A Lebanese Christian Policewoman

Here I am, sitting at my computer after a rather eventful night. My name is Christina Abdul-Hamid, and I'm a woman with a story to share with you. I was born in the City of Hasbaya in the Republic of Lebanon, but raised in the City of Ottawa, Province of Ontario. My parents, Phillip Abdul-Hamid and Annabelle Mansur moved to the Confederation of Canada in the mid-1980s, fleeing the Lebanese Civil War. This protracted conflict they fled from occurred between Lebanese Christians and Lebanese Muslims and almost obliterated this beautiful country in which I was born. Of course, my folks left the country in 1987, a year after I was born. Some people who know me say that I am more Canadian than Lebanese. Um, can't I be both?

I work for the Ontario Provincial Police as a Constable. The O.P.P. has come under fire from the Government of liberal Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty for their lack of racial and gender diversity. Ninety nine percent of all police officers in the Ontario Provincial Police were Caucasian males up until recently. They started hiring more women and more men from non-Caucasian backgrounds. These changes have affected the O.P.P. a lot and not everybody is happy about that. As a Lebanese Canadian woman, I am forever walking between worlds. I stand five feet eleven inches tall, and I'm not exactly skinny. In high school, I used to wrestle on the guys team. I amassed twenty four victories and six losses during my senior year on the wrestling team. Mind you, I was in the 210-pound weight class. That was almost a decade ago. I've put on a few pounds since then. That's okay, because I am damn proud of my body. The majority of women living in today's world aren't skinny women. Curvy is becoming the new normal. If the manufacturers listened to real women instead of gay guys who know nothing about us, they'd realize that curves are definitely in.

Anyhow, I haven't been on the Ontario Provincial Police force too long. I worked for the Ottawa Police Service for two years before getting hired by the Ontario Provincial Police. Before that, I studied in the police foundations program at Algonquin College. I spent three years earning a Bachelor's degree in Criminology from Carleton University before I realized that a police foundations diploma would impress those bozos in the police force far more than a Carleton University degree, which would intimidate and alienate them. That's a sad truth about life in Canada. University is valued more than college, but lately, it's the college graduates who have been getting the good jobs while the university graduates can't find work in their fields after graduation. A sad case of being overqualified and unemployable. I found myself in that trap and fought my way out of it. If that surprises you, welcome to Canada. Enjoy your stay.

People mistake me for so many things when they meet me. For starters, because I'm a tall chubby chick in a police uniform, people are surprised that I am actually friendly. Of course I'm friendly and easygoing. I can outshoot most of the guys on the police force and I am VERY strong physically. Oh, yeah. I can bench-press three hundred and ten pounds. I'm talking about dead lifting here. Just picking up the weights and lifting them right above my head. Oh, yeah. I'm a chick and I can do that. I used to play rugby at Carleton University and I played on the women's soccer team at Algonquin College during my time there. What can I say? I love contact sports. I don't follow hockey. I love football, though. I spent one semester in the City of Boston, Massachusetts, and fell in love with the New England Patriots football team. Football is definitely my favorite sport. I support the Toronto Argonauts in the Canadian Football League. I wish the Canadian Football League would expand and be taken as seriously as the National Football League but Canadians love football about as much as Americans love soccer. It is just not going to happen.

For some reason, a lot of people think that I'm Hispanic when they meet me. Also, some of the Arabs I encounter shoot me dirty looks when they see a silver crucifix hanging around my neck. I always display it. I am an Arab woman, a police officer and a Christian. The Lord Jesus Christ is my savior. I am a proud Lebanese Christian woman. That's my faith and I'm not like those foolish Western women willing to change their faith because they believe the seductive lies told to them by Muslim men who want to control them. My family and I have lost relatives to attacks by the Muslims during the Lebanese Civil War. My uncle Louis Abdul-Hamid was leading a Christian militia in defense of Christian neighborhoods in southwestern Beirut when he got shot down by Hezbollah. It galls me that Lebanese Muslims sided with the Syrians against Lebanese Christians when these absolutely ruthless, dirty dogs came to the Republic of Lebanon. In hindsight, that really shouldn't surprise me. Muslims will side with other Muslims against their own countrymen because they have no loyalty to country or flag, only religion. The sooner Western society realizes that about them, the better off we'll be.

I lead a highly stressful life because of all the things I have to do. My parents are getting close to retirement age. They're in their late fifties, and they are constantly bugging me to introduce them to a nice young man. Well, how do I tell them that nice young men aren't attracted to tall, butch-looking women in police uniforms? I can't recall the last time anyone asked me out. The last time I got laid, I think McCain was running for the White House in America. So, um, yeah, it's been a while for me. I came into this world on November 7, 1986. I was born under the sign of the Scorpio, which doesn't make me exactly easy to deal with. I try to socialize, I really do. Lately, I've been going to a Lebanese Christian Church in the east end of Ottawa. It's where I met someone who changed my life forever.

