Last week we came back from a trip to California. I was invited there by the Claremont College to give a speech. It also included an interview with the Los Angeles Times.
As usual, meetings with the community and friends constituted the highpoints of the trip. The list of friends we met there included Selma and Hazem Chihabi; Lara and Robert Rezko; Dina and Habib Lahlouh; Barabara and Adnan Asswad, Ghada and Ray Irani; Hassan and Mrs. Mushammel; Talal and Mrs. Baidoun; and Ihsan and Mrs. Nizam.
Sidra also had lots of fun running along the strand of Laguna Beach.
One of the outstanding experiences I had there was when professor Bassam Franjieh of the Claremont College brought his Arabic language students (30 plus young American women and men) to greet me, and to my big surprise and bemusement they all joined in a choired recital of two Quran verses: 'al-Fatiha' and, and the famous ‘You have your religion and I have mine’. - memorized by heart and sung according to the best tajweed traditions. Very civilized indeed.
