A Long Way From Home

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

Khalid finished his dinner quickly and left the cafeteria. He stuck mostly to a vegetarian diet on account of not knowing how the food was slaughtered, and the different flavors and tastes still weren't appealing. What he would give for machbous or shawarma. Even hummus and bread sounded really appetizing over Western food. He walked into the rec center appreciating the quietness of the place.



After a few minutes of searching the lounge area, he found the sound system and plugged his phone in with an aux cord. Listening to music with headphones on was tolerable, but playing it over speakers was even better. Khalid hoped everyone would be too busy eating dinner to want to visit the rec center for an hour. He flipped through his music library until he found "أطلقوا الخيل". It was incredibly relaxing to hear familiar sounds and understand the words without having to think.



So far from his home and family, Khalid was almost dreading the national day. He knew his family would partake in sword dancing and sorely wished he could be a part of that. However, it didn't mean he couldn't practice the movements. The basic step was just a couple steps forward followed by raising and lowering the sword. If there was enough room, the sword could be swept in an arc next to the body with small flourishes. It was even possible to mimic a bow by holding the sword at right angles across the scabbard. Without a sword, the dance looked particularly strange especially while Khalid was practicing steps that would typically be done with a partner to mimic actual sword fights. He was counting on not being watched while he practiced.

Tag: Dariya Zaymidoroga

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Dariya picked at her dinner. What she wouldn't give for some pierogi or borsch. Of course, she could make borsch. She had to, for there was a saying that if any girl doesn't know how to make it than she wouldn't get married. And she was definitely going to know how to make borsch; it'd been one of the first things she's been taught how to make. Dariya liked her mother's borsch much better than she liked her own.

Dariya ate a few more bites of the American food and took a sip of the soft drink, she was much more used to water, before throwing the rest of her dinner away. She ate much more early here than back home, and lunch wasn't huge in Ukraine unlike in the States.

She was dressed in a dark blue dress and had on silver flats. Her hair was down and brushed without any frizzy hair sticking up...or out. She left the dining hall, and went back to her room but found it unsuitably dull. The girl thought about seeing Ангел to see how the mare was doing, but figured that she'd rather see the rest of the campus.

Dariya headed out with her phone, answering a few texts from her friends and Oleksandra. She walked into the recreation center and walking into a random room not really caring where she was. It wasn't as if anyone would be in any of them, and she didn't care if she was disturbing someone else to be honest. To her surprise, however, someone else was already in the room. "Oh, hallo." She said, surprise evident in her voice.

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

At first, Khalid couldn't hear Dariya enter over the music. He was focused on the dancing and keeping rhythm with the music. However, the song came to an end entirely too soon, and the boy looked thoroughly disappointed by the following silence. He went over to unplug it from the sound system and noticed Dariya standing there. In his own mind, he was still in Qatar, and it wasn't proper for an unmarried young man to talk to women. Besides, he had no idea how long she had been watching and if she had seen him practicing, would think him absurd. After all, sword dancing really wasn't complete without a polished curved sword.

"As-salāmu ʿalayki."

Maybe if he didn't make eye contact or initiate any sort of physical contact, they could both ignore the awkward situation. The boy bowed politely crossing the right hand over his heart. He wore a maroon polo shirt with Arabic calligraphy over the left breast and black dress pants. Even in America, Khalid wasn't one to show the public anything but a neat and put together appearance. Much of the initial excitement over being able to actually talk to girls had worn off, and he felt weird throwing aside a cultural taboo. Gender segregation was common going so far as to have parks designated specifically for men or women. Retreating back to his own culture was safe and comfortable. Carefully, he tried English as that was the lingua franca.

"Hello?"

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Dariya hadn't been in the room for ore than a few minutes, but the music playing and the weird steps the male was doing, were completely foreign to her. Of course, the music playing was probably comforting to the boy, just like music in her own tongue was comforting to her. She disliked most American music, but some songs that she had listened to in English she had quite enjoyed.

