white african

2011-08-27T13:01:00.002+01:00

i watch the news with excitement, i ring my family back home with anticipation for what they will tell me, the past few days have been like a dream, i pinch myself every time i watch re-runs of the compound falling in Tripoli.

speaking to family back home in tripoli i can already hear the difference in there voice, i never thought that freedom could be distinguished through a voice box, but it can, the voice of the liberated.

i'm so proud of my fellow libyans, they have shown the world that libya is a great nation and that without Gaddafi it will prosper, grow and become magnificent inshallah.

i speak to family in misrata and in benghazi and they all are happy for tripoli, they said that freedom was not complete until teh whole of libya is free and there right, i pray for the rest of libya to join in this new and beautiful feeling of being free, may it happen soon inshallah.

and as for gaddafi, he will eventually be found and justice will be handed out.

2011-07-21T10:28:00.002+01:00

recently my father was in Tunisia, he then left and then a few days later had to be back in Tunisia, when he tried to enter the second time he was told his name was on a list of wanted, my father laughed and told the Tunisian official that this has happened before and the matter is a similarity in the name with a wanted Lebanese man, the man then asked my father if he was the head of 'libya watch' a human rights organisation? my dad replied that he is and the Tunisian offical then said that my father was the man in question!!!!

during my dads absence from Tunisia, i a matter of days, gaddafi cronies had given my dads name to the Tunisians!!! fortunately my dad was travelling with a British passport, so he was denied access into Tunisia, was detained for 48 hours in the airport, was not given any food until he started to demand it as he is a diabetic and needed his insulin but couldn't take it with out food!!! and managed to get a flight home eventually.

the sad part of all this is that despite the revolution in Tunisia, there are factors still communicating with Gaddafi!!! and the irony is my father was prevented from entry not because of politics but human rights!!!!!

the 'Arab spring' has a long way to gooooooo and deeeeeep cleansing of individuals is needed.

2011-07-08T09:55:00.008+01:00

recently there was a world wide demonstration in memory of those kidnapped by the Gadaffi

regime, and according to some statistics there are over 30,000 kidnapped, unbelievable!!!!

we had a demonstration in Manchester and although it was small, the message was given and many where told about Gaddafi's atrocities, and the support from the British public is absoloutly amazing, so thank you ;)

one thing that stood out for me was whilst i was taking the photos, some of the people from tripoli (the capital) asked that i did not publish there photos as they fear that they will endanger there families back home in tripoli if they are recognised by Gaddafi cronies, my heart is with tripoli, and i pray for its victory soon.

i leave you with a few photos of the demo ;)

Queen Victoria also held the flag for us ;)

even the mega phone had the freedom flag

best place for Gaddafi was the pile of rubbish opposite us

2011-06-26T09:15:00.002+01:00

Gaddafi is still alive, Libyans are still dying under his tyranny, more and more atrocious stories are emerging, yet despite all this a new Libya is rising and its quickly spreading its wings through out the whole of Libya, and despite gaddafi's state TV rants and images of him playing chess whilst the Libyans are being killed, his time is obviously coming to an end.

its amazing how Libyans in the world's eyes have changed, before we where a nation to be laughed at due to the embarrassment called gaddafi, a nation where when asked 'where are you from?' and you reply 'Libya' you always get that look with the reply of 'aaah gaddafi'!

well not anymore world! our people have brought libya to the forefront, they have alimented this gaddafi from Libya's vocabulary, watching a clip from Al-jazeera, a Syrian lady rang and was desperate for help for the syrians, she wanted NATO's help like whats happening in Libya and then she said something that made me feel sooooo proud, she said and if NATO cant come, then send us the youth of misrata!!!

you will see, post Gaddafi, inshallah Libya will be beautiful, a place that one will be proud of and the libyan pride will once again emerge.

2011-06-05T10:15:00.014+01:00

we had a fundraising event in Manchester in aid of the Libyans on the Libya/Tunisia border, i didn't realise we had sooooooooo many Libyans in Manchester mashallah.
the weather was great, there was a BBQ, and plenty of stalls and food, hopefully plenty was raised for those in Tunisia as the situation is dire especially in the Ramada camp, can you imagine 40 degrees sun with no air conditioning on electricity in tents that are not designed for heat!!!

Summer is close and teh ehat will get worse and even the clothes on there back is not suited for the weather. The children have been through sooooo much and seen things that no child should ever have to see, the women have escaped but many with trauma and have been affected psychologicaly, and the rape is a whole other topic!

may Allah ease there situation and grant Libya victory soon so people can start re-building there lives.

some shots of the day to share with you all:

the imaginative ways in which the freedom flag has been put into everything and anything is great!the Qatar flag was also part of our day ;)

this was so cool, 'sponge the gaddafi' throw wet sponges on gaddafi

pinata of gaddafi, hit it with a stick and sweets appear

face painting always a part of the fundraising events

art that was auctioned
the day was lovely and may Allah reward the organisers for there efforts.

2011-05-23T09:38:00.001+01:00

after 30 years in exile due to the gaddafi regime, my father returned to libya ;)

2011-05-11T11:19:00.016+01:00

i've been really absorbed with watching any news on libya as well as the internet that i have forgotten about my blog.

recently my parents came back from turkey after visiting the wounded and injured from misrata and benghazi, they where both amazed and proud of the youth they met, they came back with there heads high proud of what the youth have achieved.

many of the injured they spoke to where praising turkey and its hospitality, there has been some negative press on turkey's treatment of libyan patients, but i would say that over all the treatment has been very good to the extent that turks are now demanding that they receive the same level of treatment and care.

many of the these amazing men vowed that once they where better they would go back to liberate libya, and if injured again then they will heal and fight again and again and again, may god keep them safe these brave men of libya who have made us all proud and who have allowed the world to see the true libya.

will share some photos:this women had extensive operations on her legs and hips after she was crushed by a tank in her car trying to escape from ajdabeya

this little boy was injured with his father
this young boy lost an arm and an eye coincidently my dad met his friends son who was being treated for a gun shot wound in his stomach this little baby has had major injuries to his jaw, his parents where also victims of gaddafis regime burns victim

this brave man is from ajdabeya

this boy is itching to get back to libya to re-join the revoloution,

dad with this brave boy who showed my dad a photo of hisself with prime minister erdogan when he visited the injured

this young man has a bullet wedged in his spine and is paralysed waist down.

the cast proudly says misrata libya ;)

many of the patients despite there situation had high morals and my mum many times was crying and they would tell her to be happy and not cry, very brave people

2011-04-20T16:12:00.002+01:00

what is up with the Algerian leader?

does he not realise what goes around comes around?

sending merceneries, tanks, fuel trucks, weapons and god knows what else to libya is by far one of the stupidest moves an arab leader has decided on.

and to send someone who will plan benghazi's destruction was not a wise move.

if he thought he would not be found out then who is he kidding?

helping gaddafi, the man is deluded, gaddafi will end and so will bu tifleega, the Algerians will turn on him soon if not now then later, the land of a million martyer.

and those Algerian merceneries coming into Libya, how dare they, how dare they kill the Libyans, there neighbours and fellow brethern, those captured should be dealt with severely.

2011-04-09T21:46:00.002+01:00

with the events happening inside of Libya, my heart pounds a thousand times a minute with every emerging news concerning Libya, i sleep the news and i wake the news and everything in between is the news.

I'm constantly on facebook, twitter, google, aljazeera both arabic and english, and any other news outlet.

one minute we are celebrating news that the freedom fighters have taken this place, have destroyed gaddafi forces, etc... the next minute we are biting our nails when news emerges that gaddafi forces have surrounded this place, have killed this many freedom fighters etc...

with all this tension and stress one cant help but feel dismay and sadness, yet when you call people inside of Libya, you hear a totally different story, there spirits are high, they are full of hope and faith and by the end of the call you feel convinced that freedom is round the corner.

i have such admiration for these people whom i have come to call my hero's, for they are making history and they are changing regimes and they are the true libyans.

every time we make contact with libyans, our batteries are charged once again....

2011-04-06T11:30:00.003+01:00

misrata

my original home town.

one that i may not be able to visit as it may not exist anymore due to gaddafi forces bombarding it constantly.

its a city that is full of memories for my father, he has always had the wish that he would one day return and bring those memories back to life, but will this be possible, will he even recognise it if he was to return?

the name misrata has gone down in history as a city full of angels, a city full of hero's, a city that stood up to forces that appear much stronger but have yet to break misrata.

the people in misrata are fighting for freedom, for there rights that we here in the west take for granted, and they are rewarded by turkey ignoring there plights (occasionally sending a ship) and NATO turning a blind eye, and others claiming al-qaida exists in Libya!

freedom fighters makes up misrata, backgrounds made up of business men, teachers, doctors, nurses, mechanics, not soldiers, or agents or al-qaida.

how dare the world point the finger at a people who have always been peaceful even to a leader who tormented them for 42 years.

when they decided enough was enough they expected the world to stand by them, the west has always claimed they are pro-democracy and freedom, but when push comes to shove they are no advocate of democracy instead its a case of 'what benefits us more'.

misrata walahi you are not forgotten, we will fight for your plight, we will spread the word, and place pressure on those who have the ability to change your situation, but more than that we will pray for you misrata...

2011-03-29T10:17:00.004+01:00

i am so proud of the Libyan men, they have proven to the world that they are indeed lions of the dessert, the men of benghazi, bayda, derna, tobrok, breyga, ras lanuf, ajdabeeya, the men of zawia, zintan and misrata.

standing in only there sandals and in many cases, there fists in front of tanks, missiles, RPG's and the latest in weapons, so that Libya will be free is courageous and this courage has not been seen in a long time.

Gaddafi had literally made Libya invisible from the world but these men who are backed by glorious women have made Libya re-appear and it will never disappear, the true colours of Libya where shadowed and erased by gaddafi and his son's but since the 17th February, Libya's colours have grown brighter and brighter and the shadow that is gaddafi is quickly disappearing.

the soul of Libya is emerging once again, it hasn't been easy, thousands have died in order to cleanse Libya and there deaths have not gone in vain, the mothers of these martyrs can hold there heads up high for there sons are hero's.

long live Libya and may victory come very soon to the Libyans, my people....

2011-03-22T21:39:00.011Z

yesterday was mothers day in the Arab world, and in Manchester we gathered together as women and children to stand in solidarity and remembrance of the martyrs and there mothers.

2011-03-07T14:30:00.032Z

manchester protests in solidarity with Libya

2011-03-06T11:50:00.003Z

libya tells the world 'do noty intervene, we can handle it', what does Britain do? they send SAS soliders into libya???????

double bloody standards, imagine it was the other way round, Britain would not stand for it.

then they claim that they are not trusted by the arabs, why do you think??????? its stunts like these that give you such a bad reputation

i urge you LISTEN TO THE LIBYAN PEOPLE.

