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Monsoon season is supposed to officially start sometime tonight, after which it is predicted to rain for three days straight. Yay! Man, if I had one of those weather-pixie things, mine would be melted. Today was 44 C (110-ish F) with nauseating humidity levels. The air is absolutely stagnant, there is no wind, nothing but a heavy, moist, heat sitting on the city. You know, I wouldn’t normally admit to sweating, but today it’s been pouring offa me like my skin has sprung a leak.

My daddy-dearest, who always seems to sweat enough for the rest of us combined, has been sopping wet all day. Poor him. And poor our dog! She’s been hiding in a shady corner in the driveway panting in fast forward and doing her best not to move a single inch. It’s tough enough having to wear a scarf in this weather, can’t imagine wearing a dog-skin coat while I’m at it…

So I’m hoping that this nasty, fermented atmosphere is the precursor to whopping storm, and yet I’m hoping that we won’t lose electricity. Ha ha. (Never hurts to hope, no matter how outlandish your hopes are.) That’s why I’m trying to blog before the storm hits and the power lines fall down and our phone line gets flooded and goes to sleep with the fishes and the autobots battle the deceptacons and some of the transformers get blown up. (Optimus, look out!)

Good News: the digital cam is back from Al-Mustashfa and pretty soon I’ll be posting tons of photos of tons of things you never wanted to see. Mwahahhahaaaaa! Don’t go to my fotolog yet though, I’ll let y’all know when I make an addition. In the mean time, please continue to let me know what you’d take with you to a desert island.

Abez Brain Sector A: Umm, a spoon?

Abez Brain Sector B: I desert, not dessert you moron!

Abez Brain A: (socks brain B in the cortex) Have at you!

Abez Brain B: Ouch! Just deserts!

Abez Brain A: Serves you right for not keeping the Sabbath holy…

Well, for the first time in three days, we’ve got both electricity and a phone line at the same time. Such is the precursor to monsoon season. We’ll have a few whopping storms that come a little early (they’re the pre-monsoon monsoon) that knock down electricity poles and make transformers blow up. (here’s a question, are they autobots or deceptacons?) We lost electricity even this morning, even though the storm was a few days ago because apparently it takes a few days to properly fix the bijli (electrixity!) in the far-out sectors like where we live.

Well, Aniraz and I are filling the void our momma left with baked goods. Lots of them. Just this week we’ve made Russian tea-cakes, chocolate-walnut torte, coffee-fudge cake and strawberries and cream pie. The worst thing about this is, there’s no one to eat this junk but us! WE ARE GOING TO GET FAT!!!!

Seriously, the cookies we made just before my mom left are still in the freezer, and we only finished one coffee-fudge cake by inviting guests over to eat it. (one down, one to go. I think I’ll send it to the staff at Chez Daddy)

Now I’m starting to miss my brothers. Aside from their value as humans, they also make great garbage-disposal units/food-processors. It used to be that a cake never saw the light of a second day in my house because we would all take a piece, and then give the rest of it to my little brother. He would take a fork after it and be done in under half an hour, he could eat a whole cake by himself. I’ve seen him. Same with ice-cream. He used to eat it for breakfast, lunch and dinner if we had it. If Aniraz or I wanted ice-cream, we had to take ours before he did, otherwise we wouldn’t get a second chance. It’s not like he was trying to eat us out of house and home, it’s just that big guys eat big amounts of food, it was his policy to begin at the beginning of something and not stop until the end.

I’m not going to rail against fate and genetics and the will of Allah for giving my brother the metabolism of a nuclear-powered submarine, I’m just going to marvel at it. Dude’s not even fat! Me, if I ate one fourth of the food he did I could run away to the circus and be the fat lady in their sideshow.

Well, what else is up? Flying ants are in fashion. They live for only a day after it rains, but they make up for their short lives by being very annoying in a very short amount of time. I’ve had to turn out the lights on the front of the house, otherwise they swarm around them by the thousands (party-sharty!) doing whatever it is that flying ants do.

Last year, when our dog was younger and stupid than she is now (yes! She can be stupider! He he…) she et them by the thousands and was a very happy puppy indeed. Of course, it made her sick. Dogs aren’t too bright. There’s a good reason why even in spite of their physical prowess and keen senses, dogs are not the dominant species of the earth. (yes, even aside from not having opposable thumbs)

Speaking of thumbs, do baboons have thumbs? I think so. I was watching a documentary on life in the deserts of Africa. One thing they showed (in the Kalahari) struck me as being particularly ingenious. When the bush-men go hunting in areas where water is scarce (that would be everywhere) they have a brilliant way of discovering where the secret water sources are. (Remember kids, don’t try this at home.)

Step 1. Carve a small hole into a termite mound, only about two inches across. You must do this in full view of a baboon.

Step 2: Stuff the hole with wild melon seeds and walk away, leaving the baboon burning with curiosity over what the heck you’ve stuffed in the hole.

Step 3: Wait. After a while, curiosity will get the best of it, and the baboon will run up to the hole, reach in, and close his fist around a handful of melon seeds. Now the baboon is stuck. Honestly. With its fingers closed around the seeds, the baboon’s hand is now too big to pull out of the hole. The baboon will go nuts, but still won’t let go of the seeds.

Step 4. Put a leash around the baboon’s neck and get its hand out of the hole. Then tie it to a tree.

Step 5. Give the baboon a handful of rock-salt! Go and relax. Compose a poem. Contemplate the sky. Wait for the baboon to eat all the salt and then get REALLY thirsty. This takes a whole night.

Step 6. Wake up and untie the frantically thirsty baboon. The baboon will run for water, and all you do is follow it. Amazing, hunh?

I’ve also learned how to make a monitor lizard trap just in case I’m ever shipwrecked on a desert island in the Phillipines. (Ray Mears Extreme Survival, BBC World. At least I think that’s his name) I must confess though, I’ve yet to learn why I would WANT to trap the oversized reptile to begin with. Surely not to eat! *dies*

Aniraz and I watched that show (how to survive!) and of course, the question came up, “If you were going to be shipwrecked on a desert island, and you could take one thing with you, what would it be?”

The typical corny answer is: a tall blonde.

Now my answer. At first I thought I’d take a machete. On second thought, I had a better idea. I’d take Ray Mears, and he could take a machete. He’s a useful fellow you know, he does this survival show, and he really just wanders off into the wilderness somewhere for days with nothing but the video camera and a machete. Dude’s got skills!

But it’s up to you, dear fellow Blogistanis, what one thing would you take with you on a desert island? Your answers are to exclude the following:

1. A boat upon which to leave.

2. A working radio with which to call for help.

3. Ray Mears

4. A tall blonde.

It’s been a lazy and yet productive Sunday today. I woke at one in the afternoon with Aniraz poking me and saying, ‘This is your one-o’clock poke-up call!” And my brain was like ‘zzzzzzzz….pppbbb?…rrrrr!’ (that’s the sound of the brain’s engine going from sleeping (0mph) to running (60mph)) and then I realized I had work in half an hour. (commute time: 20 min)

Don’t you just love it when that happens? There’s nothing like a bit of last-minute panic to keep you in good form. I now know that I am capable of getting dressed and leaving for work in ten minutes, with the help of Aniraz of course. It’s all a very precise, not unlike the work a pit-crew does in the Indi 500 or Grand Prix.

At exactly one, Aniraz pokes me and then rushes downstairs to make me a cup of coffee while I run into the bathroom to wash my face. I get out of the bathroom, throw on the first clean jilb I lay hands on and run down the stairs (thankfully without breaking my ankle this time). Aniraz is there at the bottom of the stairs with a cup of coffee. I grab it and skull it and then quickly pull up the documents I need printed on the computer. Aniraz prints them out while I go put on my scarf. My father has, in the mean time, set lunch out on the table and I rush to the table and eat standing up, run back to the bathroom to brush my teeth, and then grab the car keys, Aniraz tightens the bolts on my tires with a pneumatic drill and then I run out to the racetrack…errr…work.

Due to the dedicated and kind service of Aniraz, I made it to work with three minutes to spare! So three cheers for my pit crew, Hip! Hip! JazakAllah! Hip! Hip! JazakAllah!

I don’t normally work on Sunday, but today was the first class with a new student who couldn’t make it yesterday and so asked to reschedule for today. I may be Muslim (maybe? Definitely!) but after living with a Fundamentalist Christian mother (hi Mommy!) for all my life, I have a mental hang-up about working in Sundays. I almost said no to rescheduling on Sunday because my brain was like, ‘Nope, no work on Sunday. Gotta keep the Sabbath holy, you know.’ Then the other part of my brain (the one that makes sense) said, ‘Hey moron, your Sabbath is on Friday.’

So today I got a new student, and lost one at the same time. My oldest student (not in age, but duration of study) is discontinuing lessons and I’m actually rather sad. He was the most advanced, and we got to read all kinds of great things and have interesting discussions about politics and stuff. You can’t really do that with a student who is only intermediate, because although their vocabulary is pretty good for an ESL student, it’s not broad enough to include the words for concepts like duplicity, the theory of Mutually Assured Destruction and imperialism. It’s not that they don’t know them in their own languages, it’s just that the conversation is limited to the vocabulary they have in English.

I have that same problem speaking Urdu. Though my brain may be grown-up (or a least masquerading as an adult) my tongue in Urdu is still a kid’s tongue. I lived in Pakistan from when I was ten to when I was thirteen, and that’s when I learned Urdu, and my vocabulary is still stuck there. I can carry on a simple conversation, but my vocabulary is so limited that when it comes down to talking politics or religion or philosophy, I either call my dad in for translation or become so frustrated that I give up and start talking about the weather instead. You know, just last week I learned the Urdu words for repair, coalition, and con-artistry. (marammat, mahaz, nausarbaazi) Before that I would’ve said sahih karna, jamaat and chor. (correct, gathering, thief) They’re not really the same you know. You can repair a car, but not necessarily correct it.

What else is up? I dunno. Oh yeah, once I had my nose knocked crooked by a flying loaf of frozen raisin bread. My big brother and I were sword fighting in the kitchen. My sword was the knife sharpener (it’s a long, dull piece of stone with a handle, I wouldn’t DREAM of taking a knife to either of my brothers, oh no…mwahahaaaa) and his sword was a loaf of raisin bread from the deep freezer. (En guarde! Thrust! Parry! Ouch, Touché!) So we were sword fighting in the kitchen, which is fairly routine in my house, and then he lifted the bread above his head and started whipping it around in the air over his head like a battle axe. Well, the kitchen wasn’t very big, or maybe the bread wasn’t very small, but I got hit in the nose with a loaf of bread that was harder than a rock.

And the moral of this story?

Friends don’t let brothers wield raisin bread. Something like that anyway.

Instant English Instructor: Just add water.

Well, it was raining and pouring on my way to work today. That wouldn’t have been a problem except that I was going to work on my father’s motorcycle. (!!!!) My father and I were about halfway to the house where I was going to teach, when a drop of rain smacked me (when you’re going 60 kilometers an hour, the raindrops don’t land, they smack) in the face. I said, ‘Dad is it raining?’ He said, “Yes, but we’re almost there. We’ll make it, InshaAllah.”

InshaAllah, just in case you’ve forgotten, means ‘If Allah Wills’. We say that such-and-such a thing will happen, provided that Allah wills it. Well, Allah did not will for us to arrive before the storm began, and so we didn’t. So we got soaked instead. At first my sunglasses were acting as a windshield so I could still see, but after my scarf got soaked through, the water was just pouring down my face and into my eyes and with both my hands occupied (one holding bag, the other holding on to father) all I could do was ride through the rain with my eyes closed. It was actually fun, and I was cold for the first time in a month! Amazing!

The fun ended when I arrived at work, soaked to the skin. I got off my dad’s motorcycle and put both of my feet on the ground (squish squish) and rang the doorbell. The gate was opened, then I walked (squish squish squish squish) up to the door and knocked. The housekeeper opened it, took one shocked look at me, and started laughing. I was laughing too. It’s not everyday that you see someone dripping wet from head to toe in yards and yards of black fabric. (my scarf and jilb) I must’ve looked like a cat someone had tried to drown.

They let me in and I made a big puddle in the entryway waiting for us to figure out what to do for clothes. The lady of the house is an entire foot shorter than I am, so her clothes were ruled out. So were the clothes of my student, her nine-year old daughter. The only clothes that remotely fit me were the housekeeper’s, and I must say she has pretty good taste. She’s Afghani, so I got a huge, unbelted white shalwar (baggy pants) and a very long blue and white qameez (tunic) with no chalks and floral embroidery all the way from neck down to the hem. It was more like a dress with pants underneath than a shalwar-qameez.

I’m thinking of having something like her suit made. It was very comfy. So what if I’m not Afghani? I’m also not male and I’m not Bruce Lee, but I’m wearing one of my father’s old white kurtas left over from his university days with a pair of my little brother’s karate uniform pants. Nuts to conformity. If it’s comfortable, I’ll wear it! (Hmm, maybe that’s why my housekeeper is always laughing at me.)

My father (who got as wet as I did, but not wetter, because it’s impossible that either of us could get any wetter) didn’t have the luxury of wearing someone’s housekeeper’s clothes. He went to my sister’s office and dripped on her floor for a while, then decided to wring his clothes out in her bathroom. He was dry by the time he came back to pick me up again though, and you know what? I think he’s still wearing those same clothes now…

(Hey Yaz, does this count as tossing the football?)

Computer is fixed! Alhamdulillah! Finally! Now I can type a new blog to make up for the following substandard one.

Here’s yesterday’s post, today. I blame blogger.

Aaak! I can’t type while listening to music but I’m doing my best. Scout’s honor.

But on the day the scrolls are laid/

With every word and deed displayed/

When we read our account/

I know for one I’ll be afraid/

That day, I’ll be so afraid to read/

Every harsh word that I’ve spoken/

Every time that I have lied/

I’ll be obliged to admit/

I’ll be obliged to submit/

Will I have strength owning up to/

Each deed I’ve tried to hide?/

Allah, I’m so afraid to read/

These lines from Afraid to Read, The Prophet’s Hands by Dawud Wharnsby Ali, a beaucoup excellent Islamic music CD. It’s what I’m plugged up to at the moment, and I love this CD and I can’t get myself to put two sentences together in five minutes because I’m too busy enjoying myself. Forget this man, I’ll write after the CD is finished, in the mean time, I’m cranking it up. Enjoy a joke till I’m done.

This guy goes to a pet shop to buy a parrot.

He sees one on a perch with a red string tied to its left leg and a green string tied to its right leg. He asks the owner the significance of the strings.

“Well, this is a highly trained parrot,” the owner tells him. “If you pull the red string he speaks French; if you pull the green string he speaks German.”

“And what happens if I pull both the strings?” our curious shopper inquires.

“You goober,” screeches the parrot, “I fall off my perch!”

Ok, I can concentrate now. The computer was in the shop (and out, and then in again) all throughout this week and that makes is hard not only to keep in touch, but to print out class work! Additionally, since my momma is gone, I can’t find anything and I don’t know where she left any of her papers or files. Therefore, I have dubbed these last few days ‘The Week of Chaos.’ Things are just starting to get normal again. The school where I’m subbing for my mother is finally making me my own ID.

Last Monday I tried to get in with my mother’s ID and the fact that a scarf-wearing fundu-type (me) was trying to make it into the diplomatic enclave using the ID of a blonde American-type (my mother) aroused great suspicion. I was questioned by the guards at all three of the guard posts, and stopped at the bomb check, and then they had to call in before opening the gate for me. (Who are you? Whose ID is this? Where’s your ID? Where are you from? Where are you going?)Today they met me at the main gate of the diplomatic enclave with a driver though so I had no problem getting in. I was tempted to stick my tongue out at all the guards as we passed. >:p pbbt! Nya nya! They let me in!

What else? The weather is still disgustingly hot and humid. Electricity was in short supply today. I can’t think of much else. The next English Night has been postponed because the student who was supposed to be hosting it has flown suddenly out of the country on business. That’s the problem with diplomats, they always disappear on you. One of my mother’s students hired her for five classes a week and only made it to two of them in the entire month. I’ve been lucky that most of my students stay put, but still. A rolling stone and a diplomat, neither gathers moss.

I’ve also decided (after teaching my mother’s English class of ten year olds) that I prefer teaching adults. They’re more interesting, and plus you don’t have to play mind games with them to get them to pay attention during class. With kids, you’re lucky if you hold their undivided attention for the entire duration of the class let alone for five minutes. With adults it’s different, because they are taking the class voluntarily, (and since they’re paying for it too) they try to get the most out of it. If my adult students were anything like my kid students, then they’d be picking their noses and whining and looking everywhere around the room except the blackboard. He he…that’s a funny mental picture. Sorry, I’m just seeing the –name of position withheld- officer of the embassy of –name of country withheld- fidgeting in his seat with his fingers up his nose…he he

-ahem-

Alright, I’m just wasting space now, since I have nothing really interesting to say anyway. I’ll stop now.

(he he)

(you still here? Ok, then click this.)

The Lizard is Quicker than the Eye

Well, my momma’s arrived safely in the states, Alhamdulillah. Life is dull but going on. –sigh-

On a more entertaining note, we have a stalker! He’s got medium yellow skin, beady black eyes, four legs, a detachable tail and the cutetest little reptile face you ever saw! Yes, my stalker is a lizard. A teeny, tiny little thing, no long than an inch and a half. (four centimeters?) The first time I saw him, he was zipping across the floor so quickly, (and he was just so small and so dirt-colored) I though, boy that’s the straightest-flying dust bunny I’ve ever seen. That same evening, I was sitting on my bed reading and Aniraz was praying Isha. Suddenly I heard her say, “Look up slowly, and don’t move…”

Well those are distubing words no matter how you say them. I looked up slowly thinking I was going to see a man with a knife or a giant tarantula (in order of terrifying importance) and instead I saw…the mini-lizard. He had squeezed his itty-bitty body under the door and had been standing at the head of the prayer rug while Aniraz was praying. I looked up, saw him sighed in relief and said, “aw, how cute.” Then I blinked and he was gone. Aniraz (who hadn’t blinked) informed me that he didn’t just disappear into thin air. He just zipped back under the door again.

Next day, my dad finishes lunch and goes to get his shirt off the ‘recently accessed clothing’ hook and then does a little dance all of a sudden. Then he shakes out his shirt, puts it on, and very calmy says, “When you take your jilbab off the hook, be careful. There’s a little lizard on it. I just shook it out of my pocket.”

See? It’s stalking us. Or spying on us, or something. But it’s really cute so I don’t mind. I must make a disclaimer by the way, my computer is busted so I’m typing this blog in a net cafe, and for some reason, the spellcheck has been disabled. On top of that, the keyboard is stickier than a French cruller, so half the keys I hit don’t do anything. That’s why I may have an excess of goofy typing errors this time. A thousand pardons I beg of ye.

Well, I went and subbed for my mom today at the foreign school, and surprise surprise, they stopped me for not having an ID and I was fifteen minutes late for class by the time I got through the three guard posts and the bomb search. On a positive note, the school is finally going to make me my own ID…

The guests we had over Karachi (an aunt and uncle who came to see my mother off) were like the nicest, most low-maintanance guests I have ever had. Alhamdulillah, they were actually good to have around. I felt sad when they left. Nice people. 🙂

Well, my hiatus is up and I can go back to nonsense as usual. But now, it’s nonsense with a difference…it’s nonsense that my mother will read! Hi momma! This blog’s for you!

Chaos. My mother is leaving in two days. I have relatives from Karachi coming up in three hours, the house is not ready, the bedrooms are not guest-worthy. I actually missed a class today because I was so busy that I just forgot to go. (!!!!!!!) My student sat there twiddling her thumbs for an hour and a half waiting for me and I feel SO bad…I don’t have an ID yet for the school where I’ll be subbing for my mother, I don’t know how I’m supposed to get through the three guard posts and the bomb-check without one. (It’s in the diplomatic enclave and the security is tighter than tight.)

I have to go panic now. I’m on blogland hiatus till my mother is packed, the guests depart, and the madness subsides. Maybe I’ll be back by Sunday. Until then, talk amongst your selves and pray for my sanity.

Fretfully Yours,

-Sensei

My fifteen seconds of fame.

Yesterday, my mother, sister and I were out shopping at one of the larger, smellier, busier bazaars here in Islamabad. It was rush-hour (just afore Maghrib) and it was insanity in the parking lot. I was blocked in by a double-parked Hilux (big Toyota pick-up truck) whose driver was being harassed by the police for his license. Fine, I thought, let the police check his license, but let him move up two feet so I can get out of here! So I honked.

A big crowd had gathered around the Hilux and we were starting to wonder what was going on. Finally the Hilux pulled away, and I started to back out of the parking space. I was halfway out when the same cop then came over to me and asked to see my license. (what a great time to ask, eh, me halfway out of a parking space, with the tail-end of my car blocking traffic) I pulled it out and gave it to him. He looked at it and said in Urdu, Ok Madame, you’ve parked in a no parking zone. I’m just going to give you a ticket.

I gave him an incredulous look and asked him in English how a parking lot could be a no-parking zone. Now you wonder why I switched over to English. Frankly, the cops in Pakistan are crooked. It’s not uncommon to pull people over for imaginary violations and then demand a bribe if they don’t want a ticket. I switched over to English because the cops won’t do that to foreigners. (shame on them, you’d think they’d be nicer to their own people first and harass the foreigners instead!)

The cop then started stammering and told me in flustered English that there were no-parking signs every hundred feet. I told him to show me. Then I heard from the crowd, “Cut! Cut! Cut that out!” and a man with a video camera came up to the window and put the camera down. The cop said, Sorry Madame, we were just making a documentary. I told him he could’ve told me that before he tried to ticket me for parking in a parking lot. Some guy with big sunglasses then stuck his face in my window (probably the director, it was the guy who yelled ‘Cut’) and apologized to me. So, if any of you happen to be watching the Citi Channel or Geo or ARY Digital or PTV or something, and you happen to see a very annoyed, Arab-looking hijabi sassing a Pakistani traffic cop, that’ll be me.

Randomness:

The ice-hat. Soak a bandana and lay it open. Line up three or four ice cubes diagonally, and then fold in half, so you get a lumpy triangle. Then roll the bandana so the ice cubes are in the middle. Knot the two ends together and then lay the bandana in the freezer so that it freezes in a circular shape. After half an hour, take it out and presto! You have an ice-hat, a circular band of ice to place on your head and enjoy!

Khalid ibn El Waleed narrated the following hadith:

A Bedouin came one day to the Prophet (Peace & Upon Him) and said to

him,

“0, Messenger of Allah! I’ve come to ask you a few questions about the

affairs of this Life and the Here After.”

-Ask what you wish.

Q: I’d like to be the most learned of men.

A: Fear Allah, and you will be the most learned of men.

Q: I wish to be the richest man in the world.

A: Be contented, and you will be the richest man in the world.

Q: I’d like to be the most just man.

A: Desire for others what you desire for yourself, and you will be the

most just of men.

Q: I want to be the best of men.

A: Do good to others and you will be the best of men.

Q: I wish to be the most favored by Allah.

A: Engage much in Allah’s praise, and you will be most favored by Him.

Q: I’d like to complete my faith.

A: If you have good manners you will complete your faith

Q: I wish to be among those who do good.

A: Adore Allah as if you see Him. If you don ‘t see Him, He seeth you.

In this way you will be among those who do good.

Q: I wish to be obedient to Allah.

A: If you observe Allah’s commands you will be obedient.

Q: I’d like to be free from all sins.

A: Bathe yourself from impurities and you will be free from all sins.

Q: I’d like to be raised on the Day of Judgment in the light.

A: Don’t wrong yourself or any other creature, and you will be raised

on the Day of Judgment in the light.

Q: I’d like Allah to bestow His mercy on me.

A: If you have mercy on yourself and others, Allah will grant you mercy

on the Day of Judgment.

Q: I’d like my sins to be very few.

A: If you seek the forgiveness Allah as much as you can, your sins will

be very few.

Q: I’d like to be the most honorable man.

A: If you do not complain to any fellow creature, you will be the most

honorable of men.

Q: I’d like to be the strongest of men.

A: If you put your trust in Allah, you will be the strongest of men.

Q: I’d like to enlarge my provision.

A: If you keep yourself pure, Allah will enlarge your provision.

Q: I’d like to be loved by Allah and His messenger.

A: If you love what Allah and Him messenger love, you will be among

their beloved ones.

Q: I wish to be safe from Allah’s wrath on the Day of Judgment.

A: If you do not loose your temper with any of your fellow creatures,

you will be safe from the wrath of Allah on the Day of Judgment.

Q: I’d like my prayers to be responded to.

A: If you avoid forbidden actions, your prayers will he responded.

Q: I’d like Allah not to disgrace me on the Day of Judgment.

A: If you guard your chastity, Allah will not disgrace you on the Day

of Judgment.

Q: I’d like Allah to provide me with a protective covering on the Day

of Judgment.

A: Do not uncover your fellow creatures faults, and Allah will provide

you with a covering protection on the Day of Judgment.

Q: What will save me from sins?

A: Tears, humility and illness.

Q: What are the best deeds in the eyes of Allah?

A: Gentle manners, modesty and patience.

Q: What are the worst evils in the eyes of Allah?

A: Hot temper and miserliness.

Q: What assuages the wrath of Allah in this life and in the Hereafter?

A: Concealed charity and kindness to relatives.

Q: What extinguishes hell’s fires on the Day of Judgment?

A: Patience in adversity and misfortunes.

Related by Imam Ibn Hambal

We’re playing hide-and-seek with the electricity today, so I don’t know how successful I’ll be in getting this blog typed. (save) I’m afraid that anything I (save) type will be lost if the electricity (save) goes out again. So I’m (save) trying to (save) as often as possible. –phew-

I’m sitting at the computer, daintily chugging iced-coffee out of a 40oz peanut butter jar. I’d be drinking out of the mayonnaise jar, but Aniraz claimed it first. Sooooooo….it’s 2:30 in the afternoon and I just woke up. Frankly, I’m surprised I woke up this early considering that it’s Sunday. I try to ruin my schedule and be absolutely as un-productive as possible on my weekends. I consider it to be recovery from working all week. So last night I was playing video games till Fajr, then I prayed and went to bed just as the sun was rising.

You know, my life may be Islamically pointless (or unfruitful, or directionless or whatever) but I am sincerely thankful that it’s very uncomplicated. One of my friends called me last night with marital problems, and by the time I got off the phone like an hour later, I was depressed for her, but also relieved that I wasn’t in her shoes. InshaAllah things will work out for her though, InshaAllah. (Three cheers for ambiguity. Hip! Hip! Hooray!) Without belittling or insulting her, I can look to my own problems and see them as less severe, and therefore more manageable. Any time you feel down, it always helps to look at someone in a worse situation, because then you start to see the good things you DO have and the bad things you don’t.

I know that not everyone buys into the, “It could be worse, I could be YOU!” theory, but it does work. Two years back I had my appendix out (the other one, I still have on left that bursts when I don’t want to go to work) and I was lying the emergency room thinking I was the most miserable person in the world when I heard the following dialogue from behind the curtain next to me:

Man: (crying)What do you mean? He’s not dead, he can’t be dead, my son…my son…You’re lying he’s not dead….

At that point I thought God, I am so NOT the most miserable person in the world. That same night, I also saw another woman in the emergency room who was far worse off than me. She arrived wearing a sari-blouse and a man’s shawl wrapped around the lower half of her bleeding body. Turns out she was on her way to a party, wearing a sari and riding on the back of the motorcycle. Her sari got caught in the back wheel, and she lost her clothes as the motorcycle crashed and she had road-rash ALL over her body. Road-rash (where you skin is ground away when you skid over the road at high speed) is actually more painful than you would think. My little brother was in a motorcycle accident about a year and a half ago, he got road-rash bad, lost the skin off the top of his hand, off his shoulder, one of his arms, one leg. There’s a certain level of pain you feel sometimes, when it gets so bad that a wave of violent trembling goes through your whole body, all the way down from your neck to your toes. It was excruciating just watching him suffer, I can’t imagine having to go through it myself.

What was my point? Oh yes. In times of trouble or stress, remember the following things:

1. Look to someone worse off than yourself for a grim reminder of how nice your life actually is as compared to how bad it could be.

2. If you think that things can’t get any worse, then remember that they can only get better! When you’re all the way down at the bottom, the only way left is up.

3. And what’s the Alcoholic’s Anonymous prayer? (like I should know, but I know it anyway) God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom always to tell the difference.

Not that I’m very good at always telling the difference, or at taking my own advice. I seem to forget my own advice when I need it most. But hey, maybe if I post it I’ll read it some other time and make myself feel better (?).

I’m just bummed cuz my momma’s leaving. Nuts. I guess that falls into the third category of the Alcoholic’s prayer, knowing what I can’t change, just being at peace with it. It’s not like my momma’s leaving us, she’s just leaving and then coming back after a long time. Makes me sad anyway. So now, having established that I cannot prevent this from happening, I have to move on to damage control. How can I make myself less miserable when my momma is gone? Swim. Blog. Work. Write. Drown my woes in 40oz of peanut-butter flavored coffee.

I like swimming, but I don’t want to work!!!! AAAAaaaaargh! Boy, this blog started out in one direction and has ended up in another. I give up. The more I write the less sense I make. Nuts. The End.



“Everything was beautiful, and nothing hurt.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse Five.

We’re fresh out of electricity more often than not these days, and that makes typing a blog hard. I’ve started two only to have the electriity go out and my documents get destroyed. Aaaargh! Here, have an article I wrote instead. It would’ve featured in the Sunday Times this February, but my view on love and Valentine’s day didn’t fit in well with their Valentine’s special. (Damn liberals) Oh well. Till I can write a real blog, read it anyway. -Abez

How I Own 1/7th of Riaz’s heart.

by Sensei

I don’t want to know the history of St. Valentine’s Day so much as I would like to know who started it in Pakistan. I do, after all, need someone to blame for the fact that I own exactly 1/7th of Riaz’s heart. It’s not a clerical error. He pledged it to me last year, the whole 1/7th, and I am still waiting for someone to stand accountable for such an absurdity.

Riaz didn’t exactly tell me he was only giving me 1/7th, he just showed up in front of my car, February 14th last year, where he’d been waiting for me. After an inarticulate speech about love and the destiny of our souls, he gave me a card and a rose and then mumbled something and rushed away as quickly as he appeared. Inside the card were the usual declarations of undying love and affection, and he pledged me his heart, the generous man.

The next day in college (you know how girls are) I did some asking around and it turned out that not only had Riaz pledged his heart to me, but to six other girls too. Three I already knew, three I got to know on a very friendly basis afterwards. There’s nothing that will bind people together quite like common ground, and in our case, we discovered we were all co-owners of Riaz’s heart. Since none of us wanted to bear the burden of ownership entirely, we decided to share, and that’s how I came to own exactly 1/7th.

I may be old fashioned, but where I come from, love has very little to do with cards and roses and a lot to do with dedication. Love isn’t a cheap show once a year, love isn’t about beautiful women and sighing in spring. It was a very wise man (whose name I don’t know) who said, “You don’t love a woman because she is beautiful, but a woman is beautiful because you love her.” That wise man, he was right. I think of that quote every time I think of my Nani and Nana. Even when they were both well into their seventies, sometimes when Nana thought there was no one looking, I would catch him giving Nani the soft kind of look that would melt a woman’s defenses in seconds. Anyone else who looked at Nani probably only saw a wrinkled old lady with and a crooked smile, but when Nana looked at her, he saw the gorgeous Houri he married fifty years ago. That’s love.

Speaking of years, that reminds me of another thing about love. It has nothing to do with one-day holidays. Love means dedication that lasts, five ten, fifty years later. What good was Riaz’s mumbled ‘I love you’ (and I think it was ‘I love you’ because he shouldn’t have said ‘I need glue‘ just then) when it lasts only as long as roses are on sale for Valentine’s day? If his love had lasted any longer, I probably would have run him over, but the point is, real love is long-term. Infatuation and obsession are temporary, but real love is a solidly grounded, conscious effort that people actively maintain for others. It’s not some sort of passing whim, or an effortless passion, it’s a willfully upheld emotion built on a foundation of trust, understanding, and mutual sacrifice.

Riaz can’t fool me. I know what dedicated love is about. I saw it once when my aunt became seriously ill one night. Her husband got up with her and guided her to the sink, and held her hair back when she was vomiting and supported her when she could no longer stand. Then he carried her gently to the car and drove her to the hospital. My cousins told me that he held her hand the whole time she was there, and he helped her go to the bathroom. That may sound disgusting, but it takes real love to get over your own fears and dislikes to help someone you care about.

I’ll tell you what else love is about; it’s about laughing at jokes that weren’t too terribly funny because someone else needs cheering up. It’s about saying sorry even when you know you were right, because you know that the person you argued with is far more important than what you argued about. Its about covering someone else up when you’re cold, it’s about giving someone else tea when you’re tired, it’s about giving up that part of you that screams ‘Me! Me! Me!’ and becoming the other half of another person. It’s about taking the brunt of something because you’d rather see yourself die than see the one you love being shamed. This kind of love may be hard to spot because it isn’t flashy and loud and covered in red glitter and white lace, but it’s out there. It’s quiet but powerful, it’s everyday but magical, it’s real, but apparently Riaz has no idea it exists.

I suppose you’re reading this and thinking that it’s the woman who’s doing all this, she’s practically worshipping her husband and the chauvinistic pig doesn’t even care. Well, in some cases that’s true, because women are more sentimental. I think it’s safe to say that some woman love their husbands more than their husbands love them, but I was speaking in terms of ideals, and ideally, they both love and sacrifice equally.

So there it is, Riaz darling. A pox on the kind of “love” that Valentine’s day promotes (btw, what the heck are we Muslims doing celebrating the holiday of a Christian saint?). I don’t need a sappy card and a wilted rose from a guy who has no real respect for me, who has no concept of my honor, who doesn’t even know what love is.

Guys like Riaz are using Valentine’s day as an excuse to act on their foolish impulses, and I don’t care what you call them – puppy love, lust, attraction, obsession, licentiousness, whatever. There’s no love involved there, just a shameless attempt to weasel me out of affections that I’m reserving for someone who deserves them. Someone who will love as one should, with dedication, with sacrifice, with a whole heart, as compared to 1/7th. Attention Riaz: If I see you again I may actually take up the offer of having your heart. And I may just carve my portion out with a spoon.

Randomness.

The Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, said that Allah has said:

The first of his actions for which a servant of Allah will be held accountable for on the Day of Resurrection will be his prayers. If they are in order, then he will have prospered and succeeded; and if they are wanting, then he will have failed and lost. If there is something defective in his obligatory (fard) prayers, the Lord will say, ‘See if My servant has any supererogatory (sunnah/nafl) prayers with which may be completed that which was defective in his obligatory prayers.’ Then the rest of his actions will be judged in a like fashion.

Related by Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud, an-Nasa’i, Ibn Majah and Ahmad.

*****

I am pleased to inform y’all that I am now recovering from this season’s second case of food poisoning. This is due to the Grace of Allah, and also to a strict course of antibiotics, yogurt, chicken soup, and After Eight chocolate mints. Just what the doctor ordered!

I suppose to a first worlder (hey, I was one of those once) the idea of getting food poisoning twice in one summer, let alone in one lifetime, is bizarre. Well, food poisoning is kinda common in Pakistan because in the summer, it gets SO DANG HOT, AAAAAAARGH! (109 F /43 C for the last three days) that the freezers give up and stuff that should be frozen defrosts and grows bacteria. Like the salami I had the other day. It went straight from the grocery store freezer to my sandwich, but it had already been defrosted and refrosted God knows how many times in this last heat wave that it got all septic. Then I et it. Nasty.

****

“It’s bloody hot here, innit!” -Crayon

****

I was sitting in my dad’s restaurant today waiting for my order (Chez Daddy: Great Food, Terrible Service.) and watching the waiter rush around. I saw him take about a dozen bowls of ice-cream over to a large party in the corner, and then I heard some genius say, “Aray suno, yay ice-cream nahin, yay hot-cream hay! Issay wappas freezer may dalo!” Translation: Hey, this isn’t ice-cream, this is hot-cream. Put it back in the freezer!

(dweeb)

****

Well, here’s my two cents to add to the Bloggin Muslimz forum. Someone with technical skillz might want to start creating the cool-looking buttons (all of a uniform size, please) for the sites that people have mentioned in the thread. Or, you people with skillz can decide among yourselves what the size should be, and then start cranking out buttons. If you send me the links, I can try to come up with some cool slogans to go with them, InshaAllah.

Once we have a large collection of buttons, they could be uploaded to a page on the Bloggin Muslimz forum, and then people could then pick whichever ones they want on their site, download the html and presto! Well, in my case it wouldn’t be presto! it would be more like, Hello, can someone put these buttons into my html please? (Hi Tora! Hi Sahar! he he) Thank you. Sincerely, -TechnoTwit.

****

from wwww.funnycleanjokes.com.

Signs — Lost in the Translation

In a Bucharest hotel lobby:

The lift is being fixed for the day. During that time we regret that you will be unbearable.

In a Belgrade elevator:

To move the cabin, push button for wishing floor. If the cabin should enter more persons, each one should press a number of wishing floor. Driving is then going alphabetically by national order.

In a Paris hotel elevator:

Please leave your values at the front desk.

In a hotel in Athens:

Visitors are expected to complain at the office between the hours of 9 & 11 am daily.

In a Yugoslavian hotel:

The flattening of underwear with pleasure is the job of the chambermaid.

In the lobby of a Moscow hotel across from a Russian orthodox Monastery:

You are welcome to visit the cemetery where famous Russian and Soviet composers, artists, and writers are buried daily except Thursday.

In an Austrian hotel for skiers:

Not to perambulate the corridors in the hours of repose in the boots of ascension.

On a menu in a Swiss restaurant:

Our wines leave you nothing to hope for.

On a menu of a Polish hotel:

Salad a firm’s own make; limpid red beer soup with cheesy dumplings in the form of a finger; roasted duck let loose; beef rashers beaten up in the country people’s fashion.

In a Tokyo hotel:

Please take advantage of the chambermaids.

In a Hong Kong supermarket:

For your convenience we recommend courteous, efficient self-service.

In a Hong Kong dress shop:

Order your summers suit. Because is big rush we will execute customers in strict rotation.

From the Soviet weekly:

There will be a Moscow Exhibition of the Arts by 15,000 Soviet Republic painters and sculptors. These were executed over the past two years.

In an East African newspaper:

A new swimming pool is rapidly taking shape since the contractors have thrown in the bulk of their workers.

In a Vienna hotel:

In case of fire, do your utmost to alarm the porter.

In Germany’s Black Forest:

It is strictly forbidden on our Black Forest camping site that people of different sex, for instance, men & women, live together in one tent unless they are married for that purpose.

An ad by a Hong Kong dentist:

Teeth extracted by the latest Methodists.

A Russian chess book:

A lot of water has been passed under the bridge since this variation has been played.

In the window of a Swedish furrier:

Fur coats made for the ladies from their own skin.

On a box of a clockwork toy in Hong Kong:

Guaranteed to work throughout its useful life.

