Domestic Violence Awareness Day - March 27

Emily told me to set my sights low. Good advise. The day started out a big rocky. The room was not set up properly. e had no tables. Logically, we asked the set up crew to please get tables. Not so logically, we were told that tables needed to be ordered by Fatma. One could not just "get" tables. Fatma doesn't like her job, us, me or anything. With trepidation, we called Fatma. She said "no". Tables need to be ordered 48 hours in advance. What????? Like any good American, my co-teacher (a law professor from Gonzaga Law School) and I helped ourselves to tables from a nearby classroom. That worked fine for the first couple hours until we were advised that the professor in the classroom needed the tables back for an exam. The stolen tables were returned. We hired a marketing firm to prepare brochures (originally designed by the students with our help and advise), prepare banners and posters and put together 2 huge balloon bouquets as well as ribbon pins, some giveaways (key chains), etc. After correcting all the english errors in the numerous draft proposals that were so last minute I feared we would not get anything and the marketing firm would surely tell us to get lost and hire someone else ----- everything arrived on time and looking very professional. The food arrived, but it was set up outside the room. Again, thinking like an American, I thought it best NOT to have food outside the hall where we were presenting. If I were a student, I would help myself to food and skip the presentation. That is a bit trickier if the food is in the same room as the presentation. But again, against my logic, I was told that food could not be placed inside the room, but must remain outside the room. And, again, when I saw that the table food included brownies, I quickly grabbed a few since I knew there would be none left if I politely waited until noon. As some of you know, I have a policy and practice that I do not consume chocolate until noon. There are exceptions, however. The female presenters did not want their legs seen by the audience. In other words, they wanted a table cloth over the tables so no one could see their legs. Mind you, they all wear abiyas that cover them completely down to their shoes! Again, Fatma controlled the tableclothes. I could not find any table clothes to steal. We did without the tableclothes. The girls wanted RESERVED signs made for the professors who attended so they would sit in the front row. The male class was also attending. They did not want the males to sit close to the front. They wanted them to sit in the back. Ahead of time, I arranged for the "boys" to attend. This was only possible if they were escorted as a group from the male side to the female side by a guard. Despite my fear they would not show up or cooperate (since they were insulted at having to be escorted by a guard!) - they showed up all proudly marching in and neatly dressed in white thobes. Unfortunately, when the Dean of the Law School asked me why I had RESERVE signs on chairs near the back (for the boys!), he insisted that males should be seated in the front row beside the professors! I was close to defying the Dean at that point, but decided I had done enough to end up in jail, so I agreed. The females were so distressed that I was called to the front of the presentation room before the presentation began and they pleaded with me to move the men. I did not, told them to deal with it and the presentation began. One of the girls had made a short (2 minute) film. It was not great, but it got the point across. Violence is not the answer. (By that time, I was beginning to think that perhaps violence was needed at times like this, but I figured now was not the time to show the class that the teacher was not a pacifist all the time. ). Initially, we couldn't get the film to play and the sound did not work. Oh, my gosh! It's hard enough for me to correctly answer my cell phone let along fix a problem like that. The IT men were still in the room and, after a rough start, we got the film clip going. The microphones all worked. The girls did not faint. To my surprise, the presentation was simply amazing! And, the girls spoke directly to the male students seated in front of them --- and were pleased as could be by the kind male response to their presentation. I should have known. They protested for show. At the end, I thanked the US Embassy staff for supporting this presentation, the American Bar Association, Qatar University College of Law and the Middle East Partnership Initiative and, on behalf of Mary Pat (my co-teacher) and me, I told the audience how proud we were to be the teachers of these amazing students. We had a respectable audience at the first presentation and a smaller audience at the second one. All in all, the day was a wonderful success. Importantly, the students learned a lot and were so proud to be a part of this process and to begin the effort to speak out against domestic violence. Finally, we hired a videographer to film the pressentaions. Many of the girls did not want to be photographed and they were constantly asking for my assurance the filming was only for our class purposes. The university was so impressed that I was asked to supply the name of one student who would go on radio in the evening and present the message to a larger audience. Two of my best students could not do this without the permission of their father and husband. The third immediately said "yes". I could identify with the third. Go for it! Permission is over-rated.