1. I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to doIs think of me and I
have peace of mindI’m tired of look-
ing ‘round roomsWondering what I’ve
got to do or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything otherthan me
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’vebeen trying to be latelyall I have
to do is think of me and I have peace of
mind I’m tired of looking ‘round rooms
wondering what I’ve got to do Or who
I’m supposed to be I don’t want to be any-
thing other than me I don’t want to be
Anything other than what I’ve been
trying to be lately all I have to do
is think of me and I have peace of mind I’m
tired of looking ‘round roomsWondering
what I’ve got to doOr who I’m supposed
to be I don’t want to be anything other
than me I don’t want to beanything oth-
er than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do is think ofme and I have
peace of mindI’m tired of looking ‘round
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to doIs think of me and I
have peace of mindI’m tired of look-
ing ‘round roomsWondering what I’ve
got to do or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything otherthan me
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’vebeen trying to be latelyall I have
to do is think of me and I have peace of
mind I’m tired of looking ‘round rooms
wondering what I’ve got to do Or who
I’m supposed to be I don’t want to be any-
thing other than me I don’t want to be
Anything other than what I’ve been
trying to be lately all I have to do
is think of me and I have peace of mind I’m
tired of looking ‘round roomsWondering
what I’ve got to doOr who I’m supposed
to be I don’t want to be anything other
than me I don’t want to beanything oth-
er than what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to do Is think of me and I have
peace of mindI’m tired of looking ‘round
the hadaprojectfor everyone whose life is a
“work in progress”
Next on
theGhadaproject
E
ver look in the mirror and think, ‘Who am
I?” well I do, or at least I did. This is not the
typical essay, as I am not the typical girl. Or
does saying that I’m different imply that I’m just
like everybody else? So many questions.
Who am I? What am I doing here? What does
the future hold for me? Girl, you need a chill pill.
Or boy, no discrimination intended. Boys have
identity crises too.
Okay yes, my point, and I do have one, is simple.
People need to stop asking. Stop asking the mir-
ror who you are, only evil queens get away with
that.
Get up, and discover who you are. I did, and this
is my story.
Y
ou read books,you watch movies, you witness
people growing up, and it looks easy, it looks
like its all rainbows and butterflies. But is it? Is it
really? It’s not. It’s really not.
There’s nothing rainbow-y and butterfly-y about this
whole growing up and finding yourself. Trust me, I’ve
done it.
The Merriam Webster Online dictionary define coming
of age as the ‘attainment of prominent, respectability,
recognition or maturity.’
The term was first used in 1916, a ‘coming of age’
story, a story about a young girl growing up in the face
of the adversity she has faced all her life. A young girl
becoming a lady in the eyes of not only the world, but
in her own eyes. This is my coming of age story, the
story of how I grew up.
On November 9th 1994, Ezmiralda
Kabani gave birth to her second child. She
had given birth to a girl, again. This time the
baby was not crying. The baby was smiling.
Who gives birth to a smiling baby? Anyways
they had named her Noor, also known as
light. Apparently she lit up the birthing suite
with her smile, and also she was really
white. For four days, Ezmiralda’s second
daughter was named Noor. On the night of
the fourth day, Ezmiralda’s husband’s mom-
who was also her aunt- walked into the hos-
pital room and said “ Ezmiralda, I can’t say I
accept the fact your first daughter is named
after me but your second isn’t named after
your mom.” About 10 minutes later a new
birth certificate was signed. “Ghada Emad
Mohammed Adham Elhaffar” was my new
name.
Growing up I was always confused.
Why am I in Bahrain if I’m Lebanese? Why
is my father a teacher? Why don’t I have
any brothers? Why do I take the bus to
school every day? As if I questioning myself
wasn’t bad enough, everyone around me
questioned me too. Whether it was students,
neighbors or occasionally even my teach-
ers, I was always defending my right to be a
Lebanese girl at a private Bahraini school.
I was always defending the right to be me.
And that confused me. I blame my mother,
and my grandmother. Confusing me since
day four.
T
o tell you that I have a plan for the rest of my life would be
a lie. I have no idea what I will do after graduation, and the
scary thing is that I dont know what I want to do.
But I have faith, I have faith that the paint will drip in the right place
and I have faith that when the apaint settles and dries, I will have a
pretty life .
I have faith that one day, life will be 100% complete.

