Week 6 -- My birthday and riots

Monday—I had class at 2 so I spent the morning preparing for it. I think I had to so some reading of the people in the class, and such and so forth.

Tuesday—My birthday! It was a really fun day, mostly thanks to Amelia. She was kind enough to take me and Cherry down to Grandchester, which is this little village down south of Cambridge. You would not believe how beautiful it is. It is really the perfect little place—thatched roofs of white walled cottages, overgrown with climbing roses all in full bloom, beautiful little country lanes which lead off to fallow fields full of seagulls, an old church with a tall spire and a gray-stone graveyard, and, finally, the little place called “The Orchards” which was our destination. It is a small tea-house which is quite famous throughout England as the place that Rupert Brooke, the author, liked to spend his time and take his tea every day for several years. He even wrote a rather long and ambling poem about the orchards of Granchester. Virginia Woolf, Alfred Keynes, Tennyson, and other such people also spent a good deal of time there.
This is a special place because you don’t eat inside, mostly, though you can when it rains, but rather you eat under the shade of the apple trees at little reclined cloth chairs around old wooden tables. The Cam river runs behind it, and there are various little nooks and sheltered places you can sit where you’re largely out of sight of everyone else and can have just that little bit of peace to yourself. We bought scones. I got a salad, and Amelia and Cherry a BLT. I also had a ginger beer which was quite good. We sat outside for a minute until the bees realized we were there, and Cherry and Amelia had lemonade. Cherry has a fear of bees, so it wasn’t long until she was screaming and waving her arms, and we were moving inside behind glass doors. We were there for less time than I would have liked, particularly considering how incredibly delicious the scones were, but I had to get to a class. So we took a taxi so we wouldn’t have to repeat the long 2-mile walk there although I wouldn’t have minded. Though the walk was along a hedged road and had no real sidewalk to speak of, making us have to strain to hear cars and become quite adept at leaping back into bushes, it was a beautiful day and quite a perfect time for a walk through the countryside. It is amazing how quickly the buildings of Cambridge disappear, replaced by acres and acres of farmland and fields. There were the occasional large home and cottage, but not much else except vivid blue sky and us singing hymns in terrible harmony until we got to Granchester.
I spoke with the taxi man as he drove us back. He told us that he guessed we were American because American’s are always nice, unlike English people. This happened again yesterday, same scenario, but different driver.
When we returned to Cambridge I rushed to class only to find I had an hour before it began and had simply misread our ridiculously confusing color coded schedule. I really get paranoid about that schedule and check it multiple times a day just to make sure I haven’t missed anything because things are so easy to miss. I didn’t have any homework with me, so I simply chose to walk around Cambridge for about an hour. I went to places I hadn’t been before, like a park next to the Cam. I stood for about ten minutes within 3 feet of a swan who really didn’t seem to care that I was there, and I watched it preen. Its long, phenomenally flexible neck was fascinating to watch as it stretched and turned every imaginable direction as the bird rearranged its feathers. It would lean its head all the way back, stretching out its long neck, until it could reach its tail feathers with its beak and move them this way and that. It would lift its head like a snake from a basket, then coil up again and reach all the way around its side to its feet. Sometimes it would look at me, and make a little head bob, saying, almost, that I see you and if you get any closer I will bite. I stayed where I was, even as a woman came and stood right next to it, and it did start to bite her hand. She didn’t seem to mind terribly because she wanted a picture with it, though it didn’t want a picture with her. It refused to move even when people tried to touch it. I was impressed.
I ambled along further and sat by a little canal and watched as hundreds of half-foot, mud colored fish hung lazily in the water and flicked their tails now and again, putting along in a slow trancelike way. Some had lost a few scales, so when they turned, their sides flashed in the sunlight. The wind picked up, soon rippling the water and the trees until I could see little more than amoeba brown shapes. I left, and watched a man play with his dog. He teased the dog for a while, pretending to throw the ball, but then not actually throwing it. The dog would spin as soon as he saw his masters arm fling, but then would turn right around when no ball fell and start barking at his master’s hand. The master did this five or six times, the poor dog barking and spinning in circles. Finally, when the master did let the ball go, flying in a high, lazy arc, the dog didn’t notice and kept sniffling his master’s hand for the ball.
Class finally happened and things went well. After class, I didn’t want to do a single thing having to do with school because it was my 21st birthday after all and I insisted on wasting it. I must have managed that quite well, because I have no idea what I did do until the guest lecture that evening. It was in the Society Chamber, as is typical, and was a new author and her literary agent speaking about how to publish a book. Right up my alley, I know. I took plenty of notes, and really enjoyed the precious information. Right after, Amelia had planned a little party for me up in her room. Most of the BYU people had decided to go to a pizza party at first, so for the first hour and a half there were 5 or 6 girls there and Amelia and I. Amelia had bought a stunning little cake, topped by glazed, colorful fruit, and edged with a wall of chocolate. The inside of the cake was a fluffy white mix, whipped cream and more fruit. It was delicious and everyone gasped when she brought it out. She had also bought some plastic wine cups and some fruit juice for us all to share. When Mohammed came, he brought a cake, which was fortunate because it wasn’t long until the rest of the crew thundered in, all 20 or so of them, and there wouldn’t have been anything left for them with just the one cake. Amelia had bought me a beautiful little notebook I picked out in Scriptorum in Oxford, as well as a book called “Al Qaeda in its Own Words” and some very peculiarly flavored chocolates from a nearby chocolatier (violet, rose, and chili flavored among others). People hung around for almost three hours, and I felt really happy that it was such a good party. Amelia was really happy about it too because it was the first party she has ever put on, and she wanted it to be good.
I went to bed quite satisfied that evening.

