Salaams everyone... hope everyone is doing well like we are over here.... as you can tell by the title, syria has blocked facebook...lol.. it really sucks cause that was the primary way for us to stay in touch with our family and friends...oh well, atleast we have email and this blog. We are back at the Internet cafe today to update our blog, cause we still dont have fast enough internet at our school. One of our teachers was really nice and he gave us a free internet card so we can use dial up, which we have been using to check our email, however its not nearly fast enough to do other things. Today, Sabiha and I are both updating, so there may be some repeat material, but its ok, im sure you wont mind :)
Last time we blogged, we talked about how home sick we were, Alhamd, now we are much better cause the institute we are studying at, planned a little trip for us to get away for a little while. I believe Sabiha is writing about the trip, so I dont want to repeat it, but lets just say, we are back, rejuvenated and ready for our next vacation!!! LOL, just kidding, we are ready for school, i think:) two more days of vacation and we are going to make the most of it, sleep sleep and sleep. LOL, cause once school starts, we will not be getting much of it.
Lots of people coming to Damascus this time of the year, we have met so many people, most we dont know, some we do, sufficient enough to say that our khoja radars are on...lol.. hahaha.... soon the pilgrims will be back from Hajj, so there will be a lot more people here. We have been speaking a lot of arabic the last couple of days, which has impressed a lot of people, considering we have only being studying it for 3 months. Alhamd, sometimes i pray a lot that we can learn a lot, but rarely do I thank Him for what he has blessed us with already, and truly he has... so Alhamd!!!
Today we had KFC...lol.. this is the 2nd time we have had it and it was darn good!! And i was real excited to see the Lakers beat the Suns!!! YES!!! still following the lakers and missing them dearly... no not dearly, DEARLY!!! lol.. and they are playing really well this year, so keep it up!!!
Anyways, gotta run, have already spent an hour here, need to go home and eat some more KFC...lol.. remember us in your prayers!!!
Peace
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
** ootla huloo **
Our two week break is coming to an end really fast and back to school we go on sat! Our break started out quite slow but now its going by super fast. Last sat we had a chance to go to halab (aleppo) - the administrator of our course arranged it for us with a friend of his that had a nice comfortable car as its a bumpy drive there...it takes about 4 hours to get there...it started out with just jaffer and i and the driver...but when the driver found out it was just to of us he asked if he could bring his wife along...i was excited about that as it would be good company for me...so they came to pick us up at 11am...and guess what it turned out it was his wife and 2 kids ( 2 little adorable boys) lol in a 5 seater...but you know what? surprisingly we were still very comfortable...the best part was that they spoke NO ENGLISH so we really got a chance to use our arabic...alhamd we did quite well. it was a smooth journey and they were really welcoming..it wasn't uncomfortable at all...we all had a great time. we spent 2 nights in halab...we found a decent hotel - and that too was a great treat for us! on our way to halab we stopped at raqqa to pay our respects to the companions of our prophet (ammar yasir, and owais e qarani) then drove to halab and checked into our hotel..
the next day the driver came to pick us up...it was just him...and he took us around to visit all the different holy sites...as well as to qila halab and then went to a nice restaurant to have some 'kebab halabee' which was delicious...ohh yes, how could i forget - we also went to the suq for some shopping and believe me our driver taught us how to bargain like we've never before...if it weren't for him, we would have definitely spent double or more than what we ended up spending!
after our whole day of being out - we spent some time in our hotel relaxing - then went out for a walk on the street where our hotel was...there were lots of little shops so t'was nice to browse around...we found this perfume store...and went crazy there...50 syrian pounds for 1 small bottle of authentic name brands of perfums lol lets just say we're well stocked...the 'sahibe dukkan' (shopkeeper) was quite surprised at our arabic considering we've been here for 3 months...so alhamd that was good to hear!
we stopped at a few more places on the way back the next day and then were home on monday...rested on tuesday and then were out again today for our final visits...went to pay our respects to hazrat habil( able ) and KFC! lol its funny that with all the good food we get here sometimes its KFC that just does it...we had it for lunch and brought some home for dinner :)
ilal liqaa ~sabs
the next day the driver came to pick us up...it was just him...and he took us around to visit all the different holy sites...as well as to qila halab and then went to a nice restaurant to have some 'kebab halabee' which was delicious...ohh yes, how could i forget - we also went to the suq for some shopping and believe me our driver taught us how to bargain like we've never before...if it weren't for him, we would have definitely spent double or more than what we ended up spending!
after our whole day of being out - we spent some time in our hotel relaxing - then went out for a walk on the street where our hotel was...there were lots of little shops so t'was nice to browse around...we found this perfume store...and went crazy there...50 syrian pounds for 1 small bottle of authentic name brands of perfums lol lets just say we're well stocked...the 'sahibe dukkan' (shopkeeper) was quite surprised at our arabic considering we've been here for 3 months...so alhamd that was good to hear!
we stopped at a few more places on the way back the next day and then were home on monday...rested on tuesday and then were out again today for our final visits...went to pay our respects to hazrat habil( able ) and KFC! lol its funny that with all the good food we get here sometimes its KFC that just does it...we had it for lunch and brought some home for dinner :)
ilal liqaa ~sabs
Tuesday, December 18, 2007
FINALLY AN UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hello all.... really sorry for no update in so long, but we havent had internet at our school in nearly 5 weeks, and we havent had much time to go to the internet cafe. So if there is someone still reading this blog, God bless you!!!
Alot has happened since the last time we blogged, for starters we took one more set of exams, Alhamd we all did quite well, but now the exams are being put on hold, because the coordinator of the program thinks they are too stressful for the students. So they are going to have a meeting to establish what they need to do that will serve everyone's interests. Sabiha and I dont mind not having exams, definitely means we dont have to focus as much..lol..jk, we are still focusing, we just wont be able to tell how well or bad we are doing. will keep you posted if anything happens.
We are getting a little home sick right now. The other couple went to their homes due to an emergency, and we wish that we could go back too!!! lol, the good thing is that we are home sick at different times, so we cheer each other up. Sabiha is usually missing home during the day, and I am usually home sick at night, so we balance each other out..lol... we were looking at the calender, and we have another 6 months before we can go back, yup you read it right, SIX months..lol.
We are meeting alot of people here tho. 2 weeks ago, we met a cousin of mine that I hadnt seen in 20 years, then the next day met some guy i hadnt seen in 10 years from Dubai... and then last thursday, all the pilgrims on their way to Mecca stopped in Damascus for a day, and we met some cousins and friends. So its really nice. We will meet a lot more people still, as all the pilgrims will stop here again on the way back from Mecca.
Well, trust me there is alot more to right, but dont want to bore everyone... keep checking, really dont know when we will update it again, soon iA. by the way, the Lakers are doing really well, so thats a plus!!!
take care
Alot has happened since the last time we blogged, for starters we took one more set of exams, Alhamd we all did quite well, but now the exams are being put on hold, because the coordinator of the program thinks they are too stressful for the students. So they are going to have a meeting to establish what they need to do that will serve everyone's interests. Sabiha and I dont mind not having exams, definitely means we dont have to focus as much..lol..jk, we are still focusing, we just wont be able to tell how well or bad we are doing. will keep you posted if anything happens.
We are getting a little home sick right now. The other couple went to their homes due to an emergency, and we wish that we could go back too!!! lol, the good thing is that we are home sick at different times, so we cheer each other up. Sabiha is usually missing home during the day, and I am usually home sick at night, so we balance each other out..lol... we were looking at the calender, and we have another 6 months before we can go back, yup you read it right, SIX months..lol.
We are meeting alot of people here tho. 2 weeks ago, we met a cousin of mine that I hadnt seen in 20 years, then the next day met some guy i hadnt seen in 10 years from Dubai... and then last thursday, all the pilgrims on their way to Mecca stopped in Damascus for a day, and we met some cousins and friends. So its really nice. We will meet a lot more people still, as all the pilgrims will stop here again on the way back from Mecca.
Well, trust me there is alot more to right, but dont want to bore everyone... keep checking, really dont know when we will update it again, soon iA. by the way, the Lakers are doing really well, so thats a plus!!!
take care
Monday, November 12, 2007
We have become old!!!
Hello all... salaams.. hope you all are doing well, Alhamd we are doing great here in Damascus!!! As you can tell by the title, we are getting old!! lol, it seems that by the end of the day we are so exhausted that we are in bed by 10.. lol, thats never happened before.. but it is really a long day... as we mentioned in previous blogs we have 10 classes in a day, and by the end of it and after we finish our homework, go for a walk to practice our Arabic, or watch some tv (in arabic) we are pretty exhausted. Its good though cause we are well rested for the next day...
Our classes are going really well, we finished the first book of Arabic and have started the 2nd, which is much bigger then the first, so this one will take some time...and there are no pictures in this one! lol .... But according to our teacher, we are ahead of schedule which is great. Today in our tutorial class we did something interesting... the teacher turned on the tv and we started watching the news. Then he timed us for 3 minutes and told us to write down as many words we could recognize. It was a lot of fun and something different then our regular tutorial. The great thing was that we actually could recognize quite a few words, though because i was writing so fast, I could hardly read my own writing...lol...
So our reading and understanding are getting better, but we are striving to speak better. Though i have to say, for learning arabic for 2 months, we speak quite well, we just need to keep getting and finding more opportunities to practice our speakin... though far from good..we're progressing well :) Sabiha and I went out yesterday and bought little note books that we can carry around and write new words, to practice them in our conversation. Sabiha and I try to speak to each other in arabic at home, though our grammar is terrible and a lot of times we just throw in words in english if we dont know the arabic word.
It is getting colder now, we have started wearing jackets and more layers of clothes, and i hear its only going to get colder. The heating system here is different then what we have ever seen before, obviously...lol. There are these radiator things in every room but the main power switch for them is controlled by the building management. Yesterday they turned it on but unfortunately the heating system doesnt work in our apartment. So the manager said he would come by today to take a look at it, but ofcourse, he didnt. lol.. oh well, hopefully soon, but its not that cold yet, iA they will fix it before it gets much colder....
besides that, all else is good here, pray that we learn well, i know all your prayers are definitely helping us. we still cant believe that we are so close to the Honorable Lady Sayyida Zainab AS. Each day we are amazed and feel lucky that we are in her proximity. They call her the untaught Scholar, because of her wisdom, even though she was never taught. We pray that she will bless us so that we can learn and make her and her family proud, which in turn, most definitely will make Allah SWT pleased with us.
Take care for now and GO LAKERS!!!!!
Our classes are going really well, we finished the first book of Arabic and have started the 2nd, which is much bigger then the first, so this one will take some time...and there are no pictures in this one! lol .... But according to our teacher, we are ahead of schedule which is great. Today in our tutorial class we did something interesting... the teacher turned on the tv and we started watching the news. Then he timed us for 3 minutes and told us to write down as many words we could recognize. It was a lot of fun and something different then our regular tutorial. The great thing was that we actually could recognize quite a few words, though because i was writing so fast, I could hardly read my own writing...lol...
So our reading and understanding are getting better, but we are striving to speak better. Though i have to say, for learning arabic for 2 months, we speak quite well, we just need to keep getting and finding more opportunities to practice our speakin... though far from good..we're progressing well :) Sabiha and I went out yesterday and bought little note books that we can carry around and write new words, to practice them in our conversation. Sabiha and I try to speak to each other in arabic at home, though our grammar is terrible and a lot of times we just throw in words in english if we dont know the arabic word.
It is getting colder now, we have started wearing jackets and more layers of clothes, and i hear its only going to get colder. The heating system here is different then what we have ever seen before, obviously...lol. There are these radiator things in every room but the main power switch for them is controlled by the building management. Yesterday they turned it on but unfortunately the heating system doesnt work in our apartment. So the manager said he would come by today to take a look at it, but ofcourse, he didnt. lol.. oh well, hopefully soon, but its not that cold yet, iA they will fix it before it gets much colder....
besides that, all else is good here, pray that we learn well, i know all your prayers are definitely helping us. we still cant believe that we are so close to the Honorable Lady Sayyida Zainab AS. Each day we are amazed and feel lucky that we are in her proximity. They call her the untaught Scholar, because of her wisdom, even though she was never taught. We pray that she will bless us so that we can learn and make her and her family proud, which in turn, most definitely will make Allah SWT pleased with us.
Take care for now and GO LAKERS!!!!!
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Missin the Lakers!!!
Hello all, pretty cool, much frequent updates...lol... now that we have internet, we check our email every two days and we have decided to take turns updating the blog.. so somedays our blogs will be really short cause not that much to talk about... but atleast updates will be there... btw, leave msgs cause we def read them and appreciate them.
anyways, as the title says, missing the lakers man!!!! since we have been here, the only thing we have missed is family and friends... i used to love watching football, but dont miss that at all, but now that the lakers season has started, really missing the lakers... im more excited to check the scores of the games then i am to check my email..lol. but im glad to see they are off to a good start, especially with Lamar Odom being injured...
as Sabiha mentioned, last friday we had a bbq with all the teachers and their families there, and it was really cool. but the best part of the evening was that we had Camel meat.. lol... they bbq'd camel kabobs and I really enjoyed them. They definitely had a different taste to them, but meat is meat...lol. Being here in Syria, we eat alot more bbq meat then we did back home, its the safer thing to order i think when we go to restaurants... and the Syrian ppl love their french fries, every rest. we have been to has had fries, and it works great for me cause I am a potato and meat man!!! lol.
ALSO.... we watched American Gangster last thursday... yup thats right, last thursday, and it came out in the states on Friday..lol..LOL.. thats soo cool... it was a good movie... as sabiha has mentioned in a previous blog, there is a store here that sells movies, so someone we know picked it up and we borrowed it... pretty cool...
AND... we bought our first Shisha (hooka) today..lol about time huh...lol, i know... it took us two months but we got a really nice one today. We went out with our friend Ebrahim today and he took us to Damascus to buy a good quality one. So we bought everything... the actual Shisha, three flavors of tobacco, foil paper, coal, coal holder... the works.. and for much less then we would have spent for a less then deceent quality shisha back home.
Anyhow, thats it for now... will write more later.
take care!!
anyways, as the title says, missing the lakers man!!!! since we have been here, the only thing we have missed is family and friends... i used to love watching football, but dont miss that at all, but now that the lakers season has started, really missing the lakers... im more excited to check the scores of the games then i am to check my email..lol. but im glad to see they are off to a good start, especially with Lamar Odom being injured...
as Sabiha mentioned, last friday we had a bbq with all the teachers and their families there, and it was really cool. but the best part of the evening was that we had Camel meat.. lol... they bbq'd camel kabobs and I really enjoyed them. They definitely had a different taste to them, but meat is meat...lol. Being here in Syria, we eat alot more bbq meat then we did back home, its the safer thing to order i think when we go to restaurants... and the Syrian ppl love their french fries, every rest. we have been to has had fries, and it works great for me cause I am a potato and meat man!!! lol.
