Research Day Four...it only gets better!

This morning began as a very very ugly day. I stumbled down to Mirjam's office this morning around 10a with my coffee in hand still in my pajamas. I guess I looked pretty well put together because no one said anything. I spent some time in her office with Ray, taking care of what I needed to do. Luckily for me, Mirjam was nice enough to get a hold of Esmee for me and we set up a time to meet at noon. I headed back to my room to get ready. Ray knocked at my door around 11:30a to check in with me cuz she was going to be following me today for her project. We looked at the map together only to realize that Esmee's street wasn't on our map so we had to trust Mirjam's direction and hope that there were people around our destination to ask if we headed in the right direction.

We headed towards the tram lines but decided that before this mission breakfast was a necessary so we stopped off at Spar. We grabbed some breakfast and headed out. To those interested Spar has some great crossiants! While we were walking, Edward joined us for a couple of minutes and then parted into his own direction at the world famous grogery store, Albert Heijn.

Prior to leaving the dorms, we consulted a tram map (the map that the program provided for us) but when we arrived at waterlooplein, we couldn't find the tram that was listed on the map. Luckily while I tried to figure out where I was going, a gentleman approached us asking us if we needed some help. He kindly pointed us in the correct direction. Luckily by this point it had stopped raining and was turning into a very nice day. We made it our tram stop, took tram 5 to just past Museumplein and got off. I had to stop and ask a couple of people where the street was that I was looking for. I went around in a big circle but then came to my destination, Esmee's apartment.

Her apartment was really awesome. Her and one of her friends were working on installing some laminate flooring. We decided to go sit at a cafe and chat for a little while. Esmee is really cool. She answered some of my questions. A couple of hours later, we parted, Ray and I heading back to the dorms and them heading back to apartment to get some real work done. While we were walking back, I started looking at gifts to bring home.

Later this afternoon, I met up with Shirley and May-Britt and headed towards our meeting with Juoal and a friend of his. The five of us sat at a cafe for about 2 hours talking about Islamic culture, rules and just about everything else. The guys were really resourceful and provided us an interesting view of the situation. The full dialogue should be available on the wiki shortly. I think it might have been one of my better sit-downs besides it being ridiculuously cold where we were sitting. At around 8:30p, we parted but we got both of their email addresses in case we want to contact them again. The sunset on the way back was amazing so I thought I would share it with everyone.

So I guess overall, it was another awesome day. I met with Esmee and she agreed to translate some stuff for us. And even better was the conversation we had with Juoal and his friend.

Next step, get everything transcribed and analyzed!

Research Day... 3.. (I think)

After completely sleeping through my alarm clock this morning, I woke up around 10a. I decided to finish what I had started the night before. I started transcribing my second interview. I guess I didn’t remember how long it was because I had spent three or so hours last night working on it and still hadn’t finished it. So I woke up this morning on a mission to finish it. I opened up my laptop and found the message from Clifford with the information about interested students from the crash course. I emailed the people relevant to my group and continued working on the transcription.

Around 11:30a, I finished it, jumped in the shower and was ready to get out there on the streets. Initially, Shirley and I had scheduled a meeting with Juoal for today at 2:30p but yesterday he called and rescheduled our meeting, so I guess I was really in no hurry while not wanting to waste the day away.

Last Tuesday, I stopped in a travel agency because I saw a Muslim woman while I was riding my bike. She told me that she works there everyday and it would be best for me to come back another day. I decided today would be the day to come back. I got on my bike, found out my brakes were out and my tire was flat, so I had to make a couple of stops before I could head out to Amsterdam West. I am really starting to know my way around here. I knew exactly where to go until I got to the Amsterdam West. I checked a map prior to my departure from the dorms, but somehow left the map there. So I was definitely without a map today!!! (It worked out ok).

