by Omar Nasir Kalia
I had not heard of Rwanda before, I thought; but when the guy mentioned ‘Kibeho Massacre’ of 1995 where the Tutsi and Hutus conflict caused thousands of lives to be lost through genocide. I was awe-struck to actually meet a person from there (Rwanda, Africa). He further encouraged me to watch the film ‘Hotel Rwanda’ which explicates the whole incident. I was instantly energized to be friends with the first person at Joliet Junior College in the year 2005 at Romeoville which is a city about fifty miles from Chicago, not to mention going to JOLIET college in ROMEO-Ville was itself an interesting beginning.
My cousin had dropped me off to my college on the first day; it was an awfully gratifying experience, it was raining and I sat outside the college on a bench under the cemented shade. While I was sitting and enjoying ‘the rain and the feeling of excitement’ of beginning a new epoch of my life studying in Chicago, The Rwandan guy approached me and like most people in U.S., he greeted me very warmly, this is when our conversation began. It was all too electrifying to see so many races gathered in one place, like this person was jet black in color from Rwanda, nothing racist because he was a really serene and pleasant guy indeed; then there were Caucasians, Whites, Hispanics, Blacks, Yellows… I guess I could keep on mentioning more colors. I liked multiculturalism at first sight.
I was done with my paper work at JJC office, and the bell rang, I went to my class ECON101 (Economics). It is hard to describe the feeling of a teenager who had worked hard to get to this place and now was the beginning of this awaited experience. I wasn’t sure where to look as everything was new and interesting for me, everyone looked so different compared to the people in Pakistan, nevertheless I found someone who looked like a Desi (A person from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka and/or Nepal pretty much) so I hurried and found a seat next to him, I think it’s, when I conversed with him, by his fluency of English, I could tell he is probably a born Indian American. In the near future I would discover, that Desi’s who freshly come to Americas are labeled as FOBS (Freshly on Board) due their funny accent, and their approach to things thought of as weird by the ABCD’s. American born desis are called ABCD’s (American born confused desis) for similar reasons perceived by newly arrived desis, either of the two labels were taken to be an insult and I am glad I wasn’t labeled any, probably because of my previous experience in Chicago when I was there in 5th grade and learnt a bit of an accent apart from their norms.
Due to no availability of public buses in the suburbs, I had to purchase a car and I got me a Toyota Camry 99’. The left hand drive car was confusing for some time where I also had to drive on the opposite side of the road, which is their driving standard. I made a few mistakes and drove on the wrong side of the road, Allah SWT saved me from any catastrophe and luckily the cops weren’t around so I didn’t get any tickets. I was ready and motivated to experience new things and I wanted to leave the local roads which I was instructed to use by my uncle, therefore I took the Highways probably in the first week of my driving there. No doubt the experience was overwhelming, the speed difference was great because the roads were wide, the speed calculation was done in Miles per hour instead of Kilometers per hour and the normal speed would go to around 80mph on highways, which is around 120kmps, while people would sometimes drive what would be 160kmph which is very speedy. To tell you the truth my fear of Highways faded away in no time due to my decision to break in the highways inconsiderately and in the time to come I would drive thousands of miles around USA with friends and family. To tell you briefly, back in Karachi, Pakistan, I had completed my O – levels, A – levels, GED, SAT’s, and did preparation for University admissions and research work for ‘which places to apply to’ and fulfilled all their requirements. In my experience, the whole selection and ‘working towards the admission’ was harder than the actual college/university experience itself except for the selection of courses which I would have to do later. In USA colleges and universities, if you are working on a bachelors degree of four years, in the first two years you have to take the courses from the group of courses called ‘General Education Courses,’ these courses are general in nature, this is because this way a person can learn about vast areas of study and can decide better which field is more appropriate from them and another reason for these courses is to educate people in multiple facets of life to make them all broadminded people. In my general education courses, I took History of Middle-East, Philosophy, Psychology, Sociology, Spanish, Chinese, Biology, Multimedia, ‘Education as an agent for change’, Criminal Justice, Physics and others. English, Math and Computer education was compulsory for all and the next two years students would work towards their respective degrees, I took three years instead of two and took business courses working towards BS in Business Administration from Northern Illinois University which I transferred to from JJC in 2007.