ALSO.... we watched American Gangster last thursday... yup thats right, last thursday, and it came out in the states on Friday..lol..LOL.. thats soo cool... it was a good movie... as sabiha has mentioned in a previous blog, there is a store here that sells movies, so someone we know picked it up and we borrowed it... pretty cool...
AND... we bought our first Shisha (hooka) today..lol about time huh...lol, i know... it took us two months but we got a really nice one today. We went out with our friend Ebrahim today and he took us to Damascus to buy a good quality one. So we bought everything... the actual Shisha, three flavors of tobacco, foil paper, coal, coal holder... the works.. and for much less then we would have spent for a less then deceent quality shisha back home.
Anyhow, thats it for now... will write more later.
take care!!
Sunday, November 4, 2007
nahnu nuhib suriya...
here we are again..from jaffer's post you know our exams went well, definitely a relief that they are over and that we all did well in them...i'm glad the first set of 6 exams are over, though these are probably the easiest one's we'll ever take in terms of content...but at least now we know what to expect...we wont be as anxious anymore...we'll just have to study harder because i'm sure the content will be more intense...
as a 'reward' for our 'mumtaz' test results...we had a bbq last friday...we had a great time and it gave us an opportunity to meet all the families of our teachers...Dr. Hassam (president of the World Federation) as well 'Am Jaffer were here visiting, so it was nice to all get together...there was some really delicious food...and we all (the four of us students) gave a small speech in arabic...they were all pleased to hear us speak quite well, just after 2 months...yes they actually understood us lol...
here's what i had to say (grammar not 100% lol but we're getting there):
s'uhaawil an ataqallam qaleel bil arabiya
i will try to speak a little in arabic
ismi sabiha wa ana min america, wa qablahaa kuntu fi canada - lakin aslan min africa
my name is sabiha and am from the states, but before that i was in canada...originally from africa
ana mutazawwije, wa zawji ma'ee huna fi suriya
i am married, and my husband is here with me in syria
nahnu nuhib suriya jiddan
we really like syria
ana lam urid an akhudh katheer waqt lianna arabiyatee laysa jayid, inshallah fil mustaqbal saufa takun mumtaz.
I dont want to take to much time, because my arabic is not good, but Allah willing it will be excellent in the future.
most of the people there...ie the families of our teachers didn't speak English and so we were forced to practice our arabic...always jump at that opportunity as it is the best way to learn.
anyhow, i still have some wadhifa (homework) that i need to finish up - so i shall pen off...
m'a salaama...with peace
as a 'reward' for our 'mumtaz' test results...we had a bbq last friday...we had a great time and it gave us an opportunity to meet all the families of our teachers...Dr. Hassam (president of the World Federation) as well 'Am Jaffer were here visiting, so it was nice to all get together...there was some really delicious food...and we all (the four of us students) gave a small speech in arabic...they were all pleased to hear us speak quite well, just after 2 months...yes they actually understood us lol...
here's what i had to say (grammar not 100% lol but we're getting there):
s'uhaawil an ataqallam qaleel bil arabiya
i will try to speak a little in arabic
ismi sabiha wa ana min america, wa qablahaa kuntu fi canada - lakin aslan min africa
my name is sabiha and am from the states, but before that i was in canada...originally from africa
ana mutazawwije, wa zawji ma'ee huna fi suriya
i am married, and my husband is here with me in syria
nahnu nuhib suriya jiddan
we really like syria
ana lam urid an akhudh katheer waqt lianna arabiyatee laysa jayid, inshallah fil mustaqbal saufa takun mumtaz.
I dont want to take to much time, because my arabic is not good, but Allah willing it will be excellent in the future.
most of the people there...ie the families of our teachers didn't speak English and so we were forced to practice our arabic...always jump at that opportunity as it is the best way to learn.
anyhow, i still have some wadhifa (homework) that i need to finish up - so i shall pen off...
m'a salaama...with peace
Friday, November 2, 2007
Apologizing once again...lol
Hello everyone... long time no write again, i know... even though we have internet, we still havent been able to update as frequently as we would like. Though this time we have a great excuse... we had EXAMS!!!! such a scary word, but we made it through, Alhamd, but will discuss that in a bit... first a few things to clear up...
On my last blog, I had mentioned about our teachers and the administrators, but it looks like one of the comments was blown out of proportion... so first off, let me explain what a blog is.. it is a place for us to write our experiences and have our families and friends stay in touch with us... secondly, it is a place where we write in a humorous and sometimes sarcastic way, as it is meant to be informal, to keep our readers interested. Can you imagine if the whole blog was serious and boring.. who would read it???? lol...anyway...
so we did have exams this week.. 6 exams over 6 days, one a day... really rough schedule... all exams were in 100% arabic... no english at all... that was challenging but we did great... you want our results??? ok... here they are....
Our first exam was in Arabic - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20.
Our second exam was in Imla - Dictation - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20 (see a trend...lol)
Our third exam was in Qur'an - I got 17/20 (i know, i know, thats the exam i went in the most confident..lol..) Sabiha got 20/20 - Amazing!!!
Our fourth exam was in Hadith - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20
Our fifth exam was in Fiqh - the toughest one I think cause it was all major and long sentences we had to write in arabic and know the rules of religion (which isnt bad, but in arabic its something else.) I got 19.25/20 and Sabiha got 19.75/20.
Last exam was in Comprehension... unfortunately, we havent got the results back. The other couple did really well as well, but its not my place to mention their grades... but they did do really well, Alhamd...
Before i hear any comments, let me be the first one to give props to Sabiha and agree with all of you that she is smarter then i am... thats why i married her :)
Last thing to mention, I have officially stopped shaving and trimming my beard... lol.. dont panic, every week i go to the barber and for 2$ i get a trim and a nice shave.. lol... and if i want a haircut, just another $2... lol.. ok, thats it for now.. ttyl... Sabiha should be writing soon...
On my last blog, I had mentioned about our teachers and the administrators, but it looks like one of the comments was blown out of proportion... so first off, let me explain what a blog is.. it is a place for us to write our experiences and have our families and friends stay in touch with us... secondly, it is a place where we write in a humorous and sometimes sarcastic way, as it is meant to be informal, to keep our readers interested. Can you imagine if the whole blog was serious and boring.. who would read it???? lol...anyway...
so we did have exams this week.. 6 exams over 6 days, one a day... really rough schedule... all exams were in 100% arabic... no english at all... that was challenging but we did great... you want our results??? ok... here they are....
Our first exam was in Arabic - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20.
Our second exam was in Imla - Dictation - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20 (see a trend...lol)
Our third exam was in Qur'an - I got 17/20 (i know, i know, thats the exam i went in the most confident..lol..) Sabiha got 20/20 - Amazing!!!
Our fourth exam was in Hadith - I got 19/20 and Sabiha got 19.5/20
Our fifth exam was in Fiqh - the toughest one I think cause it was all major and long sentences we had to write in arabic and know the rules of religion (which isnt bad, but in arabic its something else.) I got 19.25/20 and Sabiha got 19.75/20.
Last exam was in Comprehension... unfortunately, we havent got the results back. The other couple did really well as well, but its not my place to mention their grades... but they did do really well, Alhamd...
Before i hear any comments, let me be the first one to give props to Sabiha and agree with all of you that she is smarter then i am... thats why i married her :)
Last thing to mention, I have officially stopped shaving and trimming my beard... lol.. dont panic, every week i go to the barber and for 2$ i get a trim and a nice shave.. lol... and if i want a haircut, just another $2... lol.. ok, thats it for now.. ttyl... Sabiha should be writing soon...
Monday, October 22, 2007
And we have internet!!!
Thank goodness!!!! lol, perfect timing too, Sabiha's bday today so perfect bday gift. Alhamd... we are doing great, would like to apologize again for not updating more frequently, but its been real busy... as sabiha mentioned, her parents are here visiting so its been real nice the last few days. our cousin from london is here as well with his family so that has been nice...tho he isnt staying at our place.... but we do have exams coming up so please pray that they go well. Alhamd, we havent fallen behind at all, keeping pace with the homework and class work that we have. But since we dont know what kind of tests we have, what format they will be in...and etc, we are stressing a little... i mean i havent been in school in a LONG time so dont quite know what to expect anymore...
Our classes are going well and the course is fantastic... we have alot of people coming to visit the institution to see how it is going, it seems we have met more people here then we would back in LA... lol... anyhow, thought i would give you a little insight as to who are our teachers and staff are.
1) Hussein bhai - Administrator... he basically runs the admin part of this course... he is real nice cause he listens to our problems and issues and concerns that we have, and it feels good to know there is someone there who will take care of them... and he listens to us and most of the issues get addressed in a timely manner... ie.. syrian standard time. lol.. we keep telling him he has become syrian with his laid back attitude... and he keeps promising us some Khoja bhiryani and cutless that we are yet to taste...lol.. but inshaAllah soon. we do hope that he stays on this role because we find comfort in approaching him.. he keeps mentioning to us that this is a temp role, but IA, lets see...
2) Sheikh Qasim - he is our arabic teacher, and boy, what energy this man has... he can probably read 3 pages of text in one breath..lol.. and we have him for 4 classes and its non stop energy in all... but i feel we have learnt alot already in the few weeks that we have been in his class. and i can only imagine that at this pace of learning and teaching, we will iA know quite a bit by the end of the year... he does place alot of demands on us, which is good otherwise we would fall behind in his classes... he is one of the teachers who speak english, so it helps learning from him. in fact his english is better than ours.. lol... he knows more about grammar and rules of the language than we do....truly funny!!!!!
3) Sheikh Saami - he is our fiqh and tutorial (religious rules) teacher... he speaks english as well... and he is REAl patient with us... he has a great sense of humor and you can tell he is real educated about the rules of religion. he has been in syria for the last 20 years and is real well traveled.. by the way, he can eat spicy food just like we do, surprising since most arabs cant. he is also our tutorial teacher, meaning we spend nearly 3 hours a day with him.. and the time in his classes fly by.
4) Sheikh Abu Hamza - he is our qur'an teacher and dictation teacher - AND he only speaks arabic.. and the great part about his class is that we understand most of what he is talking about.. he does do great hand gestures, and it feels like we are playing charades sometimes..lol... but Alhamd, it gets the job done. and he has a wonderful, i mean great voice when he recites the Holy Qur'an.. supposedly the plan is that we recite like him, iA..lol... he did invite us to his house for dinner one night where we spent 4 hours talking to him and his family who speak absolutely no english... lol.
5) Um Hammza - she is the girl's qur'an teacher.. she speaks no english as well, and sabiha says she really enjoys her class... i think sabiha is her pet student in that class.. thats probably true in every class... ummm, i dont really know her that well, cause she just teaches the girls, but im sure sabiha will write more about her in the future...
6) Syed Mahir - he is the caretaker of our institution.. basically he does the up keeping of this place and takes care of everything that the admin. asks him to do. he does not speak english either, but we get along real well with him and we get to practice our arabic with him as well. he does make a mean cup of tea tho..lol sabiha and i drink black tea now days..lol...
ok, thats it for now, sabiha is tired and wants to go to sleep...lol... will try and update more often, iA.... anyways, take care and pray that our exams go well.
Peace
Our classes are going well and the course is fantastic... we have alot of people coming to visit the institution to see how it is going, it seems we have met more people here then we would back in LA... lol... anyhow, thought i would give you a little insight as to who are our teachers and staff are.
1) Hussein bhai - Administrator... he basically runs the admin part of this course... he is real nice cause he listens to our problems and issues and concerns that we have, and it feels good to know there is someone there who will take care of them... and he listens to us and most of the issues get addressed in a timely manner... ie.. syrian standard time. lol.. we keep telling him he has become syrian with his laid back attitude... and he keeps promising us some Khoja bhiryani and cutless that we are yet to taste...lol.. but inshaAllah soon. we do hope that he stays on this role because we find comfort in approaching him.. he keeps mentioning to us that this is a temp role, but IA, lets see...
2) Sheikh Qasim - he is our arabic teacher, and boy, what energy this man has... he can probably read 3 pages of text in one breath..lol.. and we have him for 4 classes and its non stop energy in all... but i feel we have learnt alot already in the few weeks that we have been in his class. and i can only imagine that at this pace of learning and teaching, we will iA know quite a bit by the end of the year... he does place alot of demands on us, which is good otherwise we would fall behind in his classes... he is one of the teachers who speak english, so it helps learning from him. in fact his english is better than ours.. lol... he knows more about grammar and rules of the language than we do....truly funny!!!!!
3) Sheikh Saami - he is our fiqh and tutorial (religious rules) teacher... he speaks english as well... and he is REAl patient with us... he has a great sense of humor and you can tell he is real educated about the rules of religion. he has been in syria for the last 20 years and is real well traveled.. by the way, he can eat spicy food just like we do, surprising since most arabs cant. he is also our tutorial teacher, meaning we spend nearly 3 hours a day with him.. and the time in his classes fly by.
4) Sheikh Abu Hamza - he is our qur'an teacher and dictation teacher - AND he only speaks arabic.. and the great part about his class is that we understand most of what he is talking about.. he does do great hand gestures, and it feels like we are playing charades sometimes..lol... but Alhamd, it gets the job done. and he has a wonderful, i mean great voice when he recites the Holy Qur'an.. supposedly the plan is that we recite like him, iA..lol... he did invite us to his house for dinner one night where we spent 4 hours talking to him and his family who speak absolutely no english... lol.
5) Um Hammza - she is the girl's qur'an teacher.. she speaks no english as well, and sabiha says she really enjoys her class... i think sabiha is her pet student in that class.. thats probably true in every class... ummm, i dont really know her that well, cause she just teaches the girls, but im sure sabiha will write more about her in the future...
6) Syed Mahir - he is the caretaker of our institution.. basically he does the up keeping of this place and takes care of everything that the admin. asks him to do. he does not speak english either, but we get along real well with him and we get to practice our arabic with him as well. he does make a mean cup of tea tho..lol sabiha and i drink black tea now days..lol...
ok, thats it for now, sabiha is tired and wants to go to sleep...lol... will try and update more often, iA.... anyways, take care and pray that our exams go well.
