Every Tuesday evening I go to the mosque in town for the Tuesday study circle, and I always try without fail to attend the circle unless I'm not in town, this week, although I was on the premises I didn't get to hear the talk at all.

majority of the time I was in a meeting for the schools project, then I was on the phone either talking to people or trying to get hold of people and cause I'm with 3g, reception can be a major problem so I ventured outside to see if that would better things, so when I finally ended my telephone conversations and began to walk toward the entrance of the mosque, a man approached me and the first thing I noticed was that he was man of the street, he was homeless and was in bad need of a wash, I instantly thought he was going to ask me for money, the conversation went something like this:

man: excuse me, can I ask you a question?

me: (ok wasn't expecting that) um yeh sure, how can I help?

man: well I've been standing here for 10 minutes reading what's on these posters

me: ok, (the posters where stuck to the window of the mosque, there basically an introduction on what islam is about and the pillars etc...)

man: and I tink that what its saying is buuutifuul (written the way he pronounced it) absolutely buuuutifuul, im impressed by it and I could see myself accepting this, but wot I don't understand is ow could summit so buuutifuuul be linked to those 4 dudes who blasted themselves in London?

me: slight laugh (ok I don't why I laughed) yeh I see your point mate but what you gotta understand is that you have to differentiate between Islam and Muslims, because the actions of Muslims are not necessarily what Islam preaches, and unfortunately what those guys did if they did indeed do what they did (I had to say that cause I have my on theory as to who really was behind the attacks in London) goes against what Islam says,

man: oh right,

me: for example, would you say that Christianity is a peaceful religion? and that some of the teachings are beutiful?

man: yeh yeh I guess although im not convinced by most of what it says

me: ok, but would you agree that the IRA contradicts what Christianity teaches?

man: yes I see where your coming from

me: ok so I will not judge a religion or in the case of Islam a way of life, due to the actions of a few people.

man: oh yeh I totally agree wid you, thats why I came to ask you cause wanna do my research before I pass judgemnt.

me: that's good

man: yeh yeh, im impressed, i'm gonna go to central library tomorrow to do me research and if im convinced den I'm coming back here to speak to people

me: well your welcome anytime

man: tanks, you know summit I'm a homeless geezer I am, and I see a lot on the street, people can be right evil and its rare to come across good people, like yesterday for instance, some idiot smashed a bottle over my head, dats why I may seem scratched up

me: my god, that's horrible

man: laughing, yeh but don't you worry I got im back

me: ok what did you do?

man: I stabbed im with this ( he pulls out a metal fork from his jacket pocket)

me: right... (worried look on my face)

man: don't worry he aint dead or nuttin just scarred for life

me: ok, any way...

man: yea yea sorry for keepin you luvvie you been right helpful, nice talking to you

he then offers me his hand to shake and I have to say it was the grubbiest filthiest hand I ever saw, I said bismillah and shook his hand
and with that he turned and walked away..

I stood there smiling remembering that Allah swt really does guide whomever he wishes...

Bush on Military Contractors

giys check this idiot out, i dont get how he manages to get away with it, and whats sad is that people accept it

not bloged in a while, nothing exciting has happened in my life, no drastic changes, no life inspiring incidents, although there has been a change in my ritual habits, ok people be prepared for this change in me, ok her goes:

I HAVE REDUCED MY DAILY INTAKE OF COFFEE TO ONE CUP A DAY

not just that.....

I HAVE STOPPED DRINKING TEA AND ONLY DRINK GREEN HERBAL TEA

and for that I am truly grumpy but I think I;m getting used to it, but that's not the end of it, I am also:

DRINKING MORE THAN 2 LITRES OF WATER A DAY

This is amazing considering how I never even used to drink a tea spoon of water.

one down side is that I am really getting to know the toilets, its like every 10 minute I get the urge to visit the ladies room, and even at work theve noticed the increase of the toilet visiting and I can only say to them so much how I'm fixing my scarf or making sure that there is a good supply of toilet roll for the patients, the excuses are running out people help, but theve cottoned on any way cause my manager asked me on Friday ' white African you ok, you keep going to the toilet alot for the past couple of days, and why is that water bottle permanently stuck to your mouth?

