A peaceful day

Australian born journalist, Geraldine Brooks learned a lot about what life is like for Muslim women during her time covering the Middle East for The Wall Street Journal. Nine Parts of Desire, subtitled The Hidden World of Islamic Women, is her attempt to understand the women behind the veils, and the often contradictory religious and cultural forces that shape their identities as women.

In an interview in 2008, Brooks says of her book:

I meant it for a Western audience - people like myself who are curious but who didn't have the opportunities I had to get to know so many fascinating women leading such different lives.

The book is certainly fascinating - and I was certainly curious. Brooks divides her narrative into chapters that cover some of the most interesting - and controversial aspects of the lives of women who follow the Muslim faith. She looks at the varied religious and cultural meanings of the veil and hijab, explores female genital mutilation and honour killings, the Muslim attitude to the education of its women, and whether or not they should work. Focusing on individual women living in the many varied Muslim countries of the Middle East. Brooks tells us a lot about what it is like to be a good Muslim, a good wife and a good mother.

Brooks saves much of her criticism in the book for Saudi Arabia, and the spread of the somewhat radical and restrictive Saudi form of Islam throughout the region. My husband spent several years working in Saudi Arabia before we were married and I was interested to read Brooks' opinion on this fascinating country. It was very much like his.

Particularly since 9/11, I think many of us have struggled to love and understand our Muslim neighbours in the way that we are asked to do as Christians. This book has gone a long way towards helping me understand, at least.

Jemimah wearing the headscarf that allowed her to walk the streets in comfort.

Our family spent a few weeks in Yemen in 2007. Known in Roman times as Arabia Felix, Yemen is a land of extremes with its magnificent mountains and lush fruit-growing valleys contrasting widely with the Ruba’ al-Khali or “Empty Quarter” of the Arabian Peninsula, a vast sea of sand. The towns and cities, two of which are World Heritage sites in their entirety are little changed in centuries, with hidden souqs and spice markets, mosques and ancient city walls.

Sana’a, the Capital, and long an important citadel along the trade route between Aden and Mecca, dates back to the first century and, according to legend, to early Biblical times. The old centre, where we spent several days, is still surrounded by the remains of the vast city walls. They enclose the 1000-year-old Bab al-Yamen Market, divided into 40 different crafts and trades, with a fascinating spice market standing out from the rest by the rich aromas of frankincense and myrrh and famed Arabian spices. The food here – and elsewhere in Yemen was fantastic. although our Yemeni drivers were rather amused that we preferred to join them for a meal of fool (a kind of fava bean casserole), chilli and flat bread most mornings for breakfast instead of the insipid Western breakfasts on offer!

We have many enduring memories - the wonderful food; the friendliness of the Yemeni people; the beauty of the architecture; amazing archaeological sites like the Biblical Queen of Sheba’s temple; spectacular mountains; the vast sand dunes of the Empty Quarter and the beautiful beaches. Like Geraldine Brooks, I have disquieting thoughts too though – Yemen is the 14th poorest country in the world; it is under shari’a (Muslim law) and there is no freedom of religion; and the majority of men – and many women are addicted to the chewing of qat, a mild narcotic, which is seriously destabilising the economy. Like Brooks I am concerned about women's rights - I think most Western women are.

The women in Yemen cover themselves completely in a two piece black garment called a Sharshaf. Most even wear long black gloves to hide their hands. The women I spoke to believed that this was both right under Islam, but also a Yemeni cultural tradition, albeit a relatively new one possibly introduced from Turkey in the 1960's.

Unlike Geraldine Brooks, I'm not informed enough - nor brave enough to enter into the rights and wrongs of women wearing hijab...not in blogland anyway.

The purpose of this post is to urge you all to searching our own hearts to see what in your beliefs, attitudes and actions toward Muslims is accurate or biased, compassionate and loving or fearful and angry. I encourage you to learn more so that you can better understand women in foreign lands. Reading Nine Parts of Desire is one way to do this. It is only when Muslims see Christians living the loving life that Jesus wants us to live that they to will have any desire to follow him and be saved. Is that what they see when they look at you?

I've read a couple of great blog posts recently about Elyne Mitchell's The Silver Brumby, one by Mama Squirrel at Dewey's Treehouse and the other by Amy at Quo Vadis, prompting me to haul out my copy of this classic Australian living book to read for our family read alouds. These books are read slowly, because the rule is that everyone must be available to listen to them - including Daddy.

