center BART station and hit up some random café on the way, which turned out to have the yummiest tuna melts and cinnamon rolls ever. And they gave me free potato chips with my sandwich! I was all excited, you can’t even imagine. ;) And then we came home. The End.
I can’t think of what else to write about. I think I’ve written wayyyy more than enough. This should take everyone a few days to get through, anywayz. :-D omg, this is longer than a freakin paper for a writing class. Aaahhh…
Now I remember why I always used to get all frustrated with keeping a diary or journal when I was younger…once life catches up with you and you’ve got a bajillion things going on at once, you fall behind in writing stuff down, and then it just becomes such a hassle to keep track of everything that went on. Aaaahhhhh!!…
But let’s try anywayz. Shereen and I were talking earlier about how the past week has been so amazing and fun…Something exciting going on nearly everyday, so that it’s seemed like a week-long Eid celebration. Wednesday was Eid, of course, and everything about that is kinda fuzzy in my mind by now, so if you wanna know what we were up to, check out the Feb. 13th post on Shereen’s blog regarding our crazy day. =) Thursday, I…ummm…went up to school, even though I had no classes. Tutored for a couple hours, and had lunch with Somayya too...my favorite cousin-by-default, friend-by-choice, partner-in-crime, yeeee-uhh!. =) Funny thing is, Soms and I always try to take most of our classes together, but once in a while we hit a quarter where we have NO shared classes, and we get all sad, cuz then we have to resort to making appointments in order to see each other. So we had a yummy lunch, and an amusing chat about my no-boys policy. Yes, it always comes right back to that, doesn’t it? :-p Somayya and I were laughing cuz she pointed out that I have majorly high standards when it comes to guys, while her criteria is basically “silly boys with goofy smiles.” LOL. Actually, I think HER criteria is majorly awesome too; I’d just like to add on to it a bit, that’s all. :-D
Friday was cool cuz I went to the daycare in the morning. The little kids said, HI! Or I’m sure they would have if they knew you. =) When I was leaving, one of the little boys, Adrian, handed me a sheet of construction paper, saying, “Here, this is for you, ok?” It was a drawing of a snowman, painstakingly executed with orange crayon, no less…a wobbly little snowman complete with a top hat and long, scraggly fingers. I call them “Freddy Krueger fingers.” Hehehe. I remember how I used to live in mortal fear of Freddy Krueger when I was little. Oh, the days… In the afternoon, I came home early from school, and Shereen and I drove down to the South Bay for the Eid celebration there. I already kinda talked about that in my last post.
Ahhh, Saturday. Zaytuna Institute, my favorite place to hang out. Anyone who wants to get a sense of the strong presence and the awesome vibe of Muslims in the Bay Area should head to Zaytuna. I was checking out the comments to my last post, and there seems to be some…uhhh…disagreement about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza Yusuf. I’m not about to infringe on other people’s opinions about Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza and start a full-scale debate here, so all I’m going to say is this: I don’t know much about Zaytuna’s involvement with schools, etc. overseas, so I’m not going to address those comments, but I do see the impact that Zaytuna has had on the lives of Muslims here in the Bay. All I know is, our Muslim community in the Bay is Masha’Allah very strong, and the credit for that can be attributed in no small measure to Zaytuna and the amount of effort that Shaykh Hamza has put into educating our community, both Muslim as well as non-Muslim, about Islam. Maybe it’s because I live in this community that I can appreciate the full measure of our Muslim presence and involvement here, and yes, I do take it for granted much of the time… I didn’t realize before that there was so much controversy surrounding Zaytuna and Shaykh Hamza’s teachings, etc., so it’s pretty eye-opening. All I can say is, everyone’s entitled to their personal opinion, and I respect that.
