Not A Rapper, But Still A Success Story
Started from the bottom, now we here.
“Dad? You coming inside? It’s raining.”
“Baba, are you crazy? Listen to the rain hitting the umbrella….”
“Cool,”
“Baba. THIS IS HOME!”
“Great. I’ll leave you to it then.”
“Listen… can you hear it? LISTEN!!
So, I listened. Yes, I could hear it, raindrops hitting the umbrella.
“It’s my childhood; I love this sound.”
“Rain hitting the umbrella?”
“Rain hitting the tin ceilings in the mokhayam.”
The mokhayam, the Arabic word for refugee camp or what some people refer to as the ghetto, is where my dad grew up. His, in particular, was in Lebanon, Burj al Barajneh refugee camp. It was established in 1949 by the League of Red Cross Societies and remains home to thousands of people who continue to live stateless.
My dad is a pretty sophisticated guy—a slick, well-spoken, put-together kind of fella — a real gentleman. The coolest cat in town, my friends called him. So fancy, he has a towel for each hand. Baba, when you don’t have to take a group shower anymore, you use a towel for each hand.
