member of the human race

ok now that I have kinda recovered from my trip and that my anger has left me about coming into work, I guess that means I can blog about the actual trip, well alhamdullilah Istanbul as usual was lovely, the weather was brill apart from the day we went to bursa but otherwise really nice mashallah, I love Istanbul I can really see my-self living there, its an interesting city and the best thing about it I sthe mosques and the people are soooo nice mashallah I really could ramble about how much Istanbul is great but there is no comedy in that is there? and belief me a lot of weird and funny stuff happened on this trip it all started with heathrow......

I was wearing my blue jilbab thing that has buttons coming down it, I had my camera in one hand and my bag in the other, alhamdullilah checking in was no problem and I had already made sure that majority of the participants had checked in and made there way to the departure lounge, I had left behind my commander in charge to help a brother and his son check in ( they had arrived late) and decided that I would head towards departure to make sure every one was cool, so I'm lining up and then its my turn to go through the security thing and I always beep, doesn't matter if I take all my metal of I still manage to beep, my theory is that the doctor who did my appendix operation left his watch in me and that's why they always detect metal on me, so I'm getting ready to go through, I've already put my camera and my handbag into the moving machine x-ray thing and was just about to walk through the metal sensor when the lady standing at the side stops me and says:

lady: ' excuse me, can I ask that you remove your coat'

me: 'um no I'm not gonna do that'

and before she even gives me a chance to explain why ( reason I couldn't was cause I was wearing a body top and tight jeans and my coat was not a coat but a jilbab a religious clothing) she starts shouting 'SECURITY SECURITY SECURITY WE HAVE A SITUATATION' I swear it was like the films, every1 is looking at me and I'm standing there looking puzzled and getting extremely annoyed and still trying to explain why.

so these butch woman and 1 man in security uniforms come marching out of no where heading towards my direction and I'm going 'oh boy why me?' one starts saying in a mechanical voice (at that point I had the urge to poke her to see if she was human) ' what's the problem' then I but in and say' um excuse me for religious reasons I cann... then was rudely interpreted by the lady who screamed security; ' this lady refuses to take her coat of' all eyes on me, so I decide to smile and again for the third time tried to explain myself ' look people, I really cant take this of, its not a coat its part of what I wear as a Muslim lady so please back of and find a solution with out me having to strip infront of 10,000 eyes thanks' so they stand there looking at me then my jilbab, then at me again and I swear I thought I saw a lighbulb flash at the top the security head cause she turns around to the lady and says what about the private room? I'm thinking god I knew I was gonna be interrogated and prodded by metal things, the lady says well its not appropriate but I guess this is an exception so she turns around to me and fakly smiles follow me mam, so i start skipping next to her until we get to a door that say private room (how original) she asks me to get in which I did and the starts shouting ' MARTHA MARTHA' I'm standing there thinking s**t who the hell is martha, then this lady walks in and she is supposed to be the chaperone, they tell me to remove my coat which I did muttering under my breath 'its a jilbab people JILBAB' they then take my jilbab out the room and I'm thinking hey come back, and unbelievably they put my jilbab through the sensor she then come back starts frisking me and then get to my feet and says 'please remove your boot' I'm like ok, take them of and then again they take my boots through the sensors and give them back to me.

and then whilst putting my jilbab and boots back on the lady who was rude to me says what badge is that? (I was wearing a Palestinian badge) so I'm thinking hmmmm is she Israeli well what the heck so I answered its a Palestinian badge, so she instantly smiles and says oh wow I work with a Palestinian guy and hes always talking about Palestine and he was telling me this blah blah blah, and then she says so your Muslim I'm like yep, she then starts asking me all these qs about Islam and woman and I thought wow dawah opportunity but I had 20 minutes to get to the boarding gate number so I'm answering her qs but moving rapidly to the door and she then smile and says well than you for enlightening me and I'm standing there thinking my god the things that happen subahannalah.