I, Tololy, will be unable to post any entries in the coming three days due to my departure to Aqaba, Jordan’s portal on the Red Sea. I promise some pictures when I return and I hope you will not be disappointed.

Since I was equally made by Arab and non-Arab blood, it is only fair to speak of my Circassian roots. Despite the fact that I do not,by custom, follow my mother’s family in name, I am never any less attached to and proud of that lineage.

One of my most intimate childhood memories is of Adiga weddings. I am still in love with the ritualistic celebrations and dances that take place in the “Jagg”. The Jagg is the dance area right infront of the bride and groom’s seating. The men normally stand on the right side and the ladies on the left. It is customary for a “senior” couple to initiate the dancing and,as long as seniors are dancing, the bride and groom remain standing as a sign of respect for the elderly.

I believe the reason why I was so fascinated by Adiga weddings was because I found the stories behind them rather magical. In a conservative Arab society,and by that I mean my own circle the way I saw it at the time, it was new to me that a family could agree upon having a daughter fall publically in love with a man. Not only do Adiga families allow that, they also allow the two lovers to meet at the girl’s parents’ house,and to go out together to picnics and clubs and dances. I was fascinated by that when I was discovering the ways of my families. To my great surprise, I learned later on that the way of my mix of a family was not that different.

To trace matters to their roots, I will narrate how two lovers often meet. It happens usually at wedding parties or dances that a man notices a girl that he somehow likes and tries hard to get the chance to dance with her. Note that most Adiga dances involve only two people, a man and a lady. After the dance the two meet up, should the girl be available and initially attracted to the man in question. Such meetings can take place anywhere,naturally, not only during parties and Jaggs. I am only bringing you an image of the atmosphere at weddings.

There are two ways that Adiga lovers can resort to in order to get married. If the two families accept their love then no problems normally arise. However,if someone in the girl’s family does not accept such an engagement then the time calls for a procedure called “Khteefeh”, which literally means “kidnapping”.
Should the two lovers agree to use Khteefeh as a means to get married, certain steps must be made to ensure that the procedure will take place in harmony with customs. A senior ,well respected member of the man’s family will be informed and the bride to be will be taken to his house accompanied by her chaperon, a senior female member of her family. The groom, from the day his bride to be sets foot in the senior’s house, is prohibited to get in contact with his beloved and is even often prohibited to approach the house. Certain female members of the bride’s family would already have knowledge of the lovers’ decision to use Khteefeh.

I will explain the steps depending on my humble knowledge and on the answers I got for my questions from Adiga relatives. The reason why the bride is hosted at a senior’s house is basically a step taken to honour the girl’s family who refuses the marriage. It is also seen by some as a way in which the bride herself shows respect to her own family, by sending a message that although she is marrying against someone’s will,she is not ignorant of the customs and is not disrespectful of the family’s name. In addition to that, staying at a respectful senior’s house means that no harm could smear the family’s honour. That is precisely why she is also accompanied by a female senior of her own kin and why the groom is not allowed to see her.

There is another custom that I am personally fond of,it is carried at most weddings. Before the bride’s departure from her parents’ or the senior’s house, her female friends and relatives stop the groom’s family at the door. They prevent them from taking the bride away unless they pay what they call “7a2 Banat”,or “The girls’ right”. The groom’s family pays any sum of money required,and that is a different sum of money from that paid to the bride herself prior to the wedding. After proceeding, the male friends and relatives could also stop the groom’s family and take another sum of money called “7a2 shabab”,or “The guys’ right”.

After a short period of time,the wedding takes place. The bride’s father and brothers should not attend since they are often the ones opposing the marriage in case of Khteefeh. During the Jagg, and to make the dance an organised event, two people take charge of the dancers. A woman at the women’s side and a man on the men’s side. These two guide the dancers into the Jagg and when a dancing couple is done dancing, usher another.
Most Adiga weddings would hire a “Pshinawa”, that is a person who plays the “Pshina”. The Pshina being the musical instrument used to play Adiga music. If the Pshinawa is a man he stands by the men’s side, if a woman then by the women’s side. Normally the pieces played at weddings and danced to are Qafa or Zafaqwa, Wedj, and Sheshen which is adopted from the Chechens.

I will be telling you more about the wonderful world of Adiga Xabza, the totality of Adiga traditions and language.