So anywayz…Shereen and I went off to Zaytuna on Saturday morning, and we were there all day (got home at about 10-ish that night). It was an amazing day, masha’Allah. What I love the most about Zaytuna is how all the people I run into there are always so nice and polite and peaceful and happy. It’s just so awesome. I really can’t get over it. The peaceful vibe there is so cool. Anywayz, there was stuff there for people of all ages. Muslim artists had set up tents/stands diplaying their artwork for sale. Masha’Allah, we have sooo many talented brothers and sisters! I didn’t even realize. The photography, paintings, craftswork, etc. were simply amazing. Too bad I’m a broke-ass college student, or I’d be forking over the big bucks to support our Muslim bros and sistas. =) And then local Muslim businesses were tabling too, so we had a whole full-fledged bazaar deal going on…vendors selling their Islamic goods and stuff. Shereen and I spent a wayyy long time at all the gazillion hijab tables. Hehe. Checking out the hijabs is always fun, ok? You know it. ;) We bought our dad an "Eid Mubarak" coffee mug (sooo byootiful. Makes even ME wanna drink coffee, and that's saying a lot. hehe), this majorly cool lavender herbal body cream for our mom, and a wooden tasbeeh for a friend of mine. When Seher got there a little later in the afternoon, she and I made another round at the hijab tables AGAIN. I was her consultant, cuz every table she stopped at, she’d be all, “Oooooooh!” and I was like, “Buy it, just buy it if you like it!” I know, I’m an awesome consultant, aren’t I? Haha. Anywayz, Seher was having issues choosing between light green, dark green, light brown, medium orange-brown (“rust,” she called it), and orange hijabs. I was like, “Buy ‘em all!” I helped a lot, ok. :-D Seher was like, “Greeeeennn! Yay for Islam colors!” I love you, Seher. You’re a crackhead baby too, you know it. But I’m happy cuz I convinced Seher to buy a burgundy head-wrap. It’s all about the reds, yo! I was laughing at Seher cuz I told her, based on what I’ve seen so far, her wardrobe consists of only greens, browns, oranges, and grays…all those earth tones. I told her she needs some RED. And she was like, “Well you know what, you’re going overboard on this whole red deal. You need some more variety too!” So we compromised. I bought a burgundy wrap AND a gray one. :-D
Umm, what else…There were all these hecka fun kids’ activities. Shereen and I wandered by one of the stalls, and I was like, “Oooh, Shereen! Buy me a chocolate cupcake, pleeease??” (cuz I cleaned out my savings account towards my cell phone bill…more on that later…so basically the cool Bean child was paying for everything that day. Haha). She was like, “Okay!” but then, short-attention-span kid that I am, I looked over and saw this other table where one of the sisters was handing out sugar cookies to all the kids, who were sitting there personally decorating their cookies with frosting and sprinkles. I was like, Oh man, we gotta go there. So Shereen and I wandered over and the sister who was supervising saw us standing there allll wistfully, so she smiled and offered, “Here, would you like to decorate a cookie too?” We were all, YES!! Hehe. So we sat ourselves down and did just that. Shereen saved her cookie for later, but The Yaz doesn’t quite comprehend the concept of delayed gratification just yet, so I gobbled mine up right away. It was yummyyyyy. ;) Oh oh! And there was a petting zoo…with the cutest rabbits and chickens and geese and teeny-tiny goats the size of cats, and umm…yeah. And there were these 2 ADORABLE ponies…you know the ones that are small and short, with long manes? Shetland ponies, is that it? The little kids were getting rides on them. I wanted a ride too! I’m a small person…everyone tells me I look like a kindergartener anywayz! I shoulda wheedled a ride on the pony too. Haha. But no, I’m still taller and bigger than the real 5-year-olds, and I don’t think all that exertion woulda been good for the cute ponies. LOL. Anywayz, major cuteness, man. I took a picture of some kids on the ponies. I took lotsa pictures…insha’Allah they’ll come out right though. So yeah, we basically spent all day wandering around and talking to people. It was awesome, masha’Allah.
After Maghrib salah, everyone settled down to hear Imam Zaid Shakir speak. Amazing speaker, masha’Allah. According to Shereen, he spoke at the 2001 Zaytuna Conference…unfortunately, my memory fails me, so I felt as if I were hearing him for the first time. A couple of the things he touched on (I took detailed notes, but what’s below is somewhat paraphrased. And any mistakes and misinterpretations are mine, of course):
“As Muslims, we shouldn’t hesitate to be critical of injustice, violence, and cruelty. And if we oppose the impending war with Iraq, we should oppose it out of solidarity with the earth, because the earth will have her say. We are polluting the earth, and warfare adds to the pollution, because of nuclear waste. This is in addition to the pollution resulting from petroleum, steel, burning off the oil wells, and depleted uranium. We should protest on behalf of the earth and on behalf of the auliyah.” ...
“In the days of Rasul’Allah (saw), there were people who were willing to sacrifice everything they had for Allah. We, as well, should be willing to give up everything we have for Allah’s sake. Our devotions, our sacrifices, our struggles benefit ourselves, our families, our communities, society at large, and the world…they benefit humanity.” ...
“Dedicate yourself from a young age to serving Allah (swt). What do you have to lose? You are not missing out on anything by giving up wordly pleasures, but rather, you are gaining everything spiritually. Pursue the pleasure of Allah. Follow the example of Ibrahim (as)…Have the imaan to smash idols. And idols are not necessarily concrete physical things…they can be human beings (rock idols, pop idols, idols of the silver screen, etc.), but they can also be actions and ideas that are against the teachings of Islam.” ...
