What's Normal?

["Maryanne Stroud Gabbani" <maryanne@ratbusters.net>]

My daughter had a favorite bedtime story about a lop-eared rabbit who tried
to work that out. The answer wasn't easy for him and it doesn't seem easy
for anyone else. Spoke to her today and she said that there are a lot of NYU
students who are really happy that Columbia has co-ed dorms because they
can't go to their own if they are below 14th St. Classes are being held by
those professors who can get in to do them...traffic has been one way out of
New York for the last few days, and that's been tough on commuters. She said
everything is sort of "normal but not the same" and I think that's about as
good as it can get.  Today was the first day of her History of Islamic
Civilisation class....one she's taking with her brother and a bunch of her
friends of a variety of national and religious backgrounds. The professor
said he didn't feel like lecturing but just talked with the class about how
they were feeling these days and so on. She and Nadim had no idea it was
going to be so timely...just thought it would be fun and probably not too
hard given their background. Apparently the prof is excellent and it was a
very therapeutic experience for all of them.

We spent a long time on the web today because the VP of my trucking company
was supposed to travel by Swissair to take his son back to Manhattan, where
Amr's wife works for the United Nations. He didn't want to get stranded in
Zurich with a 9 year old but he was glad that he and Heba had decided to let
him have an extra week off school while she was sent to Yemen on a project.
While on the web I checked out the New York Times, which I subscribe to
online and there was an excellent editorial by Thomas Friedman on the
response of authorities to this situation. Friedman is an interesting guy in
that he's Jewish, studied Arabic and Middle Eastern studies and then covered
the Lebanese War for the NY Times. He broke the stories of the Sabra and
Shatila massacres. Then he was transferred to the Jerusalem bureau. He wrote
an excellent book about that entitled, fittingly, From Beirut to Jerusalem,
and recently another called The Lexus and The Olive Tree about the changes
in the world since the fall of the Berlin Wall. Much of what he talks about
is the power of the internet to bring people together for good and/or for
evil and how this is changing our world. Five years ago Egypt didn't have
internet and the FEI wouldn't have had the crazy lady from Cairo bugging
them and we wouldn't have had all these discussions. I can't help but feel
that on the whole they've been good for all of us. I needed to be able to
talk about my worries for my children and friends in New York and many of
you needed to talk about your anger and fears as well. I can't help it, once
a social psychologist, always a social psychologist, as my family always
said.

No matter what we do there are going to be evil people among us. All we can
do is to try to see them and thwart them. There are also going to be
ignorant and foolish people...those we can try to educate, though it may not
always work. The times ahead are going to be very difficult for the people
who are trying to round up this diverse band of fanatics, many of whom were
trained by good trainers from the US to fight in the Russia/Afghan war. What
a shame that the training should be turned on the trainers.

I'm going to follow this but I have nothing more to say. I found that I love
endurance as much for the learning involved as for the riding. Lord knows, I
do little enough of that these days but I've promised to help some of my
friends with the things I learned at the Pan Ams. I want to thank so many
people who have been caring and supportive. It's been horrendous to have my
daughter so far away for the first time and hear her cry because she's
frightened, but not be able to go to her. One thing that I'm sorry my
husband never had a chance to learn is how you can have friends all over the
world that you've never even seen.

Now I am going to bed with a hot whiskey and lemon and the Dalai Lama's new
book like a good Irish Muslim and try to shake this cold so I can ride my
horses.

Maryanne Stroud Gabbani
Cairo, Egypt
maryanne@ratbusters.net
www.ratbusters.net