Now, I reckon that The Silver Brumby was just about every teenaged-horse-obsessed-Australian-girl's favourite book about when I was a teenaged-and-horse-obsessed-Australian-girl, but Mama Squirrel's success in reading it to her seven year old daughter, Crayons, and Amy's in reading it to her then 4 and 7 year olds inspired me to try it with Jemimah, who although being a horse-obsessed-Australian-girl, has a while to go before being teenaged.

Well, it's being received as well by this generation of our family as it was by me. Elyne describes the beauty of the High Country so that you feel like you've been there. Her horses behave like...well...horses, and although they can speak, they're not anthropomorphised in any other way. That's a good thing to me. I can't stand animals that prance around like men instead of horses.

Elyne wrote The Silver Brumby story for her eldest daughter Indi in 1957,when Indi was 10 years old. She was not impressed with the reading matter available for girls, and was unhappy with the lack of Australian content in the books that were available. She wrote The Silver Brumby using the mountains that surrounded their home as the setting, and the brumbies that inhabited them as her characters, and Indi, who was ‘crazy about ponies', was soon‘waiting at the typewriter for the next instalment'. I think this is what makes this novel a living book. As well as being an interesting story, it describes the eastern Australian terrain and wildlife in accurate detail, and you learn a great deal about the nature of the horses as you read.

Elyne and a party of her friends makes a cameo appearance in The Silver Brumby. They're the skiers who lasso the bay colt and souvenir some of his tail hair. Elyne was a keen skier and horsewoman. She won the Canadian downhill skiing championship in 1938, and in 1941 she became the first woman to descend on skis the entire western face of the Snowy Mountains!

Elyne Mitchell was the daughter of General Harry Chauvel, commander of the ANZAC Mounted Division Light Horse and Desert Mounted Corps in World War I. He played a significant role in the charge at Beersheba on 31st October, 1917, and Elyne wrote about her father's life in her non-fiction book, Light Horse: The Story of Australia's Mounted Troops, published in 1978. It was this connection with the Charge of Beersheba that resulted in Elyne being approached by Australian screenwriter Ian Jones to write the story of his beautiful 1987 film, The Lighthorsemen, and her book of the same name was published on the film's release..

It is here that I must declare my conflict of interest. Although not Elyne's best book - I think The Silver Brumby is much better written - The Lighthorsemen will always hold pride of place on my bookshelves for one reason...the character known as Scotty Bolton in the book is my grandfather!! Grandpa is the subject of many books, and no doubt I'll skite a little more about him in the lead up to ANZAC Day, but I couldn't let a review of Elyne Mitchell's books pass without just a little boast!

A narration by Jemimah

The Sun

The Sun is very hot. It is 100’s of degrees hot. In fact, did you know it is 1000’s of degrees hot?

Did you know that the sun has lots of sunspots? The sunspots are little cool dots, but the more you have, the hotter it gets! The less you have, then the cooler it gets.If you look at the sun you will burn a hole in your retina. That’s why it is very dangerous to look at the sun without special science tools, but you are allowed to quickly flick your head over so that you only get a small glimpse of the sun. If you so look at the sun and you don’t get a hole in your retina, then you most normally get a big splodge in your eye. They can come in all sorts of shapes. You can get them in all sorts of sizes and colours. In reckon that the reason it is coloured is because the sun has all sorts of colours in it, but mummy says that I am wrong.

The sun holds all the colours of the rainbow – indigo, purple and blue, orange, pink and red, yellow and brown, but the sun does not hold the colour black. So where does the colour black come from? Nobody knows entirely, but not from the sun. Like all colours, black is a kind of colour but it is not bouncy – it dissolves, it soaks in and does not bounce into your eye.

People in the old days believed that the sun revolved around the earth. They thought that because God loved them so much that he would give all the planets to them. To me, when they were kids, I think they were spoiled brats!! Anyway, there was a man named Copernicus. He thought of the idea that maybe – just maybe – the earth revolved around the sun! Everyone fought against him, but using special tools, he proved that he was right and they were wrong.There was a man called Galileo Galilei who agreed with Copernicus and though he was very clever. To tell you the truth, I do as well.

Did you know there is something called an eclipse? Well, you probably didn’t. Anyway, there is something called a solar eclipse and it is very interesting because you would have thought the moon was smaller than the sun, wouldn’t you – and, of course, it is, but in the solar eclipse, the sun goes behind the moon and for a minute – just a minute during the day, it is dark black! Now for you that would be very strange, indeed, even for one minute, but guess what? Other people have to deal with it for five minutes. That’s a long time, isn’t it?