how rude, I swear men should just stop talking sometimes, what's it got to do with him if I visit the toilet like 20 times in the space of a second, any way I explained to him how I've started to drink alot of water, to which he replied ' oh trying to loose weight?' with a knowing look on his face, again why do men think everything has got to do with weight, so I gave him a lecture of how actually not really but because water is so good for us and blah blah blah to which he found an excuse to escape the room and go back to his office.

but yeh so this is the update of my so interesting life, my dreams have also changed, I';m dreaming of water fountains and water springs, lakes and the sea I guess water and my bladder is taking over everything so far, will I get used to this or will I go back to my old ways of caffeine? I often find myself walking past the kettle and gazing at the coffee with glazed eyes, then I have to slap my face to bring me back to reality and then I have to force myself away from the traps of caffeine, the things us humans have to do.

to be honest the reason I have reduced my intake of coffee to one a day cause its not healthy and also I am reminded by what sheikh hassan al banna said, if you find yourself relying on something so badly that it can take over your thoughts and in the case of coffee you get withdrawal symptoms cause you didn't take your daily intake then its best to stop, a human should always be in control and nothing should control us not caffeine, alcohol, ciggs, worldy desires in general...

this one is for you my dearest grandmother...

my gran left for Libya this morning, bless her she was so excited, there was that twinkle in her eye and that constant smile cause she knew that in a few hours time she will be sat amongst her other children and grandchildren in the comfort of her own chair in the country that she so adores.

I woke up for fajir and gave my goodbyes to her, it was quick cause I didn't want her to see me crying, and even now will I type this the tears are obstructing my sight because deep down I don't know whether I will see her again in this life time.

its funny that even though I never grew up around my extended family including my grandparents, I still feel close to them and connected in a way that I cant explain, you learn to love them as you grow up through pictures and stories that your parents tell you about them, and then when you see them on the odd visit its like you've sat with them all your life.

my gran is the last living grandparent and she is what you would imagine a grandmother to be, the constant stories of the past, the love she emits, the care for you in the words she would say, that certain smell of incense and rose or jasmine perfume that surrounds her, the smile she would greet you with, the daily rituals of tea and coffee, all this my dearest gran I will miss.

she only stayed with us this time for 2 months yet the house feels so empty without her, its times like this that I curse the one they call gaddafi for preventing the years that me and my brothers missed out on of growing up with our grandparents.

I pray that my eyes will once again see her in this life and that Allah blesses her and strengthens her ameen...

Fly fly birdie

on Saturday I had my usual girls study circle and as always it never fails to age me greatly or shock me to the extent that I just stand there staring at the girls like there from mars.

I had 2 helpers this time which was great cause the more helpers the better, and for some reason the mosque hid the chairs, I swear there wasn't a single chair in sight, it was like they where kidnapped or something or the mosque incharge was playing a cruel prank, at one point I just stood in the middle of the room and shouted 'ok, ha ha, it was funny but please enough is enough we want our chairs' the only repsonse I got was the girls pointing at me and snickering, nothing new there. I decided to grab a rug, and told the girls we where gonna be more spiritual today by sitting on the floor and being one with the floor, some one muttered something which sounded very much like 'whatever' cheeky kids, I swear sometimes you just gotta bite your tongue literally.

so I gave them a talk on grabbing the many opportunities that Allah gives us in our life and how were always given chances but we never know when our last one is gonna be etc... The girls did listen bless them and even contributed mashallah...

then one of my helpers gave them some scenarios and they had to discuss what they would do in each one and what would be the correct approach and the wrong one and although 10 girls would be talking at the same time we all managed to listen to a certain extent.

then we split them into 3 groups and gave them role plays which they had to act out infront of every one, 10 minutes later we went outside in the courtyard to watch the plays, as soon as we stepped out the door there was a big scream ' NO, DON'T COME HERE, GO BACK INSIDE' what? so I turned the corner and there where 3 girls huddled around in a circle trying to hide something, when I came closer one of them shouted 'STAY BACK, WE FOUND IT FIRST, ITS OURS, YOU CANT HAVE IT', ok that really grabbed my attention, so I ignored her and walked over anyway and kinda pushed her out my way, and saw a sparrow or some kinda bird sat on a tesco bag, and it was shivering like anything, I turned to one of the girls and said ' where did you find it?' she answered ' we came out to play and saw 2 birds fighting, then one flew of and this one just fell'

