Chicken and cous cous

After a long weekend of swimming, shopping, eating and reading, I start off the Monday morning by jumping into a cab to the Crystal Crown hotel where SIS was hosting a mini-Conference and workshop on "Muslim Women in Contemporary Societies." There were about 20 participants there from various organizations, international agencies and journalists who were all interested in learning about ways to interpret and understand the Qur'an in a way that extends more liberties to women. The two guest speakers were two professors from Indonesia, Dr. Nor Rofiah and Nyai Siti Ruqayyah, who are Muslim scholars and feminists. My duty was to film this two-day event. However, it was soon clear that I wouldn't be able to get much out of it since it was all conducted in Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia (which are two very similar, but slightly different languages).

Despite this, I picked up on many of the points they raised, such as reading the Qur'an WITHIN context instead of removing certain sexist passages out of them. I was also able to meet many interesting and established journalists and activists from the field. One such person was up until recently, the author of a controversial column in one of the largest newspapers of Malaysia which dealt with international religious political questions and raised various tabooed points on how the Qur'an, the Bible, or other holy texts are misinterpreted (the other participants were initially weary and intimidated by him being there). I slowly figured all of this out as I spoke with him, and also found that he was a very sincere, friendly guy, who's not even religious himself and yet passionately reads and studies holy texts. He has worked all over the world as a journalist, speaks 5 languages and is feared for his textually grounded critiques of religious doctrines. In short, he is my hero...

So the conference finished up around 2 on Tuesday and I headed back to the SIS office where I finished the report on child support. During which, they invited me for dinner at a SIS board member's house that evening.



The host was an ex-activist, ex-government staff member and painter. 72 years old and extremely active, she made this amazing Moroccan feast for all 7 of us. It was so nice to eat a home cooked meal.






This is her home.

Gorgeous.












Me pointing to one of her paintings...I wish you could see it better. :(


















Me with the ladies of SIS.










I saw a completely different side to these respected Muslim scholars as they continued to giggle and make dirty jokes about their vaginas all throughout dinner.




It was a great evening.