2011-03-01T11:18:00.005Z

every since the 15th of February i have been glued to the internet and aljazeera live, i have hardly slept (not only because of the fact that i have a 7 week old baby) not ate properly, and it seems walking around like a zombie, all this due to the fact that Libya is going through a phenomenal revolution, the people have spoken and they will not back down.

the pace at which the changes occurred is awe inspiring and the libyans have shown the world there true colours which was dulled for 42 years by a dictator, one which the world has never seen the likes of considering his hair and wardrobe.

in my previous blog entry a few questions where posed, which i will try to answer:

can you tell us a little about yourself:

ok well i was born in Libya, lived a few months in Libya and then my dad took us to Canada as he had a course he was attending for a year, after that he applied to study for a masters in Britain, was accepted at the university of glasgow.

originally the plan was to obtain a masters and return to Libya, during our time in Scotland my dad took in a libyan family whom we did not know, but out of kindness helped them to establish themselves in Scotland until they where able to stand on there own 2 feet, what my dad was not aware of was that this man was a spy who was sending reports about my dad to the libyan goverment, such as the books he was reading, the Friday sermons he was attending etc..

my dad is a moderate Muslim man who practices his religion in a peaceful manner and this man sent lies upon lies to the Libyan government and my dad became a wanted man, so we could no longer return to Libya (this was nearly 30 years ago)

my father applied for asylum (he got his masters as well) and his case was accepted and we became British citizens. we moved to Manchester and have lived here ever since, my dad has always spoken out against the gaddafi regime and he established an organisation called libya watch which monitors the situation in Libya and he fought for the rights of those who died in the abu saleem massacre.

i personally have not lived in Libya and the Libya i know is through the eyes of my parents, there stories and recollections yet my heart is attached to Libya.

what are people fighting for?

simply there god given rights, imagine having no vote for 42 years, imagine having no structure in life for 42 years, non existent wages for 42 years and allot of the time the wages don't even make an appearance, imagine having to sell your car and your wife's gold in order to go to Tunisia for a simply tooth procedure as the hospitals in Libya are not equipped or are not able to do the simplest of procedures, imagine your mouth taped up for 42 years, the list goes on and on and on.

being ruled by a dictator for 42 years has completely destroyed a nation, he has put his finger in all aspects of society, education, finance, health, family life, etc... no stone in Libya has been left unturned, the people want to breath again, for so long the have held there breath and now it's a case of release or die trying.

what are some moments that made you proud?

gosh this question is hard one, to many moments to mention, during gaddafis reign, the people where so down and had no hopes, the little things would irritate them in each other, the sens of loving and wanting the best for your country was near to non existence as gaddafi had removed that from them, since the revolution a true Libyan spirit from the time of the king has emerged, the love, unity and brotherhood for one another is truly awe inspiring, the positive patriotism that has emerged is amazing, the cleaning up of the streets by the youth, the security network by the youth in protecting the city, staying up all night watching out for gaddafi forces, the fact that no reports of looting in the cities is simply amazing.

the spirit of the Libyans is what makes me proud, for once Libyans can face the world without the shadow of gaddafi and say 'we are proud to be Libyan'.

what are your hopes for the future?

like any human, to live a free life, and to have the best for your country without intervention from the outside world.

how are you using technology such as the Internet?

from this question i presume you thought i was inside of Libya, i wish, not yet, I'm based in Britain, so technology is not an issue.

what do you want to say to the world?

watch this space, a new Libya is emerging and instead of being the country that world mocks, it will be the country that the world looks up to ;)

how can we help?

spread the word, in the beginning Libya's plight was ignored, people saw gaddafi and new he was a mad man and had committed many atrocities, in 1996 when he completely massacred 1200 political prisoners and threw into the sea, the world was aware but chose to stay quite. what we don't want is external military intervention, history has proven once military enters a country they don't know how to leave, the Libyans managed to topple the east of Libya and will do so for the west.

what the world can do is put in place an arm embargo, stop those countries that are sending mercenaries and militias to Libya, freeze gaddafis assets which has been done now, place a no fly zone etc... this will assist the Libyans.

hope that's answered your qs.

i would like to say to the other blogger about the Africans that are being killed in Libya, where is your source from first of all, don't always believe what you hear, the clips of bodies killed are through self defence, and many are Libyans working for gaddafi who have been killed and not 'black Africans', also its another reason why the world needs to apply pressure on those countries that are sending troops into Libya for the purpose of killing its citizens, it has been proven that mercenaries are being used in Libya and gaddafi himself has said that he has asked them to rape and kill.

now obviously this causes panic, but Libyans are made up of people from different skin colour backgrounds, you will find white, brown, yellow and black Libyans so the concept of racism is not existent and the protesters are not going on a killing spree, if anything they have managed to capture many mercenaries and instead of killing them (even though the mercenaries are equipped and attacking) they have kept them alive and held them in a secure area, feeding them and treating them with the care that gaddafi has not shown for 42 years, until a just court hearing can take place in regards to the captured mercenaries.

hope that answers your qs ;)

2011-02-15T13:44:00.003Z

demonstration on the 17th of February 2011, this Thursday in Libya as well as in front of the Libyan embassy in London demanding the resignation (being a nice word) of Gaddafi and his cronies.

its about time we all (inside Libya and outside Libya) started to raise our voice, enough of the fear and the hiding behind fake loyalty of an extremely evil man who has made the lives of Libyans a misery.

watching his speech 2 days ago really made my blood boil, and watching the people saluting him and chanting words of loyalty towards him was too much to bare.

enough already of the humilation of the libyan people, 40 years is a long time to grin and bare his craziness.

sacrifices have got to be made for change, (look as egypt and tunisia), his time is coming to an end but we have to take the steps to bring his fall (and his family).

seriously enough....

2011-01-27T14:02:00.003Z

first tunisia, now Egypt are starting to get there act together, will it spread through north africa?

who knows, but what is obvious is that the action of one individual can certainly make world impact.

change regimes even!!!

remove certain people from power!!!!

its a new dawn, its a new day its a new life for.......,

2011-01-12T15:45:00.000Z

alhamdullilah on the 6th January 2011 Allah swt blessed me and my husband with a baby boy ;)

although the due date was the new years day, he came when Allah willed him to come, so it was perfect timing ;).

it was an 18 hour labour, and at the end came this little being whose home for the past 9 months was inside of me and whose home will now be by my side and my husbands subhnallah.

those people who say that as soon as you hold your little one you forget the pain you went through are liars, u do not forget, one week later i can still remember vividly, but what you do feel is a sense of achievement, a sense of awe, you cant help but say allah akbar or subhnallah, you feel part of the miracle that is life and yes its worth it but to say you forget the pain is going to far lol.

one thing i have to say is that the process of labour gives you a wake up call to how much our mothers went through and if appreciation of mothers only occurred through people experiencing labour then every ones needs to go through the process.

i have been very emotional since the birth, the smallest thing can trigger of tears and whilst crying i have little idea of why i am crying lol, but each time i remember my mum by my side at the labour (my husband was there through out as well) i begin to cry because she was great, i couldn't have done it without her and i pray that Allah swt keeps her safe and gives her a long and happy life.

my husband was fantastic mashallah, he was supportive and was also by my side helping and encouraging, may Allah keep him happy and grant him a long life ameen.

anyway i leave you with an invitation for 3aseeda (a Libyan dish eaten at certain occasions like birth etc..) on behalf of Bilal the newest edition ;)

2010-12-27T18:15:00.002Z

6 more days left until the due date, but the chances of that happening is very slim, especially because i am carrying a 'boy' and they are lazy by nature and prefer to stay in the womb as long as possible, so although its 6 days, technically it can be a further 2 weeks after the 6 days aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

one of the comments from the previous blog entry was about teaching and being pregnant, well hamdullilah I've started my maternity leave (not really kicked in that its maternity leave cause the whole country is of on Christmas holidays) but prior to that it was ok, i was managing, to be honest i preferred working to staying at home and waiting.

i wont lie, i would have preferred an extra 2 hours sleep in the morning especially towards the end as lack of sleep, insomnia, heart burn, general aches and pains meant that i had slept very little.

but amazingly i didn't actually take time off, i did catch stupid flu in the last week before the holidays so i went home early, but other than that i managed pretty well.

now I'm waiting and it feels like watching paint dry, time is going slooooooooooooooooooooowlllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy.

2010-11-24T21:10:00.002Z

i thought the hard part of pregnancy was the labour part, evidently that's just the end product of pain, i did not expect to be in this much pain and i have 5 weeks left!!!!!!!!!

with every passing moment I'm more conscious of my mother and all she has done for me and my brothers starting with carrying me for 9 months subhanallah.

its true what they say that you really don't know the value of parents until you become one, may Allah give them a long life full of health, wealth and happiness (ameen).

so as well as appreciating the parents more and more, I'm more and more getting impatient and cant wait to have it over and done with (inshallah).

so far its been a journey of nausea, extreme tiredness and hatred of coffee all in the early stages, then came the honey moon period as people call it where you 'love' the feeling of being pregnant, and your so full of energy etc... etc... etc... (no idea where they get this from) and finally the i sound and feel like an elephant stage, if you thought your nose could never grow to the size of a melon - get pregnant and boy will it grow and grow....

i would say i was pretty lucky hamdullilah as i had a vomit free pregnancy and no serious issues like some ladies, but by month 7 the pains kicked in and it seriously gets so bad that i cant stay stood up and nearly collapse from it.

every one keeps saying 'not long to go now' but at the moment every day feels like 10 days.

gotta keep telling myself it will be worth it in the end inshallah.

perks are i don't feel the bitter cold like every one else, i have my own central heating inside ;)

2010-11-15T11:25:00.004Z

I'm really sick and tired of the state of the Muslims, its the simple things that annoy me and makes me think if we cant get the small things right then how in the world are we even going to fix our major problems?????????

whats triggered this off, well its always been at the back of my mind this rant but this eid its brought it out to the forefront.

what are the Muslims thinking of when they celebrate eid 2 days after the day of Arafat???????

walahi it does not make any sense to me...

no explanation will make sense....

here in Manchester we have a group of people (many actually) who will be celebrating eid al adha on Wednesday, WHY?????

the day of Arafat is today, then logically Eid is tomorrow, get with it people...

when i ask people why are the clelbrating on Wednesday, the answer is 'I'm following my

mosque'.

well then what is up with these 'imams' who are telling there congregation to celebrate 2 days after the day of Arafat?

I've come to a conclusion, if its anything like what that man 'gaddafi' did last year i think, where he closed the mosques and forced people to celebrate eid on the day that 'he' decides (my hat of to the Libyans that still prayed in the fields and what not) then matter is a power thing...

enforcing your power on the people because you CAN and so WILL to make a point, to test them etc..

this is not just world leaders, theses are some of the Imams in the mosques.

the issue could be a political one, you have something against Saudi and want to make a point by not following them again cough cough Gaddafi as an example...

also it could be a matter of trust, (now this one i slightly understand) Saudi have got it wrong in the past (many times in fact) and some people are sick of the ahem ahem mis-calculation of the Saudis and so refuse to follow them.

even so once the day of Arafat is decided then you can do anything about it, its not like you can have a day of arafat when you want, also even if it is wrong its not us who will get the sin of celebrating it on the wrong day, it will be those who decided what day it will be celebrated.

so the point is stop getting on my nerves and lets get our act together, I'm seriously thinking of contacting all these 'imams' and letting them know what i think..

on a final note, Eid Mubarak every one, Kul 3am wantum bikhair, hope you and your families really enjoy yourselves and dont over do it with the meat ;)

2010-11-08T19:12:00.002Z

so i cant have a coffee with the baby??????????

2010-10-29T20:47:00.002+01:00

how cute are they...

2010-09-23T22:03:00.002+01:00

today i asked a student why she had not given me her homework like every one else.

her answer was: Miss i didn't realise i had to hand it in!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i asked her for the definition of homework, she replied 'i think it when you get given work to do at home and then hand in to the teacher'

duuuuuuuuuuuhhhh.

2010-08-26T12:31:00.002+01:00

well its already the 16th day of Ramadan, how fast is it going? subhanallah.

due to my pregnancy Ive not been able to fast which seems soooooooo weird, and obviously feels like my Ramadan is lacking something which it is lol.

anyway, this Ramadan I'm spending it with my little brother thabet, my husbands in Libya and my parents are in Umrah (so wish i was with them).

I'm really proud of my brother, every day without fail, he has his initial iftar at the local masjid (which is at our doorstep literally) he prays maghreb and then comes home for his dinner with me.

he then helps me clear up and will go on the computer until isha time, gets ready and goes to the masjid to pray isha and taraweeh, he has done this every day so far, and was telling me that he loves it mashallah.

yesterday he came home early from taraweeh, looking really upset and as though he has had a fright, i asked him what was wrong and he said one of the men attacked him!!!!!

you can imagine my concern, what happened was apparently a ginger bearded man (my brothers description, i explained that it was probably dyed with henna) always hassles the children, telling them of, shouting at them etc... now my brother is no longer a child in the sense that he runs around the mosque, giggling, fighting and being a child, hes 16 so he understands the etiquette's of mosque manners, this man saw thabet doing tasbeeh and the prayer had already started so he shouted at him to get up and pray.

now apparently all this man does is watch people so thabet in anger said to him 'i will pray, what about you?'

