Rana: “A new woman was born inside me”

This is my first blog post and I am dedicating it to celebrate the “New woman born inside me” as what Rana said in Fadi Zaghmout’s novel “3aroos 3amman” that I planned to finish reading  today in the date of his book signing ceremony in Amman, as a thank you gift for bringing out this “new woman” or let’s say “new women” out to life, women who are with no fear to express themselves to the public.

While I was reading the novel I felt all of the feelings that a woman can feel, I don’t know how Fadi as a man could be that close to women’s emotions and thoughts, but seems that men can understand us but they can’t always stand for us which is something that we really need to change.

If I have to talk about his writing style I have to admit that I enjoyed how he moved from a story to another with this ease, the words were unique and very touching, I loved mixing between languages and slang,  his novel represented a real life that we live in Amman that most of us deny because we care more about “our image” and it highlighted important social and sexual issues that we need to highlight in Amman and in the Arab countries in general that makes me feel that I just want to say “Bravo!”.

In my journey with these unique characters, I felt that the scenario is so real with its ups and downs, it took me into certain level of internal conflict, sometimes I refused and thought “What the hell is the author trying to say? is he encouraging what we all consider as wrong?”, then I find myself standing by his side and thinking that we are all human beings, everyone of us has his own weak point and we all make mistakes, why should we hide our real emotions and thoughts and act as perfectionists? well, we all should accept the fact that these people who make mistakes in our eyes are human beings at the end; and Fadi was great in expressing this human side of them and the conflict we go through in our real life.

I, as a reader who enjoyed living 8 chapters of the novel with different real people who became my friends at the end, decided to ask them to choose the color that most describes them, and asked them to write down their word to Fadi as a thank you:

Laila (Pink)

I choose pink color because it represents the lady inside me, this color is the color that our community draws to our feminine side, I am a real woman who has thirst for success, and I really did succeed, I am a woman who has her own recognition in the community now, not because I got married but because I could stand for women and let them speak out.

Fadi, you expressed me well, you could express how a woman feels under our community pressure. and how it only makes us stronger to be recognized, Thank you!

Salma (White)

White is my wedding dress color, I really feel that I am Aroos Amman, I became Aroos Amman for the sake of our society. I will not tell a lot about myself not to ruin the story but I loved that you let people know that I have a good sense of humor

I want to tell Hayat that I don’t feel jealous because she took the book cover because Fadi already gave me the strongest part in the novel.

Hayat (Colorful)

I know that many people will choose the black color for me, because many may think that my life was black but I will not choose it, my life taught me to take my own decisions, my earlier life was pale! with no color, and I choose to make it colorful, I can’t decide on specific color because I feel that all of the rainbow colors are mine, I enjoyed life with all of its ups and downs, I have real good friends like you Fadi who support and shout out for me.

Thank you for choosing my words to be put on the cover!

Ali (Dark Blue)

I choose blue because I want to tell the world that I am a true man, since our culture chooses blue for males, then my color should be blue, I make mistakes as we all do, but I still have my human side, and would love to be accepted in my community, because they chose the dark side of the color for me not I, they let me act in dark, but I will be waiting for the day when my color gets brighter and you all see me in my real color which is light blue.

Fadi, Thank you for letting people see my bright side, you expressed me well and people understand me more now, my color is getting brighter.

Rana (Red)

Red is the color of the novel cover, I chose it because it represents my courage in expressing my feelings that you communicated to readers of your novel, I am different as Janti told me, and I want to be accepted even though I am different, I was dragged into forbidden love, that our culture decided it to be forbidden, but who is without sin? I wish to see that man again who stood for me and said “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first”.

I am a human and we all make mistakes, please people accept that I can’t fix a mistake with another one!

Me (White)

I actually still can’t choose one color to represent me, because I think that all colors have their own magic and meaning, and I am a mix of all of the characters in your novel and that was the real strength behind your novel it was so real, so I was thinking that the best color that describes me is white, since it comes out of mixing all of the colors together.

I would say thank you Fadi for expressing  my feelings and thoughts as a woman in our Arab culture, I would say thank you for shouting out for us, I would say thank you for letting me enjoy this novel, I would say thank you for letting other people see the truth as it is and not as what the culture wants us to see, I would say thank you because now I have the courage to start activating my blog!