Mayra
A Day in the Life
I guess it depends on the day of the week. I get up, I go to class, I like to study in HSSE, the library in Stuart. If it's Monday, I go to Briarwood to tutor. If it's Wednesday, I’m usually studying. I usually have all my exams on Thursdays, it’s been a thing this semester. For fun after dinner I might watch Netflix with my friends after we pray for a bit. Then talk about our days, goof off a little. Then I'll go back and shower, maybe study a bit more, then go to bed. Every Saturday we either have an event for ICAN, or we have an event for Briarwood. They always have something fun for me to do. I love it so much, it's great. Sunday is my day to kind of relax, sleep in, because I don't do that very often. My favorite prayer is Fajr, the one that you wake up for at 5:30 in the morning. It's also the hardest one to wake up for, but since it's my favorite one I try the hardest with that one. I try to pray at least twice a day, but yeah two or three times a day. that's on a good day. 
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I'm Mayra and I'm a junior at Purdue this year until next month when I'll be a senior. I'm really nervous about that. I study biology. I'm a part of ICAN, the youth group. I'm on student council. I tutor at Briarwood Apartments.
My family lives in South Bend, Indiana right now. I have a little brother and little sister. We didn't always live in South Bend. We moved around a lot when I was younger. My parents are originally from Pakistan. They're from a city, Lahore. It's a larger city in Pakistan. My dad is Punjabi and my mom's Pashtun. My dad came to America and was training to become a doctor. He went back home, got married, came back, and they lived in New York for a bit. Then my dad moved to New Jersey for residency and that's where I was born. We lived there for a bit. We lived in North Dakota after that, which is really random, and that is where my brother came along. Then after North Dakota we lived in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania is where I started school. Our first year there I went to a public school and my mom and dad thought I was just the rudest child and obnoxious so they sent me to a private school, which was Catholic. It was hard because I was the only one that wasn't Catholic. The first year I came home and was like, "Mom, who's Jesus? Because they keep talking about him." It was good for me as far as my religion goes, because I would have a religion class and then I would come home and my parents would help me do that homework. Then they'd teach me more about my religion, so it was a good comparison. I'd like to say I know a bit about both religions. I was literally the only girl in Catholic school who wasn't from the area or whose family wasn’t from America. I always had to do cultural presentations about myself. After a bunch of bad things happened around the world, everyone at school would be like, "Oh, are you okay?" They just started treating me differently, which was weird because you saw the before and the after. Before they were very avid to learn more about where I came from, and what I was doing, and why I wasn't participating in Mass. I would sit in the back pew with the teacher and listen while everyone else participated in church. Then after, instead of being curious in a good way, they weren't as open. Once I had henna on my hands and I got made fun of for it, and I remember going home and crying. It was very different before and after. After that my family moved to West Virginia because my dad got a job there where he could teach and practice at the same time. We lived there for a long time. I went from fourth grade to gradauting high school in West Virginia. In West Virginia everyone is very conservative, I guess. They're very nice in West Virginia, but there's always some people who weren't as welcoming. For example, once in my high school history class, we had these Bell Ringers, where in the beginning of class our teacher would put a different question to discuss. We were having an open discussion and I was arguing with one of the dudes. I had my point of view and he had his. It wasn't like one of us was completely wrong. We were just talking about it. Instead of him keeping on with the discussion, he got mad that I was arguing with him. Then he was like, "Oh why don't you just go run around your black box with a scarf on.” It was just very insensitive. There were people that were always like, "Oh you gonna go worship your weird god now?" They weren't always the nicest. After that, I came here to Purdue. It was weird having so many people my age and my religion. They came kind of from the same background so they understood me better. Usually when I did live in all those different towns there'd be one or two girls that were my age. It's not like we didn't get along; it was just that they were different in the way that they were brought up. For example, in West Virginia, there were two other girls. One was more conservative in that she would wear a headscarf, which is normal, but she also wasn't allowed to ride a bike because the pose was suggestive according to her dad. Then there was another one girl who would go out and drink all the time and had a Ferrari. I was awkwardly in the middle of it. It's not that I didn’t get along with them; it was just harder to relate. Then, when I came here there were people who were like me, they would pray, but then they also did fun things. My friends now live an Islamic lifestyle of praying and helping others, but then, afterwards, we go bowling. |
Muslim in America
It's harder to stay connected with your religion, especially because you don't get days off for Eid. My dad has to take the day off from work. The person he works with also celebrates Eid, so they have to take turns taking days off. When he works, we just go out to dinner later or something, but it's not the same.