She shifted uncomfortably. Dariya didn't usually talk to the boys at her old school, finding it awkward to talk to them, when she could be talking to her friends. She wasn't quite sure what to do when the male greeted her in a different language and bowed, doing some symbol with his hand that involved putting it over his heart. Did she curtesy or something? Normally, back in her own country, she'd greet people she knew with a hug and kiss on the cheek. Dariya settled for a nod of acknowledgment and a wave of her hand. She didn't smile, but hoped that the wave would show that she was friendly and not going to bite his head off or something. Smiles just weren't big with people they didn't know back home.

"I'm called Dariya. Dariya Artemovna, though I guess here it's Dariya Zaymidoroga." She said, introducing herself to the male but not offering a hand or anything. She didn't want to seem too forward or anything, and judging by the music and everything, he wasn't from the United States either.

"May I ask what you were dancing for?" She asked curiously, though she phrased it the way she did so the other student didn't have to answer it...but it seemed weird to her to dance to music without someone else to dance with, otherwise it wasn't really a dance but something else. And obviously people danced for some reason; that'd just be weird if people all started to dance for no reason.

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

By the sound of her name, Khalid could tell she wasn't American. Not that it put him at any sort of ease. However, he couldn't really place her name to a specific country. The patronymic was familiar, so definitely eastern. She looked European, so most likely Slavic. It was her surname that really threw him off. In school, it sounded like most Slavic names ended in -ov, -in, -ic, or -sky. Maybe there was some small Slavic European country where -oga was a normal ending, but it wasn't covered in Qatari schools. He hesitated before giving his own name debating as to just how formal to be. This was a strange woman, and he certainly didn't want to appear too familiar. Though, 'bin' was usually favored for official situations and would likely come off as stuffy. Including his grandfather's name would make him sound like royalty.

"Ismee Khalid Ahmed Al-Kuwari."

He bit his tongue realizing he introduced himself in Arabic, and poorly enunciated Arabic at that. A native speaker wouldn't have had any difficulty deciphering meaning, and a student of Arabic would probably have figured out which part was his name. Then again, he knew there were some people at the local mosque who could barely put together a good sentence in Arabic.

"I'm Khalid Ahmed Al-Kuwari."

As for the dancing, he wasn't sure how to explain it. It was just practice for a performance that would never happen. Without a sword, it just looked like stepping and waving his arm in the air. Khalid wasn't even sure if she would be able to appreciate the dance and its history.

"I was just practicing ardah. Ya'ni, sword dancing, but I couldn't bring my sword here. Did you want to use the space?"

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Ismee? Was that his name? Dariya was puzzled at the long name, though she couldn't really speak seeing as she had a patrynomic. A few seconds later, though it was in English, as before it had sounded...different. Nothing she'd heard before, but it didn't sound like anything from the music either.

Dariya, so far, hadn't introduced herself in Ukrainian, except she had answered a question in her native language to the cab driver earlier that day. A smile lit up her face, as she heard her phone ding, only to see Karina's name on it with a text from her cousin. She quickly replied with a 'it's going okay....very different from home. Dad bought me a horse though! I miss borsch and pierogi though. .' She stuck the phone away, knowing that her cousin was texting her very early in the morning, especially when she had school that day. 

"Oh..." Her voice trailed off as she wondered what had the boy just mentioned that would require a sword? "No, I just...came to look around. I just got here today and thought I'd get my bearings while everyone's still eating." She answered. Dariya briefly wondered if she'd be able to cook at Blue Ridge, minus the cooking class, if she got permission. 

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

Khalid found her behavior a bit odd. She was engaged in a conversation, then completely blew the other person off by responding to a text. And she didn't even apologize at that! If all parties agreed that occupying the same space and texting other people was okay, then that was that, but otherwise it made the sender of the text message more important than actual human interaction. Khalid was used to checking his phone if it went off, but then ignoring it unless his mother or father was the sender. His friends carried out much the same policy. If it was an emergency, someone would call, or someone might call just to say hi. It worked both ways.

He shrugged, "Well, this is the lounge. It's nothing too special. How was the flight over from...former Soviet Union?"

His knowledge of geography in that area was a bit lacking. Naming the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates was easy, but correctly placing the Baltic states was nearly impossible. Not to mention all those foreign sounding words and sounds.

"I'm from Qatar, if you know where that is."