by now a huge crowd of girls where gathered around, and some where screaming, why do they scream, its not moving, its not even looking at you and she's screaming, stupid pathetic girl, others where trying to touch it and I was telling them off saying you don't know what diseases you could catch by touching it, I told them to go wash there hands, one of the squirts turned around to the girls who touched the bird and said ' oh you guys are gonna die, you've got bird flu, oh no keep away from me' and started running around the courtyard shouting so and so has bird flu and got all the other little ones to do the same at which point one of the girls who touched the bird started running after them wanting to smear her hands on there faces which made them scream and cry, why oh why,

the situation was getting out of hand, I picked up the tesco bag, which made everyone scream, I put the bag under the shade of a tree and told the girls not to go anywhere near the bird, that it was probably dyeing and needed to be left alone and having loads of faces looking down at it was probably gonna shock it, the girls did listen, and we started the plays..

all was going well until one of the neighbor's behind the mosque made an appearance, she was standing behind the wired fence and was talking to one of the girls, I didn't think anything of it, I thought maybe she was complaining about the noise or something, next thing I know the girl runs toward the tree grabs the tesco bag and passes it to the old woman, by now she had grabbed everyone's attention, so all the girls crowded round the fence, the woman then grabbed the bird by the neck and twisted it with a loud snap, she broke the birds neck, obviously this made the girls scream and go running into the mosque, the old woman just stood there and said 'its at peace now, I let it out its misery' ????

my god, before anyone says typical you Muslims are barbaric etc,, she wasn't a Muslim lady, and although the bird was in pain, I don't think that was a way to deal with it, especially infront of so many kids who are probably gonna get nightmares and flashbacks, I don't know what she was thinking, it was like she was enjoying it, freaky, probably buried her husband under the patio or something...

how it feels to be a sardine

woke up really early this morning cause my mum wanted to go to Bury, never been before (apart from that time when I got on the wrong bus and found myself in bury, how? Don't ask, long story), my cousin found this cool shopping place and wanted to show it to me and my mum, so I sacrificed sleeping till 10am and instead woke up at 8am, left the house and took the tram to bury, (believe it or not I have never been on a tram up until now that is).

we get there bright and early amongst all the nakedness and flab, mixed with a whiff of the good old sweat (it was a hot day today) and started shopping, nothing exciting happened, although I did develop a headache cause my withdrawl symptoms were kicking in from not having coffee for breakfast, so whilst my mum and cousin shopped and generally being typically female in looking at a skirt at all angles and taking 45 minutes to decide whether they want to buy it or not, I was pleading for coffee, I felt like a child again, literally I was tugging at my mums jilbab and saying 'mama coffee, pleaaaaaaaaase' and my mum tapping on my head and saying ' ok, ok soon'

it was after 12 by the time I managed to get some coffee down me with a bonus of pecan pie mmmmmmm, not had that in ages, we shopped some more and made our way back to the tram station, got on and it was fine until we reached the 3rd stop, like a billion people decided to come on, we where sat down luckily, but the people would not stop coming onto the tram, and every stop we stopped at more would come on, I swear from outside we looked like sardines, and all this time I was thinking to myself how am I gonna get of this contraption, my cousin who is claustrophobic was starting to panic. Eventually we arrived at our stop and my mum gets up and shouts in an extremely loud voice ' EXCUSE ME PLEASE, WE NEED TO GET OF' I swear she announced it to the world, I'm sure the neighbor's heard her, every one looked our way, but no one was moving, so my mum started panicking that we wouldn't get of in time, so she's trying get through the arms and elbows as well as feet and still shouting ' excuse me, please let me off' and every so often whilst maneuvering through the maze of humans, I could hear an OOOOW THAT HURT, your standing on my feet, JESUS, THAT HURTS,' basically we were so desperate to get of that we were walking all over peoples feet to get to the doors, it was like Indiana Jones, you know the scene, the one where he has to get out before the wall comes down on him, and he manages to get out and saves his hat last minute, well picture 3 hijabis doing the same and managing to save our hijabs last minute as well.

it felt so good to leave the tram, all that space we take for granted, man we got crushed like sardines, and at one point we were doing the crushing trying to get out to the extent that one girl started shouting ' for the love of god let them out ' loooool, I was laughing so hard all the way back home....

