Personal Interests

 I enjoy a variety of activities, such as drawing, painting, photography, wearing makeup, and dressing up. Clearly, all of these activities center around art and the aesthetics of artistic expression. We had nothing better to do as kids than watch our parents go about their daily lives as we imitated them and gradually developed into their younger versions. Naturally, I always want to do everything my mom does when she gets dressed, matches her outfits, or puts on cosmetics. Therefore, I began learning how to dress and apply makeup at such a young age. My family thought that with time this would die down and I would not be into makeup as much as I do, but they thought wrong.

Since my love for fashion started at such a young age, I never grew out of it. Instead, I became curious about all the different styles and traditional clothing that are out there in the world. Most importantly I grew more curious about my traditional clothing, the Sudanese Toub. While many Sudanese women avoid wearing the Toub, my mom was always a strict wearer of it. This made me imitate her in wearing it and always putting it on me and pretending to be a grown woman.

Unfortunately, even though the United Arab Emirates is a wonderful place to be born and nurtured, growing up so far away from my home country of Sudan caused me to lose contact with it. I despised wearing the Toub on "international" days because I was always the only Sudanese person representing Sudan, especially after attending an international school and having hardly any Sudani friends in school. As the sole representative of my country, this meant that I was the center of attention. However, I usually misinterpreted this and believed that people were staring at me because my traditional attire was odd or unattractive. As time passed, and I joined a bigger school with more Sudanese friends who helped me admire our traditions, I became extremely obsessed with the Toub. On international days my friends and I would match our Toubs and create a Sudanese dance that always excited the public and raised the curiosity of the Sudanese culture.

 I cherished the feeling of representing the gorgeous Toub while educating people about my country and elaborating on the significance of our traditions. This inspired me to launch a blog where I may constantly feel this way and inform people about Sudanese fashion and culture.