The 2022 FIFA World Cup brought the small Gulf state to more popular recognition, but also under international scrutiny on account of mistreatment of migrant workers. However, nothing of real historical significance happened in Qatar, and the country lacked the size of its neighbor, Saudi Arabia.

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Dariya could see how answering a text whilst talking to someone could be seen as rude, and impolite, but she always answered her family members when they called or texted her. If she didn't answer, even just to say 'hi' or 'busy talk later' they might get worried she wasn't alright. She didn't want her family members to be worried about her, it was one thing when they were in the same country within a few hours drive, but she was across the world.

Besides, they were kind of talking, but not really having a conversation either. It was more like small-chat than conversing, or at least it was to Dariya. It could be very different to Khalid, considering he wasn't from America. She'd seen a few people at Blue Ridge on phones while with other people, so she hadn't thought of how it would seem to Khalid to be on a phone while in the room with him, talking.

She was a bit surprised at how the boy had guessed she was from a former CPCP, or USSR in English, country. For one thing, she hadn't thought her accent was that prominent but compared to Americans speaking English instead of her friends, it was easy to tell she was from some Slavic country. "I live in Kiev, Ukraine. It was nice flight, long though." She supplied, telling the boy where she was from and answering his question at the same time.

She nodded as she heard of Qatar. Her father, on rare occasion, had business over there, it was very rare though. Normally, he did business with the former CPCP countries like Russia and other countries like America. "I've heard of it, though I don't know where it is." She responded. "So, are you new at Blue Ridge?" She asked.

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

Kiev, the name sounded familiar, but it was hard to remember exactly from where. Kievan Rus or something like that. And there was that dish, chicken kiev. Did people in Kiev eat their chicken like that? He knew it was on the opposite side of the country from Crimea which got a lot of coverage on the news, but Khalid couldn't exactly locate it on a map. To him, the name sounded rather funny, but not nearly as funny as that Russian city with too many 'o's in its name--Novgorod.

"Yes, and Qatar is the peninsula next to Saudi Arabia. We're mostly surrounded by the Arabian Gulf. The only place worth visiting in the country is Doha. The rest of the place is oil and sand."

The Corniche was one of his favorite places in Doha with plenty of greenery and a walking path. Aspire Park was nice too known for its lake, fountains, green space, and as an excellent place for Friday family outings. The Pearl was one of the few places to really interact with expats on a Thursday evening and get some shopping done, too. Outside of Doha, the only real entertainment was falcon hunting and dune bashing.

"Who's your horse and what do you ride? I have a German import Holsteiner, Nasr. We do show jumping, obviously."

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Dariya nodded. "I think my father does business in Doha occasionally." She said upon hearing the city's name. It certainly did sound familiar to her. Qatar sounded like a place she'd hate to visit...all sand and heat. No, Dariya preferred the cold winters to the hot summers. She'd take -20 below over anything above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Of course, if it was cold she'd prefer to have snow as well instead of just ice or wind.

She listened as Khalid said he had an imported Holsteiner. "Obviously." She repeated, because what else would they do? Holsteiners were better at jumping than at doing dressage, or at least to Dariya's knowledge they were. Besides who'd use a Holsteiner for dressage when they could use a Hanoverian or another warmblood for dressage?

"I have a Ukrainian Riding Horse imported from Ukraine. Her name's Ангел and we do dressage, show jumping and cross country though I prefer show jumping or dressage to cross country. I just got her; my dad bought her for me when I got accepted to Blue Ridge as a token to entice me to come here." She answered Khalid's question. "What do your parents do? My father's an businessman and my mother's in the Ukrainian army." She asked the boy.

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

There were no words for the relief Khalid felt when Dariya agreed that Holsteiners were obviously jumpers. One would have to be stupid to waste money on a Holsteiner for dressage. And with Contender and Landgraf I in Nasr's pedigree, jumping was the only fate available to the gelding. He couldn't help but grin a little bit at her getting a horse as a means of persuasion to come to America. Khalid's Arabian mare was still in Qatar, and Nasr was the prize mount.

"I know all about horses for um, persuasion. I'm hoping that soon, Sarab can come here."

Khalid loved his mare, and she taught him almost everything there was to know. She would make for a good hunter, and her endurance would be useful in cross country.