The person in question is Omar Jonathan Boukari, a six-foot-tall, well-built and ruggedly handsome gentleman hailing originally from the City of Gayeri in Burkina Faso. Omar, called O.J. by his friends, was in the graduate program in civil engineering at Carleton University. He was a Catholic, judging by the ornate ( to the point of being pimp-style) cross hanging around his neck. I met him at the late summer festival that the Lebanese Christian community of Ottawa organizes every year. A four-day festival celebrating The Virgin Mary. This year they had it in the east end of Ottawa. I got dragged there by my cousin Gerald Abdul-Hamid and his new wife, a sassy Jamaican chick named Yvonne Marshall. They forced to come with them, and I wore a dress for the first time in a year or so. Dressed in a white T-shirt featuring Eminem and a knee-length red skirt, I looked alright. As a lifelong tomboy, high heels aren`t my style so I went with Adidas running shoes.

At the festival, I tried my best to mingle with acquaintances old and new. I saw my former classmate Rebecca Muhammad and her new husband, a muscular, blond-haired German guy named Hauser. Rebecca and I were in the Christian Students Association at Carleton University. She studied business administration and I went for Criminology. She works for the Royal Bank of Canada as an account manager now. She seemed very happy and very pregnant. Good for her and that Hollywood hunk-style husband of hers. I ran into Troy Hussein, a sexy guy I once had a crush on. He came to the festival with his wife Amanda, a red-haired French Canadian woman. I also saw my friend Colleen Ahmad with her boyfriend Tony Yamamoto, a Japanese guy she met at her real estate job in Toronto.

It seems that Lebanese Christian men and Lebanese Christian women don`t marry each other anymore. We`re going for other races and cultures now. I`ve only dated Lebanese Christian men. Once I went out with Jacob Hassan, a Coptic Christian guy from Egypt but we had no chemistry. I later saw him holding hands with Pablo, a gay Mexican guy so I can see why we wouldn`t have worked out. I avoid the other Arab guys because they`re shady underneath their charm and generosity and will inevitably try to get you to join Islam if you date them. As a Lebanese Christian woman who lost beloved family members to Lebanese Muslim treachery during the Lebanese Civil War, I cannot share my life or my bed with a Muslim man. Sorry, but that`s the way it has to be. You kill my people in the name of your vengeful, sexist and intolerant God, I can`t love you. Hell, I don`t even want to know you.

I stood at the festival, watching the couples and families enjoying themselves while sipping on my Pepsi. While standing there, someone approached me. A tall, good-looking guy in a red silk shirt and blue jeans. Dude had a big cross hanging around his neck and I figured someone might have let a wannabe rapper into the festival. Some young Lebanese Canadians came to the festival with their African and Asian friends but this guy wasn`t the right age to be one of them. He was in his mid to late twenties. The tall Black man smiled at me and asked me if I had a light. In his hand he held a menthol cigarette. I nonchalantly told him I didn`t smoke, but took out my lighter and lit his cigarette anyway. He thanked me, then asked me why I had a lighter if I didn`t smoke. I smiled and told him I was a recovering pyromaniac. He grinned broadly and told me he liked to play with fire. We both laughed at that. Holding out his hand, he introduced himself as O.J. Boukari of Burkina Faso, the Land of Upright Men.

When I heard the name Burkina Faso, I looked at him and wrinkled my nose. Hesitantly I introduced myself as Christina. I didn't know much about Burkina Faso other than it was a Muslim majority country in Africa and they spoke French down there as a result of having been a colony of France. O.J. seemed most eager to tell me about his country. He told me that along with Ethiopia, Senegal, Eritrea and South Africa, Burkina Faso was one of a few African countries where both Christians and Muslims respected each other and lived under a democratic, secular constitution guaranteeing freedom of religion and civil rights for all citizens. O.J. told me that his father, Mohammed Boukari, was once a Muslim, heck, he was an Imam, but he converted to Christianity in the early 1980s, before marrying Mohammed's mother, Elisabeth Etienne, a Christian woman from the Republic of Haiti who worked for the United Nations in Burkina Faso. I looked at O.J. like he had two heads. What the fuck? As far as I knew, Muslims had an obligation to kill anyone, man or woman, who left Islam for another religion. It was the punishment for Apostasy. O.J. told me that his people, the Burkinabe, weren't like other Africans. The Burkinabe people were largely secular in their mindset. Economics were seen as more important to them than religion.

