Aunt Aurora and A Navy

Makcik Aurora and a young handsome Navy
by Sitti Raehanah on Wednesday, May 11, 2011 at 1:23am
We had a visitor today from the US Navy, a young and handsome officer, but I forgot his rank (pangkat). As usual, we introduced ourselves and shake-hand (“seken- seken” bah dulu orang Sabah bilang)…

But, when it comes to my turn, the officer smiles at me and say “assalamualaikum” with his right hand on his chest and bow a little to say his respect (I think)….macam penyambut2 tetamu hotel2 di Malaysia selalu buat tuuu…wow! I was really impressed..this young man really knows that I am a muslim, and he knows also that muslim women don’t shake hand with men.

While walking to the lab, my colleague Patricia whispering at me “does he said something to you, what was that?”…. Sebenarnya Patricia ni orang Brazil, and she was hired by Greg to work on the seaweed project.
Alamak…letihlah pulak aku nak kena explain…”assalamualaikum” is the word that muslims used for greeting instead of Hai! . I explained to her also that women do not shake hand with men.

Kita semua memang tahu, wantia tidak bersalaman dengan lelaki bukan muhrim…tapi dalam situasi tertentu, aku “terpaksa” juga lah bersalaman dengan bukan muhrim ku…. Situasi terpaksa tu ialah apabila orang telah lebih dahulu menghulurkan tangan, dan saya rasa untuk tidak mengecewakan dia, saya sambutlah salaman nya dengan seadanya…
Tetapi, saya tidak akan mendahului menghulurkan tangan untuk bersalaman. Kerana saya yakin, dalam ramai2 tu, ada juga yang “tahu” bahawa wanita berhijab tidak bersalaman dengan lelaki.

OK, let go to makcik Aurora. Actually, we met on the bus few times and we had chit-chat especially about Malaysia and Filipina. She was a Filipino but has been in the USA for about 30 yrs and that not surprised me that her knowledge is very limited about Malaysia and Kota Kinabalu (walaupun rasanya mungkin ramai waris2 makcik ni di KK).

Aurora…cantik namanya kan dan juga manis orangnya…but she had the typical look of Filipino and her accent juga sebijik mcm yang di KK..

Last week we met again on the bus, and she asked me about celebrating “mother’s day” … I told her that we actually don’t celebrate Mother’s Day…..makcik Aurora terkejut.. “ ha, you don’t celebrate Mother’s Day, so what celebration do you have?”….aku jawab “ we celebrate Eid”….makcik Aurora lagi terpinga-pinga dan bertanya lagi” Do you celebrate thanks giving or Christmas ? …

Alamak…. Kesiannya makcik ni, she really has no idea about Islam …but I don’t blamed on her, she has been in America for about 3 decades and at her surrounding agaknya tak pernah jumpa orang islam …but mungkin if she is in the Philippines, at least she knows about muslims in Mindanao. Tapi kan, our neighbor was a Filipino too, but she knows about Sabah and Islam. And she also knows about our special diets, sebab tu dia kata tak berani nak offer makanan homecook yang dia buat.

Makcik Aurora adalah antara jutaan warga tua Amerika yang tidak tahu tentang Islam. On the other hand, that young Navy was among the young generation that knows about Islam. But how much that he knows? ….. Is it because he was in the military and was at the battle with the muslims in Iraq or may be after the Sept-11 ….. jika itulah saja sumber maklumatnya , sampai bila pun masyarakat Amerika akan tetap bersifat prajudis terhadap islam.

……bersambung jika ada waktu dan kelapangan …