I've seen how people celebrate Eid here, and how you celebrate over in Pakistan for example. Here, in America, you have to live your daily life complete with working hard, but without eating, which makes it very hard to concentrate. In Pakistan, everyone goes home from work early. Then as soon as Eid happens it's like a party for three days long. Everybody's happy and celebrating, and there's a discount on food everywhere, and it's really nice. It's a big difference between it, and I honestly think that's why my dad doesn’t know how to bring that here.
My parents taught me about Islam. I had to learn Arabic, and ever since I was little I've had different teachers teaching me. While they teach you Arabic they also teach you certain things like say “Masha Allah” when something good happens, stuff like that. My first teacher was a Sunday school, and then the second one was actually through this program that they have on Skype. You don't use the video you just use the audio chat and you're just talking to them, and you like read out loud and they correct you. Then that didn't go over so well because it was hard to connect over there because it was an entire station and it took a lot of electricity. Then, more recently, when we came to South Bend, my mom’s friend, the wife of the imam at the masjid, was teaching me. Now, I'm basically aware of what's happening in Arabic, but when we're reading it she has to correct me. So every time I go home she gives me a good scolding if I don't practice.
In South Bend the mosque is very close so we have been going recently. Both in Pennsylvania and in West Virginia the mosque was farther away and it was more downtown. My dad was always scared because you heard about a lot of bad things that happened over in that area that the mosque was in. We would be a little more hesitant to go. We went on special occasions if we were fasting. Everybody came and brought food as a pot luck. Now I generally go more often because it's five feet from my dorm. It's awesome.
My mom did most of the teaching. My mom taught me how to pray, how you do it five times a day, how to do what you do before you pray like washing up. Stuff like that. When I was little my mom would tell me stories of the prophet and his followers; stories about how to apply those lessons or what he taught. So you learned what you should and shouldn't do and stuff like that. We just learned more about his life. I remember when I was younger and we would go to Pakistan, my grandmother wouldn't adapt the stories for children. She'd put in all the things and my dad would be, "Mom, she doesn't know what a virgin is. Why are you doing this?" I would hear them arguing and I would be like, "What are you talking about?" My mom and dad definitely adapted the stories for kids.
Because I'm the oldest child, my parents are more protective of me than they are my two younger siblings. When I go home now my brother won't even be there half the time. My sister will be across the street at a friend’s house. When I was younger I wasn't allowed to spend the night anywhere. I would go to a friend’s house, or hang out with a friend once a week, and my mom was like, “Okay, that's enough.” But that might be a cultural thing honestly. I don't think anywhere in religion does it say not to hang out with friends. It's hard to differentiate sometimes, but mostly my family is equally cultural and religious. So half the time I won't even realize I'm doing it, but I'll be doing something that's more cultural than religious.
When my parents lived in Pakistan, they weren't as inclined to hold onto their roots. They were there, they witnessed it all the time, it wasn't that big of a deal. Now when we came here, my dad made sure he always has the Pakistani international channels so he knows what's happening there. We watch a lot of movies that are from that area. Whenever my mom cooks at home, let's say she cooks six times a week, of the six times four will be something that's Pakistani. It's kind of balanced, but they both want to make sure we know where were from. It's why they took us to Pakistan over and over again.