I looked at O.J. suddenly fascinated. Wow. The catholic son of a Burkinabe man who converted from Islam to Christianity and married a Haitian woman. Now there's something you don't hear every day. O.J. smiled and told me he was going to get some food. Impulsively, I told him I'd accompany him. We got some tasty dishes, including cheese bread prepared the Lebanese way, some Shawarma wrapped properly and some pate before going to sit under a tent together. We washed down our food with Pepsi, and O.J. and I learned a bit more about each other. He told me he'd gotten invited to the Lebanese festival by his buddy Joseph Khalid, whom he met at Carleton University. When I asked him where his friend was, O.J. pointed to a tall, skinny Arab guy engaged in deep conversation with a short Chinese woman. He waved at O.J. but otherwise remained focused on the Chinese broad he was with.

Upon seeing yet another Lebanese Christian man interested in a woman who clearly wasn't Lebanese, I sighed. O.J. asked me if I was okay and I nodded. Following my gaze, he saw his buddy Khalid holding hands with the Chinese chick and smiled knowingly. I saw the coy look in his eyes and glared at him. What? O.J. smiled and asked me if I had a problem with interracial dating. Through gritted teeth, I told him that people were free to date whoever they wanted. These days, Arab men are fascinated by women of every race, except for us Arab women. They chase White women, Black women, Asian women and even Native women but don't bother with us Arab ladies because they consider us to be boring. Yet they get mad if they see an Arab woman with a man who isn't Arab. The ultimate double standard. I told all this to O.J. who nodded, saying that in the Black community, it was the same thing but in reverse. That puzzled me. As far as I knew, men everywhere allowed themselves more liberties in dating than women did. O.J. laughed and said that among Black folks, the women felt they could date men of any race, especially White men, but they got mad when they saw a Black man with a woman who wasn't Black. I licked my lips. Really? Hmmm. That's different.

O.J. looked me in the eyes and told me that he dated Black women, Asian women, Hispanic women and even Native women in his time. What mattered to him was a lady's personality and how she treated him, not her skin tone. I nodded at that. Well said, I guess. I smiled at him and told him that I've only dated Arab men so far, but lately, since they're deserting us Arab women for women of other races, maybe I should reconsider my options. O.J. smiled and told me that a beautiful woman like ought to have no trouble finding someone. I laughed, and told him it had been a LONG time since a guy told me I was beautiful. Don't know why I was so honest with him but, I don't know, I felt comfy talking to him. O.J. told me that Ottawa men were fools for letting pretty lady like me go unattended. Guy had me blushing with the compliments, but hey, I liked it.

We talked for hours, oblivious to the families, couples and brats running around, or the male singer singing in Arabic in the background. At the end of it, I learned a lot about O.J. and he knew a lot about me. It amazed me how much we had in common. He is Burkinabe and I am Lebanese, and we are both proud Christians from majority Muslim nations. We're both immigrants, in a way. I too was born outside of Canada, even though my passport and driver's licence say Canadian, and I speak English and French without any foreign accents. My Lebanese, which I speak fluently, is heavily accented. O.J. surprised me by telling me he was glad to meet me in Arabic. Apparently, there were Arabs living in Burkina Faso and he learned Arabic from them. Hmmm. This man was full of surprises, and he wasn't hard on the eyes either. When O.J. asked me for my number, I didn't hesitate. What can I say? I was feeling this guy. There's just one thing. When we discussed our jobs, he told me he was a civil engineering intern with Black and Mac, and I told him I worked for the government. I don't know why but I didn't tell him I was a cop.

I went home that night with a smile on my face. Guess who texted me that same night? O.J. the sexy brother from Burkina Faso. He called me that same night, and we ended up spending another sixty five minutes talking to each other. Finally I told him that I had to go to bed. Seriously. I work the seven to three shift as a patrol officer for the Ontario Provincial Police. In passing, I told Omar Jonathan Boukari that I worked for the police and he told me that was an exciting job. I was thrilled by his reaction. Men act funny when a woman tells them she's with the police. O.J. was cool, so when he asked me to grab a bite and catch a movie with him, I was cool with it. The summer of 2012 was winding down. I didn't really do much except go to Buffalo for a couple of weeks, where I mostly stayed in my hotel room. I need some excitement in my life, and O.J. might be just what the doctor ordered. He's kind of cute, too. Maybe we can have some fun together, you know? I went to bed that night with a big smile on my face. I'm actually glad I went to the Lebanese Christian festival. If I hadn't, I wouldn't have met O.J. I have a good feeling about this one.