I just love Arab Muslim women. For the most part, they are just so hospitable and friendly and nice…and I am learning many things from them. Many Muslim women are not only covered but veiled as well. Some cover their entire face, others only allow their eyes to show. It depends on how conservative they are (or how conservative their fathers/husbands are) and what is expected in their family. I read somewhere about a woman from the West who moved to the Middle East and her account of how she began to realize that there are actually women behind each of those veils. They aren’t invisible people but they are mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, single, married, college students, old women, young women, just like me. Although the veil can be used by some as a way of becoming invisible to the outside world of men, these women have just as much identity, individuality, personality, and worth as I have. And often I am confronted with the thought that I could have just as easily been born into this kind of life. Any of us could have. I have done absolutely nothing to be given the life that I have. And occasionally when I imagine myself behind the veil, I am reminded all over again the reason why I am here. When I encounter a veiled woman in the street, I make a conscious effort to look her straight in the eyes and smile because a smile is universal and crosses all language barriers. My dad says I smile like my mother, with my eyes. And every now and then I am greeted back with smiling eyes and I know that we could be friends.