2. I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to doIs think of me and I
have peace of mindI’m tired of look-
ing ‘round roomsWondering what I’ve
got to do or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything otherthan me
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’vebeen trying to be latelyall I have
to do is think of me and I have peace of
mind I’m tired of looking ‘round rooms
wondering what I’ve got to do Or who
I’m supposed to be I don’t want to be any-
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’ve been trying to be lately
All I have to doIs think of me and I
have peace of mindI’m tired of look-
ing ‘round roomsWondering what I’ve
got to do or who I’m supposed to be
I don’t want to be anything otherthan me
I don’t want to be anything other than
what I’vebeen trying to be latelyall I have
to do is think of me and I have peace of
mind I’m tired of looking ‘round rooms
wondering what I’ve got to do Or who
I’m supposed
Previously on
theGhadaproject
This past year I lost myself. I was a sophomore in
college, half way done with the beginning of my
life. It was the beginning of the end. Or was it the
end of the beginning? It was something. It was
comings and it was coming fast.And it was scary.
Something was coming fast. It was the future.
It was my future and it was uncertain-uncertain
and scary. I was alone and I was lost. I sat on my
bed thinking about my future. I had graduated
school, wore the gown with IBO stitched on the
satchel, received my diploma and threw my cap
in the air-and I have the pictures to prove it. I had
started university, and two years in I didn’t know
what I wanted to do with the rest of my life .I was
sitting on my bed thinking about my future, and
suddenly, my bed broke. The universe was tell-
ing me ‘STOP THINKING SO MUCH!” so I did.
This was the start of the rest of my life. I was lost,
I really was. Nowhere to go nothing to do, but i
had faith- faith that one day I would find myself.
Nine months and twenty one days later, I did.
This Episode on
theGhadaproject
And Hansel said to Gretel: let us drop these bread crumbs so that
together we can find our way home, because losing our way would be
the most cruelest of things
“whoknowswhattruehappiness?Nottheconventional
wordbutthenakedterror.Tothelonelyhemselvesitwears
amask.Themostmiserableoutcasthugssomememoryof
someillusionofhappiness.
When I walk into the room, I wonder what other people see me as. Am
I the Arab? Am I the international girl? The quiet girl who sits in the front
of the class but never answers any questions? Am I the only sorority girl
who doesn’t have blonde hair and blue eyes? Am I the girl with the weird
fashion sense? The girl who laughs really loud? The girl who doesn’t
talk to anyone? Again with the questions. So many questions, always
so many questions “Have you ever stood in a crowded room where no-
body looks like you?” yes, yes I have. “Since I left the reservation, al-
most every room I enter is filled with people that do not look like me”
.Me too! Although I have never left a reservation, I have left my country.
I was thirty days old when I first landed on Bahraini soil, and yes may-
be Bahrain and Lebanon aren’t that different, but they are different. My
ancestors are a mix of true Arabs and Europeans, mostly Frenchmen.
Bahraini ancestors are mostly Persian with a few Africans. We are alike
but we are also different-and they never let me forget it.On the first day of
my fourth grade year, I walked into Mrs. Ghina’s mathematics class and
as usual I sat in the back of the class with
the same friends I had since kindergarten.
I was surrounded by the same students ,
the same lame ‘1+1=window’ poster , the
same clean blackboard which was in fact
green and the same three words written on
the white board ‘welcome back students!”.
T
oday was different, today there was an extra leather
jacket, today there was an unfamiliar face, today I had
to not only reintroduce myself but today I also had
to defend my right to sit in a class filled with Bahraini
students. I was the quite girl who sat in the back of the
class, occasionally saying a word or two to the people
I’ve known for the past five or six years. Nobody understood why
there was an off looking girl with a funny accent in their class. I had
gone through this in kindergarten and then again in first grade and
by the time I had entered the second grade I had been identifies
as the Lebanese girl. It was okay, I didn’t mind. That’s not true, I
did mind but I was glad they had stopped asking who I was, where
I was from and most importantly what I was doing in their school.
He heard my name ‘Ghada Elhaffar’ and suddenly he was
practically rolling on the floor laughing his behind off.’ Are you
a digger?” he asked. I was hoping he wouldn’t notice. ‘Where
are you from him asked?’ I ignored but someone felt the need
to answer him. He had dropped it until I answered a ques-
tion no one else knew the answer to. ‘shut up”, he said “shut
up before I send you back to your country.” I looked at my pa-
per. That was it. Like Alexie, I was in a class filled with Bah-
raini’s. I felt alone and the funny thing is, I actually was.
I did it all. I did everything a typical teenage
girl would do. I was a tomb-boy and I was an
extra girly girl. I collected BratZ dolls and I
owned roller blades. I played sports; I played
football and volleyball, basketball and I even
played bowling. I took art classes because
it was the cool thing to do, except I liked it.
I loved it. I loved art because art made me
happy. It was strange, this feeling of happi-
ness. ‘True happiness’, smiling with my liver
and all that. I was twelve and I had decided
this is something I want to do for the rest of
my life. Suddenly my life changed because
now I wasn’t the typical teenage girl. Now
I was an artist, and I was happy. I was a
happy artist – and that was my first mistake.