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
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2 comments:
Salaamun alaikum
Reached home safely, we all have suffered few stomach cramps from the food. But all in all we are fine and had a great trip. It was a pleasure to meet both of you and we were pleased to hear how well you have managed to settle in.
We pray that you continue in strength. Ameen.
With salaams and duas.
Akhtar, Fatim n the 2 Princes.
i wish i could hear how you pronounce all the names of your teachers and everything - it's so interesting!
and Sabs, i'm sorry i forgot to greet you a happy birthday! but i remember why i didn't - the power was out at our condo that night (and again last night, too) and i was meaning to go on facebook to wish you happy birthday. i'm sorry i didn't get to, but i didn't forget about it either =]
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