The last time I went to Pakistan was during the Ramadan so you're not eating from sunrise to sunset, and it's like 112 degrees Fahrenheit and all you want to do is lie there and take eight showers a day because it's so hot. Other than that it's always really fun because it's just different. Lahore is a city, but it's different in the sense that instead of a lot of stores, there are little carts with people, and they're all trying to sell you food or clothes. Instead of the mall it's a bazaar. One alley will have nothing but bangles, and you walk down and all of the men are yelling at you to buy from their booth instead of the other one. On top of that you have to bargain for the price so you'll be like, “I'm not paying more than 20 rupees for this” and then you have to walk away. Then they'll be like, "No, no, no, no I'll give it to you for 20!" It's really fun actually. I'm good at that.
The traditional dress is shalwar kameez, which is a longer shirt. It's a style to change the length of the shirt and the pants. Last year when my mom went to Pakistan by herself, she got me an outfit that was a shirt that was longer and pants that looked like skinny jeans so it literally just looked like a tunic and skinny jeans. Or the shirt will be kind of shorter and the pants will be baggy. And you have a little scarf to go with it called a dupatta. When people make them they have to dye it to be the correct color because usually you buy the fabric for the shirt only and you send it to the tailor and they make it. Then, you have to send the pants and the scarf out to get dyed the same color or pattern or whatever to match the shirt. If you go down another alleyway they'll have giant pots of color and they're stirring chiffon and it's really cool. It smells awful, but it's really fun to look at because it's all colorful. So that's fun. It's just such a different experience, you know what I mean?
In West Virginia there's not a lot of diversity at all. On top of that, whenever you're from a different country get labelled to be a nerd all the sudden. If anybody did come over who weren’t my close friends, they were there for project or something. They would hear me talking in a different language and were like, “Whoa. What just happened?” When my friends would come over they usually were surprised because they knew that I was from somewhere else, but at home our conversations are half English, half Urdu. It's basically Spanglish, one word is English and one word is Urdu. Once I remember my friend had come over for the first time and I had a conversation with my dad, half in Urdu and half in English. Then my friend was like, "How did you do that?" I guess she honestly hadn't heard anyone speak another language before. She was like, "What was that? " Then I told her that I could do that and I could read Arabic, and she was just in shock.
They weren't ready for it because I didn't make it very apparent. I don't wear a headscarf. I don’t wear shorts or anything, but I wear relatively normal clothes. I guess when people look at me they don't automatically assume that I'm Muslim, or that I speak a different language or anything, you know what I mean? But I am! A lot of times my mom and I will be walking somewhere and every time someone will be like, "Oh, where are you from? Venezuela? Argentina?" I'm like, “No. Wrong part of the world.” Everyone assumes that I'm something else. I don’t appreciate when people assume, but it is funny to hear people guess.
My parents got their citizenship when I was in eighth or ninth grade. All I remember is when my mom came back from the mail box, she was like, "Wow, we're now true Americans." I didn't really get it at first. I do remember when my mom and dad were studying for the citizenship exam, they had this version of the book that was in a CD form. Whenever my parents would pick me up from school I'd be like, “Guys turn it off!” I'd get embarrassed because you could hear the CD outside. I didn't want anybody asking why they were finding out the third president of America during a car ride. I was kind of self-conscious about that I remember.
I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they gave up everything and came here. I think that would be very hard to do. I can't imagine moving to a different country, not just like going to Canada. It's going somewhere else where they don't speak your language. It's really funny because if you compare them from when I was younger to now, they kind of grew with me. They got more Americanized: the way they dress, what music they listen to, stuff like that. My mom is way more hip than me though, she knows all the songs on the radio.
My mom and dad taught me how to drive, and apparently in Pakistan when you turn the signal you pull up an indicator, and I never even thought twice about it. I was like, “Oh, the indicator. Okay.” When I went to go take my driver’s test the instructor kept telling me to turn on the blinker. I'm like what light is that? This light? This light? This light? She's like, “The blinker. The blinker!” I literally sat there and was like, “How do you - what is a blinker?” The only thing left was the turn signal so I kind of just hit it and she was like, "That!" I explained it to her that I didn't know that's what it was called. I thought it was the signal, or the indicator, not the blinker. She was like, “Oh.” Then she laughed about it. It's stuff like that, words that you don't necessarily use all the time. When my dad goes to Lowe's he'll be asking for something you use to paint, and he'll say what they use in Pakistan because it's at one point that area was colonized by Britain so a lot of times it's UK English. He'll be using the right word if he was in a different region, but it's the wrong word and they're like, “The what?”
