Beautiful people Mashallah!!

Last saturday I went to a turkish mosque here in the city I live in , Bogota. I was expectant, anxious and unpretentious to some extend, I was rather just waiting for the natural course of the situation to catch something new to learn. This new experience has broadened my horizon more and more.

Truth be told, everything was kind of weird, women were coming in and out all of them with their hair covered and modesty clothing just as I thought it would be. Even though, there was a sense of awkwardness it's hard for me to describe. jaja Maybe it was because I'd never been in a mosque before and I'm still processing the experience. 

I was amazed to see the smiles in their faces, vanishing the oppression idea out of my mind, Idea which is pretty common on western people's mind, a complete shame yet, to be honest, I was one more of the rest who thought Muslim people were just extremist and to some extend, fanatics, however, never is too late to fix things up and fight the conditioning imposed by ignorant ones.

Unfortunately, those stigmas are impossible to fight unless you are interested in getting to know something about the culture and what happen within, something that fortunately has happened to me and it has allowed me to understand the reasons behind certain behaviours and customs and mostly it has showed me the reality of a misunderstood world.

Everybody in the mosque was enormously kind with me but some Colombian girls around who were taken classes of Turkish arts and whose gazes were pointing at me with some kind of contempt. Such an appalling demeanor.

Anyway, I didn’t let them to spoil my crown moment.  

Later, after entering to the mosque, I was welcomed and almost immediately I was asked to have lunch with them which confirmed to me how welcoming and warm-hearted Muslim people could be; the plate of the day was a beans, potato and meat spicy soup, rice, cabbage salad and a delicious passion fruit juice, my favorite ever. you know? Although I had the chance to try passion fruit in New Zealand, nothing is compared with the taste of it here in Colombia, it's simply amazing.

After that, I was conduced to the women room, simply beautiful, it was ornamented with really nice and luxurious furniture, huge rugs and feminine wallpaper creating a complete cozy atmosphere, we (the friend who took me there and me) were asked to take off our shoes to get in, as I think it’s usual in the east countries and I proceeded to have a sit in one of the pretty sofas.

I spent like an hour or so making questions, resolving doubts and hearing what my guide had to say to me in order to clear my mind, yet, as everybody knows, the time is the major inclement protagonist of our lives, my time was over and I needed to go to work. Nevertheless, and if like there hadn't been enough with all the kindness demonstrations I witnessed that afternoon, they surprised me again giving me a book about the Mohammad prophet.

Is there something else should I have asked for?

Beauty and its miss-conception

How can I describe the beauty?

beauty has a lot of meanings at least for me and it depends on each one's  perspective.

Quickly,  the concept that comes up to my mind is the universal one, in which beauty has a wholly physical meaning, the one in which a beautiful person is who can unleash admiration (or envy in most cases) for their Harmony, symmetry and in some cases youth. of course it is a very subjective topic in which a lo t of variables reach their effect, yet not only the fist thought that comes to your mind is worth trusting.

Hence, me as well as many people I know tend to think differently.

When it comes to beauty, there’re a lot of things involved such as charisma, kindness, spirit, personality and so on. However, there are still people who keep on insisting beauty is something you can buy. This is the main reason of today’s post.

Living in Auckland I had the chance to take a bit of rest of the Latin American beauty standards and the pressure media has over people. I’m by no means trying to say people in New Zealand is not beautiful, nevertheless, there I wasn’t exposed as much female degrading advertisement as I’m used to back in hometown.

I had the opportunity to watch T.V. without feeling upset for sexual scenes in family time or for over the top scenes. I could walk in the streets without the sense of me being measured for hundreds of billboards shooting you with information of how you must look like, how your demeanor should be and what kind of clothes you are expected to wear and more important, I wasn’t concerned whatsoever about what my measures should be so as to be desirable upon other’s people eyes.

That is not to say there’s a lack of media advertisement in New Zealand is just I noticed the levels of women exposure for commercial purposes are minimal compared with the outright levels in my country.

In my View, It is a complete shame because even though we women in Colombia are considered part of the work force and  to some extend we are regarded equal to men, we are still a commercial sexual item.

Last week I was in a launching event of a soup opera named “la traicionera” or The Betrayer in which all the attendants had the chance to see the first episode in premiere. I was Like “what the hell is going on here?” when I started to see a nude scene without any sense. The main female character was brushing her hair naked while arguing with her grandmother. Tt doesn’t have sense at all.

It only means to me the uncensored levels we have reached in order to gain audiences.

I consider myself an open minded person but it doesn’t mean that I have to accept the dodgy strategies media uses to manipulate their viewers.

I don’t know whether I’m being Old fashioned when principles about but honestly, I think we are enpowered to play a role far important than making our bodies a subject of mistaken adoration exposing them blatantly and senseless and making millions of women feel embarrassed and miserable for not being as the ones they see in magazines.

I think the meaning of feminine liberation has been misunderstood making people believe physical beauty, perfect bodies and fake physical attributes are women's tools to be successful. By this, media has overtaken the real conception of what make us more humans and less false characters taken up from magazines and T.V.