HOOKAH HOUSE

Facing the white silent walls in my apartment and the faint painting of the fire place, the place was full with beautiful memories. I couldn’t stand staying inside and force myself to sleep again. I was sick, but I got somehow better. To fill my lungs with fresh air was a good idea, but the weather and the breeze reminded me of my old days when I was living in Iraq with my friends and family.

Catalina dancing with Miss Tarifa Salem one of the belly dancers

    

   I was lucky because it was Friday; it’s the day of belly dancing at the Hookah House, downtown Lake Worth. I always get invited by the owner to visit the place on Friday and watch the show.  It sounded like a good idea to visit a place I considered part of my culture, where I can listen to the Arabic music and enjoy, and maybe smoking Hookah with some refreshing flavors, or drink some Turkish coffee and ask for Psychic reading. That would be fun!

 I rode my bike slowly because I was still sick. I reached the place. It was half full and two tables were reserved. The time was 9 pm. The owner came to me and with a smile he welcomed me. I ordered a green tea with mint because it was good for my headache, and to smoke hookah was out of the question.

Most of the customers at the Hookah House were American or Spanish. They were fan of the Arabic culture especially the Hookah. They were enjoying themselves breathing out the smoke from their noses.
 The place was amazing with it's Egyptian tables, furniture and lights but it gave the sense that the one is in Morocco or Algeria. The music was American at that time. Truly, it was a nice mixture of cultures and civilisations

 I started to drink the tea. I was enjoying myself, or trying to because of my headache. I was waiting for the belly dancers; there should be two. That’s what I read in the schedule. About 10 pm they showed up. Two beautiful ladies that had changed their clothes to wear the belly dancing custom.

 Before they started two girls in the 20's walk in and sit next to me at the reserved table. I thought they were Arab girls because of the color of the complexion and the way they were dressed, but I was wrong. They were Hispanic but not from Cuba because they had a different dialect. I started to make guesses.

The belly dancers showed up. They stood and started to make Zaghareed or trill. That’s how they started the show. Then the girl next to me followed her with another trill. The music was Arabic this time, they were shimmying, bending, and using the cane. They were really good! The show would continue until 11:30 pm, then they took a break to start solo dance later.

I used the break time to start talking to the girls next to me. I commented on their dialect. They were from Colombia, and they got surprised when they knew that I was from Iraq. We had many things to share. Catalina with black eyes and black long hair was sitting and turning her face to me, holding the hookah pipe, she was listening of how I was missing home by just breathing the nice breeze of Florida, and she had the same feeling. She was touched because she was missing her home too. For a moment I thought she was about to cry because her eyes turn red. 

Ten minutes later the belly dancers started their solo dance one after the other. I was not sure how long each solo took but I enjoyed it. Catalina was a belly dancer for ten years, but she doesn’t do shows. Many American ladies participated in the show. They started to shimmy, Catalina left her place and joined the dance.She was very good to the point that she got a job offer from the belly dancer, but she refused it.

 

        

        

Woman beaten to death in San Diego to be buried in Iraq

An Iraqi immigrant whose beaten body was in her San Diego home with a note saying “go back to your country” will be flown to Iraq for her burial.
The Iraqi government will pay to return the body of 32-year-old Shaima Alawadi, a Muslim leader told the Detroit Free Press.
“Everybody is outraged,” said Imam Husham Al-Husainy of the Karbalaa Islamic Education Center in Dearborn, Mich., where Alawadi lived after she and her family left Iraq in 1993.
“This is too evil, too criminal.”
Her father, Sayed Nabeel Alawadi, is a Shite cleric in Iraq, Husham said.
Alawadi was found unconscious on the floor of the dining room of her San Diego home last Wednesday. Alawadi was taken off life support and died on Saturday. She had been in hospital since her 17-year-old daughter found her.
“A hate crime is one of the possibilities, and we will be looking at that,” said Lieut. Mark Coit. “We don't want to focus on only one issue and miss something else.”
The daughter, Fatima Al Himidi, told KUSI-TV her mother had been beaten on the head repeatedly with a tire iron, and that the note said “Go back to your country, you terrorist.”
Addressing the camera, the tearful daughter asked: “You took my mother away from me. You took my best friend away from me. Why? Why did you do it?”
Police said the family had found a similar note earlier this month, but did not report it to authorities.
Facebook and Twitter have taken up the cause of Alawadi in the days since the death of the mother of five and intertwined it with the shooting death of black American teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida.
“Is wearing a hijab as dangerous as a hoodie?” National Public Radio’s Andy Carvin demanded of Geraldo Rivera in a tweet. Fox broadcasting commentator Rivera on Friday said Martin’s hoodie made him a target of George Zimmerman.
A Facebook site, “One Million Hijabs for Shaima Alawadi,” had 3,250 followers by Monday morning.
Among the most reposted Twitter comments: “Welcome to America, where you get killed for being suspicious for wearing a hoodie & a Hijab,” from a young Yemeni-American woman.
Also circulating widely was a commentary by Hafiz Moledina, a fellow with the UN Alliance of Civilizations, called “It’s More than Just about Hijabs and Hoodies.”
Hanif Mohebi, the director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, has met with the Alawadi family.
“The family is in shock at the moment. They're still trying to deal with what happened,” said Mohebi.
Communities east of San Diego are home to the second-largest settlement of immigrants from Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries, after metropolitan Detroit.
Alawadi and her husband, Kassim Alhimidi, moved to El Cajon outside San Diego from metropolitan Detroit and have two sons and three daughters, ranging in age from 7 to 18, Mohebi said.
“The family, and the community, is concerned that there is a possibility that this is a hate crime,” Mohebi said. “We've had some stuff in the past — insults mostly — but nothing physical. This is shocking to the community, the state and even the country.”