I made it to the Travel Agency in about 20 minutes. When I arrived, the person I was interested in interviewing was with some customers, so I left the store and walked around the neighborhood. The street that the agency is on is called Witte De With(???)straat. As I walked around the neighborhood, I asked a passer-by if she could point me to the nearest supermarket (to get some water), and she said that she didn’t live in this neighborhood but would guess that it was in the opposite direction back towards the main streets. The neighborhood seemed very quiet. I generally saw mostly ethnic people, some men and some kids. Near the agency, I took a picture of what I believe is a Mosque. After deciding to not look for a store, I went back into the travel agency. The agent was almost done with her customers, so I took a seat to the side.

Within the next five minutes, she finished with them, and gave me her attention. I re-introduced myself as the girl that had approached her store last week and was wondering if this was an adequate time to do the interview. She tried to make some excuses about being the only one there, not speaking good enough English and having a bunch of work to do but I got her to agree to a short 15 minute interview. I think that’s plenty.

The interview went rather well. A full summary of the interview will be available on the wiki soon. The interviewee was born in Morocco and moved to Spain after high school and then moved to Amsterdam about 9 years ago. She seemed to be in her early thirties but I didn’t want to ask. But I do know that she is out of the range that we had initially decided to look at. I like talking to the older women because I feel like they are giving me more insight answers instead of telling me what I want to hear. The agent seemed very passionate about what she had to say. She told me about her personal choice to wear a Hijab. She told me that she started wearing one about 3 years ago when she felt in her heart that she was ready. She admitted to me that she was divorced with no children, and nothing besides her personal relationship with her religion had influenced her choice to cover up her hair. During the interview she also told me about all the struggles she has faced since she made her decision. She told me her opinion regarding the state of women in modern day and the lack of respect that they receive by society.

Overall, the interview went a lot better than I had expected. Unlike the people that I have previously interviewed, she really made it a point to tell me about the discrimination and segregation that she feels exists in Amsterdam, and for that matter all over the world. It was so interesting to hear this opinion because until now I had been told that this world exists as a nice fairly tale where everyone gets along. But now I know it all depends who you talk to .

About 25 minutes later, one of the male employees entered the office and we abruptly ended the interview. I am really grateful for having spent the time that I had talking to her. This might have been one of my favorite interviews thus far. They seem to be getting better with each try!!!

After the interview, I explored Amsterdam West a little bit. Straight from the Travel Agency, I headed to Bos Lem Lommerplein, one of my favorite markets so far. I walked through the market, stopped at a store to get some candy and water, and then sat at the front of the market just people watching. Most people were just going on about their day. It was very nice to see lots of Muslims in their more ‘natural’ environment. I overheard a variety of languauges. I heard some Dutch (obviously), some Moroccan and some Turk.

After sitting for a little while, I decided that I would head over the Paloma Blanca and try to make some dinner reservations for Friday for Shirley and I. I hadn’t brought my map with me, so before I left the square, I approached a couple of people to see if they could direct me in the right direction. Luckily I had brought my notebook with me so I could point to the address. Finally, the woman at the Albert Heijn store told me to head back towards Mercatoplen and ask someone down there. That’s exactly what I did. I headed back east to where I had started and just asked a couple of shop keepers if they could repoint me in the correct direction. While I was trying to find the street for the restaurant, I observed the neighborhoods through which I drove through. In one of the neighborhoods I found a really cool kids park. While I was trying to take the picture some guy started yelling at me in either Dutch or Moroccan. I think he was trying to tell me not to take the picture but I took it anyways and moved on. It was such an aweosme park. It was surrounded by buildings.

Finally, I made it to my final destination only to find that the restaurant is closed. I took down the phone number and decided I would give them a call later and just go there earlier Friday night. After that, I decided that I should head back to the dorms and see what Shirley was up and see if I could help her with anything.

