Salaams all, hope you are in good spirits, we are doing great by the Grace of Allah SWT. We have just finished Arbaeen now, and the experiences were magnificent. For those who dont know what Arbaeen is, remember how we wrote about the Grandson of the Holy Prophet was murdered in the desert of Kerbala, we actually commemorate that for 40 days, and we just finished that period of mourning. It was packed packed packed here, but amazing amazing amazing!!!!
For the last 5 days, the streets have been packed with people, for the first time we saw more Pakistani's then we did Iranians. All the stores that usually played Arabic poetry (Mataams) were now playing Urdu poems, lol, guess they know how to cater for their audience :) Also, everything is slightly more expensive. Bread that we used to buy for 35 syrian pounds, is now up to 50. Someone told me they used to buy a sandwich for 85, it is now up to 150. Crazy, IA the prices will come back down after Arbaeen. Lots of our people (khojas) here too... really cool, we have met Loads and loads of them, lol. We actually met an uncle of ours that we havent seen in over 20 years, from East Africa, last week here. There is no doubt it is due the great presence of Sayyida Zainab AS that has made all this possible for us.
We have been fortunate enough to listen to many arabic lectures here, a few at the Haram and then on Arbaeen night and the next night, our school organized lectures for us, so it was nice to listen to as much arabic as we could. We also went to an english lecture by Sayyid Ammar N. at that Safir hotel, it was aiight, we prefer the arabic lectures, lol, just cause we are thirsty for it. But the coolest part of this whole week was that on Arbaeen night, around 4 in the morning, there are buses that take people from Sayyida Zainab AS to Sayyida Ruqayya (Sakina) AS, and then the people walk from there back, in a procession to Sayyida Zainab, nearly 15 KM. (On a side note, in our community we call that a Juloos, but a Juloos in Arabic means to sit, lol!!!!!!!!!) Anyways, we actually did that walk, took about 2.5 hours, it was amazing, thousands and thousands of people did this walk, we started around 6 and got back here at 830, it was really a great experience. Tiring, but we kept thinking that the family of the Prophet walked from Kerbala to Damascus in chains and shackles, we had no excuses :)
Besides that, things are ok here, a funny thing happened a few weeks ago. Our close friends from Los Angeles called us and it was really nice talking to them. The funny part was that I was talking to my friends Grandfather, and I normally speak to him in Swahili, but as i was trying to talk to him in Swahili, only arabic words were coming out...LOL, Sabiha couldnt stop laughing at me, luckily he spoke English so i was able to resort back to it. They say that when you are learning a new language, it replaces other languages that you are not too strong in, So Alhamd its good i guess...LOL.
Anyways, written a lot, please pray for us, and we will IA do the same :)
Take care!!
Friday, February 29, 2008
Sunday, February 17, 2008
WOW, 2 blogs in 2 days
So whats going on? Not much on our end, i mean we just blogged two days ago..lol. We are back at the internet cafe, to check our mail and talk to family. In a few days, we will have only 4 months left!!! ALhamd, dont get us wrong, we love being here, but we do miss our family and friends a lot. We are also looking for dates to spend between 2 homes, LA and TO
Now... for some Arabic!!!
alhamd nahnu takallamna ma' ahlina, wa kulluhum jayid alhamd. ukhti indaha camara fi al-bayt, wa hadha mufeed jiddan lana, lianna nahnu nastatee an naraa kulluhum.
huna jaw jayyid alan laysa barid katheer mithl qabla isbuain, wa lakin lana al-bard laysa mushkil, nahnu lam nabqa fil bait ba'da darse, kul yawm nahnu nadhhab wa namshee likay nakudh isteraha qaleel wa aidhan natakallam ma akhareen lil tamareen lilugat al-arabia.
alan kul yawm yujad zehma akthar fi alharam lianna katheer min zuwaar yatoon li ziyarat min kul anwah al alam!
hadha jayid lil aan... :)
Not bad huh? lol, iA soon will get better... Please pray for our success....
Ma'as Salaam
Now... for some Arabic!!!
alhamd nahnu takallamna ma' ahlina, wa kulluhum jayid alhamd. ukhti indaha camara fi al-bayt, wa hadha mufeed jiddan lana, lianna nahnu nastatee an naraa kulluhum.
huna jaw jayyid alan laysa barid katheer mithl qabla isbuain, wa lakin lana al-bard laysa mushkil, nahnu lam nabqa fil bait ba'da darse, kul yawm nahnu nadhhab wa namshee likay nakudh isteraha qaleel wa aidhan natakallam ma akhareen lil tamareen lilugat al-arabia.
alan kul yawm yujad zehma akthar fi alharam lianna katheer min zuwaar yatoon li ziyarat min kul anwah al alam!
hadha jayid lil aan... :)
Not bad huh? lol, iA soon will get better... Please pray for our success....