Peace
We have internet WOHOOOO!!! ('indanaa internet)
so the long awaited day has come...we now have internet access in our building, so no more apologies before starting each blog (hopefully)...hoping to upload pictures too!
it's been a great few days because my parents are here visiting...yup, great huh? they'll be here for a few more days. they were really pleased to see that we are settled, are doing well in school and are happy. I'm glad they are here so they are reassured that we are ok and can pass on the reassurance to the rest of our family and friends. they were able to come and see our classes and met our teachers during one of our breaks...they were pleased and so were our teachers. :)
classes have been going well...the pressure is on as we have exams next week...sat - thurs...one exam a day...a total of 6 ...yes we've started studying already...and have been probing our teachers for details re the exams as it will be different to sit for 6 exams, all in Arabic...we'll see how it goes...
so get this, the other day we went to the haram ( shrine of seyyida zainab - the grand daughter of our holy prophet) and to actually go inside you have to take of your shoes for respect...i normally take off my shoes and leave them on the side where there aren't too many people...so that is what i did...i went to pay my respects and when i came out my shoes were no where to be found lol i looked everywhere...i ended up meeting up with jaffer and my parents and the other couple we study with...we were all going out for dinner and were waiting for the driver to come...lol i had to run out with jaffer to buy a pair of sandals...went out found something real quick...came back in our driver still hadn't come..so just like that i decided to take a quick walk to where i had left my shoes --- went there and lo and behold they were back lol guess someone must have just borrowed them...lol oh well got and extra pair of sandals out of it.
anyhow, other than that..all is well...arabiyatuna afdhal alaan wa nahnu nastatee' an natakallam jayid. fi isboo' al qaadim 'indanaa imtihaan wa inshallah kulluna will get mia bil mia!
'our arabic is better now and we are able to speak well. next week we have exams and god willing we will all do well'.
though we can speak more now, we still have quite a few blunders, lol jaffer is famous for holding up a certain number of fingers but saying a totally different number...like to the taxi driver he held up 4 fingers but kept saying inthnain which is 2 lol yup cab driver was looking at us like we're crazy...he did that once w 4 and 10 also...held up 4 fingers but kept saying he wanted 10 lol lol t'was too funny...anyhow...jaffer's waiting for his turn to 'blog' so will sign off.
more frequent updates from now on...so keep coming :)
it's been a great few days because my parents are here visiting...yup, great huh? they'll be here for a few more days. they were really pleased to see that we are settled, are doing well in school and are happy. I'm glad they are here so they are reassured that we are ok and can pass on the reassurance to the rest of our family and friends. they were able to come and see our classes and met our teachers during one of our breaks...they were pleased and so were our teachers. :)
classes have been going well...the pressure is on as we have exams next week...sat - thurs...one exam a day...a total of 6 ...yes we've started studying already...and have been probing our teachers for details re the exams as it will be different to sit for 6 exams, all in Arabic...we'll see how it goes...
so get this, the other day we went to the haram ( shrine of seyyida zainab - the grand daughter of our holy prophet) and to actually go inside you have to take of your shoes for respect...i normally take off my shoes and leave them on the side where there aren't too many people...so that is what i did...i went to pay my respects and when i came out my shoes were no where to be found lol i looked everywhere...i ended up meeting up with jaffer and my parents and the other couple we study with...we were all going out for dinner and were waiting for the driver to come...lol i had to run out with jaffer to buy a pair of sandals...went out found something real quick...came back in our driver still hadn't come..so just like that i decided to take a quick walk to where i had left my shoes --- went there and lo and behold they were back lol guess someone must have just borrowed them...lol oh well got and extra pair of sandals out of it.
anyhow, other than that..all is well...arabiyatuna afdhal alaan wa nahnu nastatee' an natakallam jayid. fi isboo' al qaadim 'indanaa imtihaan wa inshallah kulluna will get mia bil mia!
'our arabic is better now and we are able to speak well. next week we have exams and god willing we will all do well'.
though we can speak more now, we still have quite a few blunders, lol jaffer is famous for holding up a certain number of fingers but saying a totally different number...like to the taxi driver he held up 4 fingers but kept saying inthnain which is 2 lol yup cab driver was looking at us like we're crazy...he did that once w 4 and 10 also...held up 4 fingers but kept saying he wanted 10 lol lol t'was too funny...anyhow...jaffer's waiting for his turn to 'blog' so will sign off.
more frequent updates from now on...so keep coming :)
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Eid Mubarak
s'nabd'a bil 'eid mubarak wa as'adu Allah ayyamakum! I begin with wishing you 'eid mubarak and may Allah help you through your years.
our month of fasting has come to and end and iA all our prayers will be accepted. the month of ramadhan was different - definitely and experience it being our first year here...though it was different from back home...our teachers and faculty went out of their way to make sure that had programs for us during the nights of ramadhan as we would not have known where to go for programs. We sealed the month with 'eid prayers yesterday morning...the eid prayers here was absolutely amazing...definitely made up for the the quiet evenings we had in ramadhan...the eid congregation was massive..lol u'll know from jaffer's story of his champals (sandals). anyhow it was great to have the other couple with us as we are now eachother's family...we had eid breakfast together and then went out at nite...we went to 'happy land' ( the major amusement park here) sat on a ride called pirata (pirate boat) and enjoyed some basket robens ( baskin robins) LOL anyhow we had a great time...aaaaaaaand back to dars (studies) today.
now that the month of ramadhan has come to an end, we will probably have more energy through out the day to focus on our classes...no more being kaslan (lazy)! we are now able to communicate much more, though sometimes our tenses for verbs are incorrect we make do alhamd. however i am REALLY really enjoying the classes and crave to learn more so I can converse properly...but for now, i try to use it whenever i can...
alaan inteha al waqt lil internet, thumma anaa adhabu ilal baytee...ma' salaama --- ie, times up, gotta go home - peace! ~sabs
our month of fasting has come to and end and iA all our prayers will be accepted. the month of ramadhan was different - definitely and experience it being our first year here...though it was different from back home...our teachers and faculty went out of their way to make sure that had programs for us during the nights of ramadhan as we would not have known where to go for programs. We sealed the month with 'eid prayers yesterday morning...the eid prayers here was absolutely amazing...definitely made up for the the quiet evenings we had in ramadhan...the eid congregation was massive..lol u'll know from jaffer's story of his champals (sandals). anyhow it was great to have the other couple with us as we are now eachother's family...we had eid breakfast together and then went out at nite...we went to 'happy land' ( the major amusement park here) sat on a ride called pirata (pirate boat) and enjoyed some basket robens ( baskin robins) LOL anyhow we had a great time...aaaaaaaand back to dars (studies) today.
now that the month of ramadhan has come to an end, we will probably have more energy through out the day to focus on our classes...no more being kaslan (lazy)! we are now able to communicate much more, though sometimes our tenses for verbs are incorrect we make do alhamd. however i am REALLY really enjoying the classes and crave to learn more so I can converse properly...but for now, i try to use it whenever i can...
alaan inteha al waqt lil internet, thumma anaa adhabu ilal baytee...ma' salaama --- ie, times up, gotta go home - peace! ~sabs
Eid Mubarak!!!
salaams to all, ok... again must start off the blog with many apologies... lol.. we really try hard to come and update our blog periodically, but sometimes, manytimes, it becomes a very difficult process... lol... last time we came with the intention to update it, however, checking our email took up the whole hour... so here we are again, with a 2nd attempt... but keep up the faith and please keep checking... you're the reason we write... but good news, they should have internet access soon at our school (sounds funny doesnt it, but lest you forget we are in a 3rd world country :)), but one connection, so we will have to share it with the other couple, but really, it doesnt matter... it will be good to go online more often, meaning... yup you guessed it, more updates on our blog!!!
so the holy month of Ramadhan is now over, meaning we can eat again..lol. jk, so eid mubarak to all of you.... the month of ramadhan was definitely different here, but in many ways it was the same... i really thought coming here i would get a new sense of spirituality that was really lacking in my life, being in a muslim country, around shia's would raise my level of spirituality, but guess what, that did not happpen. my level of spirituality has unfortunately been stagnat... lol... not really funny, but kind off... so that means that the enviroment doesnt really play that big of a role... sure it does a little, but spirituality comes from within, and it looks like i need to step up my game... pray :) but in many ways, it was fantastic.. walking on the streets at 1 in the morning, still packed with people, people eating and drinking (juice and milkshakes :))... we found a great falafel place which charges 15 syrian pounds... about $.33 (cents) and it filled me up good... and this great juice place across the haram that has vimto juice (fresh) for 25 syrian pounds ($.50) amazing, we eat comfortably sometimes for less then a dollar.. lol... sometimes...lol.
the day of eid was great tho... the feeling on the day of eid, at the eid prayers, made up for the fact that the month of ramadhan wasnt how i expected it... please dont get me wrong, we are having a great time here, just not what i expected. however eid prayers was amazing... the entire hall was packed, and when i say packed, i mean packed... it took me 5 minutes of walking and stepping on people before someone moved a little and i squeezed in.. great guy for doing that... the person reciting the duas had an amazing voice and the whole gathering was reciting with him... imagine a few thousand people chanting together... just great!!!! then afterwards, we went to Safir hotel for a nice western breakfast with omelettes and potatoes, beef and chicken... Alhamd, really nice... that day we spent a little (lot) more then $1.00..lol.. but definitely worth it... Tho the day was great, it was a little sad cause we dont have any family of friends here... but the other couple is alone too, so we had dinner and went out afterwards...
Funny thing happened when we went for our prayers... to get into the mosque, you give you slippers to someone to keep, and he gives you a token back so you can pick it up... however, i know this guy so i dont usually take a number... so i gave my shoes to him, his name is Ebrahim by the way, very nice guy.... but this day there was shoes all over the place, as i mentioned it was packed with people... so after it was over, i went out to get my shoes, and he handed me a pair of shoes, but they werent mine..so in broked arabic i told him that these werent mine and he looked around, and was really apologetic about giving my shoes away... so on the day of eid, i got a gift as well, a new pair of shoes...lol... so someone is damascus is wearing my shoes and i am wearing his.. atleast none of us are barefoot..alhamd... :)
so as we mentioned before, school is going well, we are getting into some slightly harder arabic material, so really need to focus, but ALhamd, its alot of fun... al-aan, nahnu natakalam qalil, insha-allah iltimase-dua, wa ba'da ithnan au thalatha shahr, nahnu saufanatakallam arabiya jayid... not sure at all about grammar....
k, take care and will write more later.... take care!!!!
so the holy month of Ramadhan is now over, meaning we can eat again..lol. jk, so eid mubarak to all of you.... the month of ramadhan was definitely different here, but in many ways it was the same... i really thought coming here i would get a new sense of spirituality that was really lacking in my life, being in a muslim country, around shia's would raise my level of spirituality, but guess what, that did not happpen. my level of spirituality has unfortunately been stagnat... lol... not really funny, but kind off... so that means that the enviroment doesnt really play that big of a role... sure it does a little, but spirituality comes from within, and it looks like i need to step up my game... pray :) but in many ways, it was fantastic.. walking on the streets at 1 in the morning, still packed with people, people eating and drinking (juice and milkshakes :))... we found a great falafel place which charges 15 syrian pounds... about $.33 (cents) and it filled me up good... and this great juice place across the haram that has vimto juice (fresh) for 25 syrian pounds ($.50) amazing, we eat comfortably sometimes for less then a dollar.. lol... sometimes...lol.
the day of eid was great tho... the feeling on the day of eid, at the eid prayers, made up for the fact that the month of ramadhan wasnt how i expected it... please dont get me wrong, we are having a great time here, just not what i expected. however eid prayers was amazing... the entire hall was packed, and when i say packed, i mean packed... it took me 5 minutes of walking and stepping on people before someone moved a little and i squeezed in.. great guy for doing that... the person reciting the duas had an amazing voice and the whole gathering was reciting with him... imagine a few thousand people chanting together... just great!!!! then afterwards, we went to Safir hotel for a nice western breakfast with omelettes and potatoes, beef and chicken... Alhamd, really nice... that day we spent a little (lot) more then $1.00..lol.. but definitely worth it... Tho the day was great, it was a little sad cause we dont have any family of friends here... but the other couple is alone too, so we had dinner and went out afterwards...
Funny thing happened when we went for our prayers... to get into the mosque, you give you slippers to someone to keep, and he gives you a token back so you can pick it up... however, i know this guy so i dont usually take a number... so i gave my shoes to him, his name is Ebrahim by the way, very nice guy.... but this day there was shoes all over the place, as i mentioned it was packed with people... so after it was over, i went out to get my shoes, and he handed me a pair of shoes, but they werent mine..so in broked arabic i told him that these werent mine and he looked around, and was really apologetic about giving my shoes away... so on the day of eid, i got a gift as well, a new pair of shoes...lol... so someone is damascus is wearing my shoes and i am wearing his.. atleast none of us are barefoot..alhamd... :)
so as we mentioned before, school is going well, we are getting into some slightly harder arabic material, so really need to focus, but ALhamd, its alot of fun... al-aan, nahnu natakalam qalil, insha-allah iltimase-dua, wa ba'da ithnan au thalatha shahr, nahnu saufanatakallam arabiya jayid... not sure at all about grammar....
k, take care and will write more later.... take care!!!!