I made it back to the dorms around 4p. I met up with Shirley and she said that she would be heading over to Albert Heijn to do an interview with one of the workers, but she was just waiting for one of the students from the crash course to arrive. I met with Ray, and some after Mirjam and Julie showed up too. I guess Mirjam had told Ray about an awesome neighborhood a little bit north of here on some islands that had some interesting architecture, so I invited myself (oops). Before heading over the Barcelonaplein, Ray and I walked over to the store right around the corner. We found the coolest laundry detergent. Tell me what you think...is it superhuman strong?

Around 5p, we got into Mirjam’s car and headed over there. Awesome place. I guess a bunch of squatters had taken over it in the 80s (please correct me if I am wrong), and most recently developers had built large glamorous apartments with canals to make it feel like Amsterdam away from Amsterdam. Interesting concept.

After all this excitement, I headed back to my dorms to grab some munchies and then head down to watch the movie “The Lives of Others”. Very good movie, if I may say!

Overall, it was another productive day!

Next step, one or two more interviews and conversations and then putting it all together. Shirley and I have not sat down to discuss our findings and conclusions. But, I know that it will get done. I am getting very excited with our findings and can’t wait to present them to the rest of the group!

Interview #2

Yesterday afternoon, I went on my second interview with a woman that works at a women's shoe store in Oost (my new favorite part of town). We had a nice break between 2 and 5p so I thought that was the perfect time to go out on this interview. Yesterday afternoon when Shirley and I met up, we strolled around Oost, stepping into the shoe store, and the woman working there said to come back the following day and talk to her sister.

So, I sprinted out of class, grabbed my computer, and got on my bike to head out there around 2:30p. I arrived at the shoe store a lot faster than I had expected, it must have been because I am so excited to be making progress.

I walked into the store. The woman was busy helping a couple of other ladies so I explored the store. The store is mostly a shoe store with various Moroccan clothes in the back. After she finished with the customers introducing myself and explaining why I was there. She was very pleasant. I asked for her permission to record the interview and she happily agreed saying she has nothing to hide.

So the interview began and soon it turned into more of a conversation than an interview. We talked about everything relevant to this topic. She explained to me that she chooses not to wear a hijab because she is not ready to do. This women is about 38 years old and says at some time in her life she will be ready but isn't now. She was very interesting. She was a first generation Moroccan that moved to Amsterdam 30 years ago. The details of the interview should be up on the wiki shortly, most likely once I return from Paris because Shirley currently has the recorder and is transcribing her interviews/conversations.

Unlike my first interview, I really felt afterwards that what this woman told was actually how she felt about the topics instead of telling me what I wanted to hear. It was awesome. I hope to come back and see her again, as well as her sister.

The situation about these sisters is interesting. The older one wears a hijab. She is probably around 45 years old, and the younger one (38 yrs old) doesn't. They both said that they made their choice on their own, and nothing but their heart influenced them. One of the general ideas that I got from this interview is that some younger girls wear it to gain freedom from their parents and older girls tend to start wearing it when they get married either as a request from their new husband or for personal religious reasons.

Awesome interview. It totally motivated me to do more research. I want to talk to more people because I am getting different opinions from different people!

Research Day Two - Amsterdam West+ & Oost (again)

Unfortuneately it has been a really busy week so this post is slightly late in being posted. Tuesday was such an awesome research day for our group.

This morning Shirley and I met with Julie to discuss the progress of our project. I think things are going well for us. We definitely haven't wasted any time.

A couple of the most current setbacks: The MSLM exhibition is on the road currently yet they have cancelled their trip to Amsterdam, so there is no way for us to see the exhibition. Our plan was to go to Rotterdam on Tuesday but because of this setback, we have changed our plans regarding Rotterdam. Another setback is that pretty much the entire academic city is on vacation. I tried to get a hold of a professor from UvA that specializes in exactly what we are interested but I got an automatic response saying that she is out town till the end of the month. The final set back is that Atef Hamdi (the Mosque guy) is currently out of town. Pretty much all of the contacts that were available to us are temporarily unavailable and it will be up to us to get this project put together. Oh well, this just allows for additional creativeness!

Julie gave us some suggestions. She recommended trying to talk to men as well as women, which should be interesting.