"My father works for the Al-Kuwari Group, and my mother does some accounting work with the Al-Kuwari International Group. One of my uncles is the ambassador here, and the Emir is my cousin. In Qatar, the Al-Kuwari family is very influential and important."

Technically, he didn't have to work a day in his life to enjoy the perks of wealth. Everyone in his family held comfortable white collar jobs. He wasn't a prince, and his family didn't exert influence and control over the armed forces, and they weren't filled with individual billionaires, but the Al-Kuwaris still had their sphere of influence in buying up lots and lots of stuff.

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

"Sarab's a pretty name. Does it mean anything in your language or is it just a name?" Dariya asked, knowing that sometimes a name was just a name and nothing special in both Ukrainian and Russian. She wondered if it was the same for English horse names as well and assumed it was.

"Yes, well, my father bought me my horse because he knew I wouldn't refuse him...Ангел's my first horse; I used to show on a horse my trainer owns." She said, thinking that Khalid was lucky to have had his own horse before coming here, though she wondered why Nasr was a means of persuasion to the boy if he already had a horse. Maybe because he was a German imported horse or something else.

"I can tell." She said she. Khalid said his family was very important in Qatar. She wondered how big Khalid's family was if they were so important to the country and what an Emir is. Whatever it is, it sounded like it was important if Khalid thought to mention that the Emir was his cousin. Dariya was, however, very impressed that his uncle was an ambassador.

Sure, her parents were wealthy but she'd still have to work and she'd work anyway, even if she didn't need to. Her uncle was a part of the Ukrainian government, though she didn't care to mention that. After all, she'd asked what his parents did, not what his entire, or some of his other family did for a living.

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

"Mirage. Her official name is Alhamdulillah Al Shaqab. I love her, but Sarab has her limits. She's great at the lower levels, but Nasr is my grand prix horse."

Khalid planned on turning Sarab into his hunter, and maybe a cross country horse. No one beat the Arabians when it came to endurance. Even though he rode Nasr in his hunter class, it definitely wasn't a good match for the gelding.

He could tell Dariya was unfamiliar with tribal society and the importance of name dropping. What his parents did was important, yes, but even more so were members of the extended family.

"My mother is Sheikha Hissah bint Muhammad bin Khalifa Al Thani. She's a member of the royal family in Qatar. His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani is the current ruler after his father, His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa stepped down."

It was a bid to establish himself as having superior connections. Not too many people could claim ties to royalty, and if his father was an Al Thani, then he would have been a prince. For members of royalty, it was necessary to establish how close to the emir each member was. Of course, in-family squabbles existed and marginalized certain branches more than others.

At his age, Khalid could hardly claim many achievements to his own name, and he doubted many of the other students could do so either. He saw the game of name dropping almost as a fight for dominance in the social hierarchy of the exceptionally wealthy. He was curious to know if Dariya could do one better.

[Dariya Zaymidoroga]

Dariya was quite confused when the boy started talking about bin and bint. What did that even mean and why was the king of Qatar's last name Al Thani if his father's was Khalifa? She wondered why Khalid didn't say King and said His Highness instead. She was quite grateful when his family introduction was over, as she couldn't keep his family members straight. Not that it really mattered but if he wanted to tell her all about his family then she could do the same for hers.

Not that she had any royal blood in her, or at least not Ukrainian royal blood, in her. There was speculation that she was, and by definition her family, related to the Romanov's though which Romanov family they had no idea. That was another thing that never made any sense to Dariya; after the Czar and his family was killed and the CPCP was started the Faberge eggs that the last Czar of Russia had was taken by Britain. Now, Dariya didn't like the Russians that much, or at least the Russian government, but she did think that Russia should have its Faberge eggs. God knows how much history those Faberge eggs mean to Russia. Oh well, though.

"My father's a wealthy businessman, he does trading with other countries though mostly countries that were once under the USSR rule. My mother is a senior lieutenant and a linguist in the Ukrainian army translating documents, and other things, and her brother, my uncle, is a part of the Ukrainian parliament." She said, stating what her immediate family did for a living. Dariya didn't know what she'd like to do after university; perhaps join the army or navy and become a linguist like her mother. She enjoyed languages and picked some of them up very easily, though her mother had no time to teach any languages since she was so busy.

