Volunteers step up in Northwest Arkansas

Photo by Claire Rhodes

Tracy Craft directs her children as they shrug out of their coats and get settled in for the Thanksgiving meal. They head in different directions: Katelyn, 8, moves toward trays of pecan and apple pie while Bethany, 12, heads toward a group of kids crowded around one of the tables. The food looks and smells delicious, but Tracy and the kids, and dad, Jason, are not here to eat; they’re here to serve. It is two days before Thanksgiving and the Craft family is at the Samaritan Community Center to don blue aprons and provide hot plates of turkey, dressing, and all the fixings to the less fortunate clients of the center.

There are close to 40 volunteers serving Thanksgiving in the dining hall at the Samaritan Center, a faith-based, non-profit organization that operates a soup kitchen, a food pantry and provides counseling services for the needy. It is a more than normal amount of volunteers, many of them new, said permanent volunteer Steve Veliquette. Volunteers at the Thanksgiving lunch range from a six-year-old carrying pie from table to table to 81-year-old Dorothy Lindeman, who doles out punch, iced tea and hugs to everyone in the center.

Volunteerism has been growing in the Norwest Arkansas area, and not only during the holiday season. Jen Boyle, director of operations for the Samaritan Community Center, said more people have entered into volunteering than ever. Many of the new volunteers are individuals and families, and some are even people who are out of work themselves, adding to the group volunteers that usually help out.

The increasing number of volunteers coincides with the growing need, as the still-faltering economy continues to cause job losses and push people out of their homes. The Samaritan Center has even lost volunteers who have had to go back to work to support their families, but it has seen them replaced with a larger focus on family volunteerism.

The Craft family has been volunteering for several years, but recently became more active because of a service project within their church. The two girls enjoyed the project so much that they wanted to continue to serve, Tracy says, and the Crafts believe the girls need to be involved in volunteering. This is the family’s first time to serve food to the needy.

“My husband and I believe it’s important for them to know how fortunate they are, and to be able to give back to people who are less fortunate, because you just never know when that might be you,” Tracy says.

The Crafts are only one of several families volunteering together. Leola Johnson, a volunteer at the Samaritan Center for the first time, helped serve the Thanksgiving meal with her daughter and grandchildren. Claire Rhodes, originally from London, England, has been living in Northwest Arkansas for about a year. She began volunteering at the Samaritan Center four months ago and brought her family to help out at the Thanksgiving lunch.

“This is an amazing community; everybody wants to give, everybody wants to be a part of it,” Rhodes says. She has noticed a lot of kids, families and church groups volunteering.

Other non-profit and charity groups are having the same experience. Autumn Hendrix, the special projects coordinator for the Boys & Girls Club of Fayetteville, said they usually solicit groups to volunteer, but this year they have seen more individuals and families, and more people volunteering in general.

Laney Dorman, 12, served drinks at the Club during its Thanksgiving dinner Nov. 19. Laney was volunteering for the first time with her dad and her church group. Heidi Fredrickson was also there with her sons Skyler, 8, and Kobe, 7. Heidi said it was Skyler’s idea to volunteer. He likes to help out with the less fortunate as much as he can, so Heidi went online to help Skyler decide which program he would like to volunteer with, she said.

“There have been easily twice as many hits this year than last year on the Web site,” Hendrix says, referring to how many people are checking out volunteer opportunities online through the Boys & Girls Club. Though she can’t be sure if the people searching will follow through, she is glad they are at least looking for volunteer opportunities.

Unfortunately, an increase in volunteers does not mean a surplus in help.

Hendrix said donations for the year for the Boys & Girls club have been down in every category. Heather Townzen, kitchen coordinator for Rogers and Springdale Samaritan Centers, said the soup kitchen is in a different situation from the food pantry, which has struggled to meet the needs of those in want.

“The economy is down, and the cost to run the food pantry is a lot more,” Townzen said.

Organizers for both the Samaritan Center and the Boys & Girls Club said they are thankful for the abundance of food they had this year for the Thanksgiving dinners, which were donated from various sources including local restaurants, food drives and individuals.

The biggest problem for the two groups is the increase in need. There was a 53 percent increase in clients at the Samaritan Center in just two years, with an expectation to serve more than 100,000 people in Northwest Arkansas this year, according to the Web site.