Istanbul pic part 2

i've decided to put some more pic on the blog of turkey, its actually a way for me to look back and smile at the trip and remember the times when i'm not at work being threatend by patients as well as staff, oh happy days, any way enjoy them, i'm gonna put the egypt pics up as well cause they really put a smil eon my face everytime i happen to browse through them, take me baaaaaaaaaack...

this is ever the idealist's shoe next to a foot print we found, i told them that the foot print was from the time of the ottomans but no one believed me, oh well..

some more flowers, subhannallah the colours are amazing...

ok, i was trying to convince them that this toilet was also from the time of the ottomans, but again that failed, but look at it it's soooo big,

dogs, i walke dout of the restraunt and all i saw was what i thought was moving snow which i could handle, but to my shock and horror i realised it was dogs, one of my worst nightmares came true, but alhamdullilah they must have been sucking snow or something cause they didnt show any interest in my direction apart from one which i had to run for my life from, ok so people were laughing at me but who cares, dogs can turn evil and bite and i aint gonna risk it...

some more flowers, its quite funny these flower pic are becoming like a comercial break or something..

ok i thought this was cool, were walking in the evening down one of the streets near the hotel and we come across this shop window selling wedding dresses but what was really cool was that the model in the window was a hijabi bride, how cool is that?

in the market they sell loads of stuff including lanterns, so nice, you just wann take th elot home and hang them everywhere, if only..

the sulaymaniya mosque, on eof my fav...

of course turkish delight, how can any one possibly visit turkey without buying turkish delight?

amazing stained glass affect, many of the mosques had these style of windows..

bursa, a beautiful city although it was cold..

many of the swords on display in the museums had calligraphy all the way down it,

this is one of the sitting areas for the khalifa at the time of the ottamons, we have something very similar in Libya, its called an Arab sitting area (gi3da 3arbeeyah)

a random pepper on a plate, thankfully it did not attack me, (read other blog entry's for explanation)

this is what they call kunafah, they make it with cheese in turkey, i prefer the cream version, much nicer, but this was ok, to sweet though

mmmmmmmmm fresh bread, reminded me of libya and the fact that they had bread in all shapes and sizes and it was fresh thats the magic word FRESH...

more peppers, its amazing how different fruit and vegtables can taste and look abroad compared to our slightly geneticlly modified versions here in britain..

another mosque, i never tire from uploading the pic of mosques..

i love taking pic of entrances and door ways..

ok thats it for now, i'm finding it difficult to focus on the typing so i'm gonna head of to bed and inshallah up load some more pic another time.

i was in london this weekend to attend a meeting and to see some old faces which i havent seen in ages so that was nice, one particular face (my commander in chief) had asked me to bring her a cd of the turkish trip pictures, so i was like yeh no problem, will do and bless her she even sent me a text the night before to remind me, to which i replied its sorted, ive put them on a cd, so that was fine or so i thought.

so i make my way to london land (seriously you londininas how do you live in london its mad) and the journey itself needs a seperate blog, which i will do another time, it involves a certain nm, ad and maimoona. anyway so i get to london on friday and eat out at the famouse edgware road being waited upon by a depressed waitor who didnt know that it takes less muscles to smile than to frown, i was gonna give him my condolences but decided not to he probably would have stuffed a napkin up my nose or something. so we ate and catched up with the londininas and then headed to TH home,bless her, thank you TH for your hospitality forgot to thank you.

next day made my way to the meeting, brought the cd with pic and handed it over to my commander in chief, and bless her she was excited as it had taken me since april to hand it over to her, so she goes to her computer and puts it in and we patiently await for it to load, and finnaly when it was ready it turns out that i hade burnt 1 picture out of hundreds, one picture?? lol, after aplogising like ten times i promised i would get them ready for her, so until then i have put some up for you on this blog to check out, enjoy and again my apologies....

this is a view from the bospherous river,

flowers, there were so many flowers, tulips where everywhere we went


subhannallah some more flowers....

ok, this picture is specially for you my commander in chief, just in case you didnt realise, i'm the one in the blue scarf..
this pic is of the maiden tower, its got a story behind it but i cant be bothered typing it out, i will soon though inshallah...
this is the bospherous at sun set..
this is eminounu mosque, i love this mosque..
inside the one of the mosque's in istanbul, amazing..

