The Guidance Charter School Grand Opening

Ammarah's first stab at writing an article for InFocus

By Ammarah Shaikh

A small school named the Guidance Charter Elementary School first opened its doors in 2000. Initially there were few students attending the first year, six years since, the school has tripled its enrollment with many students on a waiting list. During those years the school has moved to numerous locations, now it finally has a permanent home next to the Antelope Valley Mosque.

Arabic lessons set Guidance Charter School apart from many other schools in America. Gamila Habib, the Arabic teacher, says, “I think the new campus is great, I’m especially happy because most of my students can read Arabic.”

The Director of the school, Kamal al-Khatib, said, “This day would have never happened had it not been for the efforts of Gaber Mohammed. He was one person, who made it possible for us to be here today.” He was one of the key founders of the school and had struggled to charter the school. He had passed away in 2004, and now the computer lab is named to honor and remember his efforts.

Ammarah Shaikh is a 12 year old, Sixth Grade student attending Guidance Charter School

Half "Done" at Yosemite- Affad's Roadtrip

I called Mohammed on his bluff and the fool e-mailed me his itinerary from South Carolina to San Diego Airport- and in that instant I was snared into a weekend road trip with the wackiest bunch of people you can imagine- and the worst part of the ordeal was that the goal of the trip was to climb the infamous Half Dome.

There are really two ways to see Yosemite, by car in the happy valley and meadows in the villages of Curry and Yosemite, or the actually involved process of climbing to the top of Half Dome and the many other trails that lie in the National Park. Most people are content with the first mode of sight seeing, but my happy friends and I were very much interested in climbing the 8846 foot granite dome, which involved a 8 mile hike up and down on a hike that was gruelling and not for the light hearted or the out of shape- me.



The most sublime and incredible views of waterfalls, and the river, sheer mountain cliffs and meadows dot the entire journey up to Half Dome, but I have to admit, none of this soothes the pain that one feels hiking up this monster trail, to add salt to the wound, not making it up to the top of half dome is an incredible shame.

Its one of those sad stories- literally its a sad and pathetic state of physical and mental reality I am in- I didn't have the amount of pain and problems climbing up Angles Landing and Clouds Rest at Zion National Park as I did here, and the old ladies and six year old girls climbing to the top doesn't make me feel any better, and no bag of M&M's would allow me to survive this hike.

Half Dome starts off as a very innocent walk in the park especially as you go up to Vernal Falls, the first spectacular part of the hike is defiantly breath taking, and only gives an inkling of what lies ahead- ie, the distance the water is tumbling down is only half the distance to the top of where you have to go in order to get a third of the way close to Half Dome. All this is taken with jokes and a generally good mood.

Read more on my travel blog- Traveling while Muslim.