As you can notice, the box is undergoing some renovations to make it a warmer and a more organised place. I am not sure how it will look like after this face lift, I can not even promise that it would look any different.

I apologise for any inconvenience caused by any breaks in the routine of the box.

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A while ago a friend from Singapore informed me that he had found an interesting new site and he shared the link with me. I have found this site to be strikingly simple and powerful. It is built up by the contributions of regular people who want to tell secrets that are bearing heavy on their lives.

Some secrets are painful,some are funny,while others are utterly shocking. I know what secrets mean and I know what they can do to one’s sanity if they stay stored in a mental jar to rot, your mental jar would reek of constant fear and self-blame. Never communicating a guilty secret would torment one endlessly.

Gilbert Parker said: “In all secrets there is a kind of guilt, however beautiful or joyful they may be, or for what good end they may be set to serve. Secrecy means evasion, and evasion means a problem to the moral mind”

I find this site to be both amusing and true, to a certain degree I believe everyone has a secret stored somewhere. I recommend you visit the site and take a look at the secrets posted there. I have personally been impressed by people’s abilities to expose their secrets in so many creative ways,both verbally and visually. I have been touched by the sweet and I took a moment to suck in the unusual, only to conclude that we’re all variations of the same seed.

This is one of the most recent additions to my father’s library. I grabbed the book a couple of days ago and read the introduction, it captured me. I think I will read the book very soon. It is by Sean Martin, a Thunder’s Mouth Press publishing in 2004.
The book opens up quoting Napoleon Bonaparte : “What is history, but a fable agreed upon?”

Introduction : The Temple and the Myth

“On the morning of 21 January 1793, the French king, Louis XVI, was led out into the Place de la Concord in Paris to face execution. He stepped up onto the platform where the guillotine had been erected, and turned to address the huge crowd who had come to watch him die. He announced that he forgave the revolutionary council who had voted for his death, and then gave himself over to the executioner.

The blade fell at 10:15. The executioner held Louis’ decapitated head up by the hair to show that the king was dead. What happened next, according to some sources, took the crowd by surprise: a man jumped up onto the platform and dipped his fingers in the dead king’s blood. He held his hand aloft and shouted “Jacques de Molay, thus you are avenged!”.The crowd cheered, understanding the reference to the last Templar Grand Master, who was burned as a relapsed heretic in 1314; the long-held popular rumor that one day the Templars would have their revenge on the French monarchy – which had brought the Order down on dubious charges of heresy, blashphemy and sodomy – seemed to have come true.

Indeed, speculation was rife that the Templars were among the instigators of the revolution that had swept through France in 1789, ultimately claiming the lives of Louis and his queen, Marie Antoinette…”

It is both shocking and unbelievable what people dispose of. Almost a week ago a beautiful Persian cat dropped by my house, she had been cast out from the comfort of a home and rejected by a former owner. This cat, which I came to call “Mallouka” meaning Queen, was owned by our neighbors. I do not know what brought them to this cruel decision of throwing her outside and not even feeding her.

Mallouka is an odd-eyed white Persian mom cat. I will clear out the ambiguity in a second. Persian cats are a long-haired breed of cats that is considered the ultimate luxury lap-cat breed, associated with wealth and power. Particular eye colors are associated with the coat colors. Now an odd-eyed white is an all-pure-white Persian cat with different color eyes. Mallouka has one orange eye and one blue. Odd-eyed whites are often deaf in the ear next to the blue eye.

Enough of the technicalities. I do not desire to bore you. I simply want to communicate the story of Mallouka’s owners’ fall from grace. Her coat is severely damaged and dirty, the bath my brother gave her two days ago proved to be of little use. The coat needs to be rehabilitated from the roots. She sleeps outside our house and readily consumes the food I offer. I tried cutting some of the hair lumps but her coat needs much more professional care.

Two days ago she brought me a blue-eyed white kitten, and afterwards she got me her other two kittens. Another blue-eyed white and a blue one (blue is grey). I named the two whites Hector and Hercules, the blue one is Odysseus. All names are, naturally, subject to change. The three kittens are not pure Persian. I assume she mated with an alley cat.