another mosque in the lalleli district..

this is the inside of a new mosque near the university, mashallah very nice..

the blue mosque in all it's beuty, tak eme back to istanbuuuuuuuuuul

this scene is from Bursa, we where above the clouds

last pict for now cause i have to go meet someone and i'm not ready yet, anyway i will leave you with my all time fav snack, chestnut hoy chestnut, in libya we call it gastal mmmmmm very nice.

i asked my brother to walk me to work today as i wasnt in the mood to walk alone and also i wanted to catch up with him seeing as how i havnt spoken to the dude in ages.

so were walking and talking bout things generally, and then we got talking bout Libya which isint strange, but then that lead onto football, and how alot of libyans support the Italian team, now i for one am not a fan of football so generally i tend to end any conversations that begin with the word football but this time my brother had caught my attention to th extent that i ended up waving my arms in true arab form on the streets and ranting on about the topic with a temper that us arabs are also famous for, so this is how the conversation went:

me: ahmed did you know that there are loads of libyans in Italy

ahmed: yeh man, didnt you know that?

me: yeh but i didnt think there were loads

ahmed: yeh they love italy

me: so there are more libyans in italy than in manchester? is that possible?

ahmed: yep

me: dont you think its kinda strange how libya was colonised by italy, and how the italian regime at the time killed so many of the libyans and terrorised them, stole there lands, killed our great grandfathers, uncles, and the great shaheed Umar Al-Mukhtar the lion of the desert etc... yet the libyans have this attachment to Italy?

ahmed: nah, most people dont know there history, and even if they do its all history in there eyes,

me: true, majority of Italians dont know the truth of what happened in Libya anyway.

ahmed: yeh i guess, any way libya is a major supporter of an Italian football team

me: really, like there fans you mean, oh yeh remember how our cousins kept on going on about how italians are the best football players

ahmed: yeh fans but not only that, did you know that they are the number one sponsorers for Juventus.

me: really, how so

ahmed: well if you look at a juventus teashirt they have a sponsoror on the front, the name being tamoil, and they are an oil company based in the netherland and set up by the Libyan state, It is the most expensive shirt sponsorship agreement in European football, costing Tamoil €110 million. There is an option to extend the deal for a further five years for an additional €130 million.

me: what? say walah

ahmed: seriously, dont know how true that is but this is what i heard

me: oh my god, if thats true then thats stupid,

ahmed: why

me: why, i'll tell you why, the wages in libya are non existant, people work all day, some people have three jobs cause the wages of one job is'nt enough to feed a family and provide for the necessary daily things, theres like doctors out there with qualification and who have to work as shop keepers and cleaners (not that there is anything wrong with those jobs) as well as working in the hospital cause there not paid enough, unemployment is increasing, the youth just sit down all day doing sheesha and watching the world go past cause there are not enough opertunities for them, some people are starving, others are living on bread and water, and instead of money that should be spent on the people of the country in improving the standard of living etc... its going to a bunch of guys who kick a ball for a living, what is the world coming to

ahmed: ummmm, yeh

me: subhannallah, its enough to boil my blood, libya is really rich in resources and if the money was to be shared out, then every one would be living a good standard of life, instead many of the libyans are suffering due to lack of money and the money that should be going to them is instead being invested in a game? a game? were is the justice? the italians must be laughing at us, ya rab faraj 3ala al libeeyeen.

ahmed: yeh it is pathetic

me: seriously...

i had reached work at this point, and had to focus on other things, but its been on my mind all day, i just cant belive the unfairness of it all, i pray that us muslims get are acts together, its like emirates they sponsor football as well, come on people, your muslim brothers and sisters are in dire need of help, look at palestine, iraq... allah will ask us about the money we spent, the money we have is not ours its a loan from allah and a repsonsibility, so watch the pennies and where they go....

summer in britain - episode 1

i've been quite good in that i have not ranted and raved on about (a) the heat and (b) the lack of clothing of alot of the humans who choose to walk the streets of manchester.