I started identifying as a Muslim fairly recently. I mean, I always identified as Muslim, but I haven’t always realized what a blessing it is to have been born into a religion and community that revolves around peace, helping others, and bettering one another, despite what the media propagates. It was hard, When I was growing up I just did what I was expected to do by my parents, right? Actually doing the right thing, I think that was separate from being Muslim. I don't know why. I never thought of those two things as going hand in hand. Just being a good person, helping, being nice was one thing. Then doing the religious stuff was separate.
I didn't actually realize that my religion was a lifestyle until I came here to Purdue. Then, I noticed that it’s how people live. It took me time, to get to a certain age, to figure everything out on my own. I realized that I wanted to be a Muslim. After being subjected to different environments and having to choose to do the right thing without being supervised by my parents. I realized that I was proud to be Muslim; I think a huge part of that is having a great support system in my friends and family.
It was one of those revelations that you have at three in the morning. I think I had watched a YouTube video that was talking about how you have to be a good person, and do your best, and try your hardest and that was part of your religion. That was where I started to actually realize it, and then it progressed to other things. I think I'm more proud of my religion now than I was growing up, just because I actually think about it. It's not because my parents are telling me to do it. I mean, yeah I believed in it before too, but it wasn't, I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to put it in words.
Now, I learn about my faith through a lot of YouTube videos actually. Then I like reading the transliteration of our book the Qur’an. That's always good. My friends are always like, “Yeah, if you read this Surah and this, this, and this happens. It's good.” I live close to a couple of the other girls in the dorm and we always pray together in the evenings. I think that's one of the favorite parts of my day actually because it's just weirdly calming and it makes you feel like you are part of a community. I have a room to myself and I don't go home to my family or anything, so sometimes I'm just in my room and I get lonely. It's good to have friends. We'll all pray in one of the rooms. We'll make a line, one of us says it out loud, and we take turns doing it.
It's harder to stay connected with your religion, especially because you don't get days off for Eid. My dad has to take the day off from work. The person he works with also celebrates Eid, so they have to take turns taking days off. When he works, we just go out to dinner later or something, but it's not the same.
I've seen how people celebrate Eid here, and how you celebrate over in Pakistan for example. Here, in America, you have to live your daily life complete with working hard, but without eating, which makes it very hard to concentrate. In Pakistan, everyone goes home from work early. Then as soon as Eid happens it's like a party for three days long. Everybody's happy and celebrating, and there's a discount on food everywhere, and it's really nice. It's a big difference between it, and I honestly think that's why my dad doesn’t know how to bring that here.
My parents taught me about Islam. I had to learn Arabic, and ever since I was little I've had different teachers teaching me. While they teach you Arabic they also teach you certain things like say “Masha Allah” when something good happens, stuff like that. My first teacher was a Sunday school, and then the second one was actually through this program that they have on Skype. You don't use the video you just use the audio chat and you're just talking to them, and you like read out loud and they correct you. Then that didn't go over so well because it was hard to connect over there because it was an entire station and it took a lot of electricity. Then, more recently, when we came to South Bend, my mom’s friend, the wife of the imam at the masjid, was teaching me. Now, I'm basically aware of what's happening in Arabic, but when we're reading it she has to correct me. So every time I go home she gives me a good scolding if I don't practice.
In South Bend the mosque is very close so we have been going recently. Both in Pennsylvania and in West Virginia the mosque was farther away and it was more downtown. My dad was always scared because you heard about a lot of bad things that happened over in that area that the mosque was in. We would be a little more hesitant to go. We went on special occasions if we were fasting. Everybody came and brought food as a pot luck. Now I generally go more often because it's five feet from my dorm. It's awesome.