Wednesday—Having done absolutely nothing on Tuesday referring to school, I really had to pick it up Wednesday so I could have something to show my supervisor. I spent the afternoon and evening writing the first 10 pages of my paper. It was a long haul, and hard to get motivated to do it because I already knew what I needed to write, having already done the interviewing necessary, but I just had to do it. I was able to go to the Mosque that evening so I could get another interview, which went quite well. The woman I found turned out to be someone of some use to the police in Cambridge and the UK in general in reference to interactions with the ethnic minority populations.

Thursday—On Thursday it turned out that I was supposed to have submitted my second 3000 words for the review of my classmates, but I didn’t realize it due to some of my own idiocies. Fortunately, it wasn’t bad as I had written it all already and had it online. I was able to read it to the class, therefore, and they all simply sent me copies of it with line by line annotation that afternoon. I was ridiculously fortunate in that regard. I had to spend the rest of the afternoon writing my paper, so I went to a coffee shop on Mill Road just out of the off chance that I would see someone I knew or could begin a conversation with who may be someone I could interview. By this point, I had 10 interviews from the whole 2 months, and ten had always been my goal (though in the fairyland where I am a superwoman, I had hoped for 30 interviews.) I sat in the shop for several hours, sipping on chamomile and apple cider tea right across from the Mosque, and wrote another ten pages of the paper. It was good to finish that. When I was done, I had everything finished that I could based on the interviews and previous work I had done. Now, it is a matter of doing the work from the Police’s perspective on the situation, and that has been really hard to get established. I have spent, on and off for the past 3 or 4 weeks, quite a bit of time trying to figure out how to get permission to interview the Police officers who are relevant to my work. With the beginning of the riots, however, the chances that I would get an interview were pretty much snuffed out (except that I might now that things seem to have settled down). The riots sort of took us all by surprise and had some really peculiar effects in the parts of Cambridge, near the Mosques, where I spend my time. First of all, the first three people killed in the riots were three Muslims who were leaving the Mosque and tried to defend the shops of their neighborhood when they were run over by a rampaging group of looters. That was tragic and on the minds of many of the people I spoke with. Also, the riots spread throughout England and tried to find a foothold here in Cambridge. There was a mini riot attempted at the local mall, Primark, but the police put it out almost immediately. The next day Mohammed went to Primark to shop and saw people being stopped and asked for their ID at random throughout the mall. There were police everywhere. Then the next day, I think this must have been Wednesday, there was an attempted riot on Mill Road where they tried to get into at least one store. They were also stopped by the Police, but it turns out that they had been there only moments after I had left the Mosque that evening. The next day I saw police everywhere, just walking up and down the street, as I sat in the café and did my writing. It has been a fascinating thing considering the topic of my paper.
That evening my class had a guest lecture by Brian Keeney who is the author of one of the books we read for the course. He was a witty sort of fellow, self-deprecating in a superbly British way, and full of excellent tidbits of advice for aspiring writers like us. After the meeting I rushed down to the Devonshire Mosque, which is a mosque a bit farther away than the Mawson mosque and much smaller. There I was able to get another two interviews with some very kind women who told me all about their understanding of the police.
I think I’m getting my evenings mixed up. O well.
I didn’t get home until late again, and had my meeting with Caroline early the next day