(i did tell thabet that he should not have said that as he needs to take into consideration the mans age and respect him for that at least).

the man became angry with what thabet said, and so pushed him extremely hard so that thabet fell hard against the wall, he then began to hit him, punch, grabbed him, took him outside and strangled thabet before being stopped by the other men.

as you can imagine my brother was really shaken, and i was soooooooo angry, how dare this henna bearded man do this to my brother or anyone else (apparently its a daily occurrence for other kids).

i put on my hijab gear and went to the mosque, (this mosque is a men only mosque, no women allowed, i may have blogged about it in the past, any non-Muslim readers reading this, please be aware that this no-women policy has nothing what so ever to do with Islam, its a mentality gone wrong).

i stood outside, respecting there laws, plus many Libyan men pray in this mosque so i had to bear in mind the fact that i didn't want to be the most talked about female in Manchester by barging into a mosque, so i respectfully waited until my brother brought a mosque committee member outside to speak to me.

lets just say i was diplomatic, polite but extremely to the point and my words without sounding threatening, where actually threatening if that makes sense lol.

the man confirmed that thabet was and has been and is a well behaved member of the congregation and that the henna bearded man usually goes for the disruptive children, this of course angered me more and i reminded him about the prophets dealing with children and how his grandsons used to play on his back when he was in sujud in the mosque and the blessed prophet would stay in sujood until his grandsons had stopped playing, and he never once told them off or attacked children but instead encouraged them to pray in the mosque and use its facilities, so how dare this man abuse the children's trust in mosques and Islam, how dare he?

i warned him that this might not be the end of complaints as my dad is sure to do something about this when he gets back inshallah.

2010-08-07T16:31:00.018+01:00

it has already been 3 weeks since we broke up for the summer, my god time flys!!!!

what have i been doing i hear you shout, well not much, i moved back into my bedroom at my parents house, my husbands gone to libya for Ramadan and im staying in the UK, initially i was meant to go with him but as it happens im 5 months preganant and thought it best i stay where its much cooler as with the heat of libya i can see myself going mad as i already have central heating on in me at the moment, so the trip has been postponed till after ive had the munchkin inshallah ;).

i have been browsing the net looking at prices for prams and baby things, believe it or not the pram i had in mind costs around 5oo pounds!!! thats like a deposit on a car... so i searched on ebay for the type i want, found it made an offer much cheaper and won woooohoooo (dont u just luv ebay)

i had to collect it myself, it was near carlisle, so i thought kill a bird with 2 stones and make a day visit out of it.

so here are a few snapshots:love old style cars...
weird replica of a famous gargoyle
carlisle cathedral

some one dedicated this seating to a passed loved one

gargoyles....

inside the cathedral where many tombs, the statues where very life like

2010-07-17T11:39:00.002+01:00

nothing exciting to report, yesterday was the last day of school, summer holidays have officially began ;))))))

not that I'm going anywhere this year ;(

i will probably get to know parts of Britain, really amazing places we have here.

ok, so to what i was going to blog about, recently a friend of mine came into work looking really upset, when i asked what the problem was, it turned out that her daughters primary school where causing her a headache.

basically her daughter came home upset because every time she ate her lunch a dinner lady would approach her and tell her off for eating with her right hand and make her instead eat with her left hand, when the girl complained to a teacher the teacher replied 'all children in this primary school eat with there left hands'.

she didn't help the child just re-enforced what the dinner lady said. now apparently this has been going on for some time, and finally the girl told her mother.

my friend rang the school to speak to some one regarding this thinking that there will be a simple and easy solution and explanation, that maybe her daughter was exaggerating or something.

she found that the school was adamant on eating with the left hand, be it using cutlery or eating sandwiches with the hand etc... they where rude and they said things like ' this is a British school, we teach British etiquette's, something your daughter must learn'

they where digging a hole for themselves.

British etiquette's???? don't they know that Britain is made up of many different cultures, different backgrounds, being British has nothing to do with the above, being English maybe but that's different, the funny thing is the primary school is made up of 40% ethnic minorities.

my friend decided to write a letter of complaint, she received a reply a week later, and the reply was brilliant in that she has now a case against them and it will win as no judge will accept it. it was oozing racism and discrimination, they said things like if you don't like it then take your daughter to a faith school, British schools do not bring religion into the education or the establishment (what??? since when was Britain a secular country). and they said something equivalent to if your in Britain then you need to learn British ways???.

well my friend is not one to back off, so they are in for a ride.....

2010-06-17T10:44:00.000+01:00

during the May holiday, i went to Bosnia with my husband and parents, we flew to Italy where my dad rented a car and we drove through Italy, Slovenia, Croatia and finally arrived in Bosnia.

every one in my family have been to Bosnia numerous times including my husband, i on the other hand never had the opportunity and every one has been raving about how beautiful it is and how the people are amazing, i always thought that they where exaggerating as i never imagined Bosnia to be like they describe it, but i was pleasantly surprised. its a country that is full of natural beauty subhanallah and i swear whilst you are there you cant help but utter words such as subhnallah, mashallah, Allah akbar as you really do become a witness to the greatness of Allah's creation.

as usual here are some photo samples:

any one care to jump?

water mills, never seen the like of...

martyrs graveyard

Bosnian coffee, they eat the sugar cube and sip the coffee...

wudu area in a mosque in Sarajevo

the rules of the mosque in animated form :0)

minaret from the restaurant.

we prayed isha prayer in this mosque, it was full of roses from the outside, so beautiful mashallah.

i love people watching, we went to a local cafe and whilst my mum and dad shopped in the market, i sat and watched the world go by and took shots of people :)

love the fruit and veggies, they taste real lol

this house played a big role during the war, an old lady owns the house and she allowed for the Bosnians to dig a tunnel from her home to just after the airport as the Serbs had surrounded the city and placed snipers and refused to let any one leave, this tunnel helped many escape.

map of how it looked then

the tunnel...

some of the buildings are still damaged due to the war

king fahad mosque, as the name indicates, Saudi donated the money to build this mosque.

ice cream, summer fruit, wafers, sauce, cream , mmmmmmmm delicious

this is a derelict factory that was used by the united nations, 30,000 Bosnians came to find refuge here, the UN declared the area a 'safe zone' only to hand the men and boys between the ages of 12-60 to the Serbs who literally massacred them.

the men and boys where buried in mass graves, and no one new where the mass graves where, and they are still uncovering them today, in some of the graves, personal items where found on some of the bodies, like the above glasses and case as well as:

a napkin

school books ;(

and a quran.

we then went to the srebrenica cemetery where the bodies that are found in the mass graves, are given a proper funeral with a proper burial, the anniversary is the 11th July, and every year they add more graves of bodies they have found in mass graves, this year they will add 750 graves to the cemetery.

so far 8372 are buried.

whilst we where there, it rained for a good 4-5 days, the clouds where stuck in between the mountains.

meat any one?

we made a friend with a horse that my mum named mardeeyah

the local mosque we prayed in

grilled fish, my dad is the only person who eats fish

at breakfast we where joined by a little friend

we went to a taqeeyah, which is like a Sufi retreat and its also where the source of the river comes from, its meant to be one of the wonders of Europe as no one knows exactly where the source of the river comes from.

one of the rooms had graves.Bosnians are not famous for tea, so at this place they had tea and i jumped at the chance to drink the good old stuff, the Turkish delight was one of the best I've had in a long time.

i love these swirling dervishes, I'm going to try and find a swirling dervish in every country i go to.we went to mostar city where its famous for this bridge

the Croatians bombed mostar city including the bridge, the UN helped to re-build it, probably felt guilty for there hand in the massacre.
anglo this one is for you, i made friends with a Bosnian turtle ;)

2010-05-18T15:02:00.006+01:00

when driving you notice certain things that really irritate you that you wouldn't necessarily notice as a walker.

and the more it happens the more annoyed i get, so by the time I've reached my destination I've ranted and raved about the issue of rubbish drivers and inconsiderate so and so's.

for example, one thing that really drives me up the wall is when you give another driver the way and they don't thank you, this really gets to me and i have called drivers 7aywan (animal) because of his lack of gratitude.

what you are meant to do when another driver gives you the way is either:

a) put your hand up as a thank you gesture

b) flash your lights as a thank you gesture

what your not meant to do is ignore the fact that the driver has kindly waited for you to get your car past, i swear it can make all the difference.

another thing that can make me see red is drivers (mainly men) having conversations with either pedestrians or other drivers in a very narrow road and causing traffic to merge behind them, and not caring at all, and if you beep at them or say something, they give you the finger!!!!

also people who keep the driver door open to its widest on a narrow road and not bothering to close it, i come along and have to break as the idiot who has done this has nearly caused me to crash into his door, i roll the window down and i say 'do you mind closing your door, you can cause an accident'.

9/10 times i get told to f off ????????

people who don't indicate to turn into a road, aaaaaaaaaaaaaagh

people who drive at a snails pace when there is absolutely no reason for it.

and a million other reasons that other drivers irritate me.

2010-05-03T21:29:00.009+01:00

ok this post is for lebeeya as she has requested some photos to be uploaded.

on Saturday i photographed a wedding so here are some of the photos, i haven't finished editing the whole lot, but some is better than none ;)

when i started photography it was more a hobby than anything else, then a friend requested that i do her wedding and since then Ive been doing quite alot of weddings, i enjoy it, actually i love it, but i soooo prefer travel photography, working with human can be a headache at times.

the other thing about wedding photography is the most times i cant upload pictures of the brides as they have got no hijab on, or don't want there photos shared with the world, so I'm limited to what i can post, hence the reason why my pictures that are uploaded tend to be of objects, flowers, cakes etc..

i may upload some photos from previous weddings too if the mood takes :))

2010-04-29T16:56:00.002+01:00

me and coffee we go waaaaaaaaay back, there has been good times and bad times but even the bad times are not that bad they are in fact funny times.

yesterday i was sat in the staff room, it was 8.30 am and i was drinking my first cup of the day (the first one is always the best), all the teachers where present as we always have a small staff meeting before the start of the teaching day.

towards the end of the meeting i grabbed my cup and tried to swallow the last part of the coffee, i say tried because what happened was that it went the wrong way and i ended up spluttering my coffee all over the room, table, registers, teachers, it was like some sort of human fountain, slow motion human fountain.

some of the teachers actually screamed, never mind the fact that i couldn't breath, and i was having a coughing fit but at the same time laughing as i couldn't believe that i had committed this act.

the headteacher kept asking if i was ok and i kept laughing, i had to leave the room to wash myself (and throw myself out of the window).

i smelt of coffee all day, and my register was drenched in the good stuff.

2010-04-25T20:09:00.004+01:00

its been a year nearly since the last trip to ice skating and again i got asked to accompany the students which i was more than happy to do as ice skating is a great sport.

around 60 girls where going and we where to travel by tram, to get to the tram station we had to walk for about 20 minutes. we had just left the school and walking past a church which was open for Friday mass when one of the members of the congregation stopped in his tracks and stood staring at us, he then began to shout:

'you of to celebrate St Georges day?'

he got no answer from the girls who carried on walking past him and giggling as girls do.

he then shouted again

'this is England, this is England'

at the same time pointing down at the ground.

i was the last person to walk past him (as a teacher you always have to have some one at the back just in case we leave anyone behind), and as i walked past him he said to me: 'you have to celebrate St Georges Day'

i decided i wouldn't ignore him so instead i asked him: 'have you got a problem?'

to which he replied: 'yes actually i certainly do, i have a problem with you people being in England and not celebrating our festivities'.

so i was dealing with a racist, i hate the reference 'you people' it really irritates me and can get me going.

i thought to myself, sondes, you gota stay calm, so i asked him a question: when you you look at me, what do you see, what am i?'

to that he replied: 'your an Islamic'

i said to him: 'actually your wrong, I'm a Muslim not an Islamic, just like i wouldn't call you Christianity'

he said: oh so now you have a problem with the word islamic' ?????????

what???????

to which i said: 'no but I'm making you aware of the correct reference'

he then said:' well i don't care, to me your a mohammadian and always will be'

this is getting interesting...

"a mohammidian? right without sounding patronising, i hate to break this to you but we don't worship prophet Mohamed, we worship God, prophet Mohamed like his title is a prophet just like Jesus'

the man says: 'so your teaching me about Islam now'

me: 'no, just correcting your knowledge'

man: 'right so are you celebrating St Georges day?'

me: 'no'

man: 'your in England, its your duty to celebrate it'

me: 'not really'

man: 'look at you taking these girls to celebrate things that have nothing to do with England'

me: 'they are going on a field trip to ice skate in altrincham, what celebrations are you talking about?

man: oh tahts ok then, have a happy St Georges day'

me: (completely perplexed) you to.

he then turns around and walks into the church.

at this point the girls where asking me a thousand questions and i didn't know what to say.

on the way back i jotted down the telephone number of the church and called the pastor who replied straight away.

i introduced myself and then told him the reason why i had called, he was completely sympathetic and horrified that this happened outside his church, he then went on to tell me that because hes Irish he gets told by some members of his own congregation to go back to Ireland and he said that on St Patricks Day he always encounters some sort of hatred.

i was really happy with how the conversation went and I'm actually considering visiting the church and seeing if we can establish some friendship and hopefully get some of the girls to visit and speak to the congregation on Islam.