I wonder those people had this beauty, which they invested in, and got rid of it in such a pitiless manner. I wonder they did not think of an alternative, like finding her another home or at the very least giving her some food.
I do not own Mallouka or her kittens. I just take care of them and feed them until I make sure no problems will arise from my taking them. Since when one takes other’s “leftovers” they become of high value.

A picture of Mallouka, Hector, Hercules and Odysseus.

Her Majesty, Mallouka, up close and personal. Note the bad state of the coat and eyes.

Last but not least, Tsuki-San. He has been remarkably friendly with Mallouka and the kittens. My mother,on the other hand, has not been as enthusiastic about the fact that she has to put up with having five cats at all times.

They aired a show tonight on MBC 2, to my best recollection, it was called “Best Ever Bond”. Very amusing show,I enjoyed it. To make a long story short, it talks about the best bits of the so-far-19 007 movies. In my head there was this calling for some immediate involvement on my behalf,so I invented my own motto…

“Tololy,Just Tololy” , perhaps even “The name’s Tololy,Just Tololy”.

I believe I delivered a line that Bond himself may have used or will use in future films. That was last night, I beg you not to question the circumstances under which these words were said. I said ” I am not the least proud of cats”. Queer indeed, is it not?

I am sorry I have to call you that, but I don’t know how else to get your attention. I hate that word. Do you know how hard some of us have worked to get rid of that word, to deny its instant connection to the Middle East? And now look. Look what extra work we have. Not only did your colleagues kill thousands of innocent, international people in those buildings and scar their families forever, they wounded a huge community of people in the Middle East, in the United States and all over the world. If that’s what they wanted to do, please know the mission was a terrible success, and you can stop now.

Because I feel a little closer to you than many Americans could possibly feel, or ever want to feel, I insist that you listen to me. Sit down and listen. I know what kinds of foods you like. I would feed them to you if you were right here, because it is very very important that you listen. I am humble in my country’s pain and I am furious.

My Palestinian father became a refugee in 1948. He came to the United States as a college student. He is 74 years old now and still homesick. He has planted fig trees. He has invited all the Ethiopians in his neighborhood to fill their little paper sacks with his figs. He has written columns and stories saying the Arabs are not terrorists, he has worked all his life to defy that word. Arabs are businessmen and students and kind neighbors. There is no one like him and there are thousands like him – gentle Arab daddies who make everyone laugh around the dinner table, who have a hard time with headlines, who stand outside in the evenings with their hands in their pockets staring toward the far horizon.

I am sorry if you did not have a father like that. I wish everyone could have a father like that.

My hard-working American mother has spent 50 years trying to convince her fellow teachers and choir mates not to believe stereotypes about the Middle East. She always told them, there is a much larger story. If you knew the story, you would not jump to conclusions from what you see in the news. But now look at the news. What a mess has been made. Sometimes I wish everyone could have parents from different countries or ethnic groups so they would be forced to cross boundaries, to believe in mixtures, every day of their lives. Because this is what the world calls us to do. WAKE UP!

The Palestinian grocer in my Mexican-American neighborhood paints pictures of the Palestinian flag on his empty cartons. He paints trees and rivers. He gives his paintings away. He says, “Don’t insult me” when I try to pay him for a lemonade. Arabs have always been famous for their generosity. Remember? My half-Arab brother with an Arabic name looks more like an Arab than many full-blooded Arabs do and he has to fly every week.

My Palestinian cousins in Texas have beautiful brown little boys. Many of them haven’t gone to school yet. And now they have this heavy word to carry in their backpacks along with the weight of their papers and books. I repeat, the mission was a terrible success. But it was also a complete, total tragedy and I want you to think about a few things.

1. Many people, thousands of people, perhaps even millions of people, in the United States are very aware of the long unfairness of our country’s policies regarding Israel and Palestine. We talk about this all the time. It exhausts us and we keep talking. We write letters to newspapers, to politicians, to each other. We speak out in public even when it is uncomfortable to do so, because that is our responsibility. Many of these people aren’t even Arabs. Many happen to be Jews who are equally troubled by the inequity. I promise you this is true. Because I am Arab-American, people always express these views to me and I am amazed how many understand the intricate situation and have strong, caring feelings for Arabs and Palestinians even when they don’t have to. Think of them, please: All those people who have been standing up for Arabs when they didn’t have to. But as ordinary citizens we don’t run the government and don’t get to make all our government’s policies, which makes us sad sometimes. We believe in the power of the word and we keep using it, even when it seems no one large enough is listening. That is one of the best things about this country: the free power of free words. Maybe we take it for granted too much. Many of the people killed in the World Trade Center probably believed in a free Palestine and were probably talking about it all the time.