My mom did most of the teaching. My mom taught me how to pray, how you do it five times a day, how to do what you do before you pray like washing up. Stuff like that. When I was little my mom would tell me stories of the prophet and his followers; stories about how to apply those lessons or what he taught. So you learned what you should and shouldn't do and stuff like that. We just learned more about his life. I remember when I was younger and we would go to Pakistan, my grandmother wouldn't adapt the stories for children. She'd put in all the things and my dad would be, "Mom, she doesn't know what a virgin is. Why are you doing this?" I would hear them arguing and I would be like, "What are you talking about?" My mom and dad definitely adapted the stories for kids.
Because I'm the oldest child, my parents are more protective of me than they are my two younger siblings. When I go home now my brother won't even be there half the time. My sister will be across the street at a friend’s house. When I was younger I wasn't allowed to spend the night anywhere. I would go to a friend’s house, or hang out with a friend once a week, and my mom was like, “Okay, that's enough.” But that might be a cultural thing honestly. I don't think anywhere in religion does it say not to hang out with friends. It's hard to differentiate sometimes, but mostly my family is equally cultural and religious. So half the time I won't even realize I'm doing it, but I'll be doing something that's more cultural than religious.
When my parents lived in Pakistan, they weren't as inclined to hold onto their roots. They were there, they witnessed it all the time, it wasn't that big of a deal. Now when we came here, my dad made sure he always has the Pakistani international channels so he knows what's happening there. We watch a lot of movies that are from that area. Whenever my mom cooks at home, let's say she cooks six times a week, of the six times four will be something that's Pakistani. It's kind of balanced, but they both want to make sure we know where were from. It's why they took us to Pakistan over and over again.
The last time I went to Pakistan was during the Ramadan so you're not eating from sunrise to sunset, and it's like 112 degrees Fahrenheit and all you want to do is lie there and take eight showers a day because it's so hot. Other than that it's always really fun because it's just different. Lahore is a city, but it's different in the sense that instead of a lot of stores, there are little carts with people, and they're all trying to sell you food or clothes. Instead of the mall it's a bazaar. One alley will have nothing but bangles, and you walk down and all of the men are yelling at you to buy from their booth instead of the other one. On top of that you have to bargain for the price so you'll be like, “I'm not paying more than 20 rupees for this” and then you have to walk away. Then they'll be like, "No, no, no, no I'll give it to you for 20!" It's really fun actually. I'm good at that.
The traditional dress is shalwar kameez, which is a longer shirt. It's a style to change the length of the shirt and the pants. Last year when my mom went to Pakistan by herself, she got me an outfit that was a shirt that was longer and pants that looked like skinny jeans so it literally just looked like a tunic and skinny jeans. Or the shirt will be kind of shorter and the pants will be baggy. And you have a little scarf to go with it called a dupatta. When people make them they have to dye it to be the correct color because usually you buy the fabric for the shirt only and you send it to the tailor and they make it. Then, you have to send the pants and the scarf out to get dyed the same color or pattern or whatever to match the shirt. If you go down another alleyway they'll have giant pots of color and they're stirring chiffon and it's really cool. It smells awful, but it's really fun to look at because it's all colorful. So that's fun. It's just such a different experience, you know what I mean?
In West Virginia there's not a lot of diversity at all. On top of that, whenever you're from a different country get labelled to be a nerd all the sudden. If anybody did come over who weren’t my close friends, they were there for project or something. They would hear me talking in a different language and were like, “Whoa. What just happened?” When my friends would come over they usually were surprised because they knew that I was from somewhere else, but at home our conversations are half English, half Urdu. It's basically Spanglish, one word is English and one word is Urdu. Once I remember my friend had come over for the first time and I had a conversation with my dad, half in Urdu and half in English. Then my friend was like, "How did you do that?" I guess she honestly hadn't heard anyone speak another language before. She was like, "What was that? " Then I told her that I could do that and I could read Arabic, and she was just in shock.
