|
Some wear swimsuits while others feel more comfortable in
long shorts and a T-shirt.
YWCA = young women's christian association. ?
Correct 
-------Original Message-------
Date: Wednesday, April
13, 2005 4:45:01 PM
Subject: [Norton
AntiSpam] [IslamCity] Muslim women step into whole new aquatic
world
Muslim women step into whole new aquatic
world
04-10-05 22:54 JENNA JOHNSON
Faces framed with light-colored scarves peer through
the glass panes.
The door is locked, as the YWCA is closed
Sundays, but Zainab Al-Baaj comes running to pop it open for the women and
young girls waiting outside.
They giggle, saying hello to one
another and switching between speaking Arabic and English as quickly as
they walk through the lobby.
The lobby is where this group of
Muslim women, ranging from toddlers to age 60, transitions from the world
outside the YWCA to the world offered to them on the second floor – at the
swimming pool.
In the lobby, long colored scarves, or hijab, are
draped over their heads and their bodies are covered with loose, unfitted
clothing. Their Islamic faith and culture instructs them to be modest in
their dress, showing as little skin as possible when in public or in the
presence of men.
At the pool, away from windows, cameras a nd men,
they can strip off their layers of clothing, put on colorful swimsuits and
enjoy the warm pool water free of cost for two hours. They talk about
their lives, families and the challenges they face everyday.
“Once
I enter the YWCA door, it’s my time,” said Al-Baaj, a native of Iraq.
“It’s not my husband’s time or my children’s time. It’s my time. That’s
why we can’t wait until it’s Sunday…we just can’t wait.”
When
Al-Baaj first organized swimming sessions last September with the
assistance of the YWCA staff and the funding of a community endowment, she
had never gone swimming before.
Then, on her first Sunday, she was
so excited to get into the water that she kicked off her shoes, rolled up
her pants and ran into the pool, screaming with excitement.
In
those early weeks she was too scared to leave the security of the shallow
end and the safety of holding the wall. But now, the young mother of three
is able to take an elegant dive into the deep e nd and swim the length of
the YWCA pool.
“Those first few weeks, I was really afraid of the
water,” she said. “But the instructor was right there beside me.”
Now, eight months later, the program still is one of the only of
its kind in the country, although Al-Baaj said she has talked with women
in Tennessee and Michigan who are interested in starting up their own
lessons.
The scarcity of pools friendly to Muslim women is the
main reason Ohood Hakim attends the swim sessions.
Hakim, a
nutrition and health sciences graduate student at the University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, said she hadn’t been swimming since she moved from Saudi
Arabia, where there are many private swim clubs, seven years ago. Since
the UNL Campus Recreation Center doesn’t offer accommodations for Muslim
women, Hakim said she has to search for places to exercise on her own.
“We don’t really have a place that understands our religion and
culture,” she said.
Hakim works out at Curves, a female-only gym
in Lincoln, and on Sundays between 1 and 3 p.m. she swims and does water
aerobics with 40 to 60 other Muslim women at YWCA.
In May, Hakim
will be returning to Saudi Arabia with her husband of seven years and her
two sons, as her education will be completed and her visa will be up. She
will miss the swimming group, which helped her conquer her fear of water –
common among Muslim women because of inexperience with swimming – and gave
her a new sense of confidence.
“I understand myself more,” she
said. “I can do things I never thought I could learn to do.”
Hakim
said she would also miss the diverse group of women she met. Although the
women all speak Arabic languages, the group is a hodgepodge of different
cultures.Some wear swimsuits while others feel more comfortable in long
shorts and a T-shirt.
The women speak seven dialects of Arabic,
and many don’t know English.
Most attend worship services at one
of Lincol n’s two mosques every Saturday, but don’t always agree on
matters of faith.
The women come from 12 different countries,
including Morocco, Jordan, Palestine, Pakistan and Egypt, but their
differences are never an issue while swimming.
Even if they
wouldn’t normally talk to a person outside of the YWCA, they form a bond
while swimming that usually only cousins share, Al-Baaj said.
“We’re all the same here,” she said. “When we come here, we are
all friends.”
Breanna Storbeck, a swim instructor and a UNL
sophomore pre-dental major, said she has slowly built up a level of trust
with these women, forming more friendships each Sunday.
“The looks
on their faces … they are just so happy,” Storbeck said.
But the
world created on the second floor of the YWCA every Sunday could be coming
to an end.
The Community Health Endowment will discontinue its
funding of the swim program on May 30 so it can assist an organization
that didn’t receive funding last year, Al-Baaj said.
Since 90
percent of women in the group are low-income, Al-Baaj said, they can’t
afford to keep the program going by themselves and are calling on the
Lincoln community to help them raise $10,000 by May 30.
In the
women’s locker room, Al-Baaj informs the women of how they can help raise
the money through bake sales, a luncheon or just plain begging. She warns
them that if they don’t take action, their swimming days will be numbered.
After everyone signed up to bring ethnic food or donate money,
showered, dried their hair, dressed and wrapped their heads with scarves,
they walk back down the YWCA staircase and into the main lobby.
They smooth their scarves, checking for loose curls and getting
ready to step back out into the world outside of the YWCA.
Al-Baaj
is one of the last to leave for the day, her small face lined with
determination as she walked out the glass-paned front door of the YWCA.
She says it has been a gift from God that the swimming program was
even put together, and she has faith it will continue.
“We’re
really hoping,” she said. “It’s been great. We don’t want it to end.”
www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/04/04/4250ea7b8ba88
please
visit and join:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/IslamicMinds/
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Small Business - Try
our new resources site!
***************************************************************************
{Invite
(mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom
(i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and
argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who
has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are
guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than
he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then
stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's
(Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the
Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of
Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it
is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also
said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward
of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being
lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee,
at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All
views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in
any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or
approved otherwise.
If your mailbox clogged with mails from
IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to
http://www.yahoogroups.com to
change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at
[EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
|
![Add FUN to your email - CLICK HERE!]()
***************************************************************************
{Invite (mankind, O Muhammad ) to the Way of your Lord (i.e. Islam) with wisdom (i.e. with the Divine Inspiration and the Qur'an) and fair preaching, and argue with them in a way that is better. Truly, your Lord knows best who has gone astray from His Path, and He is the Best Aware of those who are guided.}
(Holy Quran-16:125)
{And who is better in speech than he who [says: "My Lord is Allah (believes in His Oneness)," and then stands straight (acts upon His Order), and] invites (men) to Allah's (Islamic Monotheism), and does righteous deeds, and says: "I am one of the Muslims."} (Holy Quran-41:33)
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: "By Allah, if Allah guides one person by you, it is better for you than the best types of camels." [al-Bukhaaree, Muslim]
The prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) also said, "Whoever calls to guidance will have a reward similar to the reward of the one who follows him, without the reward of either of them being lessened at all."
[Muslim, Ahmad, Aboo Daawood, an-Nasaa'ee, at-Tirmidhee, Ibn Maajah]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
All views expressed herein belong to the individuals concerned and do not in any way reflect the official views of IslamCity unless sanctioned or approved otherwise.
If your mailbox clogged with mails from IslamCity, you may wish to get a daily digest of emails by logging-on to http://www.yahoogroups.com to change your mail delivery settings or email the moderators at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the title "change to daily digest".
| Yahoo! Groups Sponsor |
ADVERTISEMENT
| Would you give Hope to a Child in need? |
| |
![]() |
|
|
| |
|
|
![]() |
Yahoo! Groups Links
|