2010-04-21T17:47:00.002+01:00

the ash from the volcano in Iceland has caused havoc especially in Britain and Europe, my dad has been stuck abroad for nearly a week and a half due to this but hes one of the lucky ones hes staying with friends, so many people have had to fork out hundreds and even thousands for food, hotels, transport etc.

the cheeky hotel industry are abusing the fact that people are stranded and so have increased there hotel prices to get a hefty profit from all of this.

now something to be proud of...

the Libyan families in Switzerland have taken the initiative to help there stranded fellow Libyans, every day many of them are venturing to the airports and picking up stranded passengers and taking them home to rest, how cool is that :))))

how many of us would help strangers like that?

now i think the mosques all over Europe and Britain should have done the same for all Passenger's Muslim and Non- Muslim that would have been absolutely fantastic.

i swear that made my day today...

2010-04-11T17:11:00.002+01:00

as Libyans why can we be so in-patient with one another??????

and have no element of customer service for our people?

i maybe, actually probably going Libya this year inshallah, and my Libyan passport has expired so i need to re-new my passport for the 3rd time, not that i have actually used it!

and that's another thing that's annoying why is it that you can only get a maximum of 4 years for a passport and only if its re-newed in Libya, last year i re-newed my passport at the London embassy and they gave me less than a year before it expired, so frustrating i swear.

anyway so theres this application form that you need to fill in, which is dated 2007!!! and i filled it in but i wasn't sure whether to send photos (last time they sent back the photos and used the old photo of me looking much younger) and how much it was gonna cost me, so my husband calls the embassy and some Libyan dude replies (not the sudani guy)my hubby asks him regarding the ijraat (procedures) around re-newing a passport, to which the man cuts him short and says check the website, it has all the details. my husband says to him ok but i don't have a computer on me at the moment and seeing how I've called now could you just let me know about what is needed exactly, to which the man says 'if i was to answer the phone for every person who calls asking questions like this, i would never get any work done' and said it in a very rude manner.

??????????? the mind boggles...

how about the fact that as part of the embassy job description, they are obliged to answer queries and help Libyans sort out passport issues!!!!!!!

my god things like this seriously annoy me.

I'm going to call the embassy on Monday and speak to whoever answers in English and see whether that will make any difference, and if it does its not gonna make happy, it will just confirm my theory that customer service does not exist in Libya or the Libyan embassy, maybe I'm generalising, but i will make it a point to research this when i go, maybe its civil servant jobs!

oh and the website is down, so how are people meant to check out passport information duuuuuuuh!!!

2010-04-07T13:11:00.000+01:00

on bank holiday monday i went to conwy in wales for a day trip, the weather managed to hold and it did not rain, though it was freeeeeeeezing.

its only 1 hour and a half away from manchester and its soooo pretty.

as usual here are the photos to share with you all.

sign of spring? who knows...
my future car, i want one of these..
going up the castle..
generaly i hate pigioens (flying rats) but these 2 looked cute :)
the welsh flag
i watched these two birds for 20 minutes! one was holding onto the other ones beak, for what? i have no idea, couldnt tell whether they where fighting or flirting lol
smallest house in britain, i think the lady who owns it may also be the smallest old lady in britain as well ;)
later we looked for fish and chips, the problem was not finding a shop, they where every where, the problem was finding one that fried the chips and cod in a seprate place to the pork sausage.

sadly we didnt find a place excpet for a dodgy kebab house which had the saddest chips and something which till now, dont know whether was fish or human !!!!

2010-03-18T21:48:00.004Z

its exam time, the whole school is having there end of year exams, a bit early seeing how its march but the school decided to bring it forward a few months.

so I'm busy marking the exam papers, and every so often i would laugh out loud at the answers.

i asked the question: which mountain was the Torah revealed (or something similar)

so far as well as the correct answer (mount Sinai) it was reveled on mount Everest, the Himalayas, snowdon.

i haven't finished marking so i wonder if any other mountains will appear....

2010-03-08T15:27:00.003Z

my wisdom tooth on the right side is making an appearance and it really hurts :(

i developed an ear infection and throat infection because of it, had to have antibiotics and then the infection had to be drained, allot of drilling which felt like my brain was being shook and ending with fillings.

so does this mean i am alot wiser now???

oh and I'm so bad, I'm sat here eating chocolate but don't tell anyone, especially my dentist.

2010-03-01T09:51:00.003Z

recently at school, Ive been teaching the Year 9 about rites of passage and in particular death, last week i was talking about washing a dead body in Islam (Ghusl) and i asked them a question?
'a man dies in a place where there are no other men, and the woman present are not related to him, would Ghusl be performed on this man?'

before asking this question i had already explained what Ghusl was and how to perform it on the deceased.

hands started shooting up and i was given very different answers but not the correct one, then one girl in particular became very excited and kept saying 'choose me miss, i know the answer, please choose meeeeeeee'

i loved her enthusiasm so i asked to to go ahead and tell me the answer.

she said in a very loud and confident manner:

'well basically one of the woman would have to marry the dead corpse and then she could perform ghusl on him because she would be married to him!!!!!!!!'

loooool

i couldn't help but laugh...

funny thing was she was being very serious.

the other girls just stared at her

and one bright girl called her a necrophilist, which i had to tell her of for but then the whole class wanted to know what one was aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrhhhhhh.

teachings great....

2010-02-18T21:18:00.000Z

coffee with a good friend beats anything :))))

2010-02-08T15:19:00.002Z

half term holiday is coming up and i have no plans, I'm thinking of going for a few days to some place in Britain, does any one have any ideas? excluding London, Dover, Lake district, don't have anything against these places its just i have been there, done that and bought the t-shirt.

any ideas would be extremely helpful.

my passport expires on the 10th of feb 2010, i really need to apply for another one, but i so cant be bothered to join the long ques at the post office sigh.....

2010-01-22T11:23:00.000Z

although i have lived in Britain all my life that does not mean that we have forgotten our Libyan culture, many Libyans from back home are surprised to see how Libyans in Britain are very 'Libyan' and they are even more surprised when they attend a Libyan wedding here in Britain because some go all out with the decor, favours, music, traditions etc...

this week i have been attending a Libyan wedding over 4 days, the henna, the wedding, the saba7eeyah (morning after) etc... and the mother of the bride has really worked her socks of to make sure that the wedding is as Libyan as you can get.

i have taken a few pics of the decor as i cant post any photos of the people, enjoy....
henna shoes, pink !!!!!!

i actually wore these as well in my henna lol.

henna sweet box, given with the Arab coffee, you open it up and it is full of all sorts of sweets, sooo coooooooool.

leaving the henna we where given these little pots full of nuts and topping it with a ferrero niiiice :)

table napkins for the wedding

one of the wedding favours, full of nuts...

weddng favour number 2, this one had a bakalawa in it.

the third favour was hanging of a basket..

and this is what it looks like, a ferrero flower and the leaves had little almond sweets hiding in them :)

the wedding cake

the love birds ontop of the cake aaaaaaaaaaaw :)

a milky drink roosata made with almonds and a biscuity thing called abambar, given to us at the party the day after the wedding.

another case of sweets to have with the arabic coffee

and the nuts with the tea :)

the bride got dressed 3 times ending with a libyan outfit, very nice mashallah.

and there you have it, so the older i grow the more of my culture i love :)

2010-01-06T22:22:00.018Z

well Manchester has not seen snow like it has been snowing since 100 years ago!! i can honestly say that I've lived in Manchester 15 years and Glasgow before that and i haven't seen this much snow either.

its funny how Britain goes mad when it snows, people just don't know what to do, everything goes on stand still, plus what didn't help was that many cities ran out of grit and had to borrow from other cities and people even resorted to using cat litter!

one plus side was that school has shut down till Monday so we got an extra week off waaaa hay..

i spent some of the time taking winter shots, here are some for your eyes :0)

some one in the neighbourhood started a snow man and then people started to add more and more...
snow monkey...
even the bins didnt escape the snow
my brothers and co built a 9ft snow man!!!!

thats it for now, i may venture out to the local park tomorrow and see what i can capture..

2010-01-02T18:08:00.003Z

i crashed into the neighbours car, not because of the snow or ice, but because of hot scalding coffee!!!!

basically i was on my way to a course early this morning, i was really surprised to see the world white again as when i had gone to sleep the pavement outside was the usual grey, i didn't have time to drink coffee at home so i prepared it and took it down with me, i put it somewhere safe near the passenger side (or so i thought), obviously had to clear the car windows of snow and heat the car, so i sat and waited for a good 5 min, then when there was enough seeing space on the window for me to drive i put the car in 1st gear and started to drive, the coffee mug wobbled, it got steady changed its mind and decided to fall, i stupidly let go of the steering wheel and decided to try and catch the mug forgetting that i would burn myself.

it doesn't end on a high note (or maybe it does, does screaming qualify as a high note?) i did burn my hand, i screamed, said something that i shouldn't have said, momentarily forgot i was in the car and when i remembered it was to late i crashed into a parked car duuuuuuuuuh.

hamdullilah i wasn't driving fast but i may have dented the guys car slightly i feel awful, and i don't even know where he lives, so i wrote him a loooooooooooooooong note explaining the situation and putting my details on the note, as of yet i have not heard from him/her.

i have soooo totally learnt my lesson, i wont be drinking coffee while driving ever ever ever again..

2009-12-23T22:46:00.002Z

why is it that some people have to ruin your mood by saying something that is un-necessary and could have been a thought left in her mind rather than blurting it out aaaaaaaaaaaaagh.

i went to give my condolences today to family friends as the grandmother had passed away in Libya.

i walked into the hall (it was in the mosque) and saw about 25 ladies and obviously they have to give you the up and down look, and then you have to do the rounds (saying sallam to all) and every thing was running smoothly, nobody said anything negative to me, nobody put me down apart from the one comment about my pink socks, but that was ok as she had no taste ;) until i approached the last lady she just couldn't control herself, she had to say something horrible to me and i don't get it.....

why cant people keep the opinion to themselves, now if i had asked her for her opinion then that would have been another matter, but noooooooooooooo she had to force her opinion of me on to me, frankly I'm getting sick and tired of it so i kinda said to her 'fara7tee tawa?' (are you happy now?') to which she smiled and said cheekily ' yes i am' well i just wanted to pore the Arabic coffee all over her but being in a mosque that wouldn't have been appropriate plus the many Libyan eyes where watching and my mum would have been so shocked, so i walked away...

she spoilt my mood..

why cant people just read the quran, and do dhikir in these funerals rather than talk talk talk...

2009-12-16T09:25:00.001Z

i was sent this image via email last night and i thought it was fantastic :))))
its called finding alternative means lol....

2009-12-07T11:42:00.014Z

couple of weeks ago i took the year 7s to a Jewish museum and the year 9s to a Hindu temple as part of studying other faiths. OFSTED like to see evidence of pupils interacting with others from a different faith but as well as this we like to teach the girls about tolerance of other faiths and having respect towards others and these trips will bring an awareness and understanding to a certain extent of different faiths.

a rabbi speaking to the girls about the Jewish faith.
like mosques, synagogues are not allowed to have images of humans or animals so the stained glass windows are of nature, flowers, geometric shapes etc..
looking at the old scrolls...

the Hindu temple was a first for me as well...

the gods they worship in different forms ..
the priest showed us how he would pray, he began by blowing into a shell.
and chanted whilst moving the lit lantern in circular motions.

later he played some of the musical instruments much to the joy of the girls who probably thought they could sing along to as though performing for x-factor!

2009-11-28T10:46:00.002Z

i was going to blog the usual eid mubarak etc.. but i wanted to bring to peoples attention the fact that in Libya, the government had ordered that the mosques be shut on eid day so that the people would not pray the eid prayer because gaddafi decided that eid would be on Thursday which we all know was the day of Arafat.

where does one start in trying to make sense of this!!!!!

i swear i thought that nothing could surprise any more when it came to Libya's disappointment in its leadership, but i was wrong again....

why would he do that? why?

no answer is enough to make sense.

the second eid (eid al adha) you cant get the day wrong, once Arafat is announced then eid follows, that has been the rule since Islam began, so who does this man think he is that he can change that rule? why is it that he continues to get away with his actions.