They weren't ready for it because I didn't make it very apparent. I don't wear a headscarf. I don’t wear shorts or anything, but I wear relatively normal clothes. I guess when people look at me they don't automatically assume that I'm Muslim, or that I speak a different language or anything, you know what I mean? But I am! A lot of times my mom and I will be walking somewhere and every time someone will be like, "Oh, where are you from? Venezuela? Argentina?" I'm like, “No. Wrong part of the world.” Everyone assumes that I'm something else. I don’t appreciate when people assume, but it is funny to hear people guess.
My parents got their citizenship when I was in eighth or ninth grade. All I remember is when my mom came back from the mail box, she was like, "Wow, we're now true Americans." I didn't really get it at first. I do remember when my mom and dad were studying for the citizenship exam, they had this version of the book that was in a CD form. Whenever my parents would pick me up from school I'd be like, “Guys turn it off!” I'd get embarrassed because you could hear the CD outside. I didn't want anybody asking why they were finding out the third president of America during a car ride. I was kind of self-conscious about that I remember.
I don't know how they do it. I don't know how they gave up everything and came here. I think that would be very hard to do. I can't imagine moving to a different country, not just like going to Canada. It's going somewhere else where they don't speak your language. It's really funny because if you compare them from when I was younger to now, they kind of grew with me. They got more Americanized: the way they dress, what music they listen to, stuff like that. My mom is way more hip than me though, she knows all the songs on the radio.
My mom and dad taught me how to drive, and apparently in Pakistan when you turn the signal you pull up an indicator, and I never even thought twice about it. I was like, “Oh, the indicator. Okay.” When I went to go take my driver’s test the instructor kept telling me to turn on the blinker. I'm like what light is that? This light? This light? This light? She's like, “The blinker. The blinker!” I literally sat there and was like, “How do you - what is a blinker?” The only thing left was the turn signal so I kind of just hit it and she was like, "That!" I explained it to her that I didn't know that's what it was called. I thought it was the signal, or the indicator, not the blinker. She was like, “Oh.” Then she laughed about it. It's stuff like that, words that you don't necessarily use all the time. When my dad goes to Lowe's he'll be asking for something you use to paint, and he'll say what they use in Pakistan because it's at one point that area was colonized by Britain so a lot of times it's UK English. He'll be using the right word if he was in a different region, but it's the wrong word and they're like, “The what?”
I started identifying as a Muslim fairly recently. I mean, I always identified as Muslim, but I haven’t always realized what a blessing it is to have been born into a religion and community that revolves around peace, helping others, and bettering one another, despite what the media propagates. It was hard, When I was growing up I just did what I was expected to do by my parents, right? Actually doing the right thing, I think that was separate from being Muslim. I don't know why. I never thought of those two things as going hand in hand. Just being a good person, helping, being nice was one thing. Then doing the religious stuff was separate.
I didn't actually realize that my religion was a lifestyle until I came here to Purdue. Then, I noticed that it’s how people live. It took me time, to get to a certain age, to figure everything out on my own. I realized that I wanted to be a Muslim. After being subjected to different environments and having to choose to do the right thing without being supervised by my parents. I realized that I was proud to be Muslim; I think a huge part of that is having a great support system in my friends and family.
It was one of those revelations that you have at three in the morning. I think I had watched a YouTube video that was talking about how you have to be a good person, and do your best, and try your hardest and that was part of your religion. That was where I started to actually realize it, and then it progressed to other things. I think I'm more proud of my religion now than I was growing up, just because I actually think about it. It's not because my parents are telling me to do it. I mean, yeah I believed in it before too, but it wasn't, I don't know how to explain it. I don't know how to put it in words.
Now, I learn about my faith through a lot of YouTube videos actually. Then I like reading the transliteration of our book the Qur’an. That's always good. My friends are always like, “Yeah, if you read this Surah and this, this, and this happens. It's good.” I live close to a couple of the other girls in the dorm and we always pray together in the evenings. I think that's one of the favorite parts of my day actually because it's just weirdly calming and it makes you feel like you are part of a community. I have a room to myself and I don't go home to my family or anything, so sometimes I'm just in my room and I get lonely. It's good to have friends. We'll all pray in one of the rooms. We'll make a line, one of us says it out loud, and we take turns doing it.