Ma'as Salaam
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Popays
so here we are nearly 6 months into our course - incredible eh? its seems as though sometimes time is just flying by - and at other times 4 years seems a long ways away. that's how it always is i suppose.
the past few days have been raining which means all the roads are muddy...its next to impossible to go out and not come home with muddy shoes and spots all over the back of your pants lol all the drivers still drive crazy - not like in some places where trafic slows down in the rain - la laysa hakadha huna ( no not like that here).
so last night, the administrator of our course (Hussein Ravji) was kind enough to take us out for dinner...jaffer and i and the other couple...we were all super excited as he was taking us to popeyes - we got there and guess what? it was actuallly 'popays' not the popeyes we know, but nonetheless it was great...lots of variety on the menu and was nice to just hang out and get away for a bit.
Its almost time for Arbaeen - 40 days since the martydom of Imam Hussein AS, and we hear its going to be crazy busy over here... we thought that Ashura was busy, but they said nearly 3 times as many people, we cant even imagine but definitely looking forward to it. We expect to meet a lot of people here, we already know that Sabiha's uncle is coming, as well as someone from LA, and we expect lots of Khojas.... lol
A couple of days ago we got a call from a guy who is living in Qum, his wife knows Sabiha from TO, dont know how they got our number, but its pretty cool they got a hold of us, they are coming down for a week, so we look forward to meeting them. He said that he reads our blog in Qum, the question i have is that how can Iran allow access to view blogs when Syria doesnt..lol.. all good though.
other than that not much else going on here...we have weekly lectures in the evening at our school which is great...different speakers come so we get to practice our listening and then have short discussions after... Today we heard a majlis from Sheikh Ali who works at Ayatullah Sistani's office and the amazing thing was we understood the whole lecture, no joke, though we have no doubt that he lowered the level of his arabic. Its really cool that we can understand and sorta speak this beautiful language. Our first week here a teacher told us that Arabic is like a key and this key opens up thousands of doors, we are beginning to really understand what he meant. Today we read Dua Kumayl and we understood most of it (without reading the translation), pretty darn AMAZING!!!
We learnt something amazing in one of our classes, and many of you might appreciate this. As we know, Our Prophet (PBUH) and his famiy were generous and sharing, however there was one fruit that they ate by themselves, and that is a pomegranate. Ofcourse they would always give another one to their guests, but they would finish the entire pomegranate themselves. And that is because as we all know that it contains the seeds of paradise. But more then that, and here comes the amazing part: It is said in traditions, that if one eats an entire pomegranate, first thing in the morning, before anything else, the entire pomegranate, all the seeds, Allah SWT removes the whisperings of Satan from your heart for 40 days!!!! and if someone eats 2, then He removes Satan for 100 days and 3 for 1 year!!! Can you imagine.... Try it, i know we will!!!!
Other then that, all is good, will leave you for now, will write more later.
alhamd kul shai jayyid huna. saqta al matar katheer min ams wa kul share' wasekh jiddan wa lakin alhamd matar baraka
Ma'asalaam
the past few days have been raining which means all the roads are muddy...its next to impossible to go out and not come home with muddy shoes and spots all over the back of your pants lol all the drivers still drive crazy - not like in some places where trafic slows down in the rain - la laysa hakadha huna ( no not like that here).
so last night, the administrator of our course (Hussein Ravji) was kind enough to take us out for dinner...jaffer and i and the other couple...we were all super excited as he was taking us to popeyes - we got there and guess what? it was actuallly 'popays' not the popeyes we know, but nonetheless it was great...lots of variety on the menu and was nice to just hang out and get away for a bit.
Its almost time for Arbaeen - 40 days since the martydom of Imam Hussein AS, and we hear its going to be crazy busy over here... we thought that Ashura was busy, but they said nearly 3 times as many people, we cant even imagine but definitely looking forward to it. We expect to meet a lot of people here, we already know that Sabiha's uncle is coming, as well as someone from LA, and we expect lots of Khojas.... lol
A couple of days ago we got a call from a guy who is living in Qum, his wife knows Sabiha from TO, dont know how they got our number, but its pretty cool they got a hold of us, they are coming down for a week, so we look forward to meeting them. He said that he reads our blog in Qum, the question i have is that how can Iran allow access to view blogs when Syria doesnt..lol.. all good though.
other than that not much else going on here...we have weekly lectures in the evening at our school which is great...different speakers come so we get to practice our listening and then have short discussions after... Today we heard a majlis from Sheikh Ali who works at Ayatullah Sistani's office and the amazing thing was we understood the whole lecture, no joke, though we have no doubt that he lowered the level of his arabic. Its really cool that we can understand and sorta speak this beautiful language. Our first week here a teacher told us that Arabic is like a key and this key opens up thousands of doors, we are beginning to really understand what he meant. Today we read Dua Kumayl and we understood most of it (without reading the translation), pretty darn AMAZING!!!