But this tragedy could never help the Palestinians. Somehow, miraculously, if other people won’t help them more, they are going to have to help themselves. And it will be peace, not violence, that fixes things. You could ask any one of the kids in the Seeds of Peace organization and they would tell you that. Do you ever talk to kids? Please, please, talk to more kids.

2. Have you noticed how many roads there are? Sure you have. You must check out maps and highways and small alternate routes just like anyone else. There is no way everyone on earth could travel on the same road, or believe in exactly the same religion. It would be too crowded, it would be dumb. I don’t believe you want us all to be Muslims. My Palestinian grandmother lived to be 106 years old, and did not read or write, but even she was much smarter than that. The only place she ever went beyond Palestine and Jordan was to Mecca, by bus, and she was very proud to be called a Hajji and to wear white clothes afterwards. She worked very hard to get stains out of everyone’s dresses — scrubbing them with a stone. I think she would consider the recent tragedies a terrible stain on her religion and her whole part of the world. She would weep. She was scared of airplanes anyway. She wanted people to worship God in whatever ways they felt comfortable. Just worship. Just remember God in every single day and doing. It didn’t matter what they called it. When people asked her how she felt about the peace talks that were happening right before she died, she puffed up like a proud little bird and said, in Arabic, “I never lost my peace inside.” To her, Islam was a welcoming religion. After her home in Jerusalem was stolen from her, she lived in a small village that contained a Christian shrine. She felt very tender toward the people who would visit it. A Jewish professor tracked me down a few years ago in Jerusalem to tell me she changed his life after he went to her village to do an oral history project on Arabs. “Don’t think she only mattered to you!” he said. “She gave me a whole different reality to imagine – yet it was amazing how close we became. Arabs could never be just a “project” after that.”

Did you have a grandmother or two? Mine never wanted people to be pushed around. What did yours want? Reading about Islam since my grandmother died, I note the “tolerance” that was “typical of Islam” even in the old days. The Muslim leader Khalid ibn al-Walid signed a Jerusalem treaty which declared, “in the name of God, you have complete security for your churches which shall not be occupied by the Muslims or destroyed.” It is the new millenium in which we should be even smarter than we used to be, right? But I think we have fallen behind.

3. Many Americans do not want to kill any more innocent people anywhere in the world. We are extremely worried about military actions killing innocent people. We didn’t like this in Iraq, we never liked it anywhere. We would like no more violence, from us as well as from you. HEAR US! We would like to stop the terrifying wheel of violence, just stop it, right on the road, and find something more creative to do to fix these huge problems we have. Violence is not creative, it is stupid and scary and many of us hate all those terrible movies and TV shows made in our own country that try to pretend otherwise. Don’t watch them. Everyone should stop watching them. An appetite for explosive sounds and toppling buildings is not a healthy thing for anyone in any country. The USA should apologize to the whole world for sending this trash out into the air and for paying people to make it.

But here’s something good you may not know – one of the best-selling books of poetry in the United States in recent years is the Coleman Barks translation of Rumi, a mystical Sufi poet of the 13th century, and Sufism is Islam and doesn’t that make you glad?

Everyone is talking about the suffering that ethnic Americans are going through. Many will no doubt go through more of it, but I would like to thank everyone who has sent me a consolation card. Americans are usually very kind people. Didn’t your colleagues find that out during their time living here? It is hard to imagine they missed it. How could they do what they did, knowing that?