but people enough is enough, i would say that offically summer started yesterday (06.06.06) and as soon as the sun decides to pop its head out of the hijab of clouds surrounding it, the people go mad, you guys have heard about the disease SAD where people get depressed when they dont get enough sun in there life?, well i'm sure there is a disease of when you get to much sun and the symptoms are:

• remove all item of clothing apart from belts to be used as skirt's and tops, if were lucky painted on jeans that reveal bum cleavage.
• men would walk around topless
• both the above also apply to the extremely over weight who also like to flaunt there 'bits'
• to walk around with red faces, red shoulders, red chests red etc....
• walking around with beach flip flops even though there are no beaches around,
• to continously fix and alter the bra in public
• to complain about the heat especially when seeing a person who chooses to dress conservativly, 'it so hot, blah blah blah' while staring at the mentally sane dressed.
• to hear certain people ( muslims) explaining that actually its better to cover as there is no direct contact with sun on skin so less of a chance of burning, and even people who live in the dessert cover up, blah blah whilst smiling and trying not to slap the person in the face for asking 'are you not hot luvvie?'
• guys and girls instantly feel that they have to attract each other by doing stupid things like dancing in the streets, walking in certain styles, being loud, running through the stupid fountain thing in piccadily gardens. its like watching animals parading around each other.
• convertible cars... guys feel that they have to drive past really fast, pumping music out load enough to cause a mini earthquake and to have a woman sat next to them, cause that is so masculine and manly (whatever).
• more to come in the next episode..

but seriously it really does my head in, i used to think that i hated the heat and come summer i would continously complain about how hot it is and i would hate to leave the house and wish the seconds away until novemeber came but when i started travelling and visiting countries that are 10 times hotter than england on a normal day, it hit me that its not the heat that bothers me but the cultrue that comes with summer, its the way people feel that they have to strip, its not pleasing to they eye whatso ever, i'm not asking for people to cover up completely but to dress with some dignity, with some class, with some sense, dont get me wrong i have seen many who dress correctly for the summer and i appluade them, but then again like yesterday on my way to the circle i saw many a sight that will traumatise me for years to comes, and its funny i've lived in england all my life yet i still get shocked each year with some of the sights that my eyes are forced to see.

why is it that people who live in hotter countries dont feel it nesccessary to remove all item of clothing, ive been to alot of hot countries and the only poeple who strip in these countries are the tourists from the west, the natives dont.

i've got plenty more to say about this issue but i will leave it for another blog entry,

yipeeeeeeeee, my mum and dad are back, I thank Allah for bringing them back to me safe and sound (they are tired though bless them and tanned - not fair I never tan, I'm sure if I put my self in the oven for half a day I still wouldn't tan), it's always such a nice feeling when they walk through the door, my mum has a certain way of knocking on the door and my dad has a way of shaking the house keys before putting them into the key hole so I always know when there here.

it was really funny cause my youngest brother usually rushes up to them and throws himself at them but this time he was lingering around in the back room and he cautiously came up to my parents and said sallam and hugged them, of course they were surprised at his reception, I on the other hand was not surprised at all, you see the little squirt was expecting a telling off and he was not looking forward to it what so ever.

a couple of days ago I was in the kitchen getting some stuff ready cause one of my mums friends rang to say that she was coming over to say sallam to me and my gran, so I was getting the juices ready and the biscuit's and stuff, I had already sent my brother upstairs to pray maghrib so 5 minutes later he comes down and plops himslef on the seat and watches me, now I new he had something to tell me but waited for him to break the news, eventually he did, the conversation went something like this:

little brother: white African, ummm I was in mamas room and I found a pin and was playing with it and I kinda fell into the bed and the pin went into the bed. (just for you information, the bed he was talking about is a water bed)

me: ......what? what were you doing in her room? What's happened to the bed? why why why why???

little brother: ummm I was playing, I don't know,,, some water has come out..

me: yaaaaaaaaa Allah,

at this point i drop every thing and run up the stairs expecting to see water everywhere, or something similar to blood gushing out of an artery.

