"Where are you from?" "Seven." "How old are you?" "Iraq." (Just clarifying, you're interchanging the two answers for comedic relief right? Even so it might be slightly better to move the pair with 'Iraq' in it to the very beginning. It helps to catch the attention of the reader as early as possible, and in your case it can be done without substantial changes) I was hunched down on the floor of a cramped, decrepit, two-room apartment in the housing projects, endeavoring to converse with two Arabic-speaking boys who had recently been granted political asylum in the United States. Their father, who arrived in the United States two years prior and gained proficiency in English shortly thereafter, looked on with a smile. (You could lose a few words in the preceding sentence, if you really needed to. eg.'Their father, a two-year old Immigrant...') One never would have guessed that he was ('had been' would be better, to give a sense of relative time) forced by militants to abandon two thriving businesses in Iraq and was now struggling to provide for his family on a part-time, minimum wage income. "Ig-gayyaat ahsan min ir-rayhhaat," he declared. "What is coming is better than what is gone." (Just an idea, perhaps you could reveal the meaning of the proverb only at the end; might be an interesting wraparound ending that makes the reader come back to the top...)

The father's Old World wisdom was remarkably prescient; within six months of meeting his boys, I had them speaking conversational, albeit broken English. ('With me') Serving as their tour guide, the father and his boys explored the Amish countryside, an amusement park, and a local zoo. The mother, a hijab-clad woman who had(Once again, relative time) never failed to welcome me into her home with a kind "asalaamu alaikum" and a hot cup of coffee, was noticeably absent from our far-flung adventures. While her family thrived, the soft-spoken, hazel-eyed woman suffered in silence.

Several years prior, Jamaat Ansar al-Sunna guerrillas used the threat of execution to force her family to leave Iraq. By the time I was introduced to her at a tutoring program for immigrants, she was disillusioned and depressed, having spent the past two years in refugee camps across the Middle East. She felt that although learning the American language would allow her to communicate with her doctors and ensure her safety in the event of an emergency, it would be the final nail in the coffin of her former life. Her indignant refusal to learn the American language and become accustomed to the area were manifestations of her futile belief that her husband would soon "come to his senses" and allow the family to return to their native land.

The inner-humanity in me prompted me to challenge the mother's belief that life in "Amreeka" entailed letting go of Iraq. To quote Mother Teresa, "Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity. It is just about love."

My first target was the family's taste buds, which had been seriously deprived of Iraq's decadent fare (if their cereal-and-soda diet served as any indication). Their response was nothing short of hysterical when I arrived at their apartment bearing gifts of fresh Kanafeh and Kleicha, Mesopotamian treats that I purchased from an international food market. For the mother's birthday, I arranged for a local Imam's wife to prepare the family an exquisite Middle-Eastern meal consisting of hummus and lamb Kebabs. Their gratitude was marked by ear-to-ear smiles that transcended any cultural and linguistic barriers that existed between us.

From then on, I reminded the family that in the United States, Iraq was never far away. In the following weeks, I delivered old Arabic CDs from Amazon, Iraq's new flag, and coffee beans from Baghdad to their home. I then accompanied the family to two cultural festivals - one Arab, one Greek - to show them that the United States' greatest? strength is its plurality of cultures. Equipped with the belief that being American and Iraqi are perfectly compatible, the mother finally agreed to learn English. She mastered vocabulary with the same vitality and spirit that I saw in her boys many months prior.

My experiences with the family have left me with much more than a plethora of Arabic words and phrases hammered into my head. I've learned that the smallest doses of kindness and thoughtfulness can bring the greatest spells of fear and insecurity to an end. It is with this knowledge that the aforementioned adage, a remnant of a noble culture relayed to me, truly comes to life: What is coming is better than what is gone!

"Girls shouldn't play soccer, they'll get too muscular and look like guys!"

Playing with the boys is intimidating. But I've been doing it since I was a scrawny nine year-old, and I was (always?) pretty good at it. I needed to play soccer like I needed to breathe. Even though the boys were getting bigger than me, I had no qualms trying out for the boy's (boys) team as a fourteen year-old.

It started with a simple enough exercise on the field: tryouts for the best club in Doha - the dusty capital of Qatar. The tryouts were on a Thursday afternoon in mid-October. The sun was at its peak and it was blistering. Stepping onto the field felt like walking into a steamy oven. Unlike the rest of the barren city, the field was lush and green like an oasis in the sand. The coaches were huddled together on the sidelines and I assertively approached (approached assertively) .

But stepping on the field to play, I started getting butterflies in my stomach. Not the type you get when you're playing a big game. This was outright anxiety (the preceding sentences might work better as two sentences, not three. connect either to the next - easier reading) . These guys were big. They had the muscles of professional players with tree stumps (trunks) for legs. Their movements were exact and severe, like drills in the army. My heart started beating faster and so intensely('so hard and so fast' would provide better symmetry) I could almost hear it. Every player on the field had a red jersey on. And there I was, in a plain white t-shirt. My confidence was shot. I, for the first time, felt small and self-conscious on the soccer field. And I was reminded of what my dad said: I, being a girl, shouldn't play soccer.
(The usage of 'I, ..., ...' isn't really a common one. Seems awkward, perhaps you could try revising. It might just be cleaner to say 'For the first time, I felt small...')

The ball that had been my friend for so long was now foreign, (;) I couldn't control it. It wasn't curving or bending the way it was supposed to. Drills only lasted fifteen minutes, but each one was excruciating. I finally excused myself, ran to the bathroom and began to sob. It was my lowest moment. My sense of self came from the soccer field and knowing that I could do anything that the guys could do. At that moment I lost it, and I stopped playing.

When I came back to the States as a sophomore in high school, I was too scared to try out for varsity. I was sure I wouldn't make it. I spent the year watching the team play, wishing I were on the field. I was angry but wasn't sure why. It was easier to blame the world than to take responsibility. Still, I knew the fear of failure couldn't feel worse than sitting on the sidelines. And being angry wasn't going to get me back on the field. It slowly and painfully dawned on me that I had it all wrong. It was me who had allowed (let?) other people to shake my confidence. That realization helped me understand the difference between confidence and bravado. My dad's words made me question myself, but they also made me truly confident. I can (could) accept his views as his alone without losing my sense of purpose. As for soccer, I'm back on the field again. But this time, it feels different. It's no longer about impressing coaches or other players. For me, it's about the love of the game.