Friday—Supervision meeting. We pushed back the deadline for my rough draft because of the lack of interviews with the police. It meant that I am going to have to work really hard on reading theories about the police instead of hearing from them directly. Fortunately, Caroline has given me some sources I can use, so you can guess how I’m going to spend the next two days. After the supervision meeting, I had my writing class. It was once again in the room that Virginia Woolf had based her lunch in the beginning of “A Room of One’s Own.” Afterwards I went out with a girl named Samia who is from Punjab (a north-western province of India) and Mohammed to dinner. It was a fascinating conversation because Samia is a Hindu, Mohammed is a Muslim, and I a Mormon. So I spent most of the time asking Samia about her beliefs and how they relate to Islam and what I believe. We ate at a place called “The Bedouin” which is a Moroccan restaurant on Mill Road and is awesomely decorated on the interior to look like a Bedouin tent. The food was pretty good, and the conversation really quite interesting. Samia belongs to the highest caste of Indian society, the people who have historically been warriors and rulers. She, therefore, even though she is a practicing Hindu, can eat meat (though she can’t eat beef of course). She can also drink, though Brahmans, which are the priests and either the equal or the next lowest cast to the warrior caste, can’t. She went to a boarding school for four years and got a great education, and now she is going to UC Davis for economics. She explained that Hinduism is a polytheistic religion and they believe in the trinity of Gods, those being Brama, Vishnu, and Shiva. Of course, there are numerous other Gods, but these are the greatest. After dinner, we went to a Turkish shop for some sort of sweet of grains soaked in honey and rose water. We talked there until 12.30. When we finally walked back, there were hoards of drunk people on the street. It was really a striking thing to see. One man walking behind us managed to stagger the full width of the 5 foot wide sidewalk every time he tried to walk in a straight line, groups of women in skirts so short they’re pretty much shirts walked with long, thin arms slung over each other, giggling, and wobbly in their platforms, a man stood screaming profanities at a woman who screamed right back, it was insanity. The only place open other than the overflowing clubs and the taxi stands was a kebab shop glowing white in the empty market square.
It was a strange evening.