My experience as a whole at JJC was memorable, I made many friends, some of whom I worked with at my first real job at a hardware retail store Home Depot. I took on a mission to experience many different types of jobs in my time in USA so in all I worked around a dozen different jobs which included Best Buy, UPS Store, Home Depot, Menards, Market Star, Vector Marketing, Kirby, U.S Census Bureau, Staples and others and held many positions, from cashier at Home Depot to Manager level job at fortune 500 Menards Distribution Center. My first job at Home Depot however is unforgettable because one of my closest friends for the years to come worked with me there; Daniel Cameron. Daniel was a White of Irish decent, he was 6 Feet 5inches tall almost double my height (joke). There was one strong similarity between us, which made us become best friends – we both had an inclination towards understanding religion and what God wants from us in life. Daniel was a non-denominational Christian, his father was well versed in Hebrew or Aramaic language and he had great deal of knowledge about his religion, while I had an inclination towards this subject myself and I was mostly interested in the creationism, philosophy, and had made it my mission to find what we are here in this world for, I called it ‘the quest for truth’. This communality brought us together and we would hang out together at Daniel’s house for long hours and nights for discussions, panel discussions, and also for fun. He once took me with him to his college to introduce me to his cultural diversity class, I went with him, started my talk hesitatingly in front of the whole class and the teacher and somehow it turned out to be a full one and a half hour interactive lecture which the class enjoyed tremendously and the teacher re-invited me to deliver the lecture to her second class. I basically talked about Islam, Culture and Similarities between Christianity and Islam, which were the points of my discussions with Daniel.
Another of my friends at JJC was Asim, I wouldn’t call him an ABCD, but he was American Born 2nd Generation Indian American. His family was from Hyderabad, India, so I can call him HYDRO. This person studied at JJC with me, and was in search of Muslims at JJC so he had an idea, he went on our college website and found a search box to find emails of people and typed common Muslim names, like Muhammad, Ayesha, Omar, and etc, to invite them to meet in order that we can form a Muslim Club called MSA (Muslim Student Association) here at JJC. He obviously found me; I had been thinking about the same thing, so I immediately responded. We weren’t able to find much Muslims initially at JJC, and when Asim and I met, we only had a couple of days before a big event called ‘Main Street’ which was to take place at JJC, where all the potential clubs were to set their tables to represent their aims, and if 10 people approved that club, that club will come into existence. So we worked to setup a table but with only two people we needed a crazy idea and Asim came up with one. He was a history major but he used his marketing skills to attract so many people that we got almost 100 petitions instead of 10. We both were at the table, Asim dressed up as a typical Saudi guy, made a fake beard with black marker on his face very randomly, wore a Moroccan thobe, a phone wire to represent egal and a towel to represent shimagh on his head basically to give a look of some typical Middle-Eastern guy but with all these unusual details. He then stood up on the chair with a large poster which read “All Muslims Look Like Me?!” We had other posters on our table which read “Terrorist, Jihad, Extremist, etc” and another one which clarified the 10 common myths about Islam. Naturally, many people stopped by and we answered their questions and they wanted to know more so they signed the form to bring our club into existence. We also found a Christian lady Catherine who wanted to be our ‘representative for club’ which was a requirement for a club to exist. So in one day we formed our club and we also found Muslims coming to our table, therefore only in a couple of days we had Muslim Student Association with its President, Vice President, Secretary, and various other positions and we called a Muslim speaker to speak about Women in Islam.
Asim and I developed a very close friendship, the best part is that Asim joined me at Northern Illinois University when I transferred there and we continued our MSA there as well and were fortunate enough to invite big name Scholars like Shaykh Yasir Birjas, Shaykh Abdul Rehman, Mufti Hussain Kamani and Shaykh Spendihm Nadzaku to our various Islamic events like Islamic Awareness Week and others.