At 10a, I headed into the crash course classroom to accompany Julie, Paul and Clifford on introducing ourselves to the group. It was nice to hear myself sum up my project with confidence. After that experience, I really am confident that our project is going well. I am not stressed out at all.

After the brief presentation, I hopped on my bike and headed the Amsterdam Historical Museum to check out a fashion exhibition. The museum was recommended by the tour guide at the Jewish Museum. I arrived at the museum and bumped into Shirley. The exhibit that was recommended to us was not exactly what we were expecting. It was mostly focused on the history of fashion, textiles and fashion houses in Amsterdam from the mid 1900s through 2000 (?). Shirley and I walked through it finding nothing pertaining to our research. Then I approached the cashier at the museum store to ask her if there was anything pertaining to our topic in the museum. She nicely pointed out a book about Muslim fashion because there had been an exhibit there about 6 months ago and said that there might be a small section on the top floor. Shirley and I took her suggestion and headed to the top. We found nothing more than a summary about the Turkish workers that had come to Amsterdam.

I wish that I had had time to explore the museum but because of our drive to get some field research done today, Shirley and I left the museum. Shirley told me that on her way to the museum she had walked past a Moroccan Restaurant, so we walked back to it together. Unfortuneately, it was closed, so we parted at this point. She went back towards the dorms/Oost and I walked back to my bike at the museum.

While I was walking back to the museum, I found Julia parking her bike because I think she was thinking about visiting the museum. I told her that I was going to go explore Amsterdam West, and she decided to join me. So together we rode our bikes to the westside (LOL sorry). I brought a map with me but it wasn't a very good map. Irina had recommended to visit Mercatoplein and Bos Lem Lommerplein. Earlier in the morning, she had drawn for me on the map where they were but the map was aweful. It had not street names, so I decided to start asking people. It worked out well. People were really nice. First, Julia and I landed on kinkerstaart at the Market. It was pretty cool. We walked around, and I took lots of pictures!
Then from there, I was on a mission to find Mercatoplein so we left the market, and headed into the direction of it. On our way, I was looking into businesses to see if there were any Muslims women inside of them. I got lucky. I found a travel agency where one of the agents was wearing a hijab. I walked into the agency and asked her if I could interview her. She said that another day would be better for her, so I told her that I would be back next Tuesday.

Then we continued on our mission to Mercatoplein. While we were parking our bike a lady walked up to the bike racks so I double checked with her that we were at the right place, and we weren't. So she pointed in the direction that we wanted to go. Shortly after that, we arrived at a busy street that had a sign for mercatoplein on it. We parked out bikes and decided to walk around. I started going into shops and found I would have been better off if I had brought a voice recorder. In one of the shops that we walked to was a young girl worker. I approached her to ask her when I could find Muslim women to talk to. She said she was Muslim (but she wasn't wearing a hijab). I asked her if I could interview her on a future date and she told me that it was her last day working there. I asked her if she could possibly answer some questions for me and she told me she was too busy. But she told me that I shouldn't have any problems because everyone is the neighborhood is Muslim. So we walked around and I continued to take pictures. Then, we got back on our bikes and decided to head home.

On our way home, we stumbled upon the other market that Irina had suggested. We walked around the market for sometime. Julia tried to get some food at one of the fastfood Turkish restaurants in the square but she recieved really poor service so we decided just to head back.

We made it back to the dorms, took a quick little break. Then Julia and I headed over to one of the fieldsites that Mirjam had recommended for her project. We explored the island (I don't know its name but is just north of us to the right) for a while but she didn't find what she wanted so we decided to get out of there.

Julia had never been to Amsterdam Oost, so I suggested that we go there because she was still hungry and the kebab place is amazing. We got some doners and started walking through the market. We bumped into Shirley who told me that the interview hadn't worked out but she was still exploring. Shortly after that I decided to branch off on my own and go looking for people to interview. Luckily, I bumped into Shirley again and we decided to head towards Zeeberg back to the Islamic shop and possibly stop by the Moroccan girl who had asked us to translate the questions into Dutch and tell her that we would be sending those out to her shortly.