I'm so fed up of being continuously humiliated by him, the Libyans have had enough, and a light at the end of the tunnel, many of them refused this time to accept his demands and prayed eid prayer in a open field regardless of the on going threat.

so many people are saying the country's changing, its reforming, well i disagree, its not stable, and what a country needs most is stability, this is extremely lacking in Libya's case.

Ive always been one to be vocal in my opinion regarding this, and it is every Libyans right to express themselves but the years of oppression and fear have produced a nation that have become the silent walking, it is better to accept than kick up a fuss, and its understandable of them due to the reaction of the gove when a person does decide to talk.

but how long can this continue....

ok rant over.

eid mubarak...

2009-11-06T13:59:00.020Z

more pictures of Syria, part2

outside the mosque

shop window for party dresses, ghastly...
whistle seller
traditional drink street seller
graves
hamam, open all hours..

restraunt with dancing dervishes.
thabits obsession with trampolines was taken over to syria as well.
the gathering of the cats
prickly pear stall, these where every where..
we went to homs for a day trip and i saw this little boy having fun with an empty drink bottle and water, the simple pleasures inlife :)
breakfast at a friends house in homs
we went to a castle in homs and this was the view from the entrance,
view from one of the windows
some of the art work in the castle
grumpy..

2009-10-20T18:26:00.000+01:00

it takes sooooooo long to upload all the pic on to blogger but i was patient :) so here are samples of the syrian holiday, it was such a brilliant time spent with my family :)

i guess its too early in the morning for tabet, breakfast at manchester airport..
duty free in istanbul airport, 6 hours transit killerrrrrrr
the leader bashar al asad not in the flesh of course but his pictures are every where in syria, i guess like most arab countries its compulsary to plaster there face in all buisnessess as well as street corners like the above.
the shrine of ruqayayh the daughter of al hussain, they have built a huge mosque around her shrine sponsored by Iran.
inside her shrine.
the ommayad mosque minaret
in the courtyard of the mosque.
this is the tomb of prophet yahya's head (john the baptist), the story goes that his head was a request for mahr from a woman who hated prophet yahya.
inside the tomb.
inside the mosque, the feeling was so nice, kids playing, people resting, praying, contemplating etc..
stepping out into the courtyard, theres a building that has the above signes that translates to the 'tomb of the head of al hussain' the son of the great khalifah ali karam allah wajha. apparently the rest of his body is buried in cairo.
inside the tomb.

from the outside, thabit posing.
many people tie green ribbon around the railings of the tomb, i have no idea what this indicates, many where rubbing there scrafs and material on the tomb asking for blessings and cures for diseases, why ask the dead when one can ask allah?????
like this lady for example!!!
and this one..
rules and regulations of entering a mosque...
plastered on the mosque wall outside are many requests like the above 'kidney any one?'
the market opposite the mosque..
the holes in the ceiling are bullet holes from the french during the occupation.
round the corner from the great mosque is the tomb of salah al deen, the liberator of palestine, may allah have mercy on him, such a great man..
his tomb..

ok thats it for now, plenty more to come inshallah...

2009-10-12T21:02:00.002+01:00

thank you so much dearest bloggers for your wonderful words of care in the previous post.

hamdullilah my father is now out of hospital and resting at home and inshallah onto the road of recovery :)

may Allah give him a long and healthy life (ameen).

2009-10-05T10:15:00.002+01:00

the past week has been an extremely emotional one for me, never have i cried so much in my life.

my father is in hospital with pneumonia and at one point i would say it was touch and go, now hamdullilah hes much better in comparison to how he was.

my father regularly takes groups to Bosnia to visit orphans, widows and projects down there, at the same time Bosnia is meant to be an extremely beautiful place to visit and my father loves the place.

so he regularly takes groups to Bosnia about 2-4 times a year. he had a successful trip in june/july and decided to organise one after ramadan from 23rd September.

he usually rents out a van and drives the group from Italy, into Croatia and eventually entering Bosnia.

after a few days he fell ill, he ignored it as usual and carried on with the trip, obviously the travelling, lack of sleep as well as rest made it worse yet he kept telling himself its a cold and will go away, the group noticed that he didn't look well and would comment on this but he ignored there concern and carried on exerting himself and pushing his limits.

my fathers friend had accompanied him and had rented a car which he was driving and would follow my father, on the last day when the group where being taken to Italy to catch the flight home my fathers friend got lost and crashed the car, my dad had no option but to carry on driving the group as they had a flight to catch.

he dropped the group at the airport but refused to fly home as he wanted to make sure his friend was fine and to sort out flights for him as he was stuck in Croatia.

but he was soooooooo weak by now that he found himself falling asleep at benches and seats without meaning to fall asleep, in the end he decided to book a hotel and stay the night, rest and try to help his friend in the morning.

back in England we where un aware of any of this as on the day he was meant to fly back he accidentally left his mobile with one of the group members so we had lost contact with him and when the group came back they informed us of how ill he looked which completely made me and my mum go mad with worry.

the question was how in the world where we going to locate him, 24 hours had already past and he hadn't contacted home yet, and by then we where getting all sorts of ideas as to could have happened to him and it was out of the normal for him not contact and let my mum know how he was or where he was.

the next day after a fretful sleep i saw my mum at work and asked whether baba had rang to which she started to cry and said no. i decided to take matters into my own hand and began to look for hertz number in Slovenia and Italy to contact them and ask whether my father had returned a van so as to scratch out the idea that he had crashed it over there, but hertz where not helpful at all, hertz uk said they needed a credit card number to locate that type of information which i didn't have, and when i asked for the Slovenia and Italy numbers they kept giving the wrong number, it would either be a dead number or some tourist company who didn't deal with rental companies, i had rang about 25 numbers by then and i was getting frustrated...

i put my head on the desk and asked Allah to guide me in finding my dad.

after a while i decided to try to hack into his email, i was successful and found that all the emails that where sent to him from myself had not been opened so that made me worry more as i new he had his lap top with him and Italy is full of cafes with wifi. i began to scroll down his emails and after a while i noticed that an email for a confirmation of a hotel booking had been recently sent for the 30th, when i oped the email i found a hotel booking from the 30th to the 2nd October after the group came home, i got excited and started to look for a telephone number for the hotel, found one and rang the number, an Italian man answered and i asked whether he spoke English, he said a little, i asked for my father giving him his full name and he said 'memento' and went of for 10 minutes, all the while i was frantically waiting for him to get back to me.

after what seemed to me to be years, i heard the phone being picked up and my dad spoke and when i heard his voice i broke down i couldn't even talk i was soooooooo upset and crying and my father was confused and asking what the matter was.

after i had calmed down i started shouting at him telling him off for not ringing us to let us know he was ok, it was then that i noticed that my dad didn't sound to good, actually he sounded very delirious, and sometimes he sounded aware of what he was saying and other times he sounded like he was drifting of, he told me he thinks he has a flight booked but wasn't sure when and what time but i could access the details from his email which i did and i told him the times and that he needs to be at the airport that night 1st October, to be back at liver pool at 11.30pm.

after the phone call i ran to find my mum to let her know that i managed to locate him and she reacted with extreme joy.

that night, me, my husband and my mum drove to Liverpool and waited for him to appear, after midnight my dad walked through the arrival doors and my mum and i where in complete shock as to how he looked, he could barley walk, he had lost soooooooo much weight and he was unrecognisable.

we drove him straight to the hospital where they diagnosed pneumonia, he is also diabetic and his sugar levels where high, he hadn't eaten for 4 days when we saw him.

i am soooooooo grateful to Allah for bringing him back to us safe and sound and that hes back in the UK and at least we know where he is, he needs no less than 6 weeks rest.

i have never seen him soo weak in my life nor so fragile so please dearest bloggers remember him in your duas.

2009-09-25T09:40:00.001+01:00

check the man above gaddafi loooooooool.

he looks like what the majority of libyans feel...

2009-09-21T12:40:00.002+01:00

i hope you all had a fantastic eid full of blessings..

2009-09-10T21:54:00.002+01:00

500 million pounds.....

500 million pounds.....

500 million pounds.....

on what i hear you say...

on the celebration of 40 years of ruling Libya...

who was celebrating?

every one but the Libyans...

2009-09-01T22:53:00.003+01:00

Ramadan mubarak dearest bloggers, i know its late but better late than never :) plus i had the excuse of being abroad, just got back from Syria hamdullilah the land of bab al 7arah..

so i will leave you with a photo of the Omayyad mosque in Damascus, may Allah bless you this Ramadan and may we all benefit greatly from this beautiful month.

2009-08-03T20:41:00.020+01:00

on Saturday i went to Lancaster with a few friends, the weather forecast was predicting floods, but instead the clouds held back and we even had sun wooo hoooo.

we spotted this antique shop that looked interesting and so we ventured in

Michael Jackson memorabilia

prince Charles and lady DI, apparently a collectors piece..

Elvis is back...

gloves galore.. Lancaster castle..

an old church round the corner and a wedding.
Lancaster roads..
we found a place that sold fair trade Palestinian goods so cool, so we ventured in and ate a veg meal dessert was sweets from a traditional sweet shop...
and then the docks..

very enjoyable day, and Lancaster is a pretty town..

2009-07-30T13:55:00.001+01:00

manchester weather.....

i woke up this morning to very loud thunder....

summer in britain has begun...

2009-07-28T13:02:00.002+01:00

i wear a jilbab because in my opinion i feel comfortable and to me its my expression of modesty although there are many ways to dress in a modest manner.

anyway we always think that non-Muslims look upon a Muslim woman's attire as being preventative of doing many things, particularly if she wears a jilbab, but what i didn't realise until recently was that many Muslims in particular woman have the same opinion!!! it is deep rooted that many don't realise they have these misconceptions...

i teach RE at an Islamic school and I've noted on many an occasion that the girls judge my abilities to do things due to my jilbab. for instance recently the year 8s and 9s where taken to an ice rink as part of a reward trip for achieving the highest house points. i was asked to accompany as a teacher due to the large number of girls who where going.

on the way there many of the girls approached me and presumed that i had never been on the ice saying things like 'oh miss don't worry we will hold onto you to make sure you don't fall', 'miss i will make sure that i stand behind you so that i catch you when you fall'.

i played along...

when we got there and made sure everyone had there skates etc... i got the old feeling of excitement come back to me when i saw the ice skaters, you see my parents used to take me and my brother every few weeks to an ice skating rink when we lived in Glasgow, and we would stay for hours on end skating, so basically falling was not an issue for me.

i got a pair of skates, sat down and began to wear them, and a rush of girls came running towards me excitedly shouting 'miss malek is gonna go on the ice, ha ha ha this is going to be so funny'.

'miss how you going to skate with a jilbab?'
'miss can i film you falling'
'miss why dont you take your jilbab of?'

the comments where never ending...

i decided i was going to show of to teach these girls a lesson...

i got onto the ice aware of the fact that nearly every single student was watching me and it was like i had never gotten of the ice, the feeling of flying rushed at me and i zoomed round the place, making sure i winked at the girls and put a thumbs up at them.

there reaction was hilarious, they rushed at me later saying 'miss we never new you could skate'.

one girl even said ' miss i thought wearing the jilbab would prevent you from doing anything fun'.

i guess the lesson of the day was 'never judge a book by its cover'...

2009-07-22T09:12:00.001+01:00

i decided not this time.....

instead im heading somewhere else...

where?

thats my little secret that is yet to be exposed :)

2009-07-16T10:32:00.001+01:00

Libya!!!

do i go?

do i not?

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

2009-07-07T12:23:00.002+01:00

in a European courtroom a three-month pregnant veiled mother, Marwa al-Sherbini, was stabbed 18 times to death by a German 28-year-old attacker, identified only as Axel W, who was “driven by a deep hatred of foreigners and Muslims,” according to a German official.

Axel W and Sherbini, an Egyptian living in Germany, were in court for the former’s appeal against a €750 fine for an insult to her headscarf, hijab, in 2008 he had called her a terrorist for wearing a headscarf.

Attempting to rescue his wife, Elwi Okaz -- who was present with their child -- was shot when a policeman opened fire in the courtroom. Okaz is now in a critical condition in hospital with an unpredictable future, whether dead or survived.

In Europe, the continent of freedoms and democracy, the hijab is still unacceptable by many Europeans, though, as a dress code for Muslim women, the hijab neither insults nor provokes others.

Sherbini’s mere crime was wearing the hijab and reporting a discriminatory act she faced, thus becoming a “terrorist” and deserving death -- at least in Alex W’s eyes. A few Western media outlets reported the case and referred to the murderer’s “hostile toward foreigners.” - hostile, god i hate how the filter the sheer evil of this man...

stabbed 18 times, 18 times????? what was the court room doing counting, cheer leading him on? why didn't any one try to stop him? 18 times, my god!

2009-06-08T09:53:00.002+01:00

millions sat in front of the television waiting, anticipating the results that where to be announced, not of the apprentice but of whether nick griffon's party (BNP) had won any seats on the European elections.

much hope lay in the fact that a racist party like the BNP would never have the opportunity to show its ugly face in politics, history has proven over and over again what happens to humanity when a fascist/racist party gets any ounce of power, so surely the British public would not vote such a party onto the European elections, we wouldn't want a repeat of history, Hitler, Mussolini????

well unfortunately the BNP have won 2 seats, ok 72 seats are up for grabs, but still 2 seats are giving a voice to a party whose policies are:

On current demographic trends, we, the native British people, will be an ethnic minority in our own country within sixty years.

To ensure that this does not happen, and that the British people retain their homeland and identity, we call for an immediate halt to all further immigration, the immediate deportation of criminal and illegal immigrants, and the introduction of a system of voluntary resettlement whereby those immigrants who are legally here will be afforded the opportunity to return to their lands of ethnic origin assisted by a generous financial incentives both for individuals and for the countries in question. a different way of saying 'only Anglo Saxons' allowed in Britain....

We will abolish the ‘positive discrimination’ schemes that have made white Britons second-class citizens. We will also clamp down on the flood of ‘asylum seekers’, all of whom are either bogus or can find refuge much nearer their home countries. extreme generalisation...

the BNP calls for the selective exclusion of foreign-made goods from British markets and the reduction of foreign imports. We will ensure that our manufactured goods are, wherever possible, produced in British factories, employing British workers. When this is done, unemployment in this country will be brought to an end, and secure, well-paid employment will flourish, at last getting our people back to work and ending the waste and injustice of having more than 4 million people in a hidden army of the unemployed concealed by Labour’s statistical fiddles. We further believe that British industry, commerce, land and other economic and natural assets belong in the final analysis to the British nation and people. To that end we will restore our economy and land to British ownership. We also call for preference in the job market to be given to native Britons. no more cous cous people ...

We reject the idea that Britain must forever be obliged to subsidise the incompetence and corruption of Third World states by supplying them with financial aid. We will link foreign aid with our voluntary resettlement policy, whereby those nations taking significant numbers of people back to their homelands will need cash to help absorb those returning. The billions of pounds saved every year by this policy will also be reallocated to vital services in Britain.

information taken from BNP website...

well there you have it, it only takes a few inches to become a centimetre...

2009-05-31T21:50:00.006+01:00

wanted to share my butterfly photos with you, they really are natures perfect colour combination, why get advice from the fashion 'experts' when all you need to do is look at nature, subhanallah....

2009-05-18T10:34:00.002+01:00

since my last post i have been parking in the staff car park to prevent any more 'accidents', and i make sure i try to park in a spot where people cant block me in, and things have been going smoothly.

on Friday, a colleague couldn't find any parking space so she parked where i originally parked, and yep you guessed it, some one smashed her side window.

they had seen the sat nav mark in her car and assumed she kept her sat nav in her car somewhere, she doesn't she keeps it with her at all times, so they didn't actually take anything, but they left damage behind them.

obviously she wasn't happy...

after speaking to her, i went out to my own car and got in and began to reverse, when i looked at my side mirror from the passenger side, i was amazed to find that i couldn't see it !!!!, i parked my car, got out to investigate.

my side mirror was hanging of its hinges, and not only that some one had scratched my car!!!!!

it didn't look like some one had hit my car with there car, it honestly looked like some one had pulled the mirror and scratched the car with a screw driver or a set of keys.

i tried to put the mirror back into place but no luck.

by then the teachers had noticed what had happened and i had a few people around my car, tutting and muttering, then people began to panic and started to check there own cars, turns out that 2 other staff members had there side mirrors pulled completely off and scratches all over their cars!!!

definitely a deliberate act by some evil person, we think its possibly a hate crime as we work in an Islamic school, independent, and it could be the reason why some one is targeting us.

my dad had come to pick my mum up (i work with my mum) and whilst i was in the office speaking to the police, he had fixed my side mirror bless him, and it works fine alhamdullilah.

but i will get to the bottom of this, so stay tuned....

2009-04-25T09:57:00.006+01:00

i don't like parking in the staff car park as 9 out of 10 times i get blocked in by other staff members or visitors, so after a rant and a rave i decided i wouldn't park in the car park anymore instead choosing to park at the entrance of the car park on the side road off the main road.

few weeks pass and everything is cool, i don't get blocked in and i manage to drive away with out my temper flaring.

yesterday me and a friend decided we would go out for lunch, halal subway to be specific.... we decided to go in her car instead of mine, we drive off, 45 minutes later where back with an extra 15 minutes left of our lunch so we decided to go to the bakery behind the school, we drove past my car and everything was great.

5 minutes later where back with our 'pecan muffin and death by chocolate' and low and behold theres a man in a suite standing next to my car and the driver window is all shattered all over the floor in a thousand pieces !!!!!

he was talking on the mobile to the police, apparently he witnessed a car drive past him, stop by my car, some deranged idiot smashes my car window, leans into my car and takes of with the cd/radio player *******

well as you can imagine i was not impressed...

the man in the suite had witnessed it all and had even taken down the registration number of the car and bless him gave his number and address to the police in case they needed to contact him.

on the one hand you get complete idiots who have no morals and values and who society should kick out and on the other hand you get people like the suit man who take the time to help others and who give you hope in the human race.

the police i guaranteed will not chase this up, if they do then i will eat my hijab..

2009-04-02T08:49:00.050+01:00

i had an appointment with a dentist to check my teeth out as i hadn't been to a dentist in 3 years, I'm not NHS as i cant find one plus when i do there is a waiting list aaaaaa.

anyway so of i go for a consultation. i open my mouth, he hmmmms and haaaas at my teeth, tells me that i need a root canal as well as various fillings and says it will cost over £900 !!!!

and gave me a bill of £40 for looking at my teeth. well as you can imagine i was not impressed nor happy.

the second day i was sat at my parents home grumbling to my mum about the price of dentists in this country, when my dad walked in to the room, saw my face and asked:

shin fee? (whats up)

me: baba, its so annoying, blah blah blah dentist, blah blah prices.

baba: seriously? root canal at your age?

me: yep, sadly that is the case.

baba: laysh matimsheesh il tunis? (why don't you go to Tunisia?)

me: Tunis?

baba: yep, they have cheaper treatment for teeth, you should look into it, might get a holiday out of it.

so i researched and found that quite a few brits travel to Tunisia to sort there teeth out and enjoy the sun at the same time.

booking the hotel and flights as well as treatment still cost less than paying for dental treatment in the UK, plus i got a holiday too.

i booked the hotel in Souse and my husband works with a Tunisian dude whose sisters best friend is a dentist, got her number an arranged an appointment to see her.

only thing was she lived in an area called 'al-hincha', about an hour away from where i was staying, and because it was not a tourist area, transport was not easy to get hold of, but it was an experience, and we met the locals and it was great.

we thought we might check on a local dentist in sousse about a minute walk away from the hotel.

the secretary (who wouldn't stop laughing and smiling) asked us to enter the dentist office, we walked in and found a man chain smoking, coughed and asked us to take a seat.

he asked what the problem was, i explained to him and then he told me to follow him into another room, asked me to sit on the dentist chair thing, put the light over me, and without washing his hands or putting on gloves, he put his fingers in my mouth!!!!

lets just say my husband was not impressed lol.

so we decided to stick to the one that we had an appointment with, and hamdullilah she was excellent, and her facilities where brill and she was hygienic lol.

i had to have three separate sessions, and every thing including root canal, ceramic tooth and crown, cleaning my teeth, fillings and removing an extra tooth cost me...... £230!!

plus i really had a great time visiting all sort of places...

view from the hotel.
love the spelling
my obsession with windows, doors arches etc..
the mosque in sousse
anglo this ones for you :)
this cracked me up, a 'for sale' sign lol
the castle in sousse
biscuite seller
coffee :)
it was orange season...
mosque in monastir
castle in monastir
i love these little shops..
train station in monastir
darbuka
souq in hammat

so cool found this on one of the doors in the castle in hammat
view of hamamt from castle
oranges..
we went to a small petting zoo in port al kintoui
i fell in love with this rabbit
the port
ok i think i have uploaded enough for now, i will leave you with one more photo :))

2009-03-12T09:03:00.000Z

i hate talking to Libya via phone, i get all flustered and i have no idea what to say to people after sallam and how are you and besides there is only so many times that a person can say 'how are you' by the 10th time you just want to scream.

i guess not living in Libya makes it hard to find a subject to talk to people about, people who you haven't spent 24 hours with never mind a life time, what on earth can one say?

so I've never really loved the prospect of having to call on Eid, bereavements, any occasions where it meant calling family back home because i guess the sheer embarrassment kills me.

plus why is it that us Libyan and Arabs per say exaggerate every things to the max...for some one like myself who has lived all her life in the UK and who can speak 2 languages, and i can safely say that my Arabic is not bad hamdullilah i felt that i was relatively confident to begin with until a few years down the line when Aunt came to visit, she informed me that another Aunt of mine has been saying that my Arabic accent was very cute!

cute! how so i asked

to which she responds that apparently according to her whenever i speak to her on the phone i speak baby Arabic!!!!!

what??????????????

basically like this: Ass alamu allykum, kef il hal, kef hal ik ya khwalah??

extreme exaggeration.

lets just say that did nothing for my confidence.

now I'm petrified of speaking to anyone back 'home', i have images of them rolling around laughing at me when i speak to them.

it doesn't help being married either as i now have to speak to in laws, my god!!!

its actually really funny to watch, i pace around the room similar to a man waiting for his first child to be born, i find myself walking through out the flat, sitting a few seconds here and there and i can only breath properly after i hand the phone back to my husband.

the latest incident was when we called to say congratulations to his brother for the birth of his new baby daughter.

my husband was speaking to his brother then all of a sudden i found the phone attached to my ear, my heart was racing like a horse in a race.

the conversation went something like this:

me: sallamu allikum

brother in law: wallaykum sallam

me: i generally asked about his wife's health and his and the usual stuff you say..

he replied the usual answers.

me: inshallah itrabah fee izik

he thanked me and said inshallah the same for me soon.

then i did the mistake of continuing the conversation instead of ending it

me: shin samitooha? (what did you name her)

him: Aseel

me: mashallah, isim ijanin (beautiful name)

him: you think so?

me: (cant believe I'm having a conversation) yes of course, its a change to the usual names that every Libyan seems to choose

him: like what?

me: oh you know, Aisha, khadijah (Libyans tend to pronounce these beautiful names as 3esha, khdijah missing parts of the 7uruf- letters).

silence and then laughter.

my husband was looking at me with a smirk on his face, then whispers to me 'sondes have you forgotten, my mums name is Aisha and my sisters name is khadijah'.

oh the shock and horror..

then i started digging a hole for myself by saying to my brother in law that the old names are always the best balhh blahh, he was still laughing.

i gave the phone back to my hubby and buried myself in humiliation.

i hate phoning Libya...

