I remember seeing Raza in the hospital for the first time and being in awe of the fact that the little baby I was looking at was my nephew. By the second day, I had finally mustered up the courage to hold him in my arms, where he promptly fell asleep. I thought that was the coolest thing ever.

Things are different now. I am no longer stoic when it comes to babies and kids. I coo with the rest of them. I ask about other people’s babies and what were their first words? When did they start crawling? I once had an entire conversation with coworkers about the merits of cloth versus disposable diapers. This type of information is both interesting and relevant to me folks.

My older sister just had her third kid last week, upping my nephew and niece total to four(!). I’m incredibly blessed to be an aunt to these four incredibly cute (Masha’Allah) kids. That, and it’s also comforting to know that I, in fact, do have a heart

One of my favorite Raza pics (he's actually 4 right now)

Sundus (when she was just a baby)

Zaeem

Sabreen (the latest)

Thursday started off quietly enough. It was past 12 and I was sitting at my desk, staring at the computer and trying to think about the fastest way to go about the task at hand when T showed up at my cubicle, flip phone open and in hand.

“Uh, Bushra, since you’re the only other girl besides J around, I wanted to let you know… there’s something up with L”.

In fact, L’s water just broke.

The phone T was holding was L’s. J was looking up the number for the advice nurse and soon the three of us were waiting around near L while she was on the phone.

The nurse told her to come to the hospital and so there we were, the four of us – L, T, J, and myself, in J’s car, heading to the facility. L was having contractions in the car while we were on our way to the hospital.

Once we got to the hospital, we made our way to the Labor and Delivery area where they were expecting L. Only one of us was allowed in the room with her so T took L’s side while J and I stayed in the waiting room, armed with everyone’s phone numbers. T and I texted back and forth as she updated me on the condition – baby’s heart rate strong, L doing fine, can you please call (specific coworker) and tell her to submit L’s project for her? I laughed at that last one. Then I got the text text that L definitely was in labor.

I called her husband to see where he was and later, updated him on L’s room. The three of us figured we would do a “hand off” once L’s husband got there. He arrived with a deer in headlights look as we brought him up to speed.

The three of us came back to work right after leaving L with her husband. J dropped us off and then headed home since she was still feeling a bit overwhelmed like T and I. I came back to my cube to find the red light of a voicemail on my phone and emails in my inbox telling me I was just assigned a short turnaround project.

I couldn’t sit still in my cubicle after all of that though. I bounced around the office and related the story to coworkers who hadn’t been around when the four of us left. I found it incredibly hard to get started on anything. I mean, do people know what just happened?! The importance of anything else paled in comparison to what was going on with L.

When I finally did settle in and try to get some work done, I saw an email that just came in from one of the managers… L had delivered a baby boy.

Right after I read that, I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. I joined my other coworkers to talk about the email we all just received, how incredibly happy the news was, and how crazily everything unfolded. Slowly, everyone went back to their respective cubes while I was reluctant, still talking to two others, still reflecting, still grinning. I started joking around: “I think I’m pretty emotional right now so don’t mind me if I start crying,” I said, sort of laughing. But then I stopped because right then, my eyes started welling up and so I headed back to my cube, blinking back tears.

I really couldn’t believe how everything turned out. The events of the day were so unreal. Everything – from L’s water breaking to the call to the advice nurse to the car ride to the contractions to the hospital to the delivery – all took place over about 3 hours. Before that, none of us had any idea that this was truly going to be a special day. Even though I only played a minimal part, it all felt pretty amazing.

“Donor fatigue” is being called out as yet another reason many are not able to donate as much as they want/should since a massive effort was undertaken to help out Haiti after the earthquake hit there in January. I understand this reason, really I do, but for those of us who can spare some money in these tough economic times, even a few dollars would go a long way.

Google has set up a Crisis Response page for Pakistan with news articles and relief agency information. I really recommend Islamic Relief, a Four Star Charity that helps out with all international disasters. They were actually one of the first relief organizations to make it to Haiti after the earthquake. Also, by texting SWAT to 50555, you can instantly send a $10 donation towards Pakistan relief efforts via the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR).

This is the month of Ramadan when a lot of Muslims pay their Zakat and also try to increase giving sadaqah (charity). I think there is a lot of response from Muslims, especially since there are a lot of us in this country with ties still back to Pakistan. However, this isn’t just about helping out Muslims though. We’re all human beings and I pray that we can all look past any misgivings and help out.