Ron and Charlotte Hawkins sit at the end of a long table, in two blue plastic chairs facing each other, and wait to be served the lunch that they share here about once a month, this time a traditional Thanksgiving meal. Ron has on a tired denim Harley Davidson jacket and scuffed cowboy boots, and Charlotte’s long denim skirt and flowered blouse may be homemade, but they smile warmly when a few of the volunteers welcome them. Charlotte had a massive stroke a few years ago and is on Social Security, while Ron works full-time at Walmart; they struggle to live off the one income. They were recently in a worse than usual financial situation and had to turn further to the Samaritan Center for help, they say. Besides feeding them, the center gave them a list of places to go for financial help and offered emotional counseling, as well.

Bobby Davis, unkempt but sociable, sits down the table from the Hawkinses. Davis eats the three meals a week offered by the center and gets groceries there once a month. His son lives with him, but has to work all day and Davis doesn’t know how to cook.

“My supper don’t come around ‘til about 11 o’clock at night and [the center] helps me through the day,” Davis said.

The Hawkinses and Davis have seen a lot more people using the amenities at the Samaritan Center, they said.

Both the Samaritan Center and the Boys & Girls Club expected to have larger groups at their Thanksgiving dinners this year, and everyone seems to agree that the needy population is continuing to grow.

“I’ve seen more of an increase in people who are needy…a lot, lot, lot of people coming in,” said Rhodes, the volunteer from the Samaritan Center.

But Rhodes believes that the number of volunteers is keeping up with the increase of people in need, and others agree…for now.

“We have had an increase in the need, so God’s provided enough help for those people,” Townzen said.

It may be true that as the need continues to grow, so will the number of people willing to fill it.

“I know, personally, I’ve always been thankful for what I have, but when you start looking at people losing their jobs…you’re a little more thankful for it,” Hendrix said. “You want to go out and you want to help.”

A place in the future

I am not the only person that worries about the future. It’s natural to be concerned about unforeseen circumstances, especially so with the current state of this country’s economy.

But with college graduation looming a year away, and my chosen field, journalism, floundering more than most others, concern is becoming fear.

I chose journalism because I feel passionate about the career. I wanted to contribute to the world in a way in which I could apply my writing skills and feel successful, while also enjoying what I do. It was like an epiphany when I decided on journalism, and I returned to college specifically to study that field. I could see my future, so bright, so fulfilling, all spread out before me.

I have always been one to appreciate the unpredictability of life, but after all the things I have been through to finally know where my place in this world might be, just to have that place become nonexistent, I now feel like fate has given me a swift kick in the stomach.

Fortunately, I am not one to give up. I think if you are passionate enough, want something enough, then obstacles are just puzzles that must be solved to get to the prize – if a shaky, stressful, low-paying job can be considered a prize. For me it can.

Determination is half the battle; the other half is knowledge and skill. No matter how much knowledge and skill you have, nothing will happen if you don’t have the determination to see it through. On the other hand, all the determination in the world won’t buy you success if you can’t perform the job requirements.

It is a matter of putting your pen to the paper (or your fingers to the keyboard.) Veteran journalists talk about the old days, when a journalist went out and hunted down a story and everything was on him; I think it is back to those days. With new media and the Internet becoming the heart of journalism, and job positions dropping like flies, it is now the responsibility of the journalist to be able to do everything needed to post an article. He has to be the researcher, reporter, writer, editor, photographer, camera man and Web master.

While this means the loss of jobs, and more work and responsibility for the journalists, I think it could be a good chance for journalism. The journalist is given more opportunity to present the full vision of his article. Because of the job market and the tight competition only the best journalists are going to have these kinds of positions. I believe that could mean more responsible journalism. Everyone is doing what they have to, to put the highest quality news and information out there.

For me, that says I still have a chance in this field. With determination, skill and as much knowledge as I can acquire, I believe my high standards for journalism will be appreciated in today’s job market. Now I just have to keep working on my morale.

Age 50 - A New Beginning

Myrtle Laabs sits slumping just a bit in her chair. Her short, white, curly hair stands out against the lapel of her purple wool coat where a “wild woman” pin is jauntily clasped. The pin, created from random fragments, is individually crafted and there are no two alike, which is why Laabs says she likes it. She speaks slowly and quietly, but with determination, and nearly blind eyes squint as the 105-year-old Laabs tells about how she began painting watercolors when she was 86.