Thursday, October 4, 2007
'utla' for 3 days!
so my vocab is slowly increasing and am ofcourse trying to pick up most important words lol 'utla' means holiday...we have a 3 day break, well today is almost over for us but we're off tomorrow and saturday. since it is the holy month of ramadhan; there are certain nights when we are awake and night in supplication and prayer to Him...it's nice to have these days off so we can focus on the spiritual aspect of this holy month.
we can't express enought how grateful we are to all of the people we interact with here alhamd...one of our teachers' invited us over to his place for dinner...his wife cooked a fabulous syrian/lebanese meal for us...neither him or his wife speak any english so we were forced to use the little arabic that we know - we did quite well as the 4 hours we spent there flew by really fast...
another person that we have failed to mention since we've arrived here, and has been extremely helpful is haji hussein - he is always there for us in any aspect since day one, and has continued to go above and beyond to ensure that we are well taken care of and are comfortable. he is always encouraging us to use our arabic with him and is always proactive in asking us about our classes to make sure they are goin ok. shukran jazeelan haji hussein. by they way remember in one of our earlier blogs i had mentioned how crazy it is driving here? well guess what? haji hussein got his licence just a few days ago - can u believe it? not sure yet if we're ready to drive with him, but sure he'll take us out once he gets his new car lol
as for our classes, they are going really well - each week is more and more exciting as we are learing more and more and are actually able to understand and communicate much more. just earlier we were watching some news on tv and we were actually able to pick up quite a bit!
al'aan nahnu nadhhabu ilal masjid lil salat wa ba'da namshee ila al-bayt lil iftaar! now we are going to the mosque for our prayers and then will walk home for dinner :)
we can't express enought how grateful we are to all of the people we interact with here alhamd...one of our teachers' invited us over to his place for dinner...his wife cooked a fabulous syrian/lebanese meal for us...neither him or his wife speak any english so we were forced to use the little arabic that we know - we did quite well as the 4 hours we spent there flew by really fast...
another person that we have failed to mention since we've arrived here, and has been extremely helpful is haji hussein - he is always there for us in any aspect since day one, and has continued to go above and beyond to ensure that we are well taken care of and are comfortable. he is always encouraging us to use our arabic with him and is always proactive in asking us about our classes to make sure they are goin ok. shukran jazeelan haji hussein. by they way remember in one of our earlier blogs i had mentioned how crazy it is driving here? well guess what? haji hussein got his licence just a few days ago - can u believe it? not sure yet if we're ready to drive with him, but sure he'll take us out once he gets his new car lol
as for our classes, they are going really well - each week is more and more exciting as we are learing more and more and are actually able to understand and communicate much more. just earlier we were watching some news on tv and we were actually able to pick up quite a bit!
al'aan nahnu nadhhabu ilal masjid lil salat wa ba'da namshee ila al-bayt lil iftaar! now we are going to the mosque for our prayers and then will walk home for dinner :)
Difficult to find time...
hello everyone... again, sorry for not writing in so long but thanks to all the people who check our blog on a daily basis. you are our motivation to write. We have been wanting to come to the Internet cafe for the last few days, but things have been busy with the month of Ramadhan, school and then our night programs. But ALhamd, starting today (thursday) till saturday we have a few days off from school due to the important nights in this Holy Month. Ramadhan here has been different. For one thing, everyone is fasting... well almost everyone..:) occasionally we will see people eating, but its probably cause they are visiting damascus... there are no huge congregations for us where we get together and recite our prayers (aamals together).. so that's different, but ALhamd, Sabiha and I have been doing them at home. the really nice thing is that during the days, the streets are quiet and deserted, but at nights they are lively and filled with energy. So tonight, because we have no school tomorrow, we will iA go out for a walk and have a late night meal as well...
we received some sad news from back home, one of my good friends' son passed away, i believe he was less then 1 year old but was quite sick. because we are so far away, it was really hard news to take...
besides that, our arabic classes are going well. it is amazing that in 4 weeks of studying, we can actually make sentences and communicate with people. of course, it is far far far from good sentences..lol.. but we can communicate. a few days ago we went to dinner to one of our teachers' home and he only speaks arabic. for 4 hours we were able to have a good conversation with him and his family.. ALhamd... fantastic. the kind or arabic we are learning is really useful for speaking, iA down the line we are supposed to learn grammar, but not yet. let me make a sentence for you... "al-talibu kharaja min al-bayt, wa dhahaba ila al-masjid lil-salaat." pretty cool huh... lol... what that sentence says is the student left from the house and went to the mosque to pray... lol.. we are learning basic terminology or words and how to use them in sentences, for example words ike min, ila, fee, ala, huwa, hiya, dhalika, tilka...all these words are key for sentence structure.. and then with the vocab we know or are studying, we can make nice little sentences.. lol.. we are also doing skits, so that helps out with our fluency on basic terminology... but honestly, all praise is for Allah SWT because I am baaaaaddddd at languages, and ALhamd i am not doing too bad after 4 weeks. doing pretty good actually.. Sabiha is doing phenomenal... really, hands down the best student in this program... yup, and she is my wife:)
ok, we will write more stuff later, sabiha is updating right next to me right now...
take care and remember us during these special nights of the month of Ramadhan.
we received some sad news from back home, one of my good friends' son passed away, i believe he was less then 1 year old but was quite sick. because we are so far away, it was really hard news to take...
besides that, our arabic classes are going well. it is amazing that in 4 weeks of studying, we can actually make sentences and communicate with people. of course, it is far far far from good sentences..lol.. but we can communicate. a few days ago we went to dinner to one of our teachers' home and he only speaks arabic. for 4 hours we were able to have a good conversation with him and his family.. ALhamd... fantastic. the kind or arabic we are learning is really useful for speaking, iA down the line we are supposed to learn grammar, but not yet. let me make a sentence for you... "al-talibu kharaja min al-bayt, wa dhahaba ila al-masjid lil-salaat." pretty cool huh... lol... what that sentence says is the student left from the house and went to the mosque to pray... lol.. we are learning basic terminology or words and how to use them in sentences, for example words ike min, ila, fee, ala, huwa, hiya, dhalika, tilka...all these words are key for sentence structure.. and then with the vocab we know or are studying, we can make nice little sentences.. lol.. we are also doing skits, so that helps out with our fluency on basic terminology... but honestly, all praise is for Allah SWT because I am baaaaaddddd at languages, and ALhamd i am not doing too bad after 4 weeks. doing pretty good actually.. Sabiha is doing phenomenal... really, hands down the best student in this program... yup, and she is my wife:)
ok, we will write more stuff later, sabiha is updating right next to me right now...
take care and remember us during these special nights of the month of Ramadhan.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Quick update
Hello everyone, its our one day off from school, so we just finised our Friday prayers, and since we dont have to eat, thought we would come and check our email. And since we have internet connection, might as well udpate the blog at the same time. We havent been out in the day time in a long time, and i know why. Its hot!! and now im thirsty.. lol.. but all good.. should be going home soon iA...
So sabiha mentioned our 7 course meal last time... amazing, dont think we have ever been pamperred like that..lol.. and the food was good and real reasonable... $10 a person... not bad at all.. not something we would do all the time, since we have to live like locals and not like tourists, so we have to spend wisely. Yesterday after our dua program we went out for a walk and I bought my first Halal belt... lol... so to explain quickly... to pray, you have to have a belt whose leather came from an animal who was slaughtered in the Muslim way... otherwise, you have to take the belt off during namaaz... and since we are in a Muslim country, i thought it would be easier to just buy a belt that is Halal..lol...rather then taking my belt off every time i pray... and it was cheap too... definitely worth it...
The part of the city that we leave in, is about 15 minutes away from proper Damascus... and the area we are in is filled with poverty, so its real sad.. however, what sabiha and i noticed is that there are no trash cans anywhere when you walk on the streets... that means if we have something in our hands that we want to throw away, we have to hold it till we get home..lol... or ofcourse we could be like the locals and just throw it on the streets.. we havent done that yet... maybe soon?? lol... i do think that if they placed trash cans on the streets, maybe things would look a little cleaner..lol... but then you would have to teach the people how to use it :)
Umm, it for now, told you will be quick... anyways, will write soon. remember us in your prayers.
So sabiha mentioned our 7 course meal last time... amazing, dont think we have ever been pamperred like that..lol.. and the food was good and real reasonable... $10 a person... not bad at all.. not something we would do all the time, since we have to live like locals and not like tourists, so we have to spend wisely. Yesterday after our dua program we went out for a walk and I bought my first Halal belt... lol... so to explain quickly... to pray, you have to have a belt whose leather came from an animal who was slaughtered in the Muslim way... otherwise, you have to take the belt off during namaaz... and since we are in a Muslim country, i thought it would be easier to just buy a belt that is Halal..lol...rather then taking my belt off every time i pray... and it was cheap too... definitely worth it...
The part of the city that we leave in, is about 15 minutes away from proper Damascus... and the area we are in is filled with poverty, so its real sad.. however, what sabiha and i noticed is that there are no trash cans anywhere when you walk on the streets... that means if we have something in our hands that we want to throw away, we have to hold it till we get home..lol... or ofcourse we could be like the locals and just throw it on the streets.. we havent done that yet... maybe soon?? lol... i do think that if they placed trash cans on the streets, maybe things would look a little cleaner..lol... but then you would have to teach the people how to use it :)
Umm, it for now, told you will be quick... anyways, will write soon. remember us in your prayers.
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Sorry for long delay
Hello all, sorry for such a looong delay but its really hard without having internet access all the time, we have to find an hour out of our day to come to the internet cafe, and i know it seems like its only an hour, but it is really hard to find that hour.. lol.. we came to the cafe a few days ago, but the internet was so slow that we couldnt even access our own email properly.. but anyways, we are on now and blogging!!! This time Sabiha is also updating along side me, so make sure to read both, they will be interesting, lots to write about...lol
Last time's blog had a lot of religious material, so for all those not Muslim or Shia it may have been too much information, so this week will try and tell you about life here and how classes are going, but I am sure it will be impossible not to mention some 'religious' items...
Classes are going really well Alhamd, we our into our 3rd week of classes and are 1 week ahead of schedule, Alhamd... that means that all your prayers and thoughts are really helping us, so thank you very much... our teachers are really nice and they really go our of their way to make sure we understand certain matters. Our first 2 classes of the day are Arabic, followed by a 1 hour tutorial class where we sit on the sofa and we go over things we have learned previously, just to make sure we understand it properly. Then we have a Fiqh class followed by another arabic class. All those classes lead us to lunch, where because we are fasting, Sabiha and I go to our apartment (which is downstairs from our classroom) and take a nap. The original plan was for us to sit around and read the Holy Qur'an during our lunch, but I dont think they realized how tired we would get, especially cause we are fasting... then we come back from lunch and have a Qur'an class, followed by another tutorial class followed by a writing class... phew... arent you tired?? lol... its hard for us as well, especially cause we havent been to school in so long. And starting next week, they are adding an additional Hadith class at the end of the day, we are looking forward to that, but i know its going to be tiring... but besides the load of classes, Alhamd we have no regrets or no complains....
The institute has also started Duae Iftitah programs for us every night... Its really nice cause they invite some fantastic reciters to come and teach us how to read the Qur'an and the Dua so we can improve on our reciting. However so far we have just been listening, but Sabiha and I told them today that we are ready to begin reciting. I know we are not perfect, but Alhamd we have fluency atleast. Sometimes, and this is on rare occasions, we get the feeling that 'some' of our teachers and the arabs we meet outside think we dont have any 'religiousness' in us because we came from the west. And we constantly have to prove ourselves. For example one of our teachers asked if we knew a particular phrase, and we didnt and he acted really surprised and then when he described what he was talking about, we knew it already, its just that he used an arabic term and we know it as something else. Even Sabiha's pronounciation is really good in regards to Arabic letters, and the teacher could have sworn she had spent years in an arab country...lol... too funny.
The culture here in Syria is totally different, and we are trying our best to blend in.. for example, the flush in our bathroom was broken and we had to lift open the toilet tank and pull a lever to make it work. We let the management know of the apartment building and he said he would be there in a few hours...a few hours led to 3 days before finally someone came to take a look at it... and it wasnt like we left them alone, we were there talking to them atleast 2-3 times a day... finally on the 3rd day someone came, walked to the bathroom, lifted the toilet tank, reached in and pulled the lever, looked at me and smiled, as if to say he fixed it...LOL... 2 days later someone came and actually fixed it properly. What we learnt from that experience is that things happen at their our pace.. we cant force things... hopefully we dont become like that... lol... another huge thing we noticed, from the first day we got here, is that guys hold hands here all the time... and its not wierd at all.. lol.. it was to us, let me tell you that... but i guess its totally normal... you know what that means, next time any of my friends come down here, you better watch out...lol..just kidding...
the cafe is closing for prayers so am hurrying up now... a bit of sad news now, i am down to my last 2 cigarettes that i brought from home.. i know, i know... i will have to switch to another brand because they dont have my brand here... please dont cry for me, it will be ok, but just incase you were wondering, i smoke marlboro mediums...lol..hint hint....:)
Ok, bye for now, will talk soon iA.... take care
Last time's blog had a lot of religious material, so for all those not Muslim or Shia it may have been too much information, so this week will try and tell you about life here and how classes are going, but I am sure it will be impossible not to mention some 'religious' items...
Classes are going really well Alhamd, we our into our 3rd week of classes and are 1 week ahead of schedule, Alhamd... that means that all your prayers and thoughts are really helping us, so thank you very much... our teachers are really nice and they really go our of their way to make sure we understand certain matters. Our first 2 classes of the day are Arabic, followed by a 1 hour tutorial class where we sit on the sofa and we go over things we have learned previously, just to make sure we understand it properly. Then we have a Fiqh class followed by another arabic class. All those classes lead us to lunch, where because we are fasting, Sabiha and I go to our apartment (which is downstairs from our classroom) and take a nap. The original plan was for us to sit around and read the Holy Qur'an during our lunch, but I dont think they realized how tired we would get, especially cause we are fasting... then we come back from lunch and have a Qur'an class, followed by another tutorial class followed by a writing class... phew... arent you tired?? lol... its hard for us as well, especially cause we havent been to school in so long. And starting next week, they are adding an additional Hadith class at the end of the day, we are looking forward to that, but i know its going to be tiring... but besides the load of classes, Alhamd we have no regrets or no complains....
The institute has also started Duae Iftitah programs for us every night... Its really nice cause they invite some fantastic reciters to come and teach us how to read the Qur'an and the Dua so we can improve on our reciting. However so far we have just been listening, but Sabiha and I told them today that we are ready to begin reciting. I know we are not perfect, but Alhamd we have fluency atleast. Sometimes, and this is on rare occasions, we get the feeling that 'some' of our teachers and the arabs we meet outside think we dont have any 'religiousness' in us because we came from the west. And we constantly have to prove ourselves. For example one of our teachers asked if we knew a particular phrase, and we didnt and he acted really surprised and then when he described what he was talking about, we knew it already, its just that he used an arabic term and we know it as something else. Even Sabiha's pronounciation is really good in regards to Arabic letters, and the teacher could have sworn she had spent years in an arab country...lol... too funny.
The culture here in Syria is totally different, and we are trying our best to blend in.. for example, the flush in our bathroom was broken and we had to lift open the toilet tank and pull a lever to make it work. We let the management know of the apartment building and he said he would be there in a few hours...a few hours led to 3 days before finally someone came to take a look at it... and it wasnt like we left them alone, we were there talking to them atleast 2-3 times a day... finally on the 3rd day someone came, walked to the bathroom, lifted the toilet tank, reached in and pulled the lever, looked at me and smiled, as if to say he fixed it...LOL... 2 days later someone came and actually fixed it properly. What we learnt from that experience is that things happen at their our pace.. we cant force things... hopefully we dont become like that... lol... another huge thing we noticed, from the first day we got here, is that guys hold hands here all the time... and its not wierd at all.. lol.. it was to us, let me tell you that... but i guess its totally normal... you know what that means, next time any of my friends come down here, you better watch out...lol..just kidding...
the cafe is closing for prayers so am hurrying up now... a bit of sad news now, i am down to my last 2 cigarettes that i brought from home.. i know, i know... i will have to switch to another brand because they dont have my brand here... please dont cry for me, it will be ok, but just incase you were wondering, i smoke marlboro mediums...lol..hint hint....:)
Ok, bye for now, will talk soon iA.... take care
Blockbuster in Damascus??!!
lol all our blogs end up starting with an apology since we are unable to update our blog as frequently as we had hoped but iA hopefully with time that will change...we came last week to the internet cafe but the connection was way to slow to do anything...anyhow here we are some days later with a lot more adventure! Jaffer should also be posting something today he's at computer 6 and i'm at 7 lol.
sooo get this! the first week we were here we were introduced to a movie store...Jaffer and I were super excited - we can keep up to date with our movies...we can buy them for a $1 - lol yes 1$!!! and a bonus when we go get our movies is there this exceptional milkshake place around the corner - okay wait a minute, we are actually studying here for real and not just having fun! its quite a balance alhamd.
anyhow, so for the past few nights - since the beginning of ramadhan (our month of fasting) we've had several brilliant reciters join us every night to recite the du'as (prayers) for this special month. It's a great way for us to pracitice our spoken arabic ofcourse as well as practise reciting the dua's ... for now we've primarily been listening...but i think we're more than ready to actually starting reading and having the recitors help us refine our recitation...as we've been reciting these du'as for years back home and have already become fluent....anyhow iA soon. So the other night one of our teachers brought his family, wife and 2 little girls. His wife spoke NO english at all! wow what a task...you all know that normally i have no problem talking lol but that night i really had to think before i spoke. But you know what, i didnt do so badly at all, i was able to converse with her in choppy sentances, i asked her about her family, how old her kids were, where she was orginally from etc..and alhamd was able to understand most of what she asked and communicated back as well...i suppose that is the best way to practise!
last thursday, one of our teachers took us on a field trip...we only have class half day on thursday, so in the afternoon he took us to 'baabe sagheer' - this place is actually and area where there are a lot of shrines and prominent historical figures are burried there...so we went to pay our respects to bibi fizza, hazrat bilal, saw a place where our fourth imam used to conduct khutba's and lead prayers...it was definitely unreal...we went with our colleagues ofcourse....all of us were fasting on that day and wow i don't think i've ever had such a tough fast - it was super super hot and there was a lot of walking...but we managed. The best part was after we were done our teacher left and the 4 of us (jaffer and i, and the other couple studying with us) decided to stay back and adventure out on our own for the first time. We had planned to go to this restaurant for dinner and needed to make our way to that area, we luckily asked our teacher about how much a taxi would cost, he advised us not to pay more than 100 - 150 syrian pounds...so we headed to the street and waved down a cab...we explained to him where we needed to go and he told us 200, straight away we said no and we were hoping he would change his mind but instead he drove off lol so we kept walking and finally decided to ask some locals for help, they were really nice and get this, they got us on this mini bus which is the local transportation...lol we paid 5 syrian pounds per person, lol so 20 instead of 150 or 200! crazy huh! anyhow, we had a great time venturing out; ate at this really good authentic syrian restaurant...we had a 7 course meal - no joke, appetizers, then cream of mushroom soup,then chicken dish, rice with peppers stuffed with ground beef, mashed potatoes and steak in this white sauce, and then syrian sweet pastries and fruit - it was fabulous!
so this is now our third week of class and we're definitely picking up speed with all our classes which is great. with several different institutions we've heard that their school days are only 4 hours long...whereas ours are more like 8 hours...so you can imagine how much we learn and how much home work we have...but we definitely prefer it this way! i cant emphasize how lucky we are, we are really being taken care of...we've heard of other students who have come through different institutions and have had a hard tiem settling in...where as we had a lot ready for us and prepared when we came, i.e a place to stay and meals etc..alhamd.
anyhow,i know this is a lot to read so i shall wrap up, besides the cafe is closing for iftar(the time when we break our fast) - its really cool how everyone is fasting here lol no temptation by watching others eat lol well, hopefully our next post will be much sooner ... stay tuned .... :)
sooo get this! the first week we were here we were introduced to a movie store...Jaffer and I were super excited - we can keep up to date with our movies...we can buy them for a $1 - lol yes 1$!!! and a bonus when we go get our movies is there this exceptional milkshake place around the corner - okay wait a minute, we are actually studying here for real and not just having fun! its quite a balance alhamd.
anyhow, so for the past few nights - since the beginning of ramadhan (our month of fasting) we've had several brilliant reciters join us every night to recite the du'as (prayers) for this special month. It's a great way for us to pracitice our spoken arabic ofcourse as well as practise reciting the dua's ... for now we've primarily been listening...but i think we're more than ready to actually starting reading and having the recitors help us refine our recitation...as we've been reciting these du'as for years back home and have already become fluent....anyhow iA soon. So the other night one of our teachers brought his family, wife and 2 little girls. His wife spoke NO english at all! wow what a task...you all know that normally i have no problem talking lol but that night i really had to think before i spoke. But you know what, i didnt do so badly at all, i was able to converse with her in choppy sentances, i asked her about her family, how old her kids were, where she was orginally from etc..and alhamd was able to understand most of what she asked and communicated back as well...i suppose that is the best way to practise!
last thursday, one of our teachers took us on a field trip...we only have class half day on thursday, so in the afternoon he took us to 'baabe sagheer' - this place is actually and area where there are a lot of shrines and prominent historical figures are burried there...so we went to pay our respects to bibi fizza, hazrat bilal, saw a place where our fourth imam used to conduct khutba's and lead prayers...it was definitely unreal...we went with our colleagues ofcourse....all of us were fasting on that day and wow i don't think i've ever had such a tough fast - it was super super hot and there was a lot of walking...but we managed. The best part was after we were done our teacher left and the 4 of us (jaffer and i, and the other couple studying with us) decided to stay back and adventure out on our own for the first time. We had planned to go to this restaurant for dinner and needed to make our way to that area, we luckily asked our teacher about how much a taxi would cost, he advised us not to pay more than 100 - 150 syrian pounds...so we headed to the street and waved down a cab...we explained to him where we needed to go and he told us 200, straight away we said no and we were hoping he would change his mind but instead he drove off lol so we kept walking and finally decided to ask some locals for help, they were really nice and get this, they got us on this mini bus which is the local transportation...lol we paid 5 syrian pounds per person, lol so 20 instead of 150 or 200! crazy huh! anyhow, we had a great time venturing out; ate at this really good authentic syrian restaurant...we had a 7 course meal - no joke, appetizers, then cream of mushroom soup,then chicken dish, rice with peppers stuffed with ground beef, mashed potatoes and steak in this white sauce, and then syrian sweet pastries and fruit - it was fabulous!
so this is now our third week of class and we're definitely picking up speed with all our classes which is great. with several different institutions we've heard that their school days are only 4 hours long...whereas ours are more like 8 hours...so you can imagine how much we learn and how much home work we have...but we definitely prefer it this way! i cant emphasize how lucky we are, we are really being taken care of...we've heard of other students who have come through different institutions and have had a hard tiem settling in...where as we had a lot ready for us and prepared when we came, i.e a place to stay and meals etc..alhamd.
anyhow,i know this is a lot to read so i shall wrap up, besides the cafe is closing for iftar(the time when we break our fast) - its really cool how everyone is fasting here lol no temptation by watching others eat lol well, hopefully our next post will be much sooner ... stay tuned .... :)
Saturday, September 15, 2007
10 days in Damascus
Salaams to all!! Alhamd, we are doing great, no complains at all. Life Alhamd here is good... just to let you know what we have decided, Sabiha and I will both publish posts so there is more to read because of the infrequency of our blog updates. sorry about the infrequency but we are real busy and have to come to an Internet cafe to update, and its hard to find time.
ok...so 10 days in Sham already, crazy its been that long already, but you know what, it feels like we have been here 10 months, lol, not really, but at least 1 month...lol, so funny how that works... normally when we go on vacation time flies by, but i guess we are not on vacation...lol... we are real busy with school and the haram, and now the Holy Month of Ramadhan, it definitely keeps us wrapped up... we figured out they dont recite Dua Iftitah here, kinda sucks, we wanted to get the whole spiritual experience of it, but we will likely have to do it ourselves. no biggie...
On friday we went to Hamidiya, thats where Sayyida Rukaya is buried (bibi sakina). definitely a heart wrenching experience. we first walked through bazare sham, everything was closed because it was friday, however the person who took us explained to us that it took the Ahlul Bayt AS three days to walk that area, which took us about 10 minutes. So sad, cause you can imagine how much heart ache they must have been going through. Real sad!!! then we went to the area where Yazid's court used to be and then went into the Umayyad mosque. Very big. We saw the tomb of Hazrat Yahya (John the baptist) and then saw the Mimbar of Imam Zaynul Abideen AS. Very spiritually uplifting... we took pictures that IA we will upload soon, when we have our own Internet.. pray that we get it soon :) it was almost the time of juma so the ladies were behind this partition, however we all walked to the tombs and then were politely asked to separate..lol.. however we left, cause we wanted to go pray at Sayyida Rukaya. From there we walked to this area where they have the Mihrab of our 4th Imam... let me tell you how sad that area was. not only was the Mihrab there, but also the tray that they placed Imam Hussein's (AS) head in was there. Also, some say the head of Imam Husein is buried there, but not everyone agrees with that. Either way we paid our respects. Real sad as you can imagine.
From there we started walking to Bibi Rukaya. We saw the ruins of Yazid's palace, funny that all of the Ahlul Bayt's (AS) tombs are standing with such reverance, however there is hardly nothing left of Yazid's palace. It was pointed out to us that where Yazid's palace was and where Bibi Sakina is burried, is a good 3 walk, yet when she was crying, it could be heard all the way to Yazid's palace. Can you imagine???? then we finally got to Bibi Rukaya AS and prayed our Juma namaaz there, ofcourse it was in arabic, and the amazing thing was that we understood a good portion of it. Alhamd. We then paid our respects to this honorable lady and made our way home. What a day and what an experience. On top of that it was our first day of fasting and we were exhausted due to the walking and heat. But definitely worth it!!
Other then that, we have met some high ranking people here in Sham. We met Sheikh Halimi who is the representative of Ayatullah Sistani in Damascus. We were given a 20 minute audience with him where he gave each one of us a copy of the Holy Qur'an. Also, he gave us his business card with his personal cell phone number and said if anyone gives us any trouble, give them his card and tell them to call him, and he will take care of it... lol, really cool!!! A double bonus that day was that also in Sheikh Halimi's office was Syed Mohsin from Qum, who is the representative of Ayatullah Sistani in Qum. We were informed that whenever we send a question to Ayatullah Sistani, it is Syed Mohsin who answers all of them. It was a pretty great experience.
A few days later we went to go see Ayatullah Husseini who is the representative of Ayatullah Khamenei in Damascus. He gave us an audience of nearly an hour where he answered 1 question from each one of us. While we were sitting there, guess what i did? lol, i spilt the cup of tea that was given to us all over his carpet and table. LOL, i was trying to say something to apologize, and Alhamd the correct word popped into my head, "Afwan" and i repeated it a few times and he looked at me and smiled, and made a gesture as if to say dont worry young man...lol... i think i left a little bit of an impression on him...lol..
wow, long blog huh...lol... our classes are going real well. I have to say, sabiha is a genius, she is by far the smartest one if our class, and when i mean by far, it is no exageration. Alhamd, luckily she is my wife :) but she has a great grasp of the language and is amazing at memorizing vocab. I on the other hand have to struggle with it, but luckily i have someone as smart as her to help me out at home.
IA we will update again soon, until then, remember us in you duas during this Holy Month and we will iA do the same.
Till then, take care... Ma-as Salaam.
ok...so 10 days in Sham already, crazy its been that long already, but you know what, it feels like we have been here 10 months, lol, not really, but at least 1 month...lol, so funny how that works... normally when we go on vacation time flies by, but i guess we are not on vacation...lol... we are real busy with school and the haram, and now the Holy Month of Ramadhan, it definitely keeps us wrapped up... we figured out they dont recite Dua Iftitah here, kinda sucks, we wanted to get the whole spiritual experience of it, but we will likely have to do it ourselves. no biggie...
On friday we went to Hamidiya, thats where Sayyida Rukaya is buried (bibi sakina). definitely a heart wrenching experience. we first walked through bazare sham, everything was closed because it was friday, however the person who took us explained to us that it took the Ahlul Bayt AS three days to walk that area, which took us about 10 minutes. So sad, cause you can imagine how much heart ache they must have been going through. Real sad!!! then we went to the area where Yazid's court used to be and then went into the Umayyad mosque. Very big. We saw the tomb of Hazrat Yahya (John the baptist) and then saw the Mimbar of Imam Zaynul Abideen AS. Very spiritually uplifting... we took pictures that IA we will upload soon, when we have our own Internet.. pray that we get it soon :) it was almost the time of juma so the ladies were behind this partition, however we all walked to the tombs and then were politely asked to separate..lol.. however we left, cause we wanted to go pray at Sayyida Rukaya. From there we walked to this area where they have the Mihrab of our 4th Imam... let me tell you how sad that area was. not only was the Mihrab there, but also the tray that they placed Imam Hussein's (AS) head in was there. Also, some say the head of Imam Husein is buried there, but not everyone agrees with that. Either way we paid our respects. Real sad as you can imagine.
From there we started walking to Bibi Rukaya. We saw the ruins of Yazid's palace, funny that all of the Ahlul Bayt's (AS) tombs are standing with such reverance, however there is hardly nothing left of Yazid's palace. It was pointed out to us that where Yazid's palace was and where Bibi Sakina is burried, is a good 3 walk, yet when she was crying, it could be heard all the way to Yazid's palace. Can you imagine???? then we finally got to Bibi Rukaya AS and prayed our Juma namaaz there, ofcourse it was in arabic, and the amazing thing was that we understood a good portion of it. Alhamd. We then paid our respects to this honorable lady and made our way home. What a day and what an experience. On top of that it was our first day of fasting and we were exhausted due to the walking and heat. But definitely worth it!!
Other then that, we have met some high ranking people here in Sham. We met Sheikh Halimi who is the representative of Ayatullah Sistani in Damascus. We were given a 20 minute audience with him where he gave each one of us a copy of the Holy Qur'an. Also, he gave us his business card with his personal cell phone number and said if anyone gives us any trouble, give them his card and tell them to call him, and he will take care of it... lol, really cool!!! A double bonus that day was that also in Sheikh Halimi's office was Syed Mohsin from Qum, who is the representative of Ayatullah Sistani in Qum. We were informed that whenever we send a question to Ayatullah Sistani, it is Syed Mohsin who answers all of them. It was a pretty great experience.
A few days later we went to go see Ayatullah Husseini who is the representative of Ayatullah Khamenei in Damascus. He gave us an audience of nearly an hour where he answered 1 question from each one of us. While we were sitting there, guess what i did? lol, i spilt the cup of tea that was given to us all over his carpet and table. LOL, i was trying to say something to apologize, and Alhamd the correct word popped into my head, "Afwan" and i repeated it a few times and he looked at me and smiled, and made a gesture as if to say dont worry young man...lol... i think i left a little bit of an impression on him...lol..
wow, long blog huh...lol... our classes are going real well. I have to say, sabiha is a genius, she is by far the smartest one if our class, and when i mean by far, it is no exageration. Alhamd, luckily she is my wife :) but she has a great grasp of the language and is amazing at memorizing vocab. I on the other hand have to struggle with it, but luckily i have someone as smart as her to help me out at home.