Here are a couple of quick facts:

-Park51, the proposed $100 million facility is not actually going to be built on Ground Zero, as the nickname would lead one to think. It’s actually a few blocks away. Lower Manhattan is small so the fact that it’s near the Ground Zero area is unavoidable.

-Park51 isn’t just for Muslims. Yes, there will be a mosque, but in only one part of the building. There will also be an auditorium, meeting spaces, a swimming pool, and many other features that can be utilized by the entire community of Lower Manhattan, not just the Muslim population.

-The Community Board of that area voted in approval for the facility.

-The majority of Manhattan residents approve of the project.

However, people have not only been protesting this place but protesting mosques all around the U.S. Also, in ‘retaliation’ of Park51, one church will be holding a Qur’an burning event on 9/11. In an article I read on Salon.com a couple of days ago, titled Mosque controversy is just the beginning, journalist Stephan Salisbury delves into why there’s something really wrong with with all the controversy surrounding the Ground Zero mosque, which isn’t quite a mosque and isn’t quite on Ground Zero:

There is a distinct creepiness to the controversy now raging around a proposed Islamic cultural center in Lower Manhattan. The angry “debate” over whether the building should exist has a kind of glitch-in-the-Matrix feel to it, leaving in its wake an aura of something-very-bad-about-to-happen…it’s the déjà-vu-ness of the controversy that kindles special unease, the sense that we’ve been here before as a country, and the realization that, for a decade, a significant number of our nation’s political leaders have been honing an anti-Muslim narrative, which fertilizes anti-Muslim sentiment to the point where it is now spreading like a toxic plume, uncapped and uncontrollable.

Later, he says:

The mosque controversy is not really about a mosque at all; it’s about the presence of Muslims in America, and the free-floating anxiety and fear that now dominate the nation’s psyche.

John Stewart of The Daily Show even commented about the Park51 debate a couple of nights ago:

It’s all getting a little too weird. I live in the Bay Area in California, one of the most liberal places in this country, but I can’t help but feel some unease and be a bit wary of the increase of Islamophobia in the United States. InshAllah, I’m hoping things will get better soon.

Further reading: Read and interview of Sharif El-Gomal, one of Park51′s developers on Altmuslim . Also, Altmuslim just released a podcast in which the executive editors further discuss the Park51 controversy.

Every year, I try to work on one thing in particular that will help me focus during Ramadan and on all the extra spiritual activity I try to fit in (reading the Qur’an, extra prayers, reading more spiritual books in general). This year, this one thing will be… to limit my time on the internet.

Yes, the cursed internet with its sin prevalent at almost every click!

Okay, I’m exaggerating. Obviously the internet can be whatever it is you want it to be. Personally, I waste a massive amount of time on it and it seems almost hypocritical of me to cut out TV during Ramadan but still spend tons of time on the ‘net, reminiscent of that one Ramadan when I didn’t watch any TV while I was fasting but played video games all day.

While not cutting it out completely during the following month, I’ll probably really limit my time on Facebook and Twitter. Granted, people link to some really cool, informative articles on FB and Twitter but do I really need to conduct my current practice of checking my phone every 5 minutes to see updates along the lines of “OMG, I’m soooo bored! LOL”? (Please note: I’m not judging. Just a couple of weeks ago, I used my Facebook status to inform everyone that I ate too much at Fentons Creamery in Oakland).

Last year, I said: “I look forward to Ramadan because every time it comes around, it’s at a time when I need a spiritual recharge, when I need to be reminded about what’s important in life and not let all the little things affect me in a negative manner. I increase my reading on religious matters and try to gain knowledge in this month. Also, I really do try to watch what I do or say and how I am with people. In essence, I try to be a better person.”

The above is always a struggle. The hardest part is keeping that momentum going when Ramadan is over. InshAllah may all of us who observe Ramadan have a fruitful one.

To any non-Muslims who read this, please forgive your Muslims friends, coworkers, neighbors, or arch-nemeses if they get cranky during the days while fasting. It’s not personal, I swear.

*The Muslim calendar is a lunar calendar so a new moon signifies the beginning of a new month. A lunar month is 29-30 days long so every year, Ramadan starts about 10-12 days sooner than it did the year before.

I guess it was only appropriate then that someone asked me today what my Top 3 books are (fiction). I sort of panicked. I have to pick just three books? Can I pick more? How do I possibly choose three books that mean a lot to me among the sea of books I have read and liked/loved??

I thought about it and eventually I came up with two books. Unfortunately, I can’t figure out which book should take the third slot and forever block any other book from taking a place in the top three.