The best part of the day happened during this time. We stopped by the Islamic shop. The owner remembered us and so we stayed here for about two hours talking to him and another male customer/friend, while customers came in and out. It was nice to have the owner there because it made the customers feel safer answering our questions. It was awesome! We learned a lot.

Inside the store, there were two sisters, one of which wore a headscarf and one that didn't. We briefly asked them some questions but they weren't really interested in stopping whatever they were doing to talk to us. The male customer/friend that was there definitely had a lot to say about the topic so we talked to him until new customers came in. Transcriptions of what was said will be up asap. Also during this time, the owner gave us some contacts to other people that we could talk to, one of which is young man that had recently covereted to Islam. Oh yea, the men decided that it would be in our benefit if we tried on a hijab. We both did and took pictures of it. During this time, they both described to us how they find women that cover up themselves to be much more attractive than those that expose too much skin. Lots of interesting finds were found today. I definitely now understand that choosing to wear a hijab is a personal choice but no matter what the male friend had to say I think there are external factors that contribute to women's choice to wear it.

So it looks like the day was a success (again). Our group rocks!

Self Exploration into Undiscovered territory

Tonight was adventurous yet discouraging. Around 7pm, I decided that I wanted to take a bike ride out to a part of Amsterdam that Mirjam had suggested could provide me a good field site. I thought tonight would be perfect for that, I could go scope it out before I decided to devote an entire day to it. I invited Julia with me so that I could have some company getting lost.

We ventured out on Prins Hendrikkade towards Central Station, passed it and Maoz, continuing west. About 5 minutes past the train station, we took a soft left onto Haarlem St. We continued on this street taking small side trips on smaller side streets. This area was called Westerpark. It seemed to be purely residential, very discouraging. I tried to talk to some older guys that were sitting at a coffee shop and they told me that it was mainly residential.

At this point, I decided that it was be best for me to head back to the dorms and brainstorm some better spots to visit on Monday or Tuesday.

Ehh...one step back in research! Maybe tomorrow will be more insightful.

Brussels & Gay Pride Weekend

The last four days have been so busy and FUN!!! On Thursday afternoon, we left for Brussels. Once we arrived in Brussels, Sunil, Jon, Julia and I took the time that was provided (2.5 hours) and explored as much of Brussels as was possible. We think we did a good job! We saw most of the important sights. Pictures are available upon request!!!

Friday morning, we all very slowly headed our way to lecture enjoying the sun as we walked. At the end of the day around 4p, we were set free to spend the rest of the evening in Brussels doing whatever we wanted. A group of us headed over to Delirium. AWESOME BAR, the best in the World! Yes, I did say the World. They have approximately 2000 beers and a really awesome atmosphere!

Besides having a lot of fun in Brussels, I took some mental notes in regard to my project. While we were sitting at the Grand Square (I can't remember what it's really called), Jack pointed out to me a Muslim girl dressed rather sparkly. She was wearing white pants, a silver sparkly shirt and a white hijab. It was very bright and interesting. From her appearance the outfit to screen fashion statement, but I will not make any conclusions about it.

In general, most of the Muslim women I saw were in tourist groups. I say that most of them seemed to be tourists because they all travelled in groups taking pictures of everything (just like us). Most of the women were dressed much more conservative than those I had seen in Amsterdam. In general, most of the women in the groups were covered from head to toe, some of them even wearing a dress coat. Yet while I watched them, it was refreshing to see that maybe their attitudes weren't as conservative. Many of them were laughing and running through the streets like little children. I don't think that I saw many Muslims that seemed to be natives to Brussels, besides the one that was begging people for money. I think she would have been a very interesting person to interview but I didn't want to try. I am highly bothered by those that beg others for money.

Once we arrived back in Amsterdam Friday night, I headed to my room to sleep.