IA we will update again soon, until then, remember us in you duas during this Holy Month and we will iA do the same.
Till then, take care... Ma-as Salaam.
Monday, September 10, 2007
long time no write....
wow it's been a while eh? trust me we've been wanting to write on here as much as you've been wanting to read ( we hope lol). anyhow, we are both doin well and have finally reached --- after a long 30 hrs of travel! hmmmm so what can i say...its different here - but different in a good way. definitely a culture shock but we're adjusting quit well i must say. for one gettin used to the 'chaotic order' here...what we would consider a road or lane for 1 car is used for 6 cars here(busses, cars, vans, cyclists, pedestrians...we still haven't figured out who has the right of way)...it is definitely an art to drive here...the people here have mastered a skill that i can't even attempt. another is that here 'rules are meant to be broken' not sometimes, but all the time, wait i dont think there are many rules...but that all aside...the people here are 'mumtaz' excellent, amazing, more than kind...everyone we've met thus far have been extremely helpful and it is because of them we have become comfortable so quickly.
we've had a chance to see and do quite a bit alhamd...go to the haram ofcourse...gone to the city and had some amazing fawakeh (fruit) smoothies..and had some awesome food...for un-beatable prices!!!!
anyhow, hoping u guys are able to see this post cos for some reason our blog site itself has been blocked by the network firewall but i can access the account so here's hoping
Jaffer and i now know about this cafe ( $0.65/hr btw) lol so hope to be coming here again soon between our classes and studying ofcourse...until then fee amaanillah!
we've had a chance to see and do quite a bit alhamd...go to the haram ofcourse...gone to the city and had some amazing fawakeh (fruit) smoothies..and had some awesome food...for un-beatable prices!!!!
anyhow, hoping u guys are able to see this post cos for some reason our blog site itself has been blocked by the network firewall but i can access the account so here's hoping
Jaffer and i now know about this cafe ( $0.65/hr btw) lol so hope to be coming here again soon between our classes and studying ofcourse...until then fee amaanillah!
We are in Damascus!!!! - and we have found Internet - cafe:)
Whats up everyone... Long long time no write.. real sorry about that. Since we have arrived here, we havent had computer access, there have been many cafes around but we never got the chance, but Alhamd we finally got some free time after class, so we decided to come and check our emails..etc... and you know what we found out, our blog page is blocked here..lol, we cant access it. It is giving us permission to update it, so IA it will come on the blog itself..lol..
Sooo, updates!! We got here last Wed, no problems with the luggage, they call came out right away. Its really funny here, that there doesnt seem to be that many rules. We noticed this right after we landed... there were no smoking signs through out the airport and in customs, but everyone was smoking..lol... too funny, so yup, i lit one up too... When in Rome..... :0
Hussein bhai (the manager of the course) picked us up and took us to our new home... For those who have never been here, let me tell you something, there is ALOT of poverty here... but you know what, people are happy... makes you reflect that we work so hard and are Alhamd living comfortably, yet we never are happy... anyways... we got here and the first thing we noticed was that there are no driving rules...lol.. im sure there are, but we (foreigners) didnt see any... but we think we have figured it out... survival of the biggest... if you have a bus, you have the right of way... then comes the mini buses, then smaller cars, then motorcycles, then bicycles then pedestrians..lol... it is chaotic when you walk on the streets...lol, always people honking, 6 lanes of cars on a 2 lane road...lol, lots of fun... also, there was thousands of little shops, bazaars after bazaars, people selling everything... a few nights ago, Sabiha and I ate out, it cost us 85 pounds for 2 shawarmas and an orange soda, that comes out to $1.60 for a dinner!!! Nice!!! LOL
We did go to the Haram the first day and subsequently every day that we have been here. Alhamd, truly overwhelming and nice... but lots and lots of people. We are literally 5 minutes walk away from the haram... amazing!! we can see the Haram from our apartment...
Lastly for now, our classes are going good.. 3 days of class so far, pray that we learn alot!!!
OK for now, dont know when we will come back to the cafe, but hope you are reading.... dont stop coming to our page!!!! :)
Peace
Sooo, updates!! We got here last Wed, no problems with the luggage, they call came out right away. Its really funny here, that there doesnt seem to be that many rules. We noticed this right after we landed... there were no smoking signs through out the airport and in customs, but everyone was smoking..lol... too funny, so yup, i lit one up too... When in Rome..... :0
Hussein bhai (the manager of the course) picked us up and took us to our new home... For those who have never been here, let me tell you something, there is ALOT of poverty here... but you know what, people are happy... makes you reflect that we work so hard and are Alhamd living comfortably, yet we never are happy... anyways... we got here and the first thing we noticed was that there are no driving rules...lol.. im sure there are, but we (foreigners) didnt see any... but we think we have figured it out... survival of the biggest... if you have a bus, you have the right of way... then comes the mini buses, then smaller cars, then motorcycles, then bicycles then pedestrians..lol... it is chaotic when you walk on the streets...lol, always people honking, 6 lanes of cars on a 2 lane road...lol, lots of fun... also, there was thousands of little shops, bazaars after bazaars, people selling everything... a few nights ago, Sabiha and I ate out, it cost us 85 pounds for 2 shawarmas and an orange soda, that comes out to $1.60 for a dinner!!! Nice!!! LOL
We did go to the Haram the first day and subsequently every day that we have been here. Alhamd, truly overwhelming and nice... but lots and lots of people. We are literally 5 minutes walk away from the haram... amazing!! we can see the Haram from our apartment...
Lastly for now, our classes are going good.. 3 days of class so far, pray that we learn alot!!!
OK for now, dont know when we will come back to the cafe, but hope you are reading.... dont stop coming to our page!!!! :)
Peace
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
We are in London!! 1 day late
Haha... ok, so we are finally in London, Alhamd... however we got here 1 day late. So as you read on the last blog, we were having serious weight issues with our bags. Since we were spending 1 night in London, all our bags that we checked in from LA would come out in London. That means that if we pay for overweight bags or 1 extra bag, either or, we would not only have to pay in LA but would also have to pay in London. Double the charge....crazy! Also, since we are flying with Gulf Air from London, they charge some ridiculous amount, between 10-17 sterling pounds per kilo. That means 20-34 dollars per kilo. That means we would have to pay nearly 500$. Thats nuts!!! So what we decided to do was postpone our flight from LA, leave on Monday instead of Sunday, that way our bags would not come out when we landed in London. So, it worked out much better. And the good thing was, that when we took off from LA, we got some really nice porter at the airport, and we didnt even have to pay for the overweight bags. Alhamd!!!!
So after all that drama, we are finally in London. And since we decided to stay an extra day in LA, it messed everyones plans here in London, cause they had planned to pick us up and host us for one night. So when we finally landed in London, there was no one to pick us up... LOL... we had a 10 hour layover, so definitely enough time to come out of the airport and go somewhere. And since we already have our boarding pass and no baggage to tag along, we were pretty much free. So we thought we would catch a train to go to Nargis Kapuri, a restaurant that serves East African Cuisine. By the way if you didnt know, Sabiha and I are East African..lol... However, we checked their website from LA and they are closed on Tuesdays!!!! What!! LOL!! how funny is that...lol.. so that plan was cancelled. Luckily, our cousin said to come to his house by taxi or bus or train. So we finally landed in London, and no trains are running, they are all on strike. hahaha... how funny... so we did what anyone Londoner would do, we caught the bus. And boy that was a treat. It took us 2 hours to get home.... lol. We got here at 4pm and our flight is at 1030. But as i mentioned, we already have our boarding passes, so we just have to be at the airport by 9, IA. Phew.... long couple of days!!!
On a side note, before we left LA, on sunday I had my last volleyball practice and LA Union gave Sabiha and I a very nice gift. We pray to Allah SWT to bless all of them and iA give them more then they ask for. Thank you very much LA Union!!
OK, so we dont know what our internet status will be in Damascus, so until we figure that out, this might be our last blog for a few days. However, you never know, so stay tuned!!!!!
So after all that drama, we are finally in London. And since we decided to stay an extra day in LA, it messed everyones plans here in London, cause they had planned to pick us up and host us for one night. So when we finally landed in London, there was no one to pick us up... LOL... we had a 10 hour layover, so definitely enough time to come out of the airport and go somewhere. And since we already have our boarding pass and no baggage to tag along, we were pretty much free. So we thought we would catch a train to go to Nargis Kapuri, a restaurant that serves East African Cuisine. By the way if you didnt know, Sabiha and I are East African..lol... However, we checked their website from LA and they are closed on Tuesdays!!!! What!! LOL!! how funny is that...lol.. so that plan was cancelled. Luckily, our cousin said to come to his house by taxi or bus or train. So we finally landed in London, and no trains are running, they are all on strike. hahaha... how funny... so we did what anyone Londoner would do, we caught the bus. And boy that was a treat. It took us 2 hours to get home.... lol. We got here at 4pm and our flight is at 1030. But as i mentioned, we already have our boarding passes, so we just have to be at the airport by 9, IA. Phew.... long couple of days!!!
On a side note, before we left LA, on sunday I had my last volleyball practice and LA Union gave Sabiha and I a very nice gift. We pray to Allah SWT to bless all of them and iA give them more then they ask for. Thank you very much LA Union!!
OK, so we dont know what our internet status will be in Damascus, so until we figure that out, this might be our last blog for a few days. However, you never know, so stay tuned!!!!!
Friday, August 31, 2007
...No turning back!!!
We're officially no longer in 'the OC' - we turned in our apartment keys earlier today and have brought all our luggage to Jamil's place(Jaffer's brother) - practically all that we own is in 4 suitcases, 2 carry ons, and my purse and Jaffer's laptop bag!!! We'll be here for 2 nites and then we leave for London to break our journey before our destination...
We had quite a hectic day today, though we kept saying that all is done and there isn't much left - there was A LOT of last minute sorting out to do...there was no 'oh we don't need to take this let's just leave it for now' we had to clear out EVERYTHING - crazy...i think it's definitely starting to hit me now, especially once i saw our empty apartment and handed over our keys.
The weekend will be a hectic one, we've been invited out for breakfast tomorrow and then have a mosque event to attend at nite...i'm looking forward to that as we'll get to see everyone and get to say our good-byes...i'm hoping there are no waterworks lol as i dont know if i can handle that...though we'll be back every summer and it's not a permanent move, it's still a HUGE change! We're also invited for breakfast on Sunday, the day we leave...it's been really amazing how supportive our community has been. I haven't had to cook for almost a month lol shouldn't get too used to it eh i suppose? I'm sure it'll be quite an experience cooking over there, i'm taking some spices as suggested by a few people, just to make sure i can make Jaffer his bhiryani ;)
All has worked out well so far as i'm sure u've read cos we've mentioned it several times :) ...and iA all will continue to work out well...we just have a little bit of drama with our luggage...we have 2 bags that we know will be over weight...we did a lot and i mean a lot of investigation (thanks to our lunch hosts yesterday who gave us access to their phone and internet lol ;)) we found out how much it will be for over weight bags - and surprisingly enough its not that expensive. However, since we break our journey in London - we're going to run into a snag cos we change to a different airline and they are not nearly as flexible as our first airline. Anywho we'll just have to hope for the best - don't worry, we'll be sure to update you all!
We had quite a hectic day today, though we kept saying that all is done and there isn't much left - there was A LOT of last minute sorting out to do...there was no 'oh we don't need to take this let's just leave it for now' we had to clear out EVERYTHING - crazy...i think it's definitely starting to hit me now, especially once i saw our empty apartment and handed over our keys.
The weekend will be a hectic one, we've been invited out for breakfast tomorrow and then have a mosque event to attend at nite...i'm looking forward to that as we'll get to see everyone and get to say our good-byes...i'm hoping there are no waterworks lol as i dont know if i can handle that...though we'll be back every summer and it's not a permanent move, it's still a HUGE change! We're also invited for breakfast on Sunday, the day we leave...it's been really amazing how supportive our community has been. I haven't had to cook for almost a month lol shouldn't get too used to it eh i suppose? I'm sure it'll be quite an experience cooking over there, i'm taking some spices as suggested by a few people, just to make sure i can make Jaffer his bhiryani ;)
All has worked out well so far as i'm sure u've read cos we've mentioned it several times :) ...and iA all will continue to work out well...we just have a little bit of drama with our luggage...we have 2 bags that we know will be over weight...we did a lot and i mean a lot of investigation (thanks to our lunch hosts yesterday who gave us access to their phone and internet lol ;)) we found out how much it will be for over weight bags - and surprisingly enough its not that expensive. However, since we break our journey in London - we're going to run into a snag cos we change to a different airline and they are not nearly as flexible as our first airline. Anywho we'll just have to hope for the best - don't worry, we'll be sure to update you all!
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
...back in the stoneage!
Sooo...we're back from TO; we had a blast; it was great getting together with family and friends...got back late last nite; and what a journey back it was. We had a stop over in Utah - when we got on that flight we sat on the plane and amidst screaming and crying kids we heard the pilot let us know that there was a minor technical issue on the plane...and so we had to wait and wait and wait....we ended up gettin off the plane...and waiting another hour; we finally got on the plane and made it back home...lol the worst part thru out all this was that we had no way to communicate with our family letting them know that our flight was delayed...our cell phones are disconnected ... so once we got off the plane we had to get some change so we could use a payphone...yup they still have those...not as many but they have em...we had a hard time finding one on the road...but we managed. Once we got home...definitely hit us; our apartment is empty...aaand we have no connection to the outside world...lol no tv, no cell phone, no internet...no home phone..we had to go to a cyber cafe in our apartment complex to access the internet..definitely made us realize how dependant we are on certain things...lol we actually had to read and talk to spend time.
Tomorrow is our day to pack...we still have dinner and breakfast get togethers..so between all that we will finsh up all our last minute packing and then we're off!
We got a confirmation today that our apartment is ready and we will be picked up at the airport on the 5th...wow in about a weeks time we'll be there...time is just flying by!
Anyhow, that's it for now...It's been a while since I've written but will hopefully be able to keep up with Jaffer and his posts...lol I'll have more to say when we get there i'm sure...have just been pre-occupied with packing and sorting things out...everything seems to be shaping up really well Alhamd~ and we have no doubt that all will continue to fall into place ...
Tomorrow is our day to pack...we still have dinner and breakfast get togethers..so between all that we will finsh up all our last minute packing and then we're off!
We got a confirmation today that our apartment is ready and we will be picked up at the airport on the 5th...wow in about a weeks time we'll be there...time is just flying by!