Here’s what I came up with:

1. Franny and Zooey
This is a no brainer. Well, um, actually, not quite. Between this and Catcher in the Rye, I wasn’t quite sure which Salinger piece spoke to me the most. With Franny and Zooey though, there’s just something about how it all comes together, how the ending couldn’t be more perfect, that made me choose this over Catcher. That and Zooey Glass is one of my most favorite literary characters.

2.1984
It’s a classic for a reason folks. I remember re-reading this in 2004 and being shocked at the similarities of what was going on in the book to what was going on in real life with the “War on Terror”.

Candidates for Number 3
Like I said, I can’t figure out #3 but I did come up with some possible candidates:

Cat’s Cradle
My favorite Vonnegut book. It’s so absurd it’s awesome.

Pride and Prejudice
I honestly didn’t think I would like this book but I so got into it and have read it multiple times since.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.
I clumped the above two together because I’ve only read them once each. Yet, that fact hasn’t stopped me from thinking that both of these books are great. All Quiet on the Western Front in particular has made a lasting impact on me.

I guess I’ll go ahead and ponder this now. Until next time… (which will hopefully, InshAllah, be sooner than two months from now).

After graduating from college in the summer of 2003, Wilson leaves for Cairo to work as a teacher in an English-language school. Thanks to a series of events beforehand, Wilson, who had been brought up as an atheist, knew one thing: that if she boarded that plane to Cairo, she would become a Muslim. Keeping that bit of information from her family and friends, she starts her life in Cairo as a closet Muslim and that’s when she meets Omar, who she soon marries.

With The Butterfly Mosque, the author really has something great on her hands. She strikes a balance with all three of the stories she tells – the travel memoir, her discovery and path to Islam, finding love with someone halfway across the world, and presents a narrative that is never preachy nor self indulgent while offering a unique insight into life abroad.

This book isn’t just about Wilson though, it’s also about all the people with whom she interacts. She gives Egyptians, and with her trip to Iran, Persians, an identity that sometimes gets lost among all that we hear about the Middle East here in the United States. This reminds me of something my Arabic teacher once said – as an Egyptian who had moved to the U.S. a few years ago, he had not even considered himself Arab until he came here and was instantly classified as such.

I have to admit, I’m already fan of Wilson’s. I liked her graphic novel Cairo and her comic Air is one of only two monthly comic book titles I read. Yet, this book isn’t just limited to fans of her comic books. The author succeeds in writing a book that can be appreciated by many audiences. One can read The Butterfly Mosque to get a glimpse into the life of an American living in another country while someone else may be curious about the issues Wilson discusses that inevitably result from a cross cultural relationship and from her odyssey into Islam.

In the end, The Butterfly Mosque isn’t just another memoir. G. Willow Wilson’s voice differentiates it from so many other books. Her affable manner in conjunction with her sense of humor and resolve has the ability to really connect with the reader. Simply put, I really liked this book and can’t recommend it enough.

The Butterfly Mosque is published by Atlantic Monthly Press and will be released June 1st. Read it! I command you…

So guess which movie I saw on Hulu?

Levi plays Ray, the son of a Pakistani guy and American woman, living with his best friend in LA while trying to break into acting. His dad has always tried to convince him to marry a Pakistani woman but Ray never seemed to be interested. He’s only ever dated white women and the movie starts off with him proposing to his girlfriend of two years. She hesitates and needs time to think and also to convince her parents to embrace the idea of their daughter with someone like Ray.

Ray grew up a bit confused about his identity, if he was meant to be brown or white. When he happens to meet Sana who is also half-white and half-Pakistani, he finds someone he can actually relate to and that changes things for him. So begs the question – how important is culture between two people? (Religion in this case is almost negligible since, as Ray’s friend pointed out, the only thing Muslim about him is that he doesn’t eat pork.)

I’ve wondered about this question. I was born and raised in the States so how different would I be from someone who grew up here as well, regardless of culture? I think of myself as American before Pakistani** but then again, I need my food to be spicy (and have therefore been learning how to make all of my mom’s dishes), I take my shoes off before going into someone’s house, I want to become fluent in Urdu (InshAllah), and I don’t think it’s weird that I’m 28 and still living at home.

On the other hand, I’m way into American movies more than I am into Pakistani/Indian flicks, I still watch cartoons animated series and read comic books, and I don’t really care for mehendi parties (I’ve gotten a lot of flak for that last part).

A lot of thinking later I realized two things: 1) I’m not sure where I stand culture-wise and 2) My friend actually told me about this movie ages ago but I totally forgot.

