By BETHANY SHERROW
Features Editor

(WARRENSBURG, Mo., digitalBURG) — Ahmad Mubarak isn’t afraid to move 7,579 miles from home. He isn’t afraid to buy and sell cars whenever he feels like it. He isn’t afraid to travel anywhere he wants to, and he definitely isn’t afraid to put his homework off in order to spend time exploring Kansas City with friends. Mubarak said his experience at UCM has by far surpassed his expectations.

PHOTO SUBMITTED BY AHMAD MUBARAK
The Grand Canyon is one of many places Ahmad Mubarak has toured around the United States while studying at UCM.

“My goals were just mainly to get a degree, have some fun and travel a little bit,” said the native of Dubai, United Arab Emirates. “I exceeded all of that.”

Mubarak has visited Washington, D.C., New York, Chicago, Houston, Dallas, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego during the past four years. He’s also been to the Grand Canyon and took a road trip down to the southernmost point in the continental U.S., in Key West, Florida. He said Florida is one of his favorite destinations and that he’s considered attending graduate school there.

Mubarak said he enjoys visiting big cities and that he expected to be in one when he came to America. Warrensburg was not anything that he was anticipating.

“I wasn’t expecting a farm or cows and grass everywhere,” he said. “I’d never known that actually exists. I didn’t think there were actually little small towns where there isn’t a mall. You can’t go shopping somewhere. Like, they call the small places here malls – I don’t think so. I mean, we’re lucky we have a movie theater here.”

He said he was expecting the type of America he had seen in movies. Even though he said he hated Warrensburg his first year, Mubarak said he loves it here now.

“I prefer to stay in Warrensburg,” he said. “If you asked me now, ‘Do you want to go back home or stay here,’ I would prefer to stay here. I think it’s more fun, there isn’t much to do but it is more fun to stay here. The people are amazing, that is something.”

Many of the friends Mubarak has made in Warrensburg have been through his fraternity Phi Sigma Pi.

“I received an email, and I wasn’t sure that they meant to send it to me because I am an international student, and I’d never heard of international students joining frats or sororities; I never knew,” Mubarak said. “I went, did some interviews, and everyone loved me and stuff. So I met like 95 percent of all my friends in the U.S. through PSP, and I have friends from other chapters in other states. I’ll go and say ‘hi’ to them when I travel.”

Mubarak said joining PSP was a turning point for him because he made hundreds of friends through the fraternity and that being an international student, he has a lot of free time. He calls PSP his main hobby.

He joined the fraternity his second semester at UCM. During his first semester, Mubarak said he spent most of his time trying to figure out how to be on his own in a new country.

“There is this thing with mostly the Arab students, not all international students, but Arabs,” he said. “I would say you’ve got to get used to depending on yourself. Back home, we have everything just lying there, and we have maids. We have people to wash our clothes, do our dishes.

“This is funny, but the first time in my life that I washed my own clothes, was in 2012. I remember that. I’m not going to forget it. I’d never done that in my life, washing the dishes. Taking care of yourself, your food, your clothes, just doing it yourself, this is all new to us.”

Mubarak said he sees the value of doing things himself, and he feels like he has grown a lot by living abroad.

“Whenever I go back home and I have all these friends that I’ve had my whole life since we were in kindergarten, they will still have that mentality,” he said. “They didn’t go out, discover and meet people. They’ve been together this whole time. So, maybe they’re like still childish even though they are 22 or 23. I understand it sometimes, but now I see the difference between me and them. It’s a whole different experience.”

Even though in many ways Mubarak said he prefers his life in America now, he is still looking forward to going home to the UAE after graduation in May and beginning his new job.

He has his first career lined up as a manager at Etihad Airways in the UAE. He said he is excited to start his career, which will have him relocate every few years to a different airport around the world.

“I will meet a lot of frustrated people who’ve missed their planes and having problems with their baggage,” Mubarak said. “All types of problems, and you have to solve them. That is something I really like, even the stress. I don’t know why, but I enjoy it. I like working on something, trying to figure it out, especially if I love it.”

Mubarak is looking forward to moving around the world and having a job that changes every day. He aspires after this type of career, which reflects a common expression in Arabic that he lives by.

“I do have some wisdom in Arabic,” he said about his native tongue. “I don’t know if I can actually translate it in a good way. It means that nothing stays the same. That is always in my mind, and it actually makes sense for a lot of stuff. Nothing stays the same. It applies to everything.”

He said he keeps the mantra in his mind all the time, especially since his father died four months ago.

“Nothing stays the same actually, it just doesn’t,” he said. “Just like knowing it and believing in it, in my opinion it makes a lot of stuff easy on you. So, like you see my father passed like maybe four months ago. But, none of us could see it coming, but again it all goes back to, ‘Nothing stays the same.’ He’s going to be with us, but there is a time that he will go.”

Mubarak said he has enjoyed his time at UCM and it doesn’t feel like it has been four years, but he will be ready when the time comes to move on.

“I know that whenever I move somewhere else things will change again,” Mubarak said. “Life just changes, and you’ve got to be OK with it because that’s the other part of it.

“You cannot not be OK with it. You have to be OK with it because, basically for the most part, you cannot do anything to change it. It’s out of your control.”