Saturday, November 26, 2011

MESAC - New Delhi 2011 (Same Same, but Different)


3 months of early morning trainings at 6am, Saturdays fully taken with swim meets and morning races, afternoons at the pool blowing the whistle while the team blows their soul out of each stroke...this is what it took to make it to MESAC, the Middle East South Asia Conference www.mesac.org, where schools from Abu Dhabi, Cairo, Delhi, Doha and Dubai get together to compete in different sports.
This year, for the first time, the swimming races were held at the American Embassy School of New Delhi!!! Pretty lucky for my first year of coaching!!!
It's a clear sunny morning in Dubai, at 11.30 Shalene (one of the other coaches) and I are waiting for 24 kids heading to the airport. Their laughs and smiles on the bus give me a boost of energy. The carelessness of their teenage years reminds me my little sister Bianca and their friends a few years ago...and if I make an harder jump back in my memory, they even remind me my own friends from high school and myself going on field trips with school. We didn't have fancy sports tournaments or other traveling opportunities, but there was that one "gita" (field trip) at the end of the senior year that everyone was waiting for with anticipation.
We spent a wonderful 4 days in Delhi: the kids fought for each spot on the podium while us, coaches, were loosing our voices inciting them at each lap. It was nice to watch them bonding with each other and making new friends.
And what to say about India?
I haven't seen much...and I don't want to sound one of those people who arbitrarily say: " OMG, India changed my life forever !!!" and they become all "spiritual" scheduling 8 yoga classes a week! India deserves more, it deserves genuineness and sincerity because that's what India gives you.  
Everything you see is true, it's essence of life and that includes, yes, misery and poverty but not only. The strongest powers of Delhi are its colors, the sounds, smells (surely bad sometimes but nice and unique more often than you'd think)...and the smiles. I've seen the most explosive laughs and propelling smiles ever! Indians are funny, they have good hearts and they're not afraid to show it, even if they're loosing their advantage in a bargain.
I haven't seen much, I know, but this is what I truly and briefly need to say about India.
I'll go back one day. I hope to see more, I hope to see Bombay and trace all the places described in the novel I'm reading right now "Shantaram". I hope Thomas will change his mind and will go with me one day. He has been there before and, let's say, he thinks it's enough. But Thomas is my favorite fellow traveller and I can't imagine a better person to travel India with...
Arrivederci India!


Thursday, November 17, 2011

Wednesday Night Blues


While Thomas is gone for his MESAC volleyball tournament in Doha and I get ready to go to my MESAC swimming tournament in Delhi....  

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Oman Road Trip, Nov. 2011

Eid Al Adha is the Muslim celebration that, thank God, or I should say thank Allah, gave us a whole week off from work!!!
Discovering the origin of this Eid was intriguing to me. While at ASD our Arabic teacher started to explain it to the kids, I thought I heard that story before... but as I don't know much about the Islamic religion and culture, I couldn't understand how that was so familiar to me.
Then I realized that what I found familiar was a part of the Bible that tells us pretty much the same thing, with slight little differences.
"Eid Al Adha" is translated as "Festival of Sacrifice". According to the Qurran, God asked Prophet Ibrahim to sacrifice his son Ishmael as an act of obedience. Ibrahim and his son both accepted God's willingness with faith. Once their obedience was proven, God told Ibrahim he didn't have to carry on the killing of his Ishmael and asked him to sacrifice a goat instead.
This key event of the Muslim religion is present in the Old Testament as well. The only difference I could recall is that the name of Ibrahim is in its Jews version "Abraham" and the son who had to be sacrificed was not Ishmael, but Isaac.
Well it looks like Abramo, how we say in Italian, is a key figure in more than one religion: Muslims and Christians share the same belief that Prophet Mohammed and Christ descend from Ibrahim/Abraham's progeny. And so believe the Jews, who - still waiting for their Messiah - acknowledge the importance of Abraham in the Torah (corresponding pretty much to the Old Testament). 

I didn't know all these things and I found my self making reflections on how similar religions are, even when they seem so far away. Over a few conflicting interpretations of a scripture men have started to fight and the humanity grew apart, hating who didn't believe what they thought to be right.

Before our Eid break started, I talked to my colleague Samreen, as I often do. She's an educated Pakistani woman and my classroom neighbor. When I first got to ASD I was of intimidated by her. Honestly (and stupidly), her covered head and her conservative outfits made me feel uncomfortable with her. Like if we were coming from 2 different worlds. Gradually, the sense of discomfort disappeared and I discovered a very pleasant person in her. A woman that I can easily relate to, with whom I often laugh and that, for many reasons, I admire. 
She is a Muslim. a very convinced one and more than one time I have envied her strong faith. A dignified faith, that goes hand in hand with a high fascinating moral rectitude.
The fun part is that she was raised in a Catholic school (and that surprised me a lot!), but when I expressed my astonishment she said that, although at some stages of her childhood she really wanted to celebrate Christmas and sometimes she even thought she was a Christian, that type of education reinforced her own faith, somehow. Could you imagine the opposite? Can you imagine your parents...open-minded enough to send you to a Muslim School, without freaking out that you'll become the next Bin Laden? Well I doubt so and I admire Samreen's parents for making that choice. 
Samreen told me that this year she managed to organize her parents' trip to Mecca and she was so happy and proud about it. I knew that already, but for the first time I saw with my eyes and felt with my heart how important it is for a good Muslim to perform the Hajj in their pilgrimage to Mecca. I understood what it meant for Samreen and, once again, I felt good for her pure sense of commitment and duty. 
Other than that, that day, I had one of the most interesting and meaningful conversation I had in Dubai, so far. Samreen and I not only shared our thoughts about religions (and we both agreed that, in the end, they really are all the same) we also talked about art and cultures. About the beauties and masterpieces treasured in our European museums (that she widely visited on her many trips) and I realized how much she knows about my western culture...and how little I know about her middle-eastern culture. 
She gifted me with one of the best conversations of my new life in Dubai...I am not sure she could say the same about me. My ignorance about Islam makes me feel uncomfortable. I want to learn more about Samreen's culture and customs. 

In this post, I wanted to tell you about our trip to Oman, instead I came up with this mental quibble. 
I'm sleepy now, tomorrow I'm leaving for New Delhi and I still need to pack... but I WILL write about Oman. I will write about Thomas talking in English to a fisherman in Dibba who only spoke Arabic and about how we were the only tourists not driving a 4x4 in that part of the country ....
Meanwhile you can check the "trailer" and the "video" of our road trip! ENJOY!

The Trailer....



and the video... (yes for copyright reasons I couldn't upload it to YouTube). You need to click on the link below: