much ado about nothing

i’ve been watching naveed like a hawk lately but she hasn’t done anything blog worthy. i’ve got writer’s block. but let me fill you in on what’s been going on thus far....

rania moved out of the apartment ‘cause she found a place of her own down the street. actually, it’s my old apartment she moved into.

cow and i discovered we’ve all subconsciously become vegetarians.

shoprite, the local grocery store that supplied all our food closed down. there was pandemonium in the apartment as we started fighting and pulling hair over water bottles and kidney beans. but then we realized we could get pretty much everything from all the little shops that are right around the corners. peace was restored.

i found a cockroach in the kitchen cabinet. the three of us had totally different reactions to it: i went berserk and started yelling unintelligibly. naveed’s face turned white with horror...she couldn’t say a word. and cow, the youngest one, didn’t even flinch. she kept her cool, cleared out the cabinet and killed the roach as naveed and i looked on from outside the kitchen door, clinging onto each other for support. naveed insists it was a beetle.

we had a little get together on thursday. just invited a few girls over to introduce them to each other. naveed and i made some food but the grand finale was left up to cow. she made the best dessert ever, masha’Allah. picture this on a plate: a couple slices of chocolate cake, a whopping ball of hand whipped cream, a few slices of deliciously ripened strawberries on one side, a few sliced bananas on the other and crushed borios (a knockoff of oreo cookies) sprinkled all over. and delicately placed on top of the whipped cream, a fanned out strawberry. it was a simple but delicious dessert and a definite crowd pleaser. kudos to cow!

i’m suffering through one of my many yearly premature midlife crisis. i wanna work for a relief organization helping the poor, needy and orphans instead of as an occupational therapist working in schools with children who have disabilities. i need some guidance.

the lizard of oz

NEWS FLASH: naveed has started a blog. it is a fantastic blog about her reflections on life and God based on her experiences. she’s a deep person.

today, naveed, cow and i were sitting in the kitchen chatting. we have a small, less often used bathroom directly across the kitchen...it’s ‘cause there is a bandage on the toilet seat. anyway, naveed just happened to enter it to use the sink while cow and i were still in the kitchen. all of a sudden, naveed runs to us screaming, ‘there’s a lizard in the bathroom! it’s by the toilet!!!’ ‘a lizard in the bathroom?!’ questions cow. ‘ewwww...gross!!’ i remark disgustedly. the three of us cautiously creep towards the bathroom door afraid the lizard might slither past our feet. naveed peers into the bathroom from just behind the crack of the door as i look over her shoulder and cow over mine. suddenly, i see a long black thing near my foot! i shriek thinking it’s the slimy lizard! this sets off a chain reaction...cow jumps back and screams and naveed...oh boy....naveed just goes berserk. she screams and starts dancing the jig all the way to the living room. by this time, cow and i realize that the thing is not a lizard. our screams turn into laughter as we watch naveed change her jig into jerky robotic movements....she thinks the lizard is crawling up her shirt. ‘naveed!!!!’ we yell to snap her out of her seizure. she comes to her senses as she sees me holding the black thing. what we thought was the lizard was in fact the black scrunchie that fell from naveed’s hair.

twist and shout

naveed and her friend came back from their week long trip to the resort city of dahab located in the sinai peninsula and jordan. after listening to their experiences, i made note of some tips that may come in handy to anyone traveling to these places:

when going quad biking, it is wise to practice accelerating forward when your instructor is not directly in front of your bike. this may save his toe and perhaps, his life.

when climbing mt. sinai (a 4 hour hike up to the top if you are out of shape and about a 2 hour hike if you are a hiker), make sure not to eat garlic bread that has gone bad so that your stomach does not turn funny on you as you climb since there are like no bathroom facilities on the way up. this may prevent you from leaving your ‘mark’ behind a poor innocent rock. enough said there.

when floating in the dead sea (contains so much salt that it is impossible to drown in it), make sure your hijab (head scarf) is on appropriately so that some random big man does not mistake you trying to adjust your hijab for you drowning. this will save you the embarrassment of having the man grab you from under your armpits and hold you up while you kick and shout, ‘put me down! put me down!!’ as people around you laugh.

when traveling on a ferry boat from egypt to jordan....2 girls amongst 200 middle aged arab men staring shamelessly, it is wise not to push your way through the crowd in order to exit. this may prevent a brawl from occurring between the men who kindly clear the way for you shouting, ‘let the women pass!’ and the men who refuse to let anyone pass. just sit down and wait patiently...even if it takes 3 hours to get off.

when trying to find a decent hotel to stay in for the night in jordan, it is wise to be well rested and cognitively intact when talking to the hotel receptionist. that way, you won’t end up handing over your credit card accepting to stay in a $350 per night 5 star intercontinental hotel and waking up the next morning wondering, ‘how did i get myself here?!’ just drive 20 more minutes and you’ll find yourself a decent hotel that will be lighter on the wallet.

when you prevent your roommates from eating eggs, don’t go eating eggs yourself at a 5 star hotel. perhaps then, you won’t come back sick.

morning has broken

i always sleep with the covers over my head so it’s pitch black. today, my precious sleep was disturbed by the sounds of loud laughter and people conversing at like 4 or 5 in the morning...or so i thought. i was waiting for my 6 o’clock alarm to sound and for cow’s daily fajr (morning prayer) wake up call, both of which had not occurred yet. just doing some simple math in my head, i guestimated it to be around 4 or 5. but anyway, i could hear rania and her friend causing a raucous in the kitchen. ‘jeez...don’t they have respect for others who are sleeping and why are they so perky in the middle of the night?! most everyone is asleep at this time!’ i think to myself. i try to force myself to catch some z’s before i actually have to wake up for fajr but can’t manage to do so because the noise is too intense. ‘that’s it! i can’t take it anymore! i gotta tell them to keep their voices down!’ so i throw off the covers from over my head and come out of my cocoon expecting it to still be dark but what do i see?! sunlight! and what does that mean?!...fajr time has passed! i look at the time...10:30 am! ‘oh my!!’ i proclaim as i jump out of bed. 'i'm late for my 10 o'clock class!' perhaps, Allah used them (rania and her friend) as a means to kick me out of bed.

rania finished off the last of her 4 or 5 eggs this morning before she left on a weekend trip to alexandria ‘cause she knew naveed was coming back tomorrow and was afraid she would throw them out like she did before. hahaha. actually, cow and i are happy the eggs are out of the fridge. we felt a bit uneasy having them around our food.

yesterday, cow thought long and hard about what she would cook today since it was her day off. she listed a bunch of choices for me. i can’t remember them exactly but it was something like:
1) pasta with veggies
2) pasta with cheese
3) pasta with veggies and cheese
4) veggies and cheese
5) just veggies
6) just plain cheese

but we woke up this morning to find the gas in the stove ran out. no cooking for cow today. so instead, we ordered pizza...veggies and cheese. close to what cow intended.

it's my life

i was a bit nervous today ‘cause i had to meet with the administrator of al-diwan. he found out i had decided to reject the school’s curriculum and study my own thing. al-diwan follows the kitaab asaasi (meaning fundamental book) curriculum along with a book for improving oral communication written by the administrator. anyway, there are like 15+ levels but levels 0-10 are the official levels with standards and exams. after level 10, it’s kinda free for all and the levels get kinda blurry. so i completed level 7 with kitaab asaasi and couldn’t take anymore. (i finished the 1st book and was almost done with the 2nd). the lessons were so boring and the vocabulary was about random stuff. i totally lost motivation. why should i waste my time learning the parts of a satellite in arabic when i don’t even know them in english!? ustadha reham doesn’t like the 2nd kitaab asaasi either so she teaches her students what she thinks is important. all her students end up speaking and knowing the grammar really well. so with her, i’m reading little booklets on the life of the prophet (s) and learning lots of grammar and speaking. plus, later we’ll do some tafseer and poetry. she also started assigning me homework in which i have to find examples in the quran and deconstruct the verses using the grammar i learned. now that’s the kinda stuff i wanna do.

so anyway, i was scared about what mudir islam (the administrator) was going to say to me. what if he told me i had to finish the 2nd kitaab asaasi? i couldn’t do that. i’d rather swim in the nile river than do that (the nile river is extremely polluted...plus...umm...i can’t swim). i was prepared to throw a tantrum and threaten to leave al-diwan but after 30 minutes of discussion with him, he ended up saying i could do whatever i wanted! phew! alhamdulillah.

in other news, i burned my tongue from the soup i made yesterday. actually, i think it’s swollen. not only can i not taste my food, but it’s painful to eat. plus, it hurts when i speak.

let it be

today was my day off and i had a whole bunch of things planned out. i was going to go to the gym, copy all my grammar notes into one notebook, finish my homework, make note cards for new vocabulary, make dinner and do my laundry. what did i accomplish today? just dinner. i must admit though, i did make a nice hearty soup with carrots, potatoes, green beans, eggplant, onions, tomatoes, green peppers, kidney beans, white beans and noodles. yummy! cow enjoyed it. we have this thing...whenever we cook, we make an intention that we are preparing the meal to help nourish us in order to worship Allah. (actually, this is something that should be done with everything we do.) anyway, alhamdulillah, all our meals have been turning out sweet. but then again, our standards have gone down so it doesn’t take much to please us.

it’s common in egypt to have a cleaning lady come clean your apartment. it’s usually the bawaab’s (doorman’s) wife, sister, daughter, ect. the cleaning lady came today to clean our apartment. she speaks hard core ‘amiyya (local dialect) which is so different from fus-ha. she would ask me stuff all the time and i didn’t want to appear stupid so i would just say, ‘na’am’ which means ‘yes’ even though i had no idea what she was saying. and then she would look at me waiting for me to do something. but of course, i didn’t know what she wanted. ugh! where’s bikey when you need her! she also has a tendency to play interior decorator whenever she comes to our place. like she put the table that was in the hallway in my room probably because she didn’t like that i used my suitcases as tables, displayed the ugly metallic horse statue that we always hide in the cabinet on the table counter probably ‘cause she thought it matched with the t.v. and today, she took the dirty bed sheet from the hamper and spread it on my bed probably ‘cause she thought it matched with the pillow cases! it took her 6 hours to clean the whole place. you’re probably thinking, ‘dang! the place must be so dirty to take 6 hours to clean!’ well, maybe....but things get dusty real fast here in egypt so the cleaning lady spent a long time beating the rugs, window screens and curtains to get rid of the dust. for 6 hours of work, we paid her 25 egyptian pounds. that comes out to less than $5! i feel so bad for giving so little but that’s standard so maybe i shouldn’t feel so guilty. plus, i thanked her so much and told her the place looked beautiful. that’s worth more than 25 egyptian pounds, no?

yesterday was cow’s birthday. little cow turned a measly 19 years and she kept complaining about it being her last year as a teenager. ha! so young and so much to learn. anyway, she wanted to treat us (me and rania) to some chocolate molten cake at chilis. how sweet of her. but we ended up treating her as it should be done. on the way back, while we were walking home at night, i got startled by a cat that appeared out of nowhere. then a few seconds later, i got startled again by a dark image that kept following me. turned out, it was just my shadow.

naveed’s been gone for a few days now. she went to dahab with her friend who is visiting. since she left, it seems like the apartment has gone crazy. the first thing rania did was buy eggs and cow and i ate a chicken sandwich at chilis. such daredevils we are.

wake up dead man

after i acquired a certain level of arabic, my original teacher, ustadh muhammad began making me read bits of verses from the quran to see if i could understand the meaning without translation. it’s amazing to read the quran in this light...it means so much more when you understand the arabic.

some fascinating facts about the quran were pointed out to me recently....

the middle east guide book states that the dead sea is the lowest point on earth. one would think that that’s an interesting bit of random fact to know. but to muslims, it is greater proof of the truth of the quran. as we know, the people of prophet lut were punished when the city was turned upside down. and they were supposedly buried under the dead sea, right? get this...in the quran, surah 11, verse 82, it says, "so when Our command came, We made the highest point of the city its lowest and rained upon them stones of layered hard clay.' in the quran, it says the city became the lowest point!

another noteworthy fact...in surah 57, verse 25, it says, ".....We sent down iron, wherein is great military might...." iron is present in the core of the earth. why does the quran say ‘sent down’ when iron doesn’t come from the sky? well, scientists discovered iron in meteorites that fell from the sky and back in the days, people made weapons out of them! subhanAllah! is that cool or what?

one bird flu over the cuckoo’s nest

have any of you been keeping up with the bird flu? how it’s spreading like wild fire all across asia, europe and africa? and how they’ve detected it in cats now? well, about a month ago, egypt got hit with the bird flu. there’s so much information and misinformation about it, people are confused as to how to react. is it safe to eat chicken and eggs? well, apparently both are safe to eat as long as they’re cooked appropriately but we (i.e. me, bikey and naveed) decided to fast from them for the time being. but naveed took it to a whole other level....

typically, our fridge is stocked with an ample supply of eggs to keep us going for the whole week if not more. we had about a dozen eggs when bird flu hit. we even had some chicken in the freezer. bikey decided she’d eat the eggs instead of wasting them since they were safe to eat when cooked. but oh no! naveed wouldn’t have any of that. she refused to allow bikey her God-given right to eat eggs. she demanded the disposal of anything having to do with poultry...with gloves on. not just the eggs and chicken but rubber duckies, feather dusters, my stock of ‘chicken of the sea’ canned tuna and even bikey’s cute pair of socks with pictures of chicks on it!.....ummm.....okay, i may be slightly exaggerating but she also did throw out rania’s eggs.

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the egyptian government ordered the slaughtering of all domestic birds and warned against disposing them in the streets, canals or the nile river for fear of contamination. however...

just a couple of days after bird flu hit, i’m sitting in class taking an exam. my teacher along with a bunch of other teachers are in the hallway causing a raucous. they’re laughing, having a jolly good time. i see one of the workers bring in big bottles of mineral water. now, they’re toasting each other with their water bottles. what in the world is going on, i ponder? egyptians don’t normally drink mineral water ‘cause their bodies can handle the tap. perhaps someone got engaged...perhaps someone is expecting a baby...perhaps it’s someone’s birthday....

i find out a bit later that someone threw a dead bird in the nile river and that’s what all the teachers were laughing about! now...i’ve been told i’m a bit strange but i just don’t seem to get egyptian humor. how is that funny?! the news is now warning people against using the tap for at least 6 hours! that is, until they put more chlorine into the water to clean it up. we’re being told not to use the tap to wash our food (i.e. fruits and veggies), make tea or cook anything with it. nor should we rinse our mouths, make wudu and we must be extra cautious that the water does not enter any wounds on our bodies. ‘oh my!’, i say to myself. ‘this ‘aint no laughin’ matter! how am i going to survive? how am i supposed to eat without washing my fruits and veggies, without boiling my pasta and cooking my rice? how am i supposed to pray without making wudu?...(yes, i know, i could always perform tayyamum, but...). what if i have a slight wound on my body that i’m unaware of? how am i supposed to take a shower?’
well, i make it through that day using bottled water for wudu and cooking. but this could get quite expensive if i begin bathing with bottled water. well, i say to myself, let me sleep on it. maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

tomorrow comes....find out the whole thing was a hoax!!

get up, stand up

back in november, naveed, bikey and i went to dahab during our eid break. dahab is about a 10 hour bus ride from cairo. our ride to dahab wasn’t that bad except for some rich egyptian guys singing 80’s one hit wonders in english with an egyptian accent. however, our ride back to cairo was another ordeal…..

on the bus, i was sitting next to bikey. naveed was sitting in the seat in front of us next to an egyptian lady. we were sitting at the front of the bus. across from naveed were two guys…one american and the other german. the bus was filthy dirty but we didn’t know it at first. we were just sitting and relaxing on the bus with some bags of chips between us. we come to a bus stop. that’s when naveed informs us that there are roaches on the bus and they’ve been crawling up the window next to the egyptian lady. of course, bikey and i get scared but especially bikey ‘cause she’s sitting next to the window. we still have 6 more hours left on the trip but alhamdulillah, bikey and i haven’t seen any roaches by our windows. naveed has the brilliant idea of asking the two guys to switch seats with her and the egyptian lady.

naveed (to the guys): would you guys like to sit next to roaches?
me: naveed!!! what are you saying?!?! why in the world would they wanna sit next to roaches?
guys: umm…we don’t know what roaches are.
naveed: they’re brown insects about an inch in size…
me: umm..naveed…i think they’re joking…
naveed (continues): they live in dirty areas….they multiply like crazy….
me: naveed!!! they’re joking!!
naveed: oh….you know what roaches are? well, do you guys wanna switch?
guys: umm..no, not really.
me: well, you guys probably have roaches by your window anyway.

so the bus continues along its journey towards cairo. we come to another bus stop. the guys see a roach by their window and flick it. it lands on the lady sitting in front of them. she flicks it. it lands onto naveed. i start laughing as naveed screams and jumps out of her seat. i jump out of my seat and run to the back out of fear of any roaches getting flicked onto me. after i think the coast is clear, i cautiously go back to my seat. but after a few seconds, bikey starts to scream ‘cause she sees a big roach on the bag of chips between our seat! i scream and she screams and naveed screams and i fling the bag forcefully into the aisle. the guys stomp on the bag of chips crushing the roach with such chivalry. but it doesn’t stop there. a few seconds later, bikey screams again because there’s a roach on her scarf! we all scream and i run to the back. there are a bunch of egyptian guys sitting in the back laughing their heads off just watching the show. naveed, bikey and i are nearly in tears, hearts are pounding, legs are shaking…we can’t sit down 'cause it seems to be raining roaches and still 4 more hours to go! the lady sitting in front of the guys and her husband start yelling at the bus driver about the filthiness of the bus and demands him to do something so we can ride the bus in peace. what does the brilliant driver do seconds before we depart? he sprays raid all along the windows. mind you, the bus is enclosed. i guess he thought by killing us off, the ride back to cairo would be peaceful.

in God's country

i started studying arabic with ustadh (teacher) muhammad when i arrived in cairo. i was sorta like a blank slate when i started at al-diwan and ustadh muhammad taught me everything. i was studying 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, one on one. that's quite intensive, don't you think? anyway, he was supposed to teach me till june but there was a slight change in plans. he decided to leave al-diwan and move to alexandria for a better job opportunity. he left a week ago and i was sad. but now i study with ustadha reham. she's an excellent teacher as well.

so today, ustadh muhammad came by al-diwan and presented me with a lovely gift. surah ahad written in the kufic script in gold on wood. plus, he wrote me a letter in which he wrote some advice. i thought i would translate them into english and share them with you guys 'cause i think they're beneficial:

1. make love for Allah above everything else
2. this life is not everlasting but is just a mere station in life
3. try to increase your faith and obedience to your Lord everyday
4. don't ever get sad over anything because Allah decides everything for you (and He knows what's best for you)
5. always remember Allah in every situation (good or bad)

cats in the cradle

disclaimer: i think cats are nice and sweet....from a distance...but in egypt, it's another story...

egypt is filled with stray cats that make strange noises, live in the trash and eat bloodied bones. my theory is that many of these cats are jinns. people think i've become obsessed with jinns...maybe i have but to tell you the truth, i'm quite infatuated with the whole other invisible being living parallel to us.

the other day, i'm in the apartment by myself and decide to go to the bookstore to buy a notebook. the unreliable elevator isn't working so i begin to descend 8 flights of steps....

on the 7th floor is a malnourished black & gray striped cat eating out of the trash. it sees me and runs down the stairs. nothing unusual....i descend a couple more flights. on the 5th floor, i meet another cat. this one's big, fat, disheveled and dirty white. the black & gray one runs behind the dirty white one for shelter. the white one just stares at me. it doesn't move. i'm like 8 steps away from it. it doesn't even show a hint of fear of me. i try to use hand gestures, leg gestures and make weird sounds to shoo it away. nothing. instead, it ASCENDS a step! it's in that 'i'm ready to pounce on you, you dirty human!' position. i freak out and run gracefully up a flight of stairs. then i look down at the cat and we have a staring competition for like 3 minutes. i lose. it starts to climb up towards me and i run all the way up to my apartment and slam the door shut. so much for buying my notebook.

after about 30 minutes, i decide to venture out again. i open the door only to find the big white cat by the elevator! it starts running towards me and i slam the door with such force and intensity that all the windows shake. my heart starts pounding...beads of sweat begin pouring down my forehead. this cat is evil, i think. it knows where i live! it was waiting for me to come out again! i look out my peep hole and think the coast is clear. i crack open the door just a wee bit and the cat's head is right by my door! it was trying to break into my apartment! i slammed the door shut and sat on the floor frustrated with my back leaning against the door, head down, arms folded around my knees. i had to accept my fate...that stupid cat made me a prisoner in my own home.

tharwa in the sky with diamonds

so i've been studying arabic for about 5 months now. before i came, i didn't know much of anything. i started at level 0 but i'm now on level 7, alhamdulillah. you can really tell if you are improving with your conversation when people in the market think you're arab. just the other day, i was at khan-al-khalili and after much bargaining and winning, the seller asked me if i was algerian! HA! i was quite flattered that he thought i was an arab! maybe it's because i was arguing like an arab. but when i told him i was indian, he was quite shocked. he said i spoke arabic quite well. but then i realized i was only saying numbers in arabic so i don't know if i should think anything of what he thought.

but naveed's friend, fatima is visiting from england. when i told her i started studying arabic 5 months ago and didn't know much of anything when i first arrived, she was quite surprised. she thought i had been studying arabic for a long time 'cause she heard me speaking to the locals and was impressed. that made me happy. but maybe to the untrained ear (she doesn't know arabic), my arabic is impressive. so perhaps i should get my head out of the clouds.

introduction

assalaam-alaikum. ismee tharwa. ana min amrika. al aan, ana askoon fi misr lee adrus al-lughat al-arabiya.

yes, that's right. i'm in egypt now studying the arabic language. i've been here for about 5 months now and should have started this blog then but i was too lazy and didn't really know about blogs till i started living with my ex-roommate, "bikey". she was completely obsessed with blogging and perhaps now, i may fill her shoes. anyway, i'm fulfilling my life long dream of studying arabic in an arab country. i've had many adventures since i've been here....both good and bad. i'm sure i'll continue to have more and will share them with you. i'm excited about this and hope that this will be a good forum to keep in touch with everyone.

let me introduce you to a few characters first:

naveed: my roommate from england. we take calligraphy together and she was the one who saw my living conditions before (i was living in the living room out of my suitcase in my old apt. when i first came to egypt) and she offered me refuge.

"bikey": ex-roommate from england. she is obsessed with blogging and you can read about some of my previous adventures on her blog starting from november. she went back to england and from there will further her arabic studies in another arab country. but naveed and i are hoping that she'll change her mind and return to cairo. she's kinda like that.

"cow": bikey's little sister who just arrived in cairo a couple of weeks ago and is living with us now. she'll be here for about 3 months. she's as cute as a cow.

rania: she's from england and is crashing at our place for about a month before she finds an apt. to stay in. she's iraqi and she studied hindi/urdu in jaipur, india for like 6 months. she can speak better urdu than me!!! actually, that's not saying much since i've been told i don't really know how to speak urdu. but she speaks so well and so proper!! i'm envious of her but in a good way. this has motivated me to study urdu...maybe when i return to chicago.