Shades of Ray folks. Decent movie.

*The title of this post comes from the question that Ray’s friend asks him when he realizes Ray may have feelings for Sana after a lifetime of avoiding Pakistani women.

**Just a note – I consider myself Muslim before American or Pakistani.

Journalist Joe Sacco is one of those people. He had previously documented and illustrated his time in Palestine and Bosnia with his books Palestine and Safe Area Gorazde. With his new graphic novel, Footnotes in Gaza, Sacco sifts through stories from the towns of Khan Younis and Rafah in the Gaza Strip to find testimonials regarding two events from 1956 in which hundreds of Palestinian civilians were killed by the IDF. He also provides the historical context that led to these massacres, citing key players from multiple countries.

Over two trips in November 2002 and March 2003, Joe Sacco visited the Gaza strip and with his guide Abed, Sacco interviewed Palestinians who were old enough to be present at that time in 1956. Sacco illustrates their stories in the pages of Footnotes of Gaza, drawing gruesome pictures to go along with the almost unreal stories: IDF soldiers forcing their way into homes, shooting men where they stood while sometimes forcing them outdoors, lining them up along fences and shooting many of them at a time. About 265 men died in that single event in Khan Younis. In Rafah, about 111 men were estimated to have been killed in a screening process gone wrong.

Sacco provides a healthy dose of objectivity to the stories he hears. He admits in his book that relying on witness testimonials for something that happened more than 50 years ago may be a bit troublesome. While the horrific events became etched into those who witnessed it, some of those memories tend to be a bit murky. In other cases, his subjects simply have too much to talk about. In one instance, Sacco found himself talking to an old man whose story kept on switching from 1956 to events in 1948, then to 1967 and so on.

On his quest, some Palestinians openly question Sacco’s need to dig up stories from ’56. A kid at a pastry shop he and Abed frequent voiced what many Sacco came across in his journey were thinking: “Forget the past, what about now?” to which Sacco replied “One day, 50 years from now, they’ll forget about you too.”

Footnotes in Gaza is an amazing read but admittedly, a bit difficult at times. When you look upon Sacco’s depiction of one particular interview subject when he’s telling his story of that day in 1956, bloody, rising from a pile of bodies, everyone dead around him, lucky because the multiple bullets he was sprayed with missed anything vital, then the reader has to take pause and just wonder how someone could mentally come back from something like that.

In the end, Footnotes in Gaza provides a look into events that are almost entirely unknown except to those who were alive in Khan Younis and Rafah in 1956. As a journalist, Joe Sacco continues to give a voice to people in war-torn lands and in the case of Footnotes in Gaza, provides a look into the lives of Palestinians.

Highly Recommended.

Moderated by Wajahat Ali in the Herbst Theater in San Francisco, the conversation centered around the Zeitouns as they opened up about their experiences. I have to say, it was one thing reading the book and it was something entirely different to actually hear them talk about some of the horrific events they had to go through. Everyone was spellbound and tt wasn’t hard to notice that they all loved them. I think the story Kathy Zeitoun told in the beginning about her pat-down at airport security on the way to San Francisco warmed the crowd to them right from the beginning

Whenever I get a chance, I really try to promote this book to family, friends, coworkers, and random people. Count this as one more time in which I tell you to check this book out. Trust me.

Side note: I wasn’t sure where to do the Maghrib prayer (one of the prayers that Muslims do) before I was meant to meet up a friend for dinner before the show. Then, I remembered that there is a masjid nearby and I could just walk to the restaurant afterward. One problem: the masjid is one of the worst parts of town in San Francisco and I wasn’t too keen on walking for 10 minutes in the semi-dark in the Tenderloin (the name of the area). As I was waiting for Maghrib to begin, my worrying increased and so I asked a random guy in the masjid if it was safe to walk down the particular street I needed to:

Him: “Why, because you’re Muslim?”
Me: “Well, no. I mean, y’know…”
Him: “What, because of hoodlums or something?”
Me: “Well, it’s just that” *looking down, shuffling feet* “the Tenderloin has, y’know, a bit of a reputation and so I was just wondering if it’s safe to walk down [street name] after Maghrib. Y’know.”

He said that there were people who do all sorts of stuff but everyone keeps to themselves. If I don’t bother anyone, no one would bother me. Needless to say, I hightailed it to the restaurant after the prayer, trying to stay focused. Fortunately, I didn’t come across anyone unsavory. I did, however, see someone get arrested outside of the masjid right when I came out. Good times.

Read Zeitoun!!