When people think of growing older, starting a new life is not usually what comes to mind. Slowing down, relaxing and rest are what most people think of when they consider their advancing years and retirement, but not so for Laabs and other members of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. Osher members have reinvented themselves in their later years by taking classes, getting involved in local programs and even starting new careers. Some see it as a chance to do the things they always wanted to do but never could, while some see the possibility of fresh adventures.

“It is one’s attitude that determines what your life is going to be because the action that you take is what counts,” Laabs says.

Laabs has a background in art and previous projects include creating a poster to promote war bonds in World War I and making totem poles when she lived in Utah, but she didn’t begin painting watercolors until she after her husband died in 1989. This is when she entered the Elderhostel, another local program for seniors, and began picking up some painting techniques.

When Laabs opened a small gift shop some years ago, she sold others’ artworks, but when customers requested specific images, Laabs started painting them herself. She eventually showed her paintings in several joint exhibits. When the Osher Institute was inviting artists to submit their works for show, a neighbor of Laabs encouraged her to enter. She was accepted, and it gave her the first opportunity for an individual showing.

Laabs is not the only artist to give her first showing at the Osher Institute; Ellen Gregory has been taking photos for most of her life, but only began thinking of herself as an artist and professional photographer in July when Kathleen Dorn, the coordinator for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, told Gregory she wanted to give her a complete showing in the gallery.

“This was the first time ever, besides in my own home, that I’ve ever shown my photographs,” Gregory says. “The accolades are just incredible.”

Accounting had been Gregory’s main line of work for most of her 67 years, but her plan was to own a bed-and-breakfast when she retired. After growing up in the Bronx and then living in L.A. for most of her life, she bought some rural land in Farmington and for the next 10 years worked on remodeling her two-story house. Then a fire six years ago destroyed all her retirement dreams.

Gregory is thankful that one of the things most important to her, her photographs, survived the fire. The heat from the fire had melted the plastic in the photo albums, in essence laminating the photos and ironically protecting them from smoke damage. She only recently finished the project of cutting the photos out of the melted plastic.

With her camera always by her side, Gregory would take photos during her Osher classes, and the institute began using her photos in brochures and pamphlets. This became the catalyst for Gregory’s recent showings, which, along with the fire, made her forget her idea of a bed-and-breakfast.

The Osher Institute offers a variety of classes for members, who must be 50 or older to join. It provides interesting and convenient continuing education for individuals in their later years who may want the opportunity to learn new things but find the classes offered by the University of Arkansas too restrictive.

“The stick-in-the-muds don’t go to these classes,” says Tom Paradise, a professor of geography at the UA and member of Osher. “It created a community that didn’t exist before of older people that are curious, who want to learn (and) that are interested.”

How to Make Sushi, Spanish for Travelers and Identity Theft are examples of previous classes offered that are meant to appeal to the over 50 crowd. There are no prerequisites, homework or tests in these classes; the point is learning for pure enjoyment.

“OLLI is providing not just classes, but providing a venue for its members to share ideas and share work,” says Mike Adelman, a retiree from the corporate business world and chairman for the advisory board at Osher.

Adelman was first involved in Osher as a student, and it gave him the opportunity to meet several hundred people who were in the same situation – retired or “experienced” and looking for intellectual stimulation. There is a lot he wants to learn, but he is not interested in repeating the college experience.

Melinda Nickle agrees. “I just thought it was a good idea for people who are retired to have this opportunity to take classes without having to worry about doing homework or having to go three times a week and find a parking place.”

Nickle retired from teaching high school in 2001, and has become increasingly active in the community. Her plan was to ride horses and do a great deal of reading when she retired, but she barely has time to read for her book club.

“OLLI has kept me really busy; I love the classes,” Nickle says. “Just to have the chance to do things you might not do. I loved the kids when I taught, but I’m glad I retired – a new life.”

The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute receives its funding from The Bernard Osher Foundation based on the number of its members. The location in Fayetteville just reached its goal of 300 members and now has its sights set on 500, the point at which it can request a $1 million endowment.

Bernard Osher made his fortune as the director of World Savings, the second-largest savings institution in the United States, and the owner of the fourth-largest auction house in the world, Butterfield & Butterfield.

“He is elderly with no kids, so he decided to start sharing his money,” says Paradise, who used to be the director of the jewelry and objects division at the auction house. “He set up the foundation specifically for active older people.” Now it has bloomed into a huge program across the U.S.

Now the Osher members are seeing people who have taken the classes become the teachers. Paradise and Nickle have both taught classes, and after getting involved with the institute, Gregory began teaching digital photography.