Detour sign in Kyushu, Japan:

Stop—Drive sideways.

Swiss mountain inn:

Special today–no ice cream.

Copenhagen airline ticket office:

We take your bags and send them in all directions.

Moscow hotel room:

If this is your first visit to the USSR, you are welcome to it.

Norwegian cocktail lounge:

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.

Budapest zoo:

Please do not feed the animals. If you have any suitable food, give it to the guard on duty.

A notice in a Japanese hotel (ca. 1950):

Please not to steal towels. If you are not person to do such, please not to read notice.

Office of a Roman doctor:

Specialist in women and other diseases.

Acapulco hotel:

The manager has personally passed all the water served here.

Tokyo shop:

Our nylons cost more than common, but you’ll find that they are best in the long run.

Japanese instructions on an air conditioner:

Cooles & Heates: If you want just condition of warm in your room, please control yourself.

Car rental brochure in Tokyo:

When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor.

Two signs from a Majorcan shop entrance:

English well talking. Here speeching American.

A sign on the lion cage at a zoo in the Czech Republic:

No smoothen the lion

A Finnish hotel’s instructions in case of fire:

If you are unable to leave your room, expose yourself in the window.

In a Japanese restaurant (ca. 1950):

We reserve the right to serve refuse to anyone.

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for, Usman has FINALLY sent his guest post! (and the audience goes wild!) Roll camera in five, four, three, two….action!

Are we live?? *spits in hand and straightens out hair* “Hi there, this is Aww Smfreek reporting to you live from Abezistan. I’ve been given an unusual assignment dear viewers, last nite i received a telephone call from an editor at large calling herself DeOwl. She asked me to get a scoop on the ruler of Abezistan, The Terror of the Tarmac, Abez herself. In return I have been promised a lifetime supply of juice at a Pehelvan Mango Juice stall. Hmmm.. hope they have good juice.

*cue 10 min later* I’m now hanging on for dear life on a branch across from Abez’s room waiting for her to be woken up. *Thinks to self, ‘I’m doing all this for juice?? Monkeys get paid better than me!’*. Ahhh.. I believe this is Abez’s sister Aniraz coming into the room now. Oh wait, *turns to cameraman.. keep rolling you moron!* I think Aniraz is making faces at Abez while she sleeps. Ahh.. she’s waking her up now… oh wowsers, it seemz as though Abez just threw a fit for being woken up and Aniraz has been knocked to the floor by the flailing hands of Sensei Speed Demon.

*cue 15 min later* Now we see Abez running into the kitchen with a purple Jilbab trailing behind heras she realizes she’s an hour late to work already! No Abez.. not that cup of coffee, it’s been there all nite and i’ve seen 2 cockroaches have a dip in it! *Without even looking, abez picks up the coffee and downs it* Oh well, at least i’ve heard in China they use cockroaches for some kinda medicine. Hopefully the crunchy goodness will come to good use later on.

Now dear viewers we see sensei speed demon tearing up the asphalt as she rushes to get to her first class. Oh no, it seems as though she’s juss been cut off by a greased up desi young dude type. Seeing this Abez floors it, comes up alongside the hoodlum…

*We interrupt this bulletin for some commercials.. “Are you tired? Do you feel you don’t have the energy?? The only way to freshen yourself up is Liptonite Yellow Label. Liptonite… Aaj peejiay.. fooran ulti keejiay!”* (Translation : Liptonite, drink today.. throw up straight away!)Then Abez lowers the window and drops the dreaded…. Banana peel… The greased up hoodlum skids and crashes to the side as Abez speeds away. <>

Abez has just finished teaching her last student and is sitting there while her student goes to get her some water. In comes a 3 yr old. Abez’s face lights up when she sees the three year old waddle up to her. *GASP* The child has just handed Abez a microfilm. Abez smiles and leaves the house. We’re trying to stay reasonably back ladies and gentleman as we dont wanna be detected. Darrnit she’s just turned off into that dark alley… *car turns into alley* Where’d she go??? It’s a dead end and her car’s gone.. literally vanished into thin air! Lemme just step outta the car here and… whooooops.. *splat* The old banana peel!!

*Abez and her sister walk up to the reporter*.

Aww Sumfreek : But how did you two know I was following you???

Aniraz *puts a weird electronic thingy to her throat which changes her voice* : I’m sorry Mr.Sumfreek, but it seems we wont be doing business after all!

Aww Sumfreek : *GASP* DEOWL???

Aniraz : Hahahha.. It was soo simple I’ll probably treat myself to some Mango juice!

Aww Sumfreek : But why did you do all this??

Abez : I was tired of reading the same old stories in the newspapers… I wanted something new! I am the ruler after all.

Aww Sumfreek : But how do you fit in Miss Aniraz?

Aniraz : Simple.. I’m an editor.. It’s my job to stir up news to sell papers!

Aww Sumfreek : Noooooooooooooo *dies*

The End

Moral Of the Story : Watch out for those banana peels and dont believe everything you read!!

This guest post could not have come at a better time, since all yesterday (and today too) I was down and out with food poisoning and any blog I wrote would been like: Gee I’m sick. I have a fever, and the land of Abezistan is in upheaval. My doctor says I can only eat yogurt. He made mention of white rice and bananas too, but since I can’t stand either of the two, I am limited to yogurt simply by process of elimination. So I promptly went out and bought myself a chocolate bar. Chocolate has wonderful curative properties. So do coffee-flavored cockroaches apparently. Hey, I feel better already. 🙂

I win!

Haha! I beat my dad in a best-of-three checkers match. (That’s draughts to all you Britishers). I also creamed my sister in two matches of backgammon. (That’s Tavla to all you Turks) I haven’t actually purchased or made a backgammon board, I’m just babysitting Crayon’s board while she’s off in Europe for the holidays. (God bless you Crayon Darling!). I’m on a roll here folks, all I need now is to win a game of Scrabble and a game of chess and I can declare myself to be the House Champion of Everything. He he…

Problem is, my mother, sister, father and I are all very closely matched when it comes to Scrabble, and Aniraz doesn’t actually enjoy chess enough to play me. My little brother and I used to play, but he’s out of the country right now. So now I have to set the board up, make a move, run around to the other side of the table, counter my own move, run around to the other side of the table again…

Anybody remember the CGI movie, A Bug’s Life? Before the film started there was a charming CGI short film about a little old man playing chess with himself- and cheating. I’ll be that little old man. At one point in the game I’ll have to fake a heart attack and knock a few pieces off the board or something. The good thing about playing myself though, is that I ALWAYS win. (mwahaha!!!) This is compared to backgammon, where I often lose to Crayon, and to checkers, where I only win against my father about 40% of the time, and in Scrabble I win as often as I lose. Hmmm. I’m beginning to think this House Champion of Everything thing isn’t quite as possible as I would like…

I’ve been reading Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince for one of my classes, and it makes me depressed. It’s all about keeping power once you’ve gotten it, by whatever means necessary. (Among other things, he sez that the only way to hold a captured principate is to KILL any and all members of the previous ruler’s family so there is no chance of them rising up years later to take the territory away from you) Machiavelli maintained that ethics and morals had no place in politics or diplomacy.

