Rockin' ISNA 2007

I am blogging to you tonight from Chicago!! How exciting! A friend of mine just called me a jet setter and I had to laugh. Yes, we are jet setters... the kind that travel very slowly and get very little accomplished. Not that I had high hopes, to tell you the truth. Yes, it's the Islamic Society of North America's annual conference and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of people here. The last time I was here I crammed in lectures and information sessions from dawn until dusk everyday and spent every other spare minute in the bazaar shopping (oh, sooooo good shopping I must say). This time... well, it's a different story. With two children, life has a new pace, let's say.

Our plan to visit ISNA this year had mainly to do with the fact that Ozayr's mom and brother are here and that Chicago is close to Minneapolis. Relative to the 22 hour drive to Ottawa, that is. So we packed up yesterday and drove with the children, stopping every 2 hours for a snack, drink and a run (any old grassy space will do, even a glorified median, but these children gotta run every 2 hours (at least) to avoid meltdown!) So that's the way we did it. It took all day to get to Chicago, but we kind of expected it.

We spent today with Ozayr's mom and brother as much as possible. I went to one session and Ozayr went to one as well. I feel bad that my MIL hasn't gone to as many as she would've, but Maymuna and Hafsa were so thrilled to see her, I could not bear to remind her of her original intent in coming here.

It's just really cool to be submersed in a minority culture. I mean, usually you see one or two Muslims for every 20 or 30 non-Muslims (I'd say 1 for 60 in Wisconsin, judging from what we saw). But it shakes your reality upside down for a minute when there are just a sea of Muslims - Arab, Indo-Pak, Malay, American, Canadian - all floating around the same space. The convention center and the 4 hotels around it are MozzieLand for these 4 days. The restaurant is offering a halal buffet and the bar is completely empty. It's amazing. I could watch for hours the different fashions, different ways the women wear their hijabs, the colours, the fabrics... It's a beautiful sea of colour and culture, it's a sight to see.

So we haven't done a lot really, and we've seen none of Chicago, the actual city. And we leave tomorrow. How's that for jet setting? But we have done exactly what we came for - see some special people - and it was perfect. Alhamdulillah.