Asim also introduced me to AlMaghrib institute, and we took a course with Shaykh Waleed Baysouni on Articles of Faith, Asim and I would go around Chicago area discovering mosques, we even found a mosque in the basement of a church which co-existed with the church upstairs from 15 years. This common interest of ours took us to the largest yearly Islamic Conferences in America’s ISNA Conference. We would go there almost each year and once we travelled almost a 12 hr journey from Chicago to Washington City, without any unnecessary breaks to attend the ISNA conference. I remember we landed directly at the conference and were half sleeping during the first of the series of lectures.
My education at JJC was financially undemanding as U.S. Citizens get a financial break with federal aid called FAFSA and state grants called MAP Grants, also the fees for citizens in general is on the lower side plus I applied for approximately forty private scholarships and I got one in the amount of $2500. On top of that I had a nice paying job where I had surpassed managers in selling the extended service plans while being a cashier which made me eligible for bonuses. But after transferring to NIU, I had to pay a huge amount even after all the aids and working, my parents helped me through it all the way for which I am very grateful to them. May Allah SWT reward them for it tremendously, Aameen.
Once I came to NIU, I had a completely independent life as when I was at JJC I had lived with my uncle and now I had my own studio apartment. It was fascinating to have my own place, to cook my own food, I did my own laundry and cleaning, paid my electric, gas and phone bills and also my rent, did my own groceries, etc. But only in a couple of months I got bored of living alone, I guess because man is a social animal. We had a Masjid close to my apartment; I found a person there who needed a place to stay and had him as my roommate. This was a totally unique experience to live with a stranger and it turned out to be an exceedingly encouraging one after which all three years I stayed with roommates. After the studio apartment I moved on to a ‘one bedroom plus lounge’ apartment which was situated in an elegant location and was very close to my university. I could walk to my classes from there easily plus they also had a NIU bus service. Coincidently when Asim joined NIU, we became roommates and now we had three roommates and a startling time together.
To tell you briefly about NIU, it was located in DeKalb Illinois, which is a suburb approximately sixty miles from Chicago, it’s a very old university surrounded by cornfields. DeKalb city has a population of approximately 40000 people, 23000 of which are students of NIU. NIU’s total student population is about 25000, out of which majority lives in the area. So this city was basically a University City. Anywhere I would go, to malls, stores, hangouts, parks, etc there were students. It was astounding to have thousands of people of the same age group to live together, however with its benefits, it had a negative implication as well because the majority of students were Non-Muslims and non-practicing of any faith generally. With all the gender mixing and freedom many evils took place and from Thursdays nights to Sunday nights each week the city would party all night and commit unmentionable vices. With all the glamour and these strong attractions, it was necessary to attach oneself to the Muslim Community and Muslims made their own circles. We were very active with the Muslim Student Association, where we invited speakers, conducted events, hung out together and did fun events such as BBQ’s together in order that we may help others see Islam and help ourselves stay away from immorality.
Apart from the MSA, I had joined other clubs at NIU to learn about new cultures, the first was the International Student Association where we conducted multicultural events on a grand scale and the second was AIESEC which was the largest student run organization in the world and I had been voted as a board member after giving multiple speeches. From all these clubs I made friends from Nepal, Ukraine, India, Hong Kong, Brazil, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey, Palestine, Morocco, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia and various other countries. I remember we also had soccer matches where there would be players from Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and I think also Italy among other countries, which was a spectacular sight.
Apart from these activities, the main focus however was the studies and I had some of the best Instructors, all PhD’s at NIU whose guidance was unquestionably priceless; I am glad to be still in touch with some of them.
During breaks yet, my parents would sometimes give me a visit to states and we would drive to places like New York, New Jersey, Tennessee, Michigan, Toronto, etc. Also I can’t forget the exhilarating experiences of travelling with friends to Wisconsin for Skiing in winter break, going to water rafting in Tennessee and visiting Ohio State University (largest University in America) in Ohio.
Surprisingly, I had a pleasant and morally uplifting time which I spent with the Tablighi Jamat while travelling with them. Here I was introduced to Mufti Taqi Usmani sahib when his Islahi Khutbaat were played while we were going for Ijtimas. I had no idea then, that when I would come back to Pakistan, I would be working in an educational institute headed by him – Hira Foundation School, which would be a very fulfilling episode of my life.