I step into the room and cant see any water, so I ask him:

me: there's no water gushing out

little brother: just touch the covers

so I go over to the bed covers and they are soaking wet, I then turn my face to my brothers direction and growl at him, and pretend that lazers are coming out of my eyes. I move the bed covers expecting a small hole, cause seriously how much damage can a pin make? so i'm expecting minor damage when I was shocked to see a big gash, it looked like some one took a butcher knife and just slashed the bed with it at which point I turn around to my brother and say to him;

me: tell me the truth, what were you doing? no way in gods earth was this slash caused by a pin, tell me the truth and I wont shout at you as much and I will reduce the sentence of a lifetimes grounding.

little brother: ...(he was looking at me for some time) ummmm, ok I was playing with the sword and I fell over

me: babas sword???

little brother: yeh...

me: WHAT... YOU IDIOT, YOU COULD HAVE DIED, YOU COULD HAVE FALLEN ONTO IT, AND HOW MANY TIMES HAVE WE TOLD YOU NOT TO TOUCH THEM, THEY ARE FOR DECORATION NOT PLAYING WITH RANT RANT RAVE RAVE, BLAH BLAH

little brother: you said you wont shout at me ( then burst into tears)

me: I KNOW I DID, IM NOT SHOUTING, (at which point I realised that I was so I just shutted up)

I ran downstairs looking for super glue and couldn't find any, my other brother decided to make an appearance, so as soon as I saw him I shouted:

me: ahmed super glue now

ahmed: wallkum assalam to you

me: asalamu allkum just get some super glue now, your brothers exploded the water bed ( ok slight exaggeration on my part)

ahmed: what? idiot

turns around and comes back after 5 minutes with some strong adhesive glue from a friend of his, so I run upstairs and apply it to the cut and pray that it works, my mums friend decided to make an appearance so I had to go and entertain her.

and I sure did entertain her, I involved Arabic coffee but that's another story, any continuing with this one, she leaves about 11:15 pm and 2 minutes later there was a knock on the door, so I answer it expecting her to be at the door when to my surprise there was this dude standing at the doo he's so tall and so wide that he covering the whole entrance, I swear I could;nt see behind him but the weirdest thing was he was wearing an army outfit a soldiers outfit, I just stood there looking at him thinking ' my god, there arresting me, they have sent the army to arrest me i had the urge to say to him 'is it cause i is muslim?' I was trying to look behind him to see how many more of him there was but couldn't see anything,

all this time he looking at me in a weird way ( I guess my facial expressions were scaring him) so he decides to talk:

soldier: is bush in?

me: ummmmmmmm,,,(I swear for a minute I forgot that my brothers nick name is bush, a name that his friends call him cause of his hair) bush? (I swear he's in the white house, it then hist me he means ahmed) umm no ahmed's not home, sorry

soldier: typical and rolls his eyes ( ok so hes a camp soldier) ok, your his sis right?

me: yep

soldier: I believe you have a situation...

me: situation ( lol it was like the films)

soldier: something about a bed?

me: ha ha ha ha, yeh that's right ( I'm still trying to work out what is his role in all this)

soldier: ok I have this really stong glue that we use in the army, becarful with it, spread it on the surface and cover it with this material, (he shows me the stuff and explains it again)

me: oh wow thanks, that's so good of you,

soldier: bush didn't tell you that I was coming?

me: no

soldier: it figures (and walks away to be engulfed by the shadows of the night)

I closed the door and start to laugh like a mad woman thinking to myslef never would i have thought that would have happened loool.

so I apply the glue and like the soldier dude said, it worked perfectly alahmadullilah, much to the joy of my little brother, but i made him sweat it out cause he deserved it the little banana.

so yep he told my parents and they scolded him but only a little, it was mainly telling him of about the fact that he could have hurt himself etc...

so yep it has been an eventful 10 days while they've been away but also the boys did behave themselves to a certain extent, but I guess life would be boring if it didn't have the mini adventures...

today i was walking home from work and i turned one of the many corners that i usually turn and i came across a little kid on a tricycle, so i smiled at him and said sallam to which he replied something like ' ggggghhhhannn' so i was like yeh same to you kid and carried on walking when i saw who i presumed to be his sister on a bike, she was looking me up and down (she looked to be about 6) and then to my great surprise came out with ' stupid white b***h'

astaghfurallah, i swear it took me a good 5 seconds to register what she called me, and as soon as i had i stopped walking, turned around, looked at her and said:

me: excuse me? what did you just call me?

little girl: (she so did not expect me to stop and interogate her) ummmm, uhhhhh, what?