We learnt something amazing in one of our classes, and many of you might appreciate this. As we know, Our Prophet (PBUH) and his famiy were generous and sharing, however there was one fruit that they ate by themselves, and that is a pomegranate. Ofcourse they would always give another one to their guests, but they would finish the entire pomegranate themselves. And that is because as we all know that it contains the seeds of paradise. But more then that, and here comes the amazing part: It is said in traditions, that if one eats an entire pomegranate, first thing in the morning, before anything else, the entire pomegranate, all the seeds, Allah SWT removes the whisperings of Satan from your heart for 40 days!!!! and if someone eats 2, then He removes Satan for 100 days and 3 for 1 year!!! Can you imagine.... Try it, i know we will!!!!
Other then that, all is good, will leave you for now, will write more later.
alhamd kul shai jayyid huna. saqta al matar katheer min ams wa kul share' wasekh jiddan wa lakin alhamd matar baraka
Ma'asalaam
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Hello Readers
Hello everyone, yup you guessed it, we are back at the internet cafe so thought we would update the blog. We cant tell if anyone is even reading anymore, as the counter page doesnt work here at the cafe, so if you are reading, THANK YOU!!
We are back in school in full swing after the 12 days of Muharram, no more holidays for a few more weeks, so nothing to really look forward to, lol, just kidding, we do look forward to school :) A week ago the Coordinator of the course along with some "consultants" were here to make sure everything was ok and to interview our teachers for next year. If most of you get the WF weekly emails, last weeks email had pictures of most of our teachers... lol... none of them speak english!! LOL, but thats good, cause IA by next year our arabic will be good enough to understand fully and carry a discussion with our teachers.
Also the coordinators of the course made some changes, trying to meet all the needs of the students to the best of the ability. Sabiha and I were craving more arabic from our school, we feel for us to get better we need more conversations and understanding. So they were nice enough to accommodate us by giving us an extra hour to practice our arabic, while the other students had different needs that needed to be met, and they were accommodated. Overall, the classes are going great and Alhamd, our progress has been good as well. They also gave us a possible good surprise, we wont share yet until it is confirmed, but pray for us that it works out....
In the next couple of days we will go to Town Center - a shopping mall in Damascus... yes they have malls here..lol. Normally we go to this mall called ski land close to the airport where they have a big super market where we do our shopping for the whole month. They literally have everything we want from spaghetti, sauce, tuna, cheese, cookies (like back home...lol) to meats and cold cuts..etc. But someone told us about this other place - town center- which is supposed to be a bigger mall with a bigger grocery store inside it too. So we are real excited!! But dont get us wrong, they dont have everything, we still occasionally randomly miss things like Del Taco, Taco Bell, Cold Stone, Lotus Chinese Rest...etc..lol, and ofcourse Steak!!
Ok, will leave it at that for now, by the way, super bowl was last sunday!!??!! what!! totally forgot about it, but amazing that the Giants won!! AND OFCOURSE THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL - THE LAKERS GOT PAU!!!!!!!!! WHAT!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! LOL, THAT IS CRAZY!! I know i have missed the entire season, but this HAS to make them title contenders!!! I'M LOVING IT!!!!!!!! take care
We are back in school in full swing after the 12 days of Muharram, no more holidays for a few more weeks, so nothing to really look forward to, lol, just kidding, we do look forward to school :) A week ago the Coordinator of the course along with some "consultants" were here to make sure everything was ok and to interview our teachers for next year. If most of you get the WF weekly emails, last weeks email had pictures of most of our teachers... lol... none of them speak english!! LOL, but thats good, cause IA by next year our arabic will be good enough to understand fully and carry a discussion with our teachers.
Also the coordinators of the course made some changes, trying to meet all the needs of the students to the best of the ability. Sabiha and I were craving more arabic from our school, we feel for us to get better we need more conversations and understanding. So they were nice enough to accommodate us by giving us an extra hour to practice our arabic, while the other students had different needs that needed to be met, and they were accommodated. Overall, the classes are going great and Alhamd, our progress has been good as well. They also gave us a possible good surprise, we wont share yet until it is confirmed, but pray for us that it works out....
In the next couple of days we will go to Town Center - a shopping mall in Damascus... yes they have malls here..lol. Normally we go to this mall called ski land close to the airport where they have a big super market where we do our shopping for the whole month. They literally have everything we want from spaghetti, sauce, tuna, cheese, cookies (like back home...lol) to meats and cold cuts..etc. But someone told us about this other place - town center- which is supposed to be a bigger mall with a bigger grocery store inside it too. So we are real excited!! But dont get us wrong, they dont have everything, we still occasionally randomly miss things like Del Taco, Taco Bell, Cold Stone, Lotus Chinese Rest...etc..lol, and ofcourse Steak!!
Ok, will leave it at that for now, by the way, super bowl was last sunday!!??!! what!! totally forgot about it, but amazing that the Giants won!! AND OFCOURSE THE BIGGEST NEWS OF ALL - THE LAKERS GOT PAU!!!!!!!!! WHAT!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME!!! LOL, THAT IS CRAZY!! I know i have missed the entire season, but this HAS to make them title contenders!!! I'M LOVING IT!!!!!!!! take care
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