There is something called a solar flare. It comes out of the sun. It is at least 10 times the size of the earth and probably 100 times the size of the moon. It is very hot. It is a big bit of the fire that comes out of the sun. You can imagine how big it is, can’t you?

The sun is so hot that Mercury, the nearest planet is the second hottest planet, and Venus the third and Earth the fourth.

Did you know I know the order of the planets? I’ll tell them to you: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.

Our little poem that we made is:

Many Virtuous Elephants Made Jam Sandwiches Until Nicely Protesting!

Many visitors to Victoria venture south along the Great Ocean Road, arguably the finest drive in Australia. The road begins in Torquay - Australia's surfing capital - and winds its way along precipitous vertigo inducing cliffs, and beautiful beaches, through rain forests and pasture land until it reaches the rocky coastline of Port Campbell National Park and its Twelve Apostles, a row of imposing sandstone stacks just off the coast.

I'd love to tell you we drove the road on the weekend - we didn't. We did travel down to a town on its route though - the charmingly picturesque Anglesea, about 15km beyond Torquay on the Great Ocean Road. Kangaroos graze freely on the 18 hole golf course - quite a hazard for early morning golfers; quite a delight for Jemimah. There are loads of beautiful red and green parrots flying through the Melaleuka tee tree scrub, fine beaches and gorgeous bush walks. It was also the site for our Church's annual fellowship camp.

A healthy breakfast?

I was tagged on Facebook by my friend, Sarah, to write this. Since it took so much time, I thought I'd post it here as well.

I guess you all know No 5, but there'll be a few things that surprise you, no doubt.

Enjoy!!

1. I am a lemming. One day I will fall off the edge of the earth…


2. I was shipwrecked in the Mekong River one New Year’s Eve along with some local Lao people. We had to get a local fisherman to charter a boat for us. We were all soaking wet and it was freezing!


3. I was bullied at school and am still incredibly insecure.


4. I once saved a guy from having an anaphylactic reaction to a scorpion sting. We were on a remote island on the Cambodian border. His hearing and sight had both shut down, but we kept him conscious until we got him to a doctor. I supplied the adrenaline – and a clean syringe!


5. I homeschool my daughter and get incredible satisfaction from doing it.


6. I use too many exclamation marks, dashes and …’s when I write – and I can’t write without them!...


7. I have always wanted to visit Bhutan – and we are going in May!! You can’t believe how excited I am!


8. I have driven a turbo-charged Bentley and a Ferrari, but my husband doesn’t like me driving his BMW.


9. I am an excellent time manager, but my sister unfairly accuses me of running late for everything. At least I will have got lots of things done on the way!!


10. I love etymology and read the dictionary for fun.


11. I regularly write things in the air with my finger as I speak. You can stop me speaking by immobilising my left index finger…


12. I collect Asian textiles – and I love Asian food. I generally choose my travel destinations based on a combination of these two factors. Bhutan has magnificent textiles – which is lucky, because I can’t imagine that chilli and yak cheese stew is going to become my new favourite dish.


13. I was once caught in South West China over Chinese New Year and went ten days without food. It is amazing how easy it is to lose weight when you don’t eat.


14. I have chewed qat in Yemen and drunk kava in Fiji and Vanuatu but have never even had a puff of a cigarette.


15. I have an Honours Degree in Human Genetics and still have the ability to accurately tell the age of a mouse to within a few days when I see one. I do not empty mouse traps.


16. There are 165 countries in the world. I have only been to 32 of them (or 35 if you call Scotland, England, Wales and Northern Ireland separate countries rather than the UK.) That means that I have 133 countries still to visit. So many countries; so little time.


17. I have made a free fall parachute jump. It was really exciting and a real adrenaline rush, but I have no desire to ever make another.


18. I am a left handed redhead. I do not have any other recessive genetic characteristics that I wish to admit to.


19. I have bathed in a crocodile infested river in the middle of Borneo. It doesn’t take long to get clean…


20. I read all the time – in the loo; watching tele; in the car; in bed. I read kids books, magazines, novels, poetry, cookery books, dictionaries, travel books, homeschooling catalogues, Charlotte Mason’s homeschooling series and the Bible. I rarely read a newspaper.


21. I love cooking. Mostly I cook Thai or Japanese food, but I like to bake as well.


22. I love Wabi Sabi Japanese aesthetics and have decorated our home using its rules.


23. I never dance. I met my husband at a dinner dance and danced all night.


24. We met at a medical conference in Cape Schanck and got engaged on a beach in Phuket. I am still madly in love with him…


25. I am pathologically private, and never tell people things about myself unless I want them to know.