me: you heard me, i said what did you call me?

little evil girl: ummmm i forgot your name, (what, she doesnt even know me, what the hell is i forgot your name? that so does not make sense, i know shes like 6 or something but please what kind of answer is that?)

me: what? look little girl (i know, i cant believe i actually called her little girl) i heard you say something very rude to me and i'm not happy, now tell me the truth did you swear at me?

little pathetic girl: ummmm, yeh i'm sorry ( to be honest i was impressed that she told me the truth)

me: (in a very low voice) why you little.... ok i want to ask you a question, are you muslim?

little weirdo girl: ummm yeh

me: you are? did you know that swearing is not a good thing? that little girls go to hell if they swear?

little scared girl: ummmm yeh, sorry i wont do it again

me: ok, but you should be asking god to forgive as he is the most merciful...

little girl: ok, sorry byeeeee (and cycled of to the distant never to be seen again, probably swearing to her little pathetic hearts content)

i was contemplating knocking on her parents door and confronting them with this problem, they should like feed her a ton of very chilli peppers washed down with coke, (fizz and chillis dangerous mix), i'm still perplexed as to why she would call me such a thing, and shes only like 6, whats wrong with todays kids, its situations like that that makes me scared of bringing up children in this society, subhannallah i pray that our youth are guided towards the straight path...

i'm gonna start walking around with bars of soap in the future and any kid who dares to say anything of that nature again to me i will ram the soap in there mouth and make them swallow it, weirdo kids, i never once said anything like that to any one when i was a kid and before you roll your eyes its the truth so ha....

oh yeh one more thing, just a follow on from the pepper blog on thursday, today when i sat down to eat i squashed my spoon against another pepper and the stupid thing exploded all over my face, scarf and some of my jilbab, just went plop and its insides covered me as if to say white african we love you, weird huh? but it was funny, thankfully it didnt go near my eye alhamdullilah...

yesterday i came home from work to find that my cousin, bless her, had cooked dinner, which meant that i didnt have to run around like a headless chicken putting things together so that the food would be ready for 7 as my gran has to eat around that time.

so i was really happy to see that food was ready alhamdullilah, and no one eats spicy food apart from me and my cousin knows this so she put some chilli peppers on the side especially for me, so we sat down to eat and i was breaking up the peppers using my hands and eating and just enjoying the moment of spiceness and talking about god knows what when i suddenly had the urge to rub my left eye, which i did and at first it was fine but what slipped my mind was that i had been using my fingers to eat chilli peppers and as soon as i realised that thats when the pain hit me aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

i swear i was running around the room clutching my eye and screaming out in pain ' it burns it burns' my cousin was laughing at me but didnt know what was going on, so i started to kick her which made her laugh even more. my gran kept asking 'whats wrong with her?' and the other stuff that grannys come out with in times of distress lol. so after explaing to her what happened i ran to the toilet and put my eye under the tap which was stupid cause the pressure from the tap hurt my eye even more so im screaming and shouting things like ' my eye has dissolved, i cant see, i'm going to have to wear an eye patch for the rest of my life' i took hold of a towel and pressed it against my eye and eventually the burning stopped but i was to scared to remove the towel so i came downstairs with a towel against my eye but i could have chosen a small hand towel or some thing, instead i grabbed hold of a shower towle that fits 15 elephants, so on the way downstairs to my gran i tripped over the towel and at that point i gave up and just sat down.

and thats how my gran found me, she peeked her head around the door and said 'khair?' (whats up) i looked up at her and just shrugged my shoulders, so she laughed at me and said that what happened to my eye was not bad, its medicine.

medicine? medicine? my god, what sort of person would rub chilli peppers into there eye for the sake of medicine? i just sat there laughing and she looked at me and said seriously its good for you. good for you? ok it reminded me of that time when my mum made me eat chilli paste cause i was rude, and she was threatening me that she would give me spoon full of the stuff and i said so what i eat chillies so ha, so she tested me and i took a whole table spoon of the stuff and my face stayed permanently red until the age of 16, my mum at the time said that it was good for me cause it should have taught me a lesson, dont know bout that..

so people a word of warning, do not mess with the power of chillies unless you want to use it as a weapon against your enemies but remember to wear gloves.