"I'm sorry; I must answer whoever is calling me." She stated apologetically as her phone rang. It was international, her home line. She wondered who'd be up at this time; a quick glance at her watch told her that it'd be two in the morning over there. "Privet?" She asked. "Dashenka! You answered." Her sister said. "Oksana, what are you doing up? Shouldn't you be in bed? It's two in the morning over there!" The older girl questioned forgetting to switch to Ukrainian. "Um...I heard mom and dad talking. Mom said she got ordered to move." Oksana answered. "Where?" She asked, the Ukrainian flowing off her lips. "Sevastopol." The one-worded answer was enough to make her stomach flip and her face pale. Sevastopol was in Crimea, on the opposite side of Yalta. And both Ukrainian and Russian military bases were there or close to it. "We-you're moving?" She asked, forgetting that she wasn't there. "I think so. Dasha, I don't want to leave!" Her sister said. "Sshh Oksana. Everything's going to be fine. It's just because of what's going on in Crimea with Russia right now. I'm sure you'll be back home in no time, and besides, mom and dad won't sell our house. You can always keep in touch with your friends, and you'll make lots of new friends. I promise. Now listen, you've got to get some sleep. I'll talk to mom soon and ask her about it and tell you anything important. Night Oksana, I love you." Dariya said, her voice soft as her sister responded with a "night, love you too" before the phone was hung up. 

Dariya shook her head. "Ya-I am sorry about that. It was my sister calling me." She said, turning to Khalid barely remembering to switch back to English after she got the first word out in Ukrainian. She couldn't believe that, her whole family just being uprooted and sent to Crimea. Or at least her mother, but she knew her family would go. Her father's business was manageable especially with the video chats available today so it wouldn't be that much of a hassle for him...and Oksana, well, she always made lots of friends anywhere she went. In fact, Dariya had less friends in her whole life than Oksana did in one day of being somewhere in a new setting. She couldn't help but think that Oksana would thrive at Blue Ridge since she made friends so easily, unlike Dashenka.

Dariya had no mirror to look at, but she was pretty sure her face was still pale from getting such shocking news. It was so sudden...and she couldn't help but wonder why her mother was getting ordered there now and not when Russia had first invaded Crimea. No matter what, there was nothing she could do so she turned to Khalid, hoping that the conversation would go anywhere because she needed to get her mind off what she just heard. 

[Khalid Al-Kuwari]

As usual, it was hard to trump royalty, but he could respect people in business, government, and the military. Those were repsectable professions unlike say, a street cleaner. From the appearance of things, he didn't think Dariya ever had to wear second hand clothes, knew how to eat at a gourmet restaurant, owned nice jewelry, and could afford to ride with a proven trainer. He also guessed that her father held status with an airline.

Even without understanding a word of Ukrainian, it wasn't hard to tell that Dariya was hearing bad news. The tone of voice, her posture, her expression, it reminded him of Abdullah. The hardest part was knowing that there was nothing he could say or do to bring back his friend's family from the clutches of al-Shaytan. To Khalid, dogs looked like angels next to IS. His mind wandered to his friends and wondering if Youssef's brother was still safe in Qatar, far from the fighting. Malik was half-Lebanese and still visited Beirut to be with his family. Half of his friends were Qatari, but the rest were either half-Qatari or expats from other countries in the Arab world.

"Bad news never gets easier. I know we just met, but trust me when I say I understand. Maybe it's different to hear bad news about your family, but my friends are my brothers in ever way but name. If you want to talk, I can listen, but we can talk about something else boring. I don't know what classes you're taking. Maybe we have some classes the same."

Khalid could recall the day Abdullah learned that his aunt, uncle, and little cousins were taken by IS perfectly. Muhammad, Malik, and Hamad were there as well. It was supposed to be a few hours of studying together before dinner. They rotated homes everyday, and that day was at Abdullah's place. He remembered his friend's mother calling for her son with the gravest of expressions. Abdullah could hardly hold himself together when he broke the news to his friends. His uncle, aunt, and five year old daughter were taken by IS. Khalid even remembered the little girl when she came to visit Qatar with her parents for Ramadan. Everyone knew her for her smile. That was five months ago, and no one had heard anything since.