Connecting Cultures

I thought I want to share my exceptional story with the amazing women on world pulse. On October, 2012 I was selected to participate in a program called “Connecting Cultures”, which was funded and supported by the Ministry of higher education of Muscat, Oman as well as UNICEF. Before I actually join the connecting culture trip, I had that one information about it; Group of girls from around the world, meeting in the desert of Oman. The whole idea sounded exciting, but I did not really understand how much there will be out of it.

In January, 2013 my journey started and If flew to Oman with my brain full of expectations. Who will I meet? Are they going to accept and understand me? What languages are they going to speak? On My arrival to the Airport I met two of the participants. One was from Germany, and the other from Holland, and both were excited, yet had so many questions. We went together to the hotel and the next day we met the rest of the group, which was 15 other women from different countries, including (UK, Spain, Andora, Poland, Finland, Oman, etc). it was amazing how we sat in a circle and we were given small note books to write on. We were then taken to the desert camp which was absolutely overwhelming.
The desert was a different story! Silence was charming. Sand Dunes were breathtaking, and camels were the best transportation means we can find. We were given tents and we had tent mates. Sleeping in tents lasted for one night only. Once we witnessed the beauty of stars at night we all decided to sleep outside our tents, not thinking about snakes, spiders, or scorpions. We lived away from technology and never showered for five days. We dedicated our time for social discussions and cultural understanding.

Throughout the journey we were thinking of one thing. We are the same and that we are all powerful and future leaders. We learned from our group discussions that all the conflict we witness in the world suddenly becomes vague and non sense. We realized that no matter where you come from, you share one thing in common with everyone else; your humanity. We all realized that no matter how harsh life conditions can get, like desert life, we can be the same human beings who live behind the computer everyday and make tens of phone calls and 100s of texts messages. In fact, the world looked and felt so quiet when we lived the simple desert camping life. We survived so much together and we learned so much from each other. The Connecting Culture program was not merely a desert camp. I personally learned that there is no culture that is wrong or right. Every culture is perfect by itself, and that human beings are the main architect of that culture.