Anyhow, that's it for now...It's been a while since I've written but will hopefully be able to keep up with Jaffer and his posts...lol I'll have more to say when we get there i'm sure...have just been pre-occupied with packing and sorting things out...everything seems to be shaping up really well Alhamd~ and we have no doubt that all will continue to fall into place ...
Friday, August 24, 2007
TIME IS FLYING!!!
Whats up everyone, cant even believe its already Friday. You know what that means??? Day of Juma!!; 2 more days here in TO and we leave, OMG; I am reciting a majlis today!!; 5 days since we last updated the blog. LOL.... sorry about that... things have been moving at an extra ordinary pace lately. Days have been flying by and now we are faced with the reality that we dont have much time left here. Tomorrow should be exciting because the whole Jaffer family that is here will be meeting for dinner + a few others, but in reality, everyone wants to be a Jaffer anyway!!! hahaha...... jk..... not really :)
The last few days have been nice but busy.... Mon, Tue and Wed nights we spent with Mom and were back here last night. We will spend the remaining of our nights here at Mummy's (you should know the difference if you have been reading our blog :)) We have visited everyone we want to visit, well let me rephrase that, we have visited everyone that we had a chance to visit. There are still so many people that wanted us to come to their homes, but we never got the chance. And its not just because we are so popular (haha... we're not that conceded), its because we really have a lot of family here. It seems that no matter how long of a trip we plan, we never have enough time... but thats the story of everyones life right. Allah SWT says that surely we are at a loss of time, and boy those words are truly ringing true now!!!!!!!!
The next couple of days should be filled with laughter, excitement, sadness, tears and everything in between. We will have a lot of fun when we are all together tomorrow night but then after that when the reality of us leaving will hit, it will be filled with lots of emotions. Thats what I think anyways, but what do I know.... 'twill be funny if there are no emotions... haha...
BTW, we were waiting for our Visas to arrive, and Alhamd they did. So now we have our visas and tickets, looks like no going back now!!! haha...
Will keep you posted!!!
The last few days have been nice but busy.... Mon, Tue and Wed nights we spent with Mom and were back here last night. We will spend the remaining of our nights here at Mummy's (you should know the difference if you have been reading our blog :)) We have visited everyone we want to visit, well let me rephrase that, we have visited everyone that we had a chance to visit. There are still so many people that wanted us to come to their homes, but we never got the chance. And its not just because we are so popular (haha... we're not that conceded), its because we really have a lot of family here. It seems that no matter how long of a trip we plan, we never have enough time... but thats the story of everyones life right. Allah SWT says that surely we are at a loss of time, and boy those words are truly ringing true now!!!!!!!!
The next couple of days should be filled with laughter, excitement, sadness, tears and everything in between. We will have a lot of fun when we are all together tomorrow night but then after that when the reality of us leaving will hit, it will be filled with lots of emotions. Thats what I think anyways, but what do I know.... 'twill be funny if there are no emotions... haha...
BTW, we were waiting for our Visas to arrive, and Alhamd they did. So now we have our visas and tickets, looks like no going back now!!! haha...
Will keep you posted!!!
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Busy in TO
Sorry for not writing in soooo long, but we have been really busy here in TO. We have so many people to visit, back and forth between the two families, and mosque basically every day. Since our arrival in TO on Tuesday afternoon, we have been to 3 mosque functions, one more tonight, 3 weddings and 1 reception...and a partridge in a pair tree...lol....
Since we decided to go to Syria, we have always felt that it was meant to be.. you know how some things just seem to fall into place!?!? well, things have really been in our favor, once we decided to go ahead for this course, Alhamd. Pretty cool. So something exciting happened to both Sabiha and I. We came on Tuesday afternoon, landed around 330, got home around 5. Spent some time here at Mummy's (Sabiha's mom) and then went to go visit Mom (My mom). See the difference?? This is how Sabiha and I know which mother we are referring too..lol. During dinner, Akil (Sabiha's brother) mentioned to me he has to give a lecture at the Brampton Mosque and really didnt have time to prepare. So he asked if I wanted to recite..lol... what??? I have given many lectures at the LA mosque, but never anywhere else. lol.. so after further discussion with my agent (Sabiha), we decided to go ahead with it. First majlis for me at another Mosque, how exciting!!! and nerve wrecking ofcourse...lol...
So I did mention something exciting happened to both of us... On Thursday, we were driving around when Sabiha got a call from Mummy. Sabiha had been requested by some lady to give a lecture at her house. What????? lol, how exciting, we both just came to visit and hang out with family, and we are both going to give lectures..lol... Told you this whole thing is 'meant to be'..lol. So I did give my lecture on Thursday night and Sabiha did give her lecture on Friday afternoon. Its hard as a lecturer to say how it went, but both group of listeners said it went great! IA it will get accepted.
Besides that, we have been going to mosque a lot. Crazy the number of people who attend mosque here. Nothing at all like what we see in LA. But the community size here is HUGE. Overall, its been a fun trip so far, and we still have another week to go. By the way, we have paid our Salaams to Tim Hortons, Popeyes, and Shalimar (they serve an East African Menu there). Many more restaurants to visit :)
Will write more soon!!!
Since we decided to go to Syria, we have always felt that it was meant to be.. you know how some things just seem to fall into place!?!? well, things have really been in our favor, once we decided to go ahead for this course, Alhamd. Pretty cool. So something exciting happened to both Sabiha and I. We came on Tuesday afternoon, landed around 330, got home around 5. Spent some time here at Mummy's (Sabiha's mom) and then went to go visit Mom (My mom). See the difference?? This is how Sabiha and I know which mother we are referring too..lol. During dinner, Akil (Sabiha's brother) mentioned to me he has to give a lecture at the Brampton Mosque and really didnt have time to prepare. So he asked if I wanted to recite..lol... what??? I have given many lectures at the LA mosque, but never anywhere else. lol.. so after further discussion with my agent (Sabiha), we decided to go ahead with it. First majlis for me at another Mosque, how exciting!!! and nerve wrecking ofcourse...lol...
So I did mention something exciting happened to both of us... On Thursday, we were driving around when Sabiha got a call from Mummy. Sabiha had been requested by some lady to give a lecture at her house. What????? lol, how exciting, we both just came to visit and hang out with family, and we are both going to give lectures..lol... Told you this whole thing is 'meant to be'..lol. So I did give my lecture on Thursday night and Sabiha did give her lecture on Friday afternoon. Its hard as a lecturer to say how it went, but both group of listeners said it went great! IA it will get accepted.
Besides that, we have been going to mosque a lot. Crazy the number of people who attend mosque here. Nothing at all like what we see in LA. But the community size here is HUGE. Overall, its been a fun trip so far, and we still have another week to go. By the way, we have paid our Salaams to Tim Hortons, Popeyes, and Shalimar (they serve an East African Menu there). Many more restaurants to visit :)
Will write more soon!!!
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
We're in Toronto!!
Whats up everyone :) Hope you guys are doing as well as Sabiha and I are doing. We are currently in Toronto, got here yesterday, but the last few days have been filled with excitement..lol, not really but atleast it will keep you reading :)
On Sunday, I went to play volleyball in the morning. Might be the last time I play, tho I hope they will play on Sept 2nd when I am there. Said my goodbyes to a few of the guys who I may not see again for a year..then came home around 1ish, Salim and Jamil came also, cause Jamil was taking a few things from our house...also some things we wanted to keep so we gave to Jamil...etc. Also, we were selling our 2nd car today and would be then left without a car :( Also, our TV and dvd player was going as well. WOW, can you imagine, the house was completely bare, nothing was left..lol, but 2 air mattresses. We then went out as a family and Sabiha and I came home around 11 (Jamil let us borrow one of his cars, thanks!!), to a house that had no couches to sit on, no TV to watch, all we could really do was play some Scrabble!! lol, Sabiha had never played so I thought I would destroy her. And you know what, she almost kicked by $*#@...lol.. I wasnt even taking it easy, she just played really well. I think if she practices a few more times, she will consistently beat me, then I probably will stop playing..haha...
Monday was a busy day as well. We had to run a lot of little errands through out the day, went to lunch, went to the cemetery and then packed. Cause Tuesday, early early morning we were flying out to TO. So we packed and packed and packed. We ended up with 3 1/2 suitcases filled with stuff. And the funny thing is, 2 1/2 of them are clothes that we are leaving in TO, only 1 suitcase is filled with stuff that we are going to wear... lol.. too funny. then we went to Jamil's house cause LAX is close to there, and went with Salim to dinner. On the way home, we passed LAX and decided to stop by and have a rehearsal for the next day.. lol, jk, we wanted to go weigh our bags, and good thing we did cause we were over weight on 2 of our suitcases. So, because we are planners, we had taken a duffle bag with us incase this would happen... worked out wonderfully!!!
Tuesday early early morning, we left Jamil's at 415 - AM that is, and went to the airport. Long lines, surprisingly cause it was so early. But Alhamd, everything worked out well. We were flying from LAX to Salt Lake city where we had an hour stop over and then the rest of the journey to TO. But as it turned out, we were delayed for 1 hour in LAX and delayed for 1 hour in Salt Lake. Thats life i guess!!!
But, we are in TO, will keep you updated here, just lounging, so should have more time to write stuff..lol, if there is something to write :)
Peace!!
On Sunday, I went to play volleyball in the morning. Might be the last time I play, tho I hope they will play on Sept 2nd when I am there. Said my goodbyes to a few of the guys who I may not see again for a year..then came home around 1ish, Salim and Jamil came also, cause Jamil was taking a few things from our house...also some things we wanted to keep so we gave to Jamil...etc. Also, we were selling our 2nd car today and would be then left without a car :( Also, our TV and dvd player was going as well. WOW, can you imagine, the house was completely bare, nothing was left..lol, but 2 air mattresses. We then went out as a family and Sabiha and I came home around 11 (Jamil let us borrow one of his cars, thanks!!), to a house that had no couches to sit on, no TV to watch, all we could really do was play some Scrabble!! lol, Sabiha had never played so I thought I would destroy her. And you know what, she almost kicked by $*#@...lol.. I wasnt even taking it easy, she just played really well. I think if she practices a few more times, she will consistently beat me, then I probably will stop playing..haha...
Monday was a busy day as well. We had to run a lot of little errands through out the day, went to lunch, went to the cemetery and then packed. Cause Tuesday, early early morning we were flying out to TO. So we packed and packed and packed. We ended up with 3 1/2 suitcases filled with stuff. And the funny thing is, 2 1/2 of them are clothes that we are leaving in TO, only 1 suitcase is filled with stuff that we are going to wear... lol.. too funny. then we went to Jamil's house cause LAX is close to there, and went with Salim to dinner. On the way home, we passed LAX and decided to stop by and have a rehearsal for the next day.. lol, jk, we wanted to go weigh our bags, and good thing we did cause we were over weight on 2 of our suitcases. So, because we are planners, we had taken a duffle bag with us incase this would happen... worked out wonderfully!!!
Tuesday early early morning, we left Jamil's at 415 - AM that is, and went to the airport. Long lines, surprisingly cause it was so early. But Alhamd, everything worked out well. We were flying from LAX to Salt Lake city where we had an hour stop over and then the rest of the journey to TO. But as it turned out, we were delayed for 1 hour in LAX and delayed for 1 hour in Salt Lake. Thats life i guess!!!
But, we are in TO, will keep you updated here, just lounging, so should have more time to write stuff..lol, if there is something to write :)
Peace!!
Saturday, August 11, 2007
INDIO!! (not India :))
OK, sorry for not writing in quite some time, but we were out of town for the last few days. Tuesday was my last day of work and on Wednesday, Sabiha and I, and my two brothers and their families all went to Indio for a few days to relax. By the way, its Indio, not India..lol..everyone we told about Indio, always said "INDIA???", lol, then we had to explain to them that its Indio...lol.. the desert.
My brother Jamil reserved a 3 bedroom suite at a resort in Indio, and it was a lot of fun. We got there Wednesday late afternoon and it was about 109 at 5..lol, quite hot... by the time we got settled in, played a few games of Wii, it was already night. We started bbq around 9, when it was still 80 outside..lol. The place was great tho.
On thursday we all just hung out during the day, ate and then ate some more, smoked some shisha during the afternoon, then decided to go the Cabazon-Outlet stores, in the evening. That was a nice outing cause we were all together and made the day pass by a little. Funny story about that.. all the girls were really excited about going, so us guys, who are not big shoppers all tagged along. After 2 hours of walking, guess what... lol.. all the guys bought stuff and the girls didnt get anything. LOL... funny how that happened.
Friday we had to check out by 12 and didnt want to stay too late anyways cause of friday traffic. We reached home around 230 in the afternoon. Really good times with the family. Sabiha will put up some pictures of all of us together. It was really good times and thanks to Jamil, Shabira and Inaya for putting it together, AND for Salim and Tahera for coming to NY for this and for us.
Its hard to imagine how little time we have left. Tahera bhabhi is leaving this sunday to go back to NY and I'm sure the tears will begin flowing. On Monday, Sabiha and I go to TO for 2 weeks, where there will definitely be a lot more tears... we are definitely packing the kleenex :)
Oh by the way, our Sofas got taken today. So I am currently sitting on an air mattress watching TV. Tomorrow, our TV will go also :( Dont know if I'm more sad of our TV going or the Car...lol..
Anyways, more to come, iA we will have pictures on here soon too.
Take care!!!
My brother Jamil reserved a 3 bedroom suite at a resort in Indio, and it was a lot of fun. We got there Wednesday late afternoon and it was about 109 at 5..lol, quite hot... by the time we got settled in, played a few games of Wii, it was already night. We started bbq around 9, when it was still 80 outside..lol. The place was great tho.
On thursday we all just hung out during the day, ate and then ate some more, smoked some shisha during the afternoon, then decided to go the Cabazon-Outlet stores, in the evening. That was a nice outing cause we were all together and made the day pass by a little. Funny story about that.. all the girls were really excited about going, so us guys, who are not big shoppers all tagged along. After 2 hours of walking, guess what... lol.. all the guys bought stuff and the girls didnt get anything. LOL... funny how that happened.
Friday we had to check out by 12 and didnt want to stay too late anyways cause of friday traffic. We reached home around 230 in the afternoon. Really good times with the family. Sabiha will put up some pictures of all of us together. It was really good times and thanks to Jamil, Shabira and Inaya for putting it together, AND for Salim and Tahera for coming to NY for this and for us.
Its hard to imagine how little time we have left. Tahera bhabhi is leaving this sunday to go back to NY and I'm sure the tears will begin flowing. On Monday, Sabiha and I go to TO for 2 weeks, where there will definitely be a lot more tears... we are definitely packing the kleenex :)
Oh by the way, our Sofas got taken today. So I am currently sitting on an air mattress watching TV. Tomorrow, our TV will go also :( Dont know if I'm more sad of our TV going or the Car...lol..