Gregory is hoping to continue establishing herself as a professional photographer. She has created her own Web site and recently had another showing at Ultra Studio in Fayetteville. “I would love to earn some money doing this to supplement my retirement.”

Laabs also continues painting. “Experiment; try unknown things. Just because they say it can’t be done doesn’t mean it can’t be done.”

Support for the LGBT community is growing in NWA

Mitchell Evans sits with his elbows on the table, nervously fidgeting with the lid of his thermal coffee cup. His cheekbones and rosebud mouth, slightly pursed, are highlighted by his flawlessly applied make-up.

Evans, who has known he was gay since he was six, is in between: in between male and female, in between child and adult, and in between his past and his future.

He is 17 years old and is self-educated on the topic of sexuality, especially for gays and lesbians, he says. His sex education class in Greenland Middle School did not even touch upon the subject of homosexuality, an upsetting situation for Evans, who was openly gay at that time. Instead, he used a book called "The Joy of Gay Sex" to teach himself all there was to know, he says.

"That was kind of a hard place to come out in," Evans says.

Evans is only one of many gays and lesbians in the Northwest Arkansas area who find coming out a difficult situation.

“Coming out is the one thing that ties us all together as a LGBT community…it’s the one big hurdle we all overcome,” says Anthony Clark, president of the NWA Center for Equality. “But even though it’s the one thing that ties us together, every story is so unique.”

Clark grew up in a fundamental evangelical home in a small rural town outside of Little Rock, and then moved to Fayetteville when he was 18 to attend the U of A.

“I didn’t know any openly gay people until I was 19 years old,” Clark says. “It felt like I was the only one in the whole wide world.”

Clark didn’t go through the coming out process until he was 19, when he was attending the university and belonged to the support group P.R.I.D.E., People Respecting Individual Differences and Equality.

“Because we are in a fundamentally religious part of the country, there are people that just simply don’t believe that I was born gay,” Clark says, citing this as one of the reasons why gays and lesbians are still without civil rights in Arkansas.

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, which are said to have been the beginning of the gay and lesbian civil rights movement. The Riots happened June 27, 1969, when gay and lesbians fought back after police raided a popular gay bar in Greenwich Village.

They have been fighting for civil rights since then, but Clark points out that the struggle has been significantly longer than the black civil rights movement, which is considered to have lasted 20 years. Clark believes this is because being gay isn’t as obvious as skin color, making it easier for people to dismiss gay rights and hide discrimination.

The NWA Center for Equality, a support and advocacy group working to achieve legal rights and social equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in Northwest Arkansas, was founded by Kay Massey in 2006, about a year after Arkansans voted to suspend all marriage or relationship rights for same-sex couples.

“There was no presence in Northwest Arkansas whatsoever [at that time] as far as an advocacy group specifically for gay rights,” Clark says.

The NWA Center for Equality is one of only two non-profit organizations in the state which actually works specifically for LGBT rights. The other is the Center for Artistic Revolution, or CAR, based out of Little Rock.

But things have been improving for gays and lesbians in the Northwest Arkansas area.

“Northwest Arkansas is overall a little more progressive than the rest of the state,” Clark says. He believes that is because of the influence of the university and of Walmart, Tyson and other large corporations that bring people from more progressive areas.

Evans believes Fayetteville, a growing city, has become more accepting of gays and lesbians, citing more gay bars (two, to be exact) than other areas of Arkansas as evidence.

"I know I can walk down the street in full drag garb [in Fayetteville] and nobody would really say a lot," Evans says. He believes the more accepting atmosphere has to do with Fayetteville being an arts and college town.

Other towns in Northwest Arkansas are becoming more accepting of gays and lesbians, as well. Eureka Springs, in Carroll County, now provides domestic partner registry, though it is the only town in the state to do so. The ordinance, which went into effect on June 13, allows non-married couples from anywhere in the country to register with the city for $35 and receive a certificate bearing the signature of the mayor and the city clerk validating their relationship. The certificate is not a legal document and does not signify that the partnership is equal to a legal marriage.

“Things are certainly better than they were five, 10, any amount of years ago, but there is certainly a lot of work to be done,” Clark says.

Clark feels that LGBTs are close to reaching social equality in Northwest Arkansas; he says the problem is the lack of legal rights or protection from discrimination. This prevents professional gays and lesbians from moving into the area, at the same time encouraging those from Arkansas to move away.

