Abeer: Muscat, Oman

This is a picture of my deceased father.  Whoever I am today is due to my father, he helped me build my personality and my principles in life.  Dealing with guys, I have no problem with that.  Most girls are shy, they don’t want to talk to guys, but I have no problem.  I was raised so close to my father and he was the kind of man that everyone was afraid of because he was so strict.  But he showed me his soft side.  So I learned this principle in life that every man has this soft side.

I have to bring the nicest smile to everyone’s life so that the person next to me can show his soft side.  Because in our culture, the men keep their emotions inside, they don’t express them, so I would like to be a person they can speak to.  When I met these guys here at school I learned a lot about how men think and what things we have in common

Personally I keep his picture because he is the only man that I have known that he truly loved me.   Although he passed away ten years ago, I still feel like he is with me.  I carry his picture to remind me of who I am and what I have to do in life.  Sometimes I feel burdened by responsibilities, but he is guiding me in my life, I know what I am going to do and who I am going to be.  Unlike some girls my age, I feel like I have already found myself.