Retirement a time to relax and enjoy yourself

Rasha al Raisi -

Growing up in the Arab world, retirement seemed to be the most unpleasant experience that could ever happen to you. Upon hearing the news that someone they know is retiring, people would hold their breath and click their tongues, as if he or she had contracted an untreatable disease.

The Arabic cinema’s way of depicting it made it even worst. The typical image of a retired man would be the legendary actor Farid Shawqy wearing a grey safari suit, wandering the streets with a long face and an unsteady gait as if about to get a heart attack, while in the back ground, you’d hear a melancholic Oud music. I still remember the day mom broke the news that my dad was retiring. Being her practical self, she’d mentioned it casually while she drove us home from grandfather’s house.

I gasped as the melancholic Oud music started playing in my head, wondering loudly if we’ll become poor (with possible scenarios of me having to leave school and work to support the family). Of course, mom chided me saying to stop being silly.

It was during my years of travelling and living abroad that I started to understand the concept of retirement, according to the western world. It was the time to relax and enjoy yourself, doing all the things that you’d wanted to do but never had the time for.

I mention this as I shared two weeks of Spanish classes with three amazing retired people. The first two were a lovely pair of Canadian ladies called Nichole and Suzan, from Ottawa. Both are in their 70s, retired and been close friends since forever. The ladies decided to come and brush up their Spanish language skills just for the fun of it, and were living with different host families (so that they practice their Spanish language instead of chatting automatically in French, which they did so elegantly while explaining things to each other in class).

Suzan always made fun of the fact that she’ll never be able to learn all the vocabulary as there was no much time left for her. She was the only one in class who enjoyed grammar while the rest of us grumbled about the forever changing verb forms.

The other admirable retired man is Akiwa, the retired Japanese engineer who’s 66 years old. In the first lesson in the Spanish class, he declared that he had two reasons to learn Spanish. The first was to achieve his ultimate dream of visiting Iquitos in Peru, the upstream of the Amazon river, to meet the natives who share similar believes to his Shinto religion. And the second reason was to fulfil a national duty, as Japan is hosting the 2020 Olympic games. They’ll be in need of interpreters who speak different languages, and he’ll be happy to offer his services.

In a presentation class, Akiwa presented the art of origami (using colourful paper to create figures). He demanded absolute silence for five minutes while he did a demonstration. He kept folding and unfolding the paper, while humming and we just watched in pure fascination.

The end result was a swan, that made us clap enthusiastically. He then explained that while making the swan, he was praying for our health and prosperity. The art of origami is used as a healing aid in Japan, where people would gather in a sick person’s room and make up to 1,000 swans, while praying for his speedy recovery. Akiwa is planning to make hundreds of swans next week, when visiting his friend who’s dying of cancer here. I pray it helps.

Rasha al Raisi is a certified skills trainer and the author of: The World According to Bahja. rashabooks@yahoo.com