“The Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce, the University of Arkansas, the City of Fayetteville…if they had fully inclusive nondiscrimination policies they would attract talent from all over the country,” Clark says.

As it stands right now, many gays and lesbians are not going to move to the area if they are looking for a job in higher education or public policy, Clark says. They are not going to consider Northwest Arkansas if they can’t have full coverage benefits, if their partner or spouse can’t fall under their insurance, and other such things that many have become used to in larger metropolitan areas.

Only a little over 64,000 gay, lesbian and bisexual adults were living in Arkansas in 2005, according to figures from the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law. The same figures show that more than 269,000 gays and lesbians were living in Massachusetts, a state less than one-fourth Arkansas' size.

The institute estimates there were 16,864 gay, lesbian and bisexual adults living in 12 of the Northwest Arkansas counties: Benton, Boone, Carroll, Crawford, Franklin, Johnson, Madison, Marion, Newton, Pope, Sebastian and Washington.

Evans, who anticipates pursuing a fashion degree at the U of A by next fall, and is actively involved in groups such as P.R.I.D.E, is one of those who do not plan to stay here. He wants to transition, via surgery and hormone treatments, into a straight female, and he feels it will be difficult and dangerous to try to find someone here to date. He plans to move to either the upper East Coast or the West Coast, he says.

“Really what it comes down to is familiarity,” Clark says. “As the general population, as our friends, as our family members become more familiar with us [and] see that we’re no different than they are, then they become more accepting, more inclusive. You really have to understand the differences in order to change your perception.”

New Immigration Law Clinic makes its case

Everyone knows lawyers don’t come cheap. Immigrants who are unable to work because they are undocumented or on a visa that does not allow them to work find it even more difficult to shell out the cash for a service that can cost thousands of dollars. Fortunately for them, there is a solution in the form of the new Immigration Law Clinic at the University of Arkansas School Of Law.  

One of the reasons the clinic opened was to fill the gap in legal representation for an ever-increasing immigrant population in Arkansas. Anyone in the community in need of legal representation, student or not, can receive help at the new law clinic free of charge. Clients are only required to pay the fees for applications or legal documents required by the government.

“There are just so many people that need help here, and a lot of them also…can’t afford legal representation,” said Elizabeth Young, assistant professor of law and director of the new clinic.

There are several prominent immigration lawyers in the area, but they can’t fill the need for representation. “I don’t think any of them are hurting for clients,” Young said.

The foreign-born share of Arkansas’ population has grown from 1.1 percent in 1990 to 4.2 percent in 2007, according to a report by the Immigration Policy Center.  Arkansas had the fastest-growing Latino population and the fourth-fastest growing immigrant population of any state in the nation between 2000 and 2005, according to the report.

“NW Arkansas has a large and rapidly growing immigrant population,” said Cynthia Nance, the dean of the UA School of Law. Part of their charge as the law school of a land grant institution is to serve their community, Nance said. “The Immigration Clinic meets a glaring need in our state and community.”

The clinic has a mix of clients; some are students who are foreign nationals or married to foreign nationals, but the majority of cases are related to deportation, Young said.

“I would say about 70 percent of our cases are people who are in immigration proceedings, which means they are in deportation proceedings,” Young said.

Ester and José Gonzalez are clients of the Immigration Law Clinic. Their names have been changed to protect their confidentiality. Both are undocumented; Ester was brought to the U.S. by her sister when she was 14 and José came to find work and send money back to his family in Mexico, they said.

The Gonzalezes have stayed in the U.S. to gain access to better schools and a better life for their children, they said. They work in landscaping to help support their family.

“My kids are citizens and I would not want to disrupt their education by taking them to Mexico,” Ester said. She wants to see them to graduate from college and go on to achieve a better life, she said.

Ester found out about the Immigration Law Clinic from a friend’s husband, who recommended the clinic to her. The clinic helped prevent Ester and her family from being immediately deported and is working toward getting the Gonzalezes' work permits so they can continue to stay in the U.S. The couple are awaiting court in June.

“We have lots of confidence in them and that they will be able to do a lot for us,” Ester said. “We would like to become citizens. I have been here for 21 years and our family wouldn't want to start a new life in Mexico. I have faith in God and in and the lawyers of the clinic that everything will turn out fine.”