Anyways, more to come, iA we will have pictures on here soon too.
Take care!!!
Tuesday, August 7, 2007
We got our tickets!!!!
2 blogs in 2 days!! wow, this is fun:) So now its finally finally confirmed. Last week we contacted our travel agent and gave him the dates we want to travel. The next day he sent us a few itineraries and then we had to pick the best one. And now, we have it. Its paid and ready for travel!!! So, our trip details are:
Leave LA on Sept 2nd - fly to London (spend a day there to hang out w/ family).
Leave London Sept 4th - fly to Bahrain (2 hour stop) then fly to our NEW HOME!!!
We arrive in Damascus on Wednesday Sept 5th.
Long Journey, but all good, Alhamd. Its good that we arrive there a bit early cause it will give us a few days to get adjusted with our surroundings, maybe get a food poisoning under our belts before class starts (lol...jk...everyone we talk to warns us to be careful... i think 1 food poisoning and we should be ready to eat anything..lol). First day of class starts on Sept 8th. CRAZY!!! BACK TO SCHOOL!! AAAAHHHHHHHH.......
I know it seems like Sept 2nd is so far away, but really, its not. Check out the tickler at the bottom of the blog, and it will show you how long we have. Out of that, 2 weeks will be spent in Toronto, 3 days in Indio, leaves us with less then 8 days here in LA. Nuts!! Things are moving right along, and if we dont keep up, we will be swept underneath the currents...(cool analogy, huh!)
Ok, so thats the biggest update yet. Today is my last day at work. To all my work teammates who read this, it was truly a pleasure working with all of you and I leave with all good memories.
Take care for now!!
Leave LA on Sept 2nd - fly to London (spend a day there to hang out w/ family).
Leave London Sept 4th - fly to Bahrain (2 hour stop) then fly to our NEW HOME!!!
We arrive in Damascus on Wednesday Sept 5th.
Long Journey, but all good, Alhamd. Its good that we arrive there a bit early cause it will give us a few days to get adjusted with our surroundings, maybe get a food poisoning under our belts before class starts (lol...jk...everyone we talk to warns us to be careful... i think 1 food poisoning and we should be ready to eat anything..lol). First day of class starts on Sept 8th. CRAZY!!! BACK TO SCHOOL!! AAAAHHHHHHHH.......
I know it seems like Sept 2nd is so far away, but really, its not. Check out the tickler at the bottom of the blog, and it will show you how long we have. Out of that, 2 weeks will be spent in Toronto, 3 days in Indio, leaves us with less then 8 days here in LA. Nuts!! Things are moving right along, and if we dont keep up, we will be swept underneath the currents...(cool analogy, huh!)
Ok, so thats the biggest update yet. Today is my last day at work. To all my work teammates who read this, it was truly a pleasure working with all of you and I leave with all good memories.
Take care for now!!
Monday, August 6, 2007
The Weekend
Whats up everyone??? For those that have been following our progress thru these blogs, we would like to say Thank you very much!! This weekend that past was extremely productive and filling :)
We were invited out to different peoples house this entire weekend. It was krazy!! But at the same time, ALOT of fun!!!
Saturday afternoon, Sabiha and I were invited out to SK's house for lunch. Along with us, they invited my brother, Jamil and the family and a bunch of single LA Union guys!! It was good times and good food. The same crowd that was invited for lunch was also invited out to dinner at MK's house. There we all hung out as well and the guys ended up smoking some shisha! It was a good productive day of socializing and eating!!!
Sunday morning, ofcourse I went to play vball with the guys. Rushed home cause again Sabiha and I were invited out to lunch at one of our friend's house. There we ate some good food again and some more socializing. Afterwards, we went to visit my uncle where ofcourse we ate a little more. Sabiha planned well and only munched, but I quite dont know what that means...lol. From there we went to another friend's house for dinner. Man!!! are you tired? We sure are..lol.
We do want to say THANK YOU to everyone who took time out of their busy schedule and invited us to their house. It really means alot to us and makes us feel real good that people are so supportive of our journey. Thank you again!!!!
On a side note, tomorrow is my last day of work!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOO
More updates to come, IA.
Peace!!
We were invited out to different peoples house this entire weekend. It was krazy!! But at the same time, ALOT of fun!!!
Saturday afternoon, Sabiha and I were invited out to SK's house for lunch. Along with us, they invited my brother, Jamil and the family and a bunch of single LA Union guys!! It was good times and good food. The same crowd that was invited for lunch was also invited out to dinner at MK's house. There we all hung out as well and the guys ended up smoking some shisha! It was a good productive day of socializing and eating!!!
Sunday morning, ofcourse I went to play vball with the guys. Rushed home cause again Sabiha and I were invited out to lunch at one of our friend's house. There we ate some good food again and some more socializing. Afterwards, we went to visit my uncle where ofcourse we ate a little more. Sabiha planned well and only munched, but I quite dont know what that means...lol. From there we went to another friend's house for dinner. Man!!! are you tired? We sure are..lol.
We do want to say THANK YOU to everyone who took time out of their busy schedule and invited us to their house. It really means alot to us and makes us feel real good that people are so supportive of our journey. Thank you again!!!!
On a side note, tomorrow is my last day of work!!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOO
More updates to come, IA.
Peace!!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Just packing....
Hello......:) so not much going on here, besides ofcourse getting rid of TONS of clothes and other stuff. Its hard to imagine how much stuff we humans possess.. krazy!!! but besides that, counting down the days to when i quit my job. After today, only 4 days left!! Looking forward to not having to work for 4 years..well, actually we will be in school for 4 years, so pick your poison i guess...lol. We should find out in the next couple of days when we are actually leaving LA for Sham, in the process of booking tickets currently. Details will be posted as soon as they are confirmed...lol...
This blogging thing is quite fun actually... IA more people will start reading when there is something truly important to write.. haha. In the meantime, tonight we going out to dinner to a Thai restaurant where they sell Madaf. I think we go there just for the Madaf..lol..
Ok.. will write more at a later time!!!
This blogging thing is quite fun actually... IA more people will start reading when there is something truly important to write.. haha. In the meantime, tonight we going out to dinner to a Thai restaurant where they sell Madaf. I think we go there just for the Madaf..lol..
Ok.. will write more at a later time!!!
Monday, July 30, 2007
The Weekend!!
OK, i have to say its pretty cool that we just come on here and write about whats happening in our lives, hoping that people actually care... lol.. so if you do, let me tell you about what happened this past weekend..
Friday: Since we are down to one car (we sold the other if you haven't been paying attention :)), Sabiha dropped me off to work in the morning cause she had a lunch date with her work friends. A few hours into my workday, I started feeling sick so she came to pick me up...Dont quite know what was wrong, just severe stomach pain... I came home and basically slept till the evening.. At night, we both went to KD's house where LA Union was throwing us a surprise (not really a surprise) going away party. Really nice of them and super nice of our chairman, KD, and his family who hosted the party (not really a party, more social gathering). Thank you LA Union!
Saturday: Saturday was not a good day for me (though could have been worse, so Alhamd!). I was much more sick then I was the day before, so basically stayed in bed. Sabiha, my gift from God, took great care of me and we actually got some quality time to spend toghether (however, i was sleeping for most of it, lol). The guy who bought out furniture came to pick up the rest of it, however the dude was 2 hours late!!! WHAT!!! 2 hours late, are you kidding me, like we had nothing better to do. Well, we truly had nothing better to do, but still, 2 hours late! That's ridiculous!
Sunday: Because I wasn't totally well, missed volleyball this morning, and u know what, life went on... though it was tragic!! Sabiha and I went out to lunch to one of our favorite restaurants, Aladdin, Jr, then went to CostCo with Jamil (my brother). You need a membership to get in and out of CostCo so Jamil had to come and get us in and then come and get us out..lol... Thank you for all your help Jamil!! So basically CostCo is this place where you can get everything you want in huge, bulk quantities. We bought alot of the essentials that we need for Sham, ie.. toothpaste, toothbrush, medications...etc (cause they dont have toothbrushes and toothpaste in Syria, lol.) We felt we should buy all the basic stuff from here, so we dont have to worry about them when we get there. Smart huh?!!! K, thats if for now... will write more later!! Peace
Friday: Since we are down to one car (we sold the other if you haven't been paying attention :)), Sabiha dropped me off to work in the morning cause she had a lunch date with her work friends. A few hours into my workday, I started feeling sick so she came to pick me up...Dont quite know what was wrong, just severe stomach pain... I came home and basically slept till the evening.. At night, we both went to KD's house where LA Union was throwing us a surprise (not really a surprise) going away party. Really nice of them and super nice of our chairman, KD, and his family who hosted the party (not really a party, more social gathering). Thank you LA Union!
Saturday: Saturday was not a good day for me (though could have been worse, so Alhamd!). I was much more sick then I was the day before, so basically stayed in bed. Sabiha, my gift from God, took great care of me and we actually got some quality time to spend toghether (however, i was sleeping for most of it, lol). The guy who bought out furniture came to pick up the rest of it, however the dude was 2 hours late!!! WHAT!!! 2 hours late, are you kidding me, like we had nothing better to do. Well, we truly had nothing better to do, but still, 2 hours late! That's ridiculous!
Sunday: Because I wasn't totally well, missed volleyball this morning, and u know what, life went on... though it was tragic!! Sabiha and I went out to lunch to one of our favorite restaurants, Aladdin, Jr, then went to CostCo with Jamil (my brother). You need a membership to get in and out of CostCo so Jamil had to come and get us in and then come and get us out..lol... Thank you for all your help Jamil!! So basically CostCo is this place where you can get everything you want in huge, bulk quantities. We bought alot of the essentials that we need for Sham, ie.. toothpaste, toothbrush, medications...etc (cause they dont have toothbrushes and toothpaste in Syria, lol.) We felt we should buy all the basic stuff from here, so we dont have to worry about them when we get there. Smart huh?!!! K, thats if for now... will write more later!! Peace
Thursday, July 26, 2007
An eventful day!!
OK, so getting a little better at updating this blog, iA it will continue :) so yesterday, we made some progress! I got to work and started calling different places to start cancelling our services...ie car insurance, house phone and internet...etc. Kind of a reality check, lol, its really happening!!! WOW! Then we decided to book our tickets to TO to say our farewells to our parents and family. A few months ago we checked United Airlines cause we had enough miles to get 2 free tickets but we never booked it at that time. Then 2 weeks ago we checked again and there were no available dates...WHAT???? lol, lots of suprises along the way. So yesterday, we did the 2nd best thing, we Priceline.com our tickets and WE GOT THEM!!! So we are leaving on Aug 14 and coming back on the 27th!!! You know what that means??? We hardly have any time left!!! AAAHHHHH...lol.
Also yesterday, Sabiha put picture of our Sofa's and coffee table up on Craigslist around 1 in the afternoon. Within half an hour the first person called and within the next few hours, we received 4 calls for them. Amazing! So the first couple that called came by last night and checked them out, aaaannnnddd, they bought them!!!!! Woohoo... this means that all of our big furniture is officially SOLD!! Alhamd!!
thats it for now...will write more later.. if anyone is reading...lol
Also yesterday, Sabiha put picture of our Sofa's and coffee table up on Craigslist around 1 in the afternoon. Within half an hour the first person called and within the next few hours, we received 4 calls for them. Amazing! So the first couple that called came by last night and checked them out, aaaannnnddd, they bought them!!!!! Woohoo... this means that all of our big furniture is officially SOLD!! Alhamd!!
thats it for now...will write more later.. if anyone is reading...lol
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
...packing...packing and more packing!!!
Ok so I keep going through these phases where I feel like we have SOOO much to do still and are going to be in a state of panic until the last minute...and then all of a sudden my nerves calm down and I begin to feel like there's not much to do and that we'll be ok lol I can't decide...the good thing I suppose is Jaffer and I take turns to panic lol ok ok i take that back, he never panics it's just me - he's always the one keeping me sane!
Sooo the awesomest ( yes i just made that word up! ) thing happened...one of Jaffer's friends told us that there's this family that is looking for a car...and so they came to see one of our cars that we wanted to sell...and guess what? they bought it...not only did they buy the car, they bought both our cars, our TV, bedroom furniture, shelves, dishes --- they practically bought everything!!! so what a huge relief that was...everything seems to be falling into place.
My last day of work was on Friday, so this is my first week at home...and I'm getting quite a bit done, in between lunches with friends and stuff. It feels more real now that I'm not at work and our apartment has filled up with boxes and suitcases! Anyhow that's it for now...things should start to get more exciting as we get closer - and then especially once we write from there...
Sooo the awesomest ( yes i just made that word up! ) thing happened...one of Jaffer's friends told us that there's this family that is looking for a car...and so they came to see one of our cars that we wanted to sell...and guess what? they bought it...not only did they buy the car, they bought both our cars, our TV, bedroom furniture, shelves, dishes --- they practically bought everything!!! so what a huge relief that was...everything seems to be falling into place.
My last day of work was on Friday, so this is my first week at home...and I'm getting quite a bit done, in between lunches with friends and stuff. It feels more real now that I'm not at work and our apartment has filled up with boxes and suitcases! Anyhow that's it for now...things should start to get more exciting as we get closer - and then especially once we write from there...
Monday, July 23, 2007
Long time no write...
Ok...so I know its been a looong time since the last entry, but this is all kinda new for Sabiha and I. So, alot has gone on the last few weeks. Yes, its true, we are going, but since then alot has been going on. Alhamd, we found someone who wants both our cars...i know, can you believe it!?!?! and the same guy is buying most of our furniture. Truly, there is no doubt God is Great!! Besides that, Sabiha quit her job last week (she will mention more about it in her entry), so now everything is becoming a reality. We are really anxious i think, want things to happen right away and for us to get answers right away. But thats really not happening :) either way, things are moving along.... will write something more later!!
Monday, July 2, 2007
It's OFFICIALLY official!
A lot of of our close friends and family know we have been thinking of moving abroad for further studies...for those of you who didn't know, guess what?? we're thinking of moving abroad!!! lol
So the long awaited decision has been made, and we have decided to take on a once in a life time opportunity. We are moving to Syria to pursue a 4 year postgraduate course...to begin a journey of a lifetime for our betterment and that of our community. We thank you all for your constant encouragement and support. We hope to keep this page updated as often as possible and would love for you to follow us on our journey...
So the long awaited decision has been made, and we have decided to take on a once in a life time opportunity. We are moving to Syria to pursue a 4 year postgraduate course...to begin a journey of a lifetime for our betterment and that of our community. We thank you all for your constant encouragement and support. We hope to keep this page updated as often as possible and would love for you to follow us on our journey...
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