The End is in Sight

Salaams,

So as you should know by now, i have been incredibly busy recently with work and exam prep. This, this and this amongst other things have been occupying me at work but alhamdulilla i am genuinely finding it all interesting so that's good.

Anyway on the exam front, the end is indeed in sight with the exam on this coming Saturday...as i think i mentioned, my workplace is pretty much making me do a course which will help me in my job...the problem is that most people do it as part of their course when at uni or when they're working part time...not when they're already doing a 60hr week...! Plus on top of that it's supposed to be a killer exam which requires 250hrs of study and ends up with only 35% of people sitting it passing...

I've tried to do as much as i can on it, and today i did a mock exam at the training centre and alh did OK, but this final week is gonna be make or break time. However, having spent all this time studying for this exam and spending all this time at work, i'm thinking more and more about the purpose of it all. What's the pont? essentially. If we Really do believe this life is a transitory phase, why are we willing to put soooo much effort for this finite world, but very little for the infinite hereafter...? It's not uncommon for people at uni to do 12 hr revision days for a good couple of weeks, but when do we think it needy to spend that amount of time preparing for the hereafter...? I mean how many hours per week to we purposely set aside for Deeni affairs? What % of hours from the week is this..? Of course there's nothing wrong in seeking comfort in this life; rabbana athina fidhunya hasana etc, but getting the balance and getting the priorities right is key, and this is something i think most, including foremost myself, need to re-evaluate...


Wow, got all a bit serious there...anyway, iA after my exams i should be going to New York for a week with work so quite looking forward to that. However, as ever, i've been told it will be quite busy so won't really get much time to check things out but iA i'm gonna fly a day early and meet up with a bro i met in Jordan so there should be Some time to chill out.

Anyway, the zzzzs are calling.

Salaam.

Letter From Egypt: Looking for nostalgia in a glass of juice

Salaam


Nice Article :


There appears to be a particular way to drink sugarcane juice. Standing outside the most popular sugarcane shop in Cairo, customers carefully hold the tall, slim glass between their thumb and forefinger, examine the milky green liquid as though eyeing something valuable, then chug it down.

There always seems to be a crowd hovering around the one-room open storefront on Salah Salem Street in Old Cairo. No line, just a crowd: men, women and children, Muslim and Christian, veiled and unveiled, poor and rich, all day long.

"I am born here," said Ali Muhammad, 52, as he wiped white foam from his top lip. "Everything has changed in this neighborhood. But this juice shop, it is still the same."



Salaam

Ali Baba

Salaams,

Well with the remarks from the Fake Sheikh spurring me on (he is currently residing at the flat…..did I not mention “The Naked Lady Problem” is leading to lots of people coming to the flat…he’s just flown from Qatar for it..! lol) , this is my second entry in the last few weeks which, as you all know, is pretty good by my standards

Anyway, fancy going to Ali Baba's anyone…? Just thought would write about this little Egyptian restaurant we’ve discovered right next to where we live (literally a minutes walk) which we are now visiting quite regularly. Its pretty small and looks like they've just converted their house and seems like a classic little family run restaurant you would find in some little town in Egypt…it seems to give off that vibe. The mother of the family is the main chef and her daughters are the waitresses etc…and the men of the house…? Their upstairs watching TV and smoking sheesha….ok, so even though thee atmosphere maybe of a family run restaurant, I don't think this is how they are all run in Egypt.


When we first went, we made the comment that in this respect Asians are very different to Arabs. Like this restaurant for example. In the Asian community (tradionally anyway) the Worst thing that can happen is for the women folk in your family having to work, and especially serve other people (mainly men) to make money. It would be seen as a great "dishonor" and would imply that the men folk can’t provide for their family, and that’s why the women are having to work…(kind of makes sense, if you think about it…) Also the fact that they are working serving mainly random men would not look great on them and their family. So this restaurant all seemed a bit bizarre – that the mother figure ( who is quite elderly actually) is slaving away in the kitchen cooking lots of meals and her daughters are running around taking orders, cleaning tables etc, whilst the men of the family just do nothing. Does the husband not think that it's quite bad for his wife to be slaving away like this…? Does he not care his daughters are running around the restaurant with loads of men oogling at them (their mostly arab after all)…I don't get it, but this is the way it is. Obviously I'm making a lot of rash judgements here - I don't know their family circumstances, I don't know why the women are working and men do nothing…I'm just saying what I see (as the guy in "Catchphrase" used to say…Lol) and it all seems pretty bad.


Anyway, aside from the analysis, they make some good food..! Lol. And recently I have started chatting to them in Arabic, and got the mandatory questions with it “Are you Muslim? Noooo... are you sure? How do you pray?" etc etc…, and I mentioned I was in Egypt for a while, I had visited Alexandria (this is where they're from) etc and so now that we’re on good relations, hey presto, I get extra meat in my kebabs!


Let the Egyptian women work away in their restaurants, no complaints from me…!

Salaam
PS, just to clarify "The Naked Lady Problem"…this isn't some kind of "in-joke"…we do have a naked lady problem. Basically one of our neighbours on the opposing building likes to walk around her room, naked, with the curtains opened. Yes. So as you can imagine, this is a problem (hence "The Naked Lady Problem). Thankfully it's not on my side of the building, but if you go to wash the dishes you had better be careful…! Lol. So, as you can imagine, the washing is always done these days..! Lol. Nah, I'm messing. Thankfully though she has stopped doing it now as she hasn't been spotted for a while. All the brothers in the flat are viewing this whole thing as a test from God (mA, mA). So nice try Naked Lady. But no thank you.