The clinic began taking its first cases last January, receiving most of those from local immigration law offices that do pro bono work. Law students act as the representatives and are supervised by Young. The clinic has about 30 clients right now, but immigration cases often last for over 5 years, and often cases will lie dormant for several months during processing, Young said.

“I would like to see cases in all stages at the clinic, which can only come with time,” she said. “I am hoping that the caseload will stabilize [as] the community becomes aware of the program.”  

Young is the first director of the Immigration Law Clinic, and has a strong background in immigration law. She directed the clinic at George Washington University Law School for a period until she found out about the opportunity to return to Arkansas and direct the clinic here. It was a dream of Young’s to return to her home state, she said.

 “Professor Young has been very involved and has gained a strong reputation in [immigrant] communities since joining us,” Nance said.

The clinic does have two large obstacles. Young said the biggest is geographical, because the immigration court is in Memphis, though Young is trying to set up a program for televideo hearings instead of having to travel there for every case.

“That has definitely dampened how many cases I will take that are in immigration court, because we just can’t drive to Memphis all the time to go to hearings,” she said.

The second biggest limitation is language, because the university does not pay for interpreters. Right now the clinic has a bilingual student in work study that is being trained to interpret, but since she is not certified they get most of their help from Anne Yancy, a local court certified interpreter who has donated hundreds of hours of free interpreting services to the clinic, Young said.

The law students are not required to speak another language and Young thinks it’s good for them to get used to working with interpreters, she said.

“You are always going to have somebody that you don’t speak their language,” she said.

The clinic administration has hopes that the clinic will continue to grow, both in clients and in services. Young said once they get the clinic settled and some of the smaller issues handled, the clinic can initiate more auxiliary programs, perhaps providing legal rights education to the community or help with naturalization forms. In the meantime, the clinic staff will continue to reach out to people in need of immigration legal assistance, such as the Gonzalez family.

An Arkansas Ramadan

Coming into the home of Wahida Zamani on any given afternoon visitors might hear the boisterous sounds of teenagers watching TV and breathe in the heady aroma of dinner being prepared as they take off their scuffed shoes and place them by the front door. But this night Wahida isn’t cooking for her husband and three children. She is preparing food for almost 130 Muslims and guests to break fast on the 22nd night of this year’s holy month of Ramadan.

Wahida is padding back and forth on her bare feet, dashing between pans to turn the sautéing chicken and add saffron to a huge pan of rice. When she is finished the food is going to the Islamic Center in Fayetteville for iftar, the evening meal when Muslims break their fast.

“Let me tell you, this is not kind of bragging,” she says as she shrugs a shoulder and smiles. “Iranian has the best cuisine.”

Wahida moved from Iran almost 19 years ago to be with her husband. When she first moved to Northwest Arkansas, there was no one to tell her things like the time of iftar; she had to look at the sky to guess. She had to work hard to keep the spirit of Ramadan alive. Now she uses a tape to announce iftar to her family to help remember traditional Ramadan in her home.

“When I was growing (Ramadan) kind of turned out to be a…symbol of growing, adulthood, maybe power, challenge,” she says. “Especially during that time of iftar, when people are sitting around the table, it was feeling that sense of victory, that ‘I made it!’ all the day.”

Wahida has defined her life in this country by combining the values of Iran and the U.S., she says. It gives her a unique structure and a unique way of life.

She has decorated her house so that the front is in a more traditional American style, but the back, including the kitchen and the family room, help her feel closer to home. A traditional tea maker from Iran holds a place of honor on the kitchen counter. Elaborate hand-woven carpets from Iran cover the hardwood floors in several of the rooms, but are most prominent in the family room where small carpets decorating the walls contain the names of Wahida’s two daughters, a passage from the Qur’an and a woven pictorial of a carpet maker and his son.

“It is very accepting here because everyone is immigrant here and it doesn’t have a color of its own,” she says. “I love that spirit of accepting.”

When Wahida arrived in the U.S. she had a degree in math and was accepted into the masters program for computer science, but three pregnancies in five years prevented her from finishing her degree. She says it was during this time of staying home with her children that she began to really know herself and grow spiritually. She experienced a need to embrace her faith and tried to influence her husband to begin praying and fasting during Ramadan, something he had not been doing before he married Wahida.

Wahida’s husband, Hossein Kouchehbagh, moved to the U.S. nearly 38 years ago, living in Fayetteville the last 35 or 36 years. Hossein had a good job in Iran, but he did not like the regime at that time, he says. After arriving in the U.S., Hossein received a degree in industrial engineering, and now owns a used car dealership.