Hijab
My mom doesn’t wear hijab, but my grandma does. I think that's a cultural thing, in Pakistan you don't necessarily wear the hijab when you're younger, but after a while, when you're older, then you put it on. Hijab is a very personal thing and I think it's a relationship between you and God right? Kind of upholding by wearing it in the sense that you are so close and connected and faithful to God that you're like, “Hey, I will be very conserved.” It's nice. I think that's why you wear it. I would love to wear it later on; I don't know if I'm ready to make a commitment like that because you have to wear it for the rest of your life. I hope to wear it one day. Another thing that is daunting to me is once you put on the hijab, you are literally a representative of Islam. I feel like you have to be on your best behavior all the time, because you want to do your faith justice. You don't want to wear it then go out and do something wrong. I don't want to scare other people, and I don't want people to go like, “Oh, the media was totally right, that girl was spitting into the street.” I don't want that to happen. I think you just have to be very confident in yourself that you will be true to your religion. It's a little intimidating. |
Getting Involved
I really like the ICAN counselor retreats and when we meet for part of the program with the older teens at Greyhouse in the mornings. We sit there and talk about different topics that are more relevant to nowadays, but are still Islamically tied, like women’s roles, heaven and hell, LGBTQ, stuff like that. Stuff that wasn't as prevalent before, or maybe just stuff that we're not very exposed to. Stuff that our parents don't necessarily explain to us because they don't even know how to explain this to us. We just talk about it and what would be the right thing to do in different situations, and I love those talks. Then I love when we go to Fajr Club. Every Saturday morning, we have Fajr Club. We go there and we talk about meaningful things, like how Islam relates to modern day problems of the world, how to better our society, and how to help humanity overall. It’s a good reminder to appreciate what is written in the Quran. Those meaningful things make me feel like it was just a good start to a Saturday because it means you can do other things, and I don't know. Usually what we talk about is relevant to what's happening in the world so stuff like that, and it's just nice. I really enjoy these groups now because I didn't have them before. I think I almost had one once in West Virginia, but it was before these two friends of mine moved away. Me and my two friends were almost the same age, and one of their moms did this thing on Saturdays where we would meet and we had lunch, and we would try to talk about religion to learn more about stuff. Then after that we would play a game or something. We only did that two or three times, and then they had to move. Before I came to Purdue, I didn't even realize that I was missing the fact that I needed people that I related to. I didn't realize it, but now that I think about it I wouldn't want to go back to not having anybody to talk to. There's just certain situations that are hard to explain to other people, if they don't necessarily come from where you're coming from, they'll be like, “Why can't you go to a party?” It's just good to have people that kind of have the same mind set as you, you know that they're not going to want to pressure you to do something that you don't want to do, and instead they'll just go get ice cream with you. It's really nice. I was recruited for ICAN before I even knew who Silai was. We were at this graduation party; it was an all-girl thing. All the hijabis in the universe came, and we taped up the windows and everyone was just belly dancing. Everyone was wearing miniskirts which we don't normally do, so it was just a dance party. It was fun. There was a little kid there who I was trying to dance with. Silai saw me and was like, “You. I don't really know you but you would be good at this.” I went and spent the night at their house for the first time, and that night I found a bug in their bathroom and I yelled a lot and her parents were like, “Who the heck is this girl?” Their parents still remember me as the girl who screamed at the bug. That is how I got into being a counselor for ICAN. For Fajr Club I was here over this past summer during Ramadan. It was hard because the dining halls closed before we were allowed to break our fast. So the Islamic Center was awesome and always had food out for the students. I went there every day, and since I went there every day I got used to the people that were there. Then the people that were there were would be like, “Hey, you should come eat suhoor with us, which is what you eat before sunrise.” That just happened to be on a Saturday and so they had the Fajr Club there. I joined them, and now it's become a thing. |