2009-03-01T11:51:00.014Z

this weekend i was in Bradford with a couple of friends it was a day out plus in the evening we where attending an event by the name of 'i am Malcolm X', it's a tour of different artists who are inspired by Malcolm X and who portray there messages in different styles, singing, poems, rap etc...Malcolm X's daughter was meant to be part of the tour but sadly she wasn't able to make it for Bradford as she was un-well, but still it was a fantastic night, and some of the artists are very talented indeed, particularly the poets.

just goes to show that Muslims have talent and that Islamiclly speaking there is nothing wrong in expressing yourself so long as it's not crude, vulgar or offending other cultures, religions etc..

they had a projector on stage that was showing different pictures of Malcolm X through out his life.
very entertaining and a fantastic opportunity to watch first hand the growing Muslim talent.

the same day in the afternoon, we went to dine in the famous restaurant 'mumtaz' that i had heard so much of, and i have to say it was very nice indeed.

this was a fantastic mango lassi
my started was grilled cheese, i swear it was lovely...
a friend of mine had chosen keema parata, I'm not generally a fan of mince meat, but this stuff was delicious...
i ordered a mixture of grilled chicken, cooked in tomatoes, onion, garlic etc with pistachios and other nuts, really nice mashallah.

nice meal, didn't have time to sample the deserts but inshallah will be visiting the place soon for sure :))))

2009-02-23T10:02:00.035Z

this weekend i had the pleasure of visiting Lake Windermere in the beautiful Lake district.

i so needed a breather and this was the perfect way to get it :)

obviously i had to take my essential cup of the good old stuff, coffee mmmmmmmmmmm.

as well as a 2 flasks, one full of Arabic coffee the other full of green tea, i used to make fun of my mum who would always bring flasks and bags full of sandwiches and treats, now i find myself following her steps lol.
morning coffee at the hotel
a church near the hotel
many of the houses/cottages still have the house names.
church graveyard

boats lined up..
seagulls all lined up
scenery pictures:
the british flag flapping in the wind

good old fish and chips, cant beat it :))))
it was a fantastic trip, my only wish was that it lasted longer :)

2009-02-18T13:24:00.003Z

apparently my dad and brothers (according to the Libyan community in Manchester) are selling Canaries!!!!

well i was surprised as i hadnt seen head, tail or feather (excuse the pun) of a Canary when i go to my parents house.

unless the cat got to it first.

my mum answers the door the other day to a man who was clearly Libyan from his accent.

man: Assalamu allykum

Mum: Waalykum assalam

Man: Ukhti, abu whiteafrican mawjood? (is your husband in)

Mum: La ya akhi (nope)

Man: bahee, Hamza ga3id? (ok, is hamza home?)

Mum: La ya akhi (nope) aya khidma (can i help)

Man: walahi fee nas galoolee in il haj ow wilda ibee300 fe Canary (well to be honest, some people informed me that your husband and son sell canaries)

Mum: afwan? (excuse me)

Man: 3indik canary?

Mum: (holding in a laugh) La ya akhi (nope)

Man: lakin galoolee il haj ibee3 feehum (but they told me that your husband sells canaries)

Mum: in nas ghaltaneenen ya khooy (the people are mistaken)

man: bahee bahee, lakin law sami3tee in had ibee3 fil canary yaretik itbalgheenee (ok ok, but if you hear of some one who sells canaries, let me know)

and that was that...

how weird..

years and years ago we had a pet budgie but we where never in the business of selling birds!!

2009-02-03T11:18:00.008Z

i was feeling down on the weekend, and i couldnt figure out the reason why, all i knew was that i wasnt happy and wanted a breather...

on sunday even though it was begining to snow, we ventured out to a park, my husband got coffee, we sat in the car and watched the lake to the sounds of imagine fm...

it was nice just to sit and admire nature...

i also managed to talk and air a few things that where running through my mind.

eventually i ventured out into the cold and joined the ducks...

2009-01-30T10:37:00.002Z

about a month ago or even more, my brother hamza was walking with his friend just after maghreb when a car parked in front of them and two men jumped out and held them at gun point.

they demanded their mobiles and wallets which both the boys gave and then both men took it upon themselves to beat the living day lights out of hamza's friend for no reason, the kid complied with their demands yet they gave him a beating he will never forget!!!!

they then turned to Hamza and hit him with the butt of the gun just behind his ear which made the poor kid collapse onto the floor.

they run back into the car and sped of into the night...

my brother came home and told my parents about this, they where obviously upset about this and he was sligtly shaken by the ordeal.

i was quite surprised that he didnt fight back, my brother hamza hates in-justices and hes the type of guy that will get involved in a fight if he thinks an injustice is being served or will help some one in the street if there being attacked, bullied etc... so lets just say his knuckles are hard...

when i asked him why he didnt fight back, he replied that it wasnt worth risking it as they had a gun. i was happy that he had the mind to realise the seriousness of such a situation.

Hamza contacted the police, and you would think that the fact that a gun was involved would make it a matter of urgency, as of yet they havent even come for a statment, they wrote to him though, a letter that is sent out automaticlly by a computer most probably, informing Hamza that his refernce number is BLAH BLAH BLAH...

its been over a month and the situation could have ended with a life being taken, so why are they taking so long...

kinda dashes any hope for law enforcement...

hamza is actually studying to become a police officer and as of yet he hasnt changed his mind, i guess he wants to get into the establishment so as to change it...

i guess the police are better at shooting civillians....

2009-01-27T11:46:00.000Z

sent by a friend lol...

2009-01-22T12:15:00.002Z

some one keeps on taking the margarine from the fridge in the office....

NO ONE TOUCHES THE MARGARINE....

i have a plan...

2009-01-19T13:19:00.013Z

although there is a cease fire at the moment, it goes with out saying that Israel cannot be trusted as they have continuously stabbed the world a ridiculous amount of times, so it wont be long before Palestine will receive another dose of what Israel refer to as 'medicine'.

yesterday (Sunday 18.01.09) there was a rally in Albert Square, Manchester.

sadly not many attended as the cease fire was announced so people presume that every thing was back to normal, sadly no....

people where asked to bring shoes and line them up on the stairs leading to the town hall...

the day before i attended a charity dinner hosted by Human appeal, Yvonne ridley came as a the guest speaker

Yvonne was the captured journalist in Afghanistan years back, and who later reverted to Islam and is now an activist concerning humanitarian issues world wide as well as a member of the respect party.

Human appeal managed to raise enough for 2 -3 ambulances for Gaza, each ambulance fully equipped costs around £25,000.

Human Appeal is one of the charity organisations that are able to actually send relief to Gaza, they are able to send food parcels, have supplied 100 beds and 200 mattresses to al-shifa hospital in Gaza and have replaced all the shattered windows in another main hospital in Gaza, supplying 5 intensuve care units with incubators, they work round the clock and those working in Gaza are continuously risking their lives to better other peoples situations.

may Allah accept their efforts...

2009-01-11T15:26:00.017Z

on the 10th of January 2009, London witnessed a massive march to the Israeli embassy in protest against their actions in Gaza, the BBC are saying 12,000, well i was there and if the numbers where indeed 12,000 then I'm a monkeys aunt because no way was that possible, the numbers where closer to the 200,000.

you could feel the anger and frustration towards the Zionist's, people from all walks of life attended to demand a stop on the atroctities in Gaza.

the world is angry and Israel keep digging holes for itself...

this one was my favourite placard, so true...
i think he was meant to be Olmert, very graphic indeed...
the shoe that rocked the world....
the day ended (for me that is) with asr prayer, a few of the protesters stayed and got caught in the riots, i didn't see that part, i was on my way back to the coach near marble arch..

2009-01-07T13:38:00.010Z

every night since the attacks on Gaza, there has been a candle light vigil outside the BBC Manchester and will continue until the attacks end.

i haven't managed to attend until yesterday, and its still going strong, this time Israel really has gone to the deep end, and you can sense peoples anger.

oh and the Arab world should really learn from the leader of Venezuela, hes expelled the Israeli Ambassador from Venezuela....

2009-01-05T21:48:00.004Z

while Gaza was being attacked left, right and center, the world was celebrating new years including some of Arab world who chose to turn a blind eye to the atrocities.

in Dubai they 'hired' shakira to strut her stuff in welcoming 2009, with googly eyed Arab men looking on and living the 'moment'...

on the other hand not far from our own roots, saif 'the broken sword of Libya' rented Mariah Carey for new years celebration, paying her 170 thousand pounds of the Libyan peoples money per song, and apparently she sang a minimum of 4 songs well well well....

Gaza, i can now confirm that the Arab leadership consists of fat cats intent on getting fatter....

2008-12-29T21:59:00.020Z

on Sunday there was a protest in front of the BBC in Manchester in support of the Palestinians and to speak out against the atrocities handed out by the so called Democratic 'Israel'

thabet on his way, ready for chanting..

the BBC building, not a very nice building is it?

thabet chanting away...
it was freeeeeeeeeeezing...
the Libyans make an appearance!!
i think it was meant to symbolise the shoe thrown at bush ;)
mashallah this little girl stood out and she's Libyan ;)

2008-12-27T12:42:00.002Z

what is happening to the world, i get a call from my mum this morning telling me to switch on the tv and watch al-jazeera, shes in tears and i cant even make out properly what shes saying.

i do as I'm told, switch on Al-Jazeera, and my god!!! the scene of utter destruction, chaos and blood shed, isreal has done it again....

forgot about being politically correct, you cant with isreal, they just seem to have no human qualities what so ever, western news doesn't seem to help either, there coming up with titles such as 'Israeli warplanes demolished dozens of Hamas security compounds across Gaza' what complete utter lies, they put in the word 'Hamas security compounds' to make the reader excuse isreal for their actions.

truth is since opening the tv all I've seen is civilians, children on their way to SCHOOL, even a donkey amongst the dead, so what kind of security compound are they talking about.

and as for the Egyptian government, well frankly I'm disgusted by hussni mubarak, sorry excuse for a man...

first thing he decides to do is place tanks on the border to prevent 'flocks' of Palestinians entering into egypt!!.

you watch the other arab channels and all you see is musalsalat 'soaps', chat shows, music, concerts blah blah.

ya 3alam wake up....

2008-12-24T13:33:00.007Z

i work at a school and the other day we had the pleasure of the 'bug man'

his box contained all sorts of bugs including:

and
a big African snail
a scorpion
and a tarantula
i was impressed by the girls, most didn't have a problem holding the bugs. i did ask him about the dreaded cockroach to which he replied he had 2 very big hissing cockroaches but had to give them up as after a while you tend to get a skin reaction from handling them, not surprised there yuk!!!

2008-12-10T13:46:00.003Z

i passed my driving test last week Thursday woooo hooooo.

walahi i so expected not to pass but amazingly enough i did first time hamdullilah. when the examiner told me i had passed i started clapping lol, and seriously at first it didn't register because i 100% thought he was going to say 'sadly not this time' because when i was doing the reverse parking i hit the curb !!!! and i left the indicator on after turning left !!! but those where the only big mistakes.

still though i have heard of examiners failing people because of small things or even hitting the curb, so I'm so blessed to have had a down to earth examiner.

feels so good driving, kinda liberating ;)

2008-12-03T11:42:00.011Z

my brother Ahmed aka sideshow bob (due to his hairstyle) had his akid on Saturday 29th November 2008 at the MYF (Muslim youth foundation). we all got there for around 4:30 to prepare, it was a very small akid, Ahmed married into an English family, so it was my own and her family.

the groom...
my other brother hamza talking with Nikoletta's brother

the bride and my mum :) my dad with his came coder :)
my dad with the groom aaaaaaaaaaw
ok the uploading is taking waaaaaaaaaaaay to much time, so I'm gonna up load more pic another time.

2008-12-01T21:27:00.001Z

my brother had his akid on sataurday, more pictures on the way :)

2008-11-24T15:03:00.003Z

i made a frog from scratch, of course not a real live frog but a red and green frog woohooo I've never stitched anything in my life and i managed to make a frog.
i called it 'mansour the frog' ;)

2008-11-04T08:15:00.011Z

the other day i had the pleasure of attending a henna, the bride was half Algerian (Mum side) and half Libyan.

she wore a traditional Algerian henna gown, red and gold with a crown so cool. the room was a mixture of Libyan and Algerian ladies and many of the Algerians where married to Libyans.

I've taken some photos of the henna stuff to share with you all:

a party wouldn't be a party without the tea and coffee

and the sweets that accompany it it was very similar to how Libyans have there henna, the candles, henna paste etc...
she placed henna in the middle of the candle holder

and then mixed it with perfume, first time i ever see this

and then of course the candles where lit
and before we left the handed us little favours
it was a nice night mashallah.