Saturday—I should have and would have gone to London but I had already planned not to because my full paper was supposed to be due on Monday. Therefore, I had made plans with people to take them to Iftar at the mosque and had already ditched them on two occasions so wouldn’t do it again. They weren’t able to come to the mosque though, so the whole day was pretty much a waste. I did go to iftar anyway, after a long day of riding my bike around and eating at tea shops. But I had already had dinner by the time iftar started and the talk on hope (also at the Mosque and given by a friend) had ended. So I left the mosque and tried to find a church I could look through. Unfortunately, the one I had intended on going to wasn’t open. So I walked by another church and saw people entering and got really excited. Then as I got nearer, I realized that there was a green seal in Arabic on the wall, and that this was actually a Mosque. It turns out the church rents out to some Muslims their equivalent of the cultural hall during Ramadan so these Muslims will have a place to go. I decided I would go in there, since I hadn’t realized there was another place like that. Naturally, having gotten into the habit of blending in, I pulled on my scarf like a hijab (it is just respectful to go into a mosque with a scarf over your head). I walked across the road and looked for the ladies entrance. When I couldn’t find one, I asked someone where it was. They said there isn’t one, but the men and women pray in the same room. This is something I’d not come across before, so I was hesitant to open the door and enter. I noticed immediately that this was different. The woman prayed behind the men, which is completely acceptable in Islam, just not typical, and the walls were lined with women who weren’t praying because there wasn’t room. Most of them appeared to be wearing their hijabs as a sort of respectful but not permanent thing, with the scarves only sort of covering their hair. I sat next to some of them and said Salaamu Aleekum, which is a fairly typical greeting. Later, when another women came over to talk to the women I was sitting next to, she only said Salaamu. Everyone replied the same. I realized I must really stand out here. Then I noticed that the women who were praying would wear a sheet over their shoulders and up over their heads like a hood as they prayed. Also, everyone had a small pale disk they would place their foreheads on when they prostrated. I was beginning to really wonder why this was different and had my question at least partly confirmed when I realized that they were standing with their arms at their sides instead of across their chests. This is something I had heard that Shi’ites did. I then saw a bucket in the corner which said “children in Iran fund” and had my theory confirmed. This was an Iranian Shi’ite mosque. This also explained why they were still praying when the Sunni’s I knew had already begun Iftar (broken their fasts). The prayer was the longest I have ever been to, continuing for more than 20 minutes. Typically a Sunni prayer lasts only 4 minutes. They had parts I had never heard, like the repetition of some phrase that said something or other about Mohammed before they started over again. By the time I left, they had only just finished the prayer and were about to begin their iftar. Mohammed who was at the other mosque I had left texted me to tell me he had finished iftar and I could come out when I was done. He was supposed to walk me home. I sort of ran back, hoping the way would work, and had to stop for a bathroom break in a bar. It was a strange sort of juxtaposition, this very English bar and the Church converted into a Shi’ite mosque that I had just been in.

Sunday—I went to church, naturally, on Sunday and only remembered after I had sat down for Sacrament Meeting that I was supposed to be teaching the CTR 5 class that day. I was lucky though, and was able to get the lesson manual after the Sacrament had been passed and the first speaker had finished. The lesson was not too hard to prepare on the fly, as most of the materials were crayons and so forth. They are pretty helpful in giving you a lesson plan. I sat through Primary with my class and really enjoyed it. It was on the Word of Wisdom. Then the class was on obeying the law. The kid’s didn’t know what law was, so I had to explain that. The lesson had them draw pictures of farm animals. Then I asked them what people do to keep farm animal’s safe. They immediately replied that you have to put a fence around them so they don’t get out. I did that with a little fence I had made during primary and explained how the law protects us and our family and we should follow it even when no one is looking.
Afterward there was practice for two songs that a group of us were doing that evening for the musical young adult fireside. Someone was kind enough to pick up me and my friend was we walked back to Kings. Amelia and I then went back in a taxi a few hours later so we could practice for our part of the performance that evening. We were singing “If You Could Hie To Kolob.” We got an amazing pianist last minute who was able to even make it into a little arrangement. Both Amelia and I had solo parts. She was really nervous, but it turned out great. It was her first time doing a solo, she said.
I went with Amelia and Cherry to Amelia’s room after the fireside and we played with the camera on her computer for a while before I finally went to bed.
And now it is today! Yay!
11.30 Friday is my meeting with the chief of police!!!!!!! WOOOOT!!!!!