After 16 years in the U.S., Hossein visited Iran to find a wife. He and Wahida were introduced by his sister and her neighbor, and were married three weeks later. After a honeymoon in China, Hossein returned to the U.S., but he and Wahida traveled together over the next two years while they waited for her visa.

Hossein did not practice Islam the first 16 years before he met Wahida, he says.

“I see some Muslim, they say something (but) they do something different. I was discouraged from it,” he says. In 1997 a friend of Hossein’s from the University Baptist Church, H.D. McCarty, invited Hossein to come talk to a man named Baker about Islam.

“After that I was in love with Islam again, and I started practicing in 1997,” Hossein says. His faith had been rekindled by Wahida and he had been fasting and praying some with her for five or six years before talking to Baker, but hearing from a Christian about Islam cemented his belief, he says. He began observing Ramadan every year after.

Ramadan is a total fast for a lunar month in which people abstain from eating, drinking, sexual relations and smoking from sunrise to sunset. It is the celebration of the month in which the first revelation of the Qur’an is believed to have been revealed to the Prophet Muhammad.

When she first arrived, Wahida began collecting and learning recipes traditionally prepared in Iran for Ramadan such as the sweet called Zoolbia, but it was not easy to find things she needed for making traditional foods. Wahida once substituted corn starch when she could not find the wheat starch Zoolbia is normally made with, she says. Unfortunately, corn starch absorbs about 10 times as much water as wheat starch.

“My recipe got bigger and bigger, it was a disaster,” Wahida says, laughing. Now when she goes to Iran she brings ingredients she cannot find locally back with her.

Not all of the Muslims in the community practice Ramadan, and it was hard for her to understand at first because where she came from everyone practiced, she says.

“But here, people have choices, options…so it really, you know, raised my tolerance and acceptance,” Wahida says. That does not always go both ways.

Wahida doesn’t wear the traditional hijab, or headscarf, that many Muslim women wear, so she is not always recognized as being Muslim. She returned to school a few years ago to get a master’s in counselor education and recently began her internship. During orientation they were offered free lunch, and when Wahida didn’t take a lunch, everyone asked her why she wasn’t eating.

“I just wanted not to say, ‘Hey, I’m Muslim and I’m fasting,’ you know,” she says. She didn’t know how her new coworkers would accept her and she didn’t want to create a wall between them and her, she says. Instead, she told them she wasn’t hungry.

Wahida also has had to deal with occasional prejudice in Northwest Arkansas. Her son had a music teacher who sang songs about “swatting the Muslim fly” and correlated Muslims to being terrorists, she says. Wahida had to make a complaint to the principal of the school.

“Music is supposed to bring people together, not separate them,” she says.

Bringing people together is an ideal that Wahida believes in strongly and is something she thinks Ramadan helps to do. It brings together friends, people in the community, but most of all family, she says.

Ramadan “binds us together, that we are warriors of temptation,” she says.

“Wahida basically is our moral spirit in our house,” Hossein says. “About the religion, our relationship, about eating habits, drinking habits…she is our moral spirit because she really does more than a person, more than a wife, more than a mama. She is our friend.”

Sara, her 17-year-old daughter, says Wahida is the one who brings the family together during Ramadan. She wakes the family to eat sahur, the pre-dawn meal, and encourages the kids to keep the fast even when they don’t feel like it. But she never forces them, Sara says.

“I never push my children to do praying or fasting,” Wahida says. “I encourage them but not push them.” She never punishes them for breaking fast, she says.

During Ramadan the family often takes iftar in the Islamic Center. Taking iftar in the mosque is for social as well as religious reasons, Hossein says. He enjoys the discussion, and his children have a chance to make new friends.

Ramadan is special for people, for some it’s religious and for some cultural, says Joel Gordon, director of The King Fahd Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies at the University of Arkansas. It is a time of deprivation, but it can also be seen as festive, especially during the breaking of fast, Gordon says. People can break fast at home, but here going to the mosque becomes a community get-together, he says.

That evening at the mosque, the spread is an international potluck; savory dishes and desserts from Asian countries, including India, and several Middle Eastern countries clog the two buffet tables. During iftar, Wahida’s dish of chicken and rice is one of the first to disappear.

“People around the world….practice Islam within the context of their own culture,” Wahida says. “Culture influences our beliefs. Family culture, regional, continent, they all affect our beliefs.”