2008-10-25T12:24:00.005+01:00

i bought some chest nuts from a local grocers as we are approaching winter and its chestnut season whooooo hoooo.

now I've never cooked them before, so it was a first for me, i washed them then i remember my mum cutting a little bit of the end off, so that's what i did.

popped them into the oven and just left them their for a while.

i was sat watching t.v when all of a sudden i heard a loud bang and it sounded like it was coming from the kitchen.

me and my husband ran into the kitchen, and the banging noises carried on, it was coming from the oven!!!

my husband wouldn't let me near the oven, he carefully approached the oven and opened the door at a snails pace, remembering to switch the oven off.

this is what he found:

dont even ask how long it took me to clean it. the rest that survived tasted pretty good if i say so myself lol.

2008-10-20T18:54:00.005+01:00

what with the whole economy going down the drain all over the western world, i was slightly surprised to find a shop giving away its products for free!!

yep you heard or read correctly, free!!!

i swear i thought it was the funniest thing since ages so i decided to take a pic:

the owner stuck little yellow post it notes with the words free written on them, i wonder how long before all the bags where taken.

2008-10-14T07:49:00.003+01:00

well life moves on and before you know it another few weeks have passed, each day i tell myself i need my blog entry, but in all honesty i either have no time or i seriously have nothing to blog about.

the highlight of the day is me coming home from work and the relaxing part of drinking cammomile tea before sleeping, mmmmm cammomile tea mmmmmm.

nothing particular to write about, although it did occur to me whilst cleaning the chicken (not a live chicken, but bits of the chicken) that i absolutely hate cleaning chicken, i prefer cleaning red meat, seriously before you decide to skip this blog entry, think about the last time you washed chicken, skinless that is, it has a horrible slimy residue and eeeeeeeeeeeeeew, i would rather have it prepared cooked and given to me.

also i cant stand chopping parsley and the other grass thing (kosbar and ma3danoos) the little green leaves get every where, and later when I'm cleaning the kitchen its not enough just brushing the floor, i have to get down on my knees and literally peel of those evil green leaves that manage to get permanently stuck on every surface imaginable.

ok enough ranting, the kitchen per say is not exactly my favourite place :)

i also hate peeling potatoes and garlic, my fingers are always wet when i want to peel garlic so that its skin is permanently stuck to my fingers.

2008-10-03T10:05:00.002+01:00

im working again but the down side is the waking up sooooooo early, well to me its early, i dont usually wake up for 6:30 am unless its to wake up for prayers but then i would have the option of going back to sleep, not anymore, i have to catch the 07:15 bus to get into work to be their for 8am.

i so need to get my driving licence...

its not so bad once i get into work and have my cup of coffee, its just the initial waking up process at times its painful to my eyes, i have the 'i cant wake up till after 9am syndrome'.

2008-09-30T15:15:00.003+01:00

Eid Mubarak to all dearest bloggers

have a fantastic eid full of happiness, joy and loads and loads of magrood.

2008-09-13T14:49:00.003+01:00

some weirdo has vandalised my dads cat, and the poor thing is so distressed, it's continuously cleaning itself but to no avail, the green stuff refuses to come of.

its all over her mouth, paw and back, tabet gave the cat a bath and usually it would go crazy any where near water, this time it just sat there and let tabet scrub him with even a single meow.

the green stuff refused to come off and cotton the cat is depressed.

i did mention shaving it but no one was impressed by that idea lol.

2008-09-08T23:23:00.002+01:00

as you can see from the above photo, my finger is in a bit of a state.

i welcomed Ramadan by cutting my index finger really deeply via the food processor, thankfully it wasn't on, i was packing it away (at the time i was moving home) and i was sorting bits and bobs in a box when the slicer fell out of its place, i put my hand in and pressed my finger down firmly, at first i didn't realise that i had cut myself so i continued to press down, then the pain hit me....

i pulled my finger out and low and behold i could see right inside my finger, that's when the blood began to gush and it wouldn't stop...

the pain was horrible and i actually fainted for a few seconds woke up and put my finger under the tap for a few seconds, then took a tea towel and wrapped it up and held it tight until my husband came home.

he walked in and found me really pale and holding my finger.

mr whiteafrican: whats wrong?'

me: ummm i kinda cut my finger'.

mr whiteafrican: 'again"

yes folks its an every day occurrence for me to either cut myself or burn my self, but not to this extent.

me: yes again but this time its different.

he then un wrapped the tea towel and took me straight to a&e.

Friday night so you can imagine the wait, hours later they had stuck my finger with glue, bandaged it up and told me to keep it dry and clean for a week.

lets just say i haven't cooked since :))))))))

2008-08-31T15:14:00.002+01:00

Ramadan mubarak to all bloggers, may Allah accept your efforts and i hope every one gets the best out of the blessed month.

i love Ramadan...

oh and I'm so happy autumn is coming to hence the leaf shaped kaabah :)

2008-08-26T21:00:00.000+01:00

I've not blogged in a while because I've been away doing umrah :)

mashallah it was fantastic and the atmosphere was amazing subhanallah.

i was really excited to go because the last time i was in mecca and madina was 2 years ago for hajj and that is where i met my husband who was part of our group, so we both experienced hajj but separately and this time we where to travel together and perform umrah together so it was nice aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaw :)

we arrived in jeddah at around 10pm, we got driven to mecca which is about 40 -45 min drive, got taken to the hotel, rested a bit and then walked the 5 minutes to the haram, and seeing the haram again was amazing, the whole place takes over you and you forget about all your problems, life, bills, application forms etc... its simply serenity...

obviously i took pictures but the ones inside the haram where from my mobile as my camera is too big to hide and it would have been taken away from me, so my mobile it had to be and it did ok...

sun set on my way to medina...

they are alot more stricter in madina with the camera so i was only able to take the one photo :(

whilst i was there i took a pic of a cat what i didnt realise was that the cat was playing with something, my worst night mare a coakroach yuk!!!

finnaly some pic of the mountains on the way to jeddah

its always weird to come back after visiting mecca and madina, you kinda get absorbed by the life style of praying in the haram and listening to the adhan and generally having more ibadah in your life.

mecca and madina is filling up pretty fast with people who are coming especially for ramadan, by the time we left it was choca block...

oh and libyans where every where, seriously every time i would come to pray garenteed i would see or hear a libyan lol, mashallah :).

2008-08-06T22:48:00.001+01:00

i passed my theory test wooooooooooooohoooooooooooooo, congrats to me, seriously its a big deal for me cause it means im closer to driving and think of all the time i could save yesssssss.

i have to admit this was third time lucky, i failed the lats 2 tests because of the stupid hazard perception that completly confuses me with all the ticks.

anyway i passed yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

ok next blog entry for the past month or so ive been ranting and raving about going to the zoo, and low and behold on sunday i was pleasantly surprised to be taken to the zoo unexpectadly, i was told to take my camera and i found myself in chester zoo much to my delight.

so here are the photos, enjoy...

2008-07-24T11:58:00.002+01:00

i have 2 weeks left until i leave my work place.

but that does not stop the weirdo patients from attacking me with their words, you would think that that people would make my last 2 weeks as comfortable as possible, nope not gonna happen lol.

the other day this dude came in for a blood test he does not speak a word of English, and i do not speak a word of Farsi.

the guy is wheel chair bound, or so we thought, when it was his turn to see the nurse, i ushered him in, the nurses door closed and that should have been it.

after 5 minutes i hear shouting, the nurses door bangs open, the patient drags himself out (i say drag because he literally drags himself and the wheelchair with his right foot not using his hands) and blocks the reception entrance and starts shouting and pointing at me.

i asked the nurse what happened, and she said that he refused the blood test because he already had one 2 weeks ago, she tried explaining that his results came back abnormal so he needs further testing, but he refused to listen or accept anything and was intent on making my time at the surgery as miserable as possible.

he stayed for over 2 hours, repeatedly pointing at me and saying things in Farsi, and i swear bloogers i understood some of the words because i know some Urdu swear words from my time at high school and he was using those words at me, calling me b**** over and over again in Farsi, cheeky git, he was blocking my way so i couldn't go past him, i kept asking him for a telephone number of some one who understands English, he then throws his walking stick on the floor, throws his water bottle at me, and tries to get something out of his jeans pocket, but couldn't reach the bottom of his pocket so he unbelievably stands up and starts jumping (jumping!!!) up and down trying to reach to bottom of his pocket, he then pulls out a mobile, dials a number, sits back down again and gets through to some one and begins his ranting and raving all over again.

he passes the phone to me, i hear a man who speaks English, i asked him what the problem was with his friend, he said he said he wants to see the doctor not the nurse, i told him to tell him why he was asked to see the nurse and that his attitude is not acceptable.

i told the man that i will book his friend and appointment with the nurse and doctor for next week.

i passed the phone back to the dude, he listened for 2 seconds then began shouting, he switched the phone of, i gave him an appointment card, he threw it in my face and then began to shout 'you bad, you bad, you bad, you bad'

over and over again.

i was like 'mr, blah blah, im not going to accept this'

he was getting himself into a state that 'you bad was becoming 'youuuuuuuuuuuuu baaaaaaaaad' in a really high squeaky voice.

and i was finding it extremely amusing and i couldn't help smile which was making more annoyed, he actually left the surgery sounding like a ma3eeez shouting 'youuuuuu baaaaaaaaad' over and over again.

my 2 hour torment.

2008-07-10T23:10:00.002+01:00

i handed in my resignation letter today.

feels really weird.
i wasn't working today but i came in specifically to hand it in, the manager was on his 2 hour lunch break so i left it on his key board addressed to him.

will find out tomorrow what the reaction will be.

ooooooooooooooh the excitement of it all.

quite frankly i cant be bothered with that place any more, and certain people their just are not worth getting stressed over and at the end of the day turning my back on them may just be the best thing for me.

will keep you updated......

2008-06-28T22:01:00.002+01:00

ok so the dilema of the day on a daily basis is 'WHAT AM I GOING TO COOK TODAY?'

i actually wake up in the morning with feeling of dread as to what to cook, there is only so many times that i can cook imbakibkah, probably can get away with twice a week, but what about the 5 other days?

i ask mr white african about what to cook, and the dude just replies, 'anything, what ever you want' well that doesnt help.

i have a confession that i need to to take of my chest...

occasionly i will cheat and get pre-made meals and pretend that i made it

oh the shock!!!

i dont lie, i just dont answer, instead make convincing noises, for example

mr white african: this is nice

me: yeh it is isint it

mr white african: looks complicated

me: really?

mr white african: you poor thing, did it take you long to cook?

me: mmmmmh ummmm hmhmhm

(see the above could mean anything)

he understands it to mean yes, but thats not my fault, he chose to belive that i tired myslef out in the kitchen cooking complicated dishes, it would be evil of me to tell him other wise

hee hee hee

2008-06-20T10:31:00.002+01:00

ever been in a situation where your mind just wanders of and your physical being works on its own.

confusing huh?

well the other day i had a visitor in the form of a Libyan lady, i dread these visits as i become all paranoid and my clumsy ratings hit the roof, seriously.

anyway she has a young baby girl who is teething at the moment, so the baby needs things to chew on, preferably not my curtains or pillows or at one point my toe!!!

the mother requests some dry bread to keep her sane and help with the chewing process and to rub against her gums, so i jump up with enthusiasm, go to the kitchen rummage around for a piece of the dry bread, she has 2 other children who think its a fun game to follow me around and be my shadow lol, so I'm entertaining them and decide to make them hyperactive by giving them a bar of chocolate each.

go back to the living room, walk up to the lady and offer her a big jar of coffee!!!!!!

my mind had not registered yet that i was holding a jar of coffee and offering it to the poor woman who i thought was being really weird and rude because she was staring at me and wouldn't take what i was offering her.

i kept saying tifadly (here you go) and she kept looking at my hand and then at my face with a puzzled expression on her face, i then thought maybe its not the right type of bread, so i started to apologise for only having pita bread and would that do or maybe a hard biscuit would be better.

to which she finally begins talking and says the breads fine but what has the coffee got to do with it.

people i seriously had not registered the fact that I'm standing holding a jar of coffee.

'kahwa'? - coffee,

'ama kahwa?' - which coffee?

to which she points at my hand

i look down and sure enough I'm holding a jar of coffee, my god you should have seen my reaction, all i kept saying was 'kahwa, kahwa, kahwa'

freak..

no wonder, her reaction was to laugh hysterically loud at me, and all i could do was apologise, run out the room and bring her a ton of dry bread.

my god, where did my mind go?