“Muslims too have put their blood, sweat, and tears into building this country. So if someone tells you that you don’t belong here, and you’re scratching your head and wondering if they’re right, then you don’t understand the history and contributions of Muslims in this country.” ...
Following that was Isha’ salaah, and then Shereen and I stayed a bit for the recitation of the Burda (Poem of the Cloak). The Burda is a lengthy poem praising the Prophet Muhammad (saw), written by Imam al-Busiri between 1260 and 1268 CE in Egypt.
So that was Saturday. On Sunday, we slept in a bit, and then Shereen and I got ready for the peace march/anti-war rally in San Francisco. She was wearing this black t-shirt that says “TERROR WILL NOT END TERRORISM” in red lettering (I bought it off the Afghan Student Association after Sept. 11th), and she wanted to make a sign with the same slogan, so The Yaz had to get down on her hands and knees and put her mad block-lettering skillz to good use, really quickly before we left the house. ;) It was funny though, I was laughing at Shereen because her sign was this thick piece of cardboard attached to a broomstick with what seemed like a gazillion miles of tape…I was all, “Duuuude, that is SUCH a ghetto sign!” She was like, “Oh, you’ll see real ghetto once we get there. This is nothing.” She was right too. :) So anywayz, we left home at about noon, and took BART (not “Simpson”… BART=Bay Area Rapid Transit… like the subway, but aboveground) into San Francisco. Instead of getting off at the Embarcadero, where the march was supposed to start, we went one stop further and got off at Montgomery, so instead of being at the tail end of the march, we were somewhere in the middle. It was way more fun that way. ;) Funny thing is, we were expecting major crowds on BART, so needless to say we were kinda disappointed when we got on and the cars were almost empty. Leave it to our complacent preppieville folks. *tsk tsk* But as we progressed, more and more people kept getting on at every station, until the train was PACKED. It was awesome. Finally the train was so jam-packed that there wasn’t even any standing room left, and still there were people trying to squeeze on at every stop. Luckily, we had this no-nonsense driver, and although I guess she was obligated to continue stopping at every station, she made effort to make sure no more people got on. Every time she made a stop and the doors automatically opened, we could hear her voice booming over the loudspeaker at unsuspecting new riders: “This train is out of service! Get back off the train! NOW!!” Shereen and I were totally bustin up. We ended up getting into some cool conversations with the people around us too. The woman squeezed into the seat next to us exclaimed, “Nice lettering on that sign!” One man peered at our sign and remarked, “Yes, that’s a wonderful concept. We were just discussing that over dinner last night.” Another man shared with us a Quaker saying: “There is no way to peace. Peace is the way.” Alhamdulillah. Someone tell that to George Bush and Ariel Sharon and all the other jacked up leaders of our world, please.
Once we got off BART, we basically hit the march right at the steps leading up out of the BART station, so it’s not like we had to look really hard to figure out where the fun stuff was going on. The streets were jam-packed, masha’Allah. It was so amazing. One of the coolest things about the whole march was the vibe…it was kinda like the same vibe I got at Zaytuna the day before…people were sooo nice and polite to each other, even though we were all strangers. For example, Shereen, being the short and oblivious child that she is, kept hitting various people in front on her on their heads with her sign. I was like, “Duuude, WATCH that thing,” and the people in front of her would turn around all confused and she was all, “Oh no, I’m sorry!” and since they were facing us anywayz they’d look up and read our sign and smile at the message and be like, “Oh, don’t worry about it, it’s ok!” and it was just so nice! It was like a shared sense of humanity and brotherhood, even though, as far as I know, most of the people were not Muslim. It was simply amazing how people from such diverse races and religions and backgrounds came together as one voice to protest U.S. policies and actions, and to articulate their hope for peace. The organizers' estimate was that close to 300,000 people showed up to march. Masha’Allah, it was a wonderful experience. So we slowly wound along with the massive crowd, from Montgomery, past Powell, past Market, and finallyyyy all the way down to the Civic Center, where the march culminated with speeches and stuff. I say “stuff” because Shereen and I stuck around for only a couple of the speeches before we decided we were majorly hungry and had to EAT. It was past 4 by then. So we walked towards the Civic Center BART station and hit up some random café on the way, which turned out to have the yummiest tuna melts and cinnamon rolls ever. And they gave me free potato chips with my sandwich! I was all excited, you can’t even imagine. ;) And then we came home. The End.
I can’t think of what else to write about. I think I’ve written wayyyy more than enough. This should take everyone a few days to get through, anywayz. :-D omg, this is longer than a freakin paper for a writing class. Aaahhh…
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