4. We will all die soon enough. Why not take the short time we have on this delicate planet and figure out some really interesting things we might do together? I promise you, God would be happier. So many people are always trying to speak for God – I know it is a very dangerous thing to do. I tried my whole life not to do it. But this one time is an exception. Because there are so many people crying and scarred and confused and complicated and exhausted right now – it is as if we have all had a giant simultaneous break-down. I beg you, as your distant Arab cousin, as your American neighbor, listen to me. Our hearts are broken, as yours may also feel broken in some ways we can’t understand, unless you tell us in words. Killing people won’t tell us. We can’t read that message. Find another way to live. Don’t expect others to be like you. Read Rumi. Read Arabic poetry. Poetry humanizes us in a way that news, or even religion, has a harder time doing. A great Arab scholar, Dr. Salma Jayyusi, said, “If we read one another, we won’t kill one another.” Read American poetry. Plant mint. Find a friend who is so different from you, you can’t believe how much you have in common. Love them. Let them love you. Surprise people in gentle ways, as friends do. The rest of us will try harder too. Make our family proud.

naomi shihab nye

Following is my brother’s morning mail, posted by my father (who is away for the weekend). I am posting this because my mind is a blank at the moment. Perhaps some muse comes my way later on in the day,perhaps not. Who am I to vaticinate my muse’s comings and goings?

Here’s an interesting letter that I am positive many have blogged about. We can’t deny the various “blog-attractive” juices it contains yet I choose to post it as is, I will not comment on its content:

Friday, September 2nd, 2005Vacation is Over… an open letter from Michael Moore to George W. Bush
Friday, September 2nd, 2005
Dear Mr. Bush:
Any idea where all our helicopters are? It’s Day 5 of Hurricane Katrina and thousands remain stranded in New Orleans and need to be airlifted. Where on earth could you have misplaced all our military choppers? Do you need help finding them? I once lost my car in a Sears parking lot. Man, was that a drag.
Also, any idea where all our national guard soldiers are? We could really use them right now for the type of thing they signed up to do like helping with national disasters. How come they weren’t there to begin with?
Last Thursday I was in south Florida and sat outside while the eye of Hurricane Katrina passed over my head. It was only a Category 1 then but it was pretty nasty. Eleven people died and, as of today, there were still homes without power. That night the weatherman said this storm was on its way to New Orleans. That was Thursday! Did anybody tell you? I know you didn’t want to interrupt your vacation and I know how you don’t like to get bad news. Plus, you had fundraisers to go to and mothers of dead soldiers to ignore and smear. You sure showed her!
I especially like how, the day after the hurricane, instead of flying to Louisiana, you flew to San Diego to party with your business peeps. Don’t let people criticize you for this — after all, the hurricane was over and what the heck could you do, put your finger in the dike?
And don’t listen to those who, in the coming days, will reveal how you specifically reduced the Army Corps of Engineers’ budget for New Orleans this summer for the third year in a row. You just tell them that even if you hadn’t cut the money to fix those levees, there weren’t going to be any Army engineers to fix them anyway because you had a much more important construction job for them — BUILDING DEMOCRACY IN IRAQ!
On Day 3, when you finally left your vacation home, I have to say I was moved by how you had your Air Force One pilot descend from the clouds as you flew over New Orleans so you could catch a quick look of the disaster. Hey, I know you couldn’t stop and grab a bullhorn and stand on some rubble and act like a commander in chief. Been there done that.
There will be those who will try to politicize this tragedy and try to use it against you. Just have your people keep pointing that out. Respond to nothing. Even those pesky scientists who predicted this would happen because the water in the Gulf of Mexico is getting hotter and hotter making a storm like this inevitable. Ignore them and all their global warming Chicken Littles. There is nothing unusual about a hurricane that was so wide it would be like having one F-4 tornado that stretched from New York to Cleveland.
No, Mr. Bush, you just stay the course. It’s not your fault that 30 percent of New Orleans lives in poverty or that tens of thousands had no transportation to get out of town. C’mon, they’re black! I mean, it’s not like this happened to Kennebunkport. Can you imagine leaving white people on their roofs for five days? Don’t make me laugh! Race has nothing — NOTHING — to do with this!
You hang in there, Mr. Bush. Just try to find a few of our Army helicopters and send them there. Pretend the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast are near Tikrit.

Yours,
Michael Moore
MMFlint@aol.com
www.MichaelMoore.com

P.S. That annoying mother, Cindy Sheehan, is no longer at your ranch. She and dozens of other relatives of the Iraqi War dead are now driving across the country, stopping in many cities along the way. Maybe you can catch up with them before they get to DC on September 21st.

Tololy P.S: Published by public demand.

Viva my 5 month-old Tsuki-San (Mr.Moon). RateMyKitten.com is still a valid option.