When i came back from JIMAS earlier this year, i made a few resolutions (uhmm... that sounds like a bid'ah- what i meant to say is that i set myself some targets ;)). One of these was to start to get to know my neighbours. Although quite a few of the residents on my road are renting, there are loads who have been there ever since i can remember and these are the ones i wanted to get to know better. This Monday as i arrived back from work, an English fella who lives further up the road was passing by the house, so i caught his attention and said to him that we've been living close to each other for so many years yet i've never said even said "hello" to him. He laughed and then we introduced ourselves to each other. He seems like a nice chap, and he said he'd pop over sometime.
I'm setting myself a target of getting to know 10 families by the next time JIMAS comes round. So far, i'm on 2 :)
I hope getting to know the neighbours will also help us understand each other's cultures and all that. I know that sounds quite corny, but its quite obvious that if you stick to your own people in totality and aren't exposed to others and their ways, you're bound to view the "others" with some degree of prejudice or fear, or negative feelings. I'll give you an example. In multicultural London, if you walk down the street in a thobe no one will look at you twice. However, when driving back from Leicester some time ago i had a friend who is a portly Arab man from the Middle East dressed in thobe and ghutra, and i could see a look of amazement and not-so-friendly looks on the faces of lots of the English people when we stopped at a petrol station. They must have been thinking "these Arabs are weirdos."
But the reverse is also true because just before we got to the petrol pump, we stopped at some traffic lights, and the one person who happened to cross the road right in front of the car was some weird hippie looking woman wearing some freaky fluorescent-pink skin-tight bottoms, holding some glittery hula-hoops in one hand and the leashes of three greyhound-like dogs in the other. My friend just laughed. I bet he was thinking "these Westerners are weirdos."
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7 comments:
I think thats a very commendable thing to do to befriend your neighbor. If anything, it only shows to others your personality, one of that of reaching out to other people and being friendly with them. Also, it gives you great opportunity to share your faith, given that you do it in the right way.
I remember being friends with my niehgbors in my building, and more than half choose not to reciprocate my gesture, probably because they are not used to seeing friendly neighbors, but the ones who are friendly with me make it all the more worthwhile of staying in that building.
Mansour
PS Whats JIMAS?
A couple of weeks ago my son told me that he had heard that our next door neighbour had died a couple of weeks before that. I was absolutely stunned to hear that. I mean if I saw her in the street I would say hello and occasionaly ask after her Kids but not not to know your neighbour had died its hard to believe. People are too busy with their lifes these days you do not even know sometimes for quite a long time that you may have new neighbours or something . I will say hello to my neighbours when I see them.
Mansur, JIMAS is a UK-based islamic organisation. They hold a large annual conference in Leicester every summer.
HM - true, the pace of life is so quick that you don't know who is coming and who is going.
Food always break the ice: give them a plate of whatever you're cooking [so long as it isn't something dodgy like brain]. They'll eat it, think well of you, and probably send your plate back with s ome of their own food. We have friendships on our street built solely because of food exchange. It's amazing :)
TSO - nice idea, but don't you think they'd think it a bit strange if i just turned up on their door step one day with a plate of food? What was your experience?
I would have thought that food should be step 2 after by a hello and a friendly chat.
People are quite receptive to food. But yes, obviously not from a complete stranger so you should probably introduce yourself beforehand and not just shove a plate of curry at them.
Oh and if you wheel your neghbours bin out for them when they forget then binmen are coming they really appreciate it aswell!
Well, I'm nice to our old neighbours and occassionally say hello to the rest.
We had a neighbour who attempted to be friendly.. too friendly to me and my sisters. It was quite uncomfortable. So by all means, friendliness is great, just within limits!
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