Saturday morning, I got up and wandered the streets with the rest of the group seeking out a spot to watch the float parade. There were soooooooooo many people on the streets, yet I don't think I saw one Muslim woman out there. Based on my understanding of the Islamic culture, I really think I wasn't expecting to see that many Muslims out enjoying the festivities, but I am going to jump to any conclusions. I think maybe there were just too many people out there to notice.

Overall, it was an awesome weekend.

Last Wednesday afternoon, I met with Mirjam to discuss with her possible places that Shirley and I should go check out. She recommended Amstedam West (Westerpark) and the area west of it, so now I am going to go check it out. A blog on my experience should follow shortly.

First Interview Results

Today, I went onto my first interview. After getting together with Shirley last night to refine our interview questions, I woke up ready to 'rock n roll'. I headed back to Amsterdam Oost with a small portion of our class.

Once I got to the market, I split off and headed off to my interview. I arrived slightly before 10a, and my interviewee was sitting in the same place she had been sitting at yesterday. Before I approached her, I took a mental note of what she was wearing. Again, she wore a headscarf, the same one as yesterday. Her attire seemed to go along with the black sheer headscarf, mostly dressed in dark. From what I could tell she was wearing black pants and a brown top with some sort of black top over it. Her make-up looked very similar to that of yesterday. She looked well put together.

I approached the counter, reintroducing myself. She told me her name but I would prefer to keep it a secret to mask her identity just in respect of her. Before I began the interview, I went through an explanation of who I was and why I am in Amsterdam. After all the information, I asked her if she would mind if I interviewed her while electronically recording her, and she agreed. So the interview began. First thing I noticed was that her English wasn't that great, leaving with a barrier to many of my questions. She answered them to her best ability but sometimes I would have to rephrase the question so that it could be answered with a yes or no.

From her answers, I learned that she is 21 years old. She lives in Amsterdam Oost and is working full time for her brother at his shop while he is on vacation. Usually she only works part-time and helps around her parents house. She let me know that she was of Turkish decent yet she was born here in Amsterdam.

As the questions progressed, she made me feel as though her choice to wear a hijab was a result of her family lifestyle as well as her religion. My interviewee explained (I think) to me that growing up she had seen her mother and grandmother wear a hijab in public so she grew up knowing that she would wear one too. An interesting thing she told me was that if her elders hadn't worn one then she probably wouldn't have worn one. From this statement, it made me feel that her choice to originally wear one was based on her families traditions more than based on the Koran's 'instructions'.

Another interesting topic was where she wears her hijab. The interviewee told me that when she is around just her girl-friends then she doesn't cover her hair but when she is around male friends, she always wears a hijab. This kind of confused me by combining the traditions of home, religion and culture into one. From this, I feel like the choice to wear a hijab is originally based on religion but then society lays down some rules about it. Kind of a complex influence, it could be said.

Moving onto the political and social questions. The interviewee really had nothing to say about this topic. She said that she felt like a normal citizen in Amsterdam with equal rights and opportunities. She said that she has non-Muslim friends as well. She does say that the rules the government is making are unfair yet didn't seem like she was actively doing something about it.

Based on this interview, I felt that maybe the issue isn't as controversial as the media has made it out to be. But, before I make that conclusion, I must seek more resources!!!

From here, the next step is to do more interviews and possibly speak to someone from Mama or MSLM.

After the interview, I met up with Shirley again. We walked together over the Zeeberg neighborhood. We walked up and down one street because we were running out of time before class. While we were walking around we stopped by a coat shop. Inside the coat shop was a young Muslim woman who was helping another customer. We waited till she was done and approached her to see if she would be interested in doing an interview with us at a later time. She said that she didn't speak English well enough to answer our questions, but said that if we could translate them into Dutch that she would happily correspond with us over email. Maybe we can get Esmee to translate it for us when she returns...hmm I will go talk to Mirjam about this tomorrow.

I feel like progress is going well.