The story is from thestar.com, I just put the story here waiting comments on this incident, hopefully, and not new phenomena.

Compass Community Centered

Compass Community Centered
Lake Worth and Palm Beaches at lake ave.

So Many Reasons for Oil Price Increase

   Driving along the Dixie high way in Palm Beach, Fl, checking the prices of the gasoline, trying to find cheap gestation,and we find it, it was 10 cent cheaper than everyone around. The prices of the gasoline is about to reach $4 per gallon for the regular, we filled the tank with $10, just enough to keep the engine running for the next day.

Crude oil prices rose to near $107 a barrel Wednesday after a report showed U.S. crude supplies fell unexpectedly, a sign demand maybe improving in the world's largest economy.
There is another reason for such increase which is the fear of coming war against Iran for attempting to have nuclear weapons.
Christine Lagarde the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) said on Tuesday that a sudden cut in oil supplies from Iran may cause a huge surge in the price of crude oil.
  
  After September 11 attacks there were amajor change in the America policy or that what’s looked like? The change was to stabilize the Middle East region by getting rid of the ruthless regimes, and of course Saddam was the worse, and there was somehow a legal cover to topple him.

To topple one will be followed by the others like what happened when the president of Tunis was toppled in an uprising, he was followed by Mr. Mubarak the Egyptian former president, then Yemen, Syria,Bahrain, unrest in Saudi Arabia; the whole chairs of the dictators started to shake, people were thirsty for freedom.

The dictator regimes in the region were scared of the new born democracy in Iraq, so Iraq become a battlefield for fighting the American, to foil their plan.
The Middle East is the nerve of the world because it contains the largest crude oil reserves in the world; with the presence of crazy dictators, the region will be unstable especially if they are the enemy of the west.
If Iran is seeking to get nuclear weapon the whole region will boil. It’s not healthy to have the war condition in such sensitive region.

Misunderstandings, The Truth:Laws of Women in Iraq

   When I arrived to the USA leaving my home in Iraq, I expected to be asked about the atrocities in my country, how I survived, and what I had witnessed during my career as a journalist in a country turning the way of killing into some kind of sick art.

   I was surprised that I was asked by the American girls how many wives I have when they knew that I’m from Iraq. Then it is followed by another question with a tone made it looked like an accusation more than a question of why the women cover themselves in my country. Things became clear. There is a loop of misunderstanding about my country.  They think Iraq and Saudi Arabia are the same. They are both in the Middle East but they are completely different countries.

  Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, etc., and Saudi Arabia are different countries. Each country has its own traditions and law. In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), women have to cover themselves from the head to toe, they are not allowed to drive a car, and use the internet, in some cities can’t mix with men in a supermarket by all means. They are smothering the women. Why?  According to them, the woman’s body arouses the sexual desire in men when they see a woman. Ok? Is it the woman’s fault if she is beautiful? Let them make a law to force the man not to look.

  Let’s talk about Iraq. I will not deny that some men have more than one wife, they do that in secret most of the time and when the first wife knew "oops" the man's in trouble! According to Islam, the man has the right to marry four women but he has to be just in spending the money on them, and showing love and affection to all of them which is impossible, so God’s law put restrictions but men are abusing it. Iraqi family law stipulates that the first wife has to attend the court and tell the judge that she agrees to the marriage, it happens in some cases, but the general situation is a big "NO".

  Women are women! If she is European, Iraqi, or American there is no difference, the jealousy will be inflamed inside woman and she will fight for her husband, fiancé or boyfriend against the invader.

 But how about covering women? Yes, that is true! Muslim woman have to cover their hair and body, and not to wear pants because it shows the curves of the lower body which means, of course, the strange man will be sexually attracted to the woman, and that is a sin for both of them.

  But in many areas in Baghdad, women are free to wear the pants, show their legs and hair and enjoy their lives but of course, not like USA or European countries. The North of Iraq is different; women are somehow free to wear anything they like within the restriction of traditions and culture.

The holy cities in the south, women are not allowed to show their bodies. They’re always covered but not the face, just some of them.

 In Iraq, women can drive, visit the internet coffee shop, enjoy shopping and talk to the vendors. Men are waiting here and there or are following the girl to pass her the phone number if she shows some attraction with the eye language. Men and women are dating in the gardens away from the eyes of people, or restaurants.

 We have businesswomen in Iraq, also women can work in the companies and for the government but what I’m really proud of in my country is that we have a law that gives the woman one year leave after she gives birth to her baby, one year with a salary to nurture her baby. In USA, I watch the working women struggling to take care of her baby and work, things should change regarding this issue.

2 different sides of world 2 different disasters

Texas, USA and Iraq two different sides of the world are living different kinds of disaster
The difference that the disaster in Texas caused by storms and tornadoes which are natural ones, but in Iraq it is the usual story of bomb storms committed by terrorists.

The reports of the storm in TX said that a tornado touched down in the San Antonio area, 50 homes have been damaged or destroyed, and there are reports of injuries but no fatalities.

The weather services received reports of tornados near Lytle, about 25 miles southwest of downtown San Antonio. The weather service has re-issued a tornado warning for south central Bexar County—encompasses San Antonio.

There are fears of flood caused by the rain and hail brought by the storms that swept through Monday from southeast TX north through western Missouri, and more rain to come in the next days.

The heavy downpours were expected to continue that raise the concern of flooding.

But in Iraq there is a different story of new death and killing where more than 200 people killed and injured in explosions across the country. The deadliest attack happened in Karbala, the Shiite holy city.

The police and hospital sources said at least 39 people killed and 188 injured in the attacks. According to AP