I don’t disagree with the fact that Machiavelli’s theories are effective, I just don’t think they’re good, especially since everyone, including politicians, are answerable to God for their decisions. Politics is not a greater god that you can sacrifice ethics, accountability, and human rights for. Yeah, politics is currently survival of the shadiest and dog-eat-dog and devious cut-throat conspiracies and all that stuff, but it doesn’t have to be.

And besides, the end doesn’t justify the means. Just because you’re doing something horrible and cruel for the sake of your country doesn’t mean that makes it ok. Your country is no more or less important than anyone else’s country, and with your logic, your enemies could justify the slaughter of your people for the sake of their country. Would that make what they did ok? No? Then how come it would be ok for you to do it?

If all bad things could be justified so long as they were done in the interest of national security (Oh wait, they already are in SOME places….collateral damage my foot) then there would be no guarantee of human rights. The duplicity that already exists because of the Nationalism-A-OK theory is evident in the fact that the people who died in the Twin Towers attack are victims, maybe even martyrs, but the people who die from US bombing in Afghanistan and Iraq aren’t even victims, just collateral damage.

But I’ve gotten ahead of myself. Not everything Machiavellian involves killing people, but I think that if there’s one place where the world needs MORE ethics (as compared to none) it’s in politics. Though Machiavelli’s book is accurate and pragmatic because the current political world is totally amoral and dishonest, that’s not the way it should be. To quote Robert Orben,

“We have enough people who tell it like it is. Now we could use a few who tell it like it can be.”

Aha! I knew it! My mental thermometer is accurate. Yesterday I thought it was about 41 Celcius/102 Fahrenheit, and I was right! :::does a sweaty victory lap around the computer chair:::

:::dies of heatstroke:::

Ever since moving to Pakistan I’ve been trying to come up with a realistic analogy to explain precisely how hot it is. Hot as hell? That’s about as explanatory as ‘Cold as hell.’

Hot as a convection oven? Nah, no one’s ever been inside a convection oven so they can’t relate.

Hotter than a black dog in the August sun, in Mississippi, in a toaster oven? (don’t ask)

I finally came up with a good analogy, I really did. Pakistan is as hot as a blow-dryer pointed at your face (set on medium heat, not cold shot). It really is, if you drive with the windows down the hot air takes your breath away, dries out your eyeballs and bakes your skin till it feels tight, and maybe even golden-brown. -tssssss- It’s so hot here that I use more chap stick in the two hottest months of summer than I do all winter in the US. (lest the lips dry up and fall right offa my desiccated face)

I can’t wait until monsoon season starts and the sky opens up and drops sheets of vertical rain on us. But you know, once monsoon season begins I won’t be able to wait till it ends and fall begins. And once I get sick of fall I’ll….

As a rule

Man is fool

When it’s hot

He wants it cool

When it’s cool

He wants it hot

Always wanting

What is not.

-Author unremembered (maybe Ogden Nash)

Just in case anyone’s wondering why so many comments on my tag board have gone unresponded to, it’s because my own tag board won’t let me post half the time. So, I’ll respond here instead. I wanted to reply to A’s comment about moving back to Islamabad.

I moved here about 3 years ago from the States, and though it’s been disappointing at times, I really haven’t regretted it. I kinda have a love/hate relationship with Pakistan, and with Islamabad (my current city ) and Karachi (my favorite city, United Bakery Zindabad!).

I love Pakistan because: The people (the common ones, just walking down the street) here are still basically good. If your car breaks down, ten guys will help you fix it, or if it can’t be fixed, they’ll push it to the side of the road and even call you a cab.

Chivalry (in some form or another) ain’t dead. I say this because once my cousin was sitting on a bus in Karachi when a guy sat down behind her and started poking her from behind. She changed seats and he followed her. She changed seats again and he followed again. Then she stood up and yelled at him. You know what happened then? The other guys on the bus got wind of what was happening, and they grabbed the poking pervert, threw him out of the bus and beat the holy snot out of him. Then they piled back into the bus and drove away. Though perverts exist in every country, I like to think that in Pakistan, for every pervert there are still a hundred guys willing to beat the crap out of him if you tell them what’s going on.

A similar thing happened to my sister and I on an international flight from Pakistan to the US. Some young morons kept making rude comments and purposely jostling the back of our seats, we told the nice old Pakistani uncle sitting next to us, and he stood up and screamed at them so loudly that the entire plane heard it (shame shame), and then he had the stewardess change our seats.

I also love living in Pakistan because there is still a strong sense of community here. (by here I mean anywhere but Islamabad) In lower-middle class neighborhoods where not everyone owns a car, (like where some of my family lives) a person who owns a nice car in the neighborhood gets the honor of driving everyone’s brides around. The person with the car enjoys an elevated status, like everyone’s big brother. This same car, when it’s not transporting brides, is also the neighborhood ambulance. If you get sick at 1 am, you just send a man from your house around to pick the keys up from the car owner.

Why I hate living in Pakistan though, the police are corrupt, the government is corrupt, drugs are obscenely cheap and shockingly common, the elite running this country are mainly godless heathens and you can’t buy or sell anything (property-wise) without the clerk demanding a bribe from you. My father bought a piece of land and the CDA office withheld his ownership papers for six months because he wouldn’t pay the clerk 25,000 rupees of ’Mubarak Money’ (Mubarak means congratulations, 25k is over four hundred dollars). My dad hates, hates, hates corruption and won’t bribe anyone for anything. He was calling the office every week and screaming at people to no avail. Finally one day our real estate agent showed up with the ownership papers in his hand and handed them to my father. Turns out that he got so tired of watching my father stress and fight that he paid the bribe himself. Twenty five thousand rupees is a lot of money.

See, normally, you pay a bribe when you want to do something illegal. Here, they expect you to pay a bribe just to do normal things, to get by. You go to the motor vehicle office to transfer ownership of a car and the clerk goes, “Sorry sir, I can’t seem to find your paperwork. Perhaps you can convince me to look for it?” Then you’re expected to pay him.

Hmmm. I don’t want to slander Pakistan, because I really do love it. I love the people here, but I equally hate those people who are exploiting the country and running it into the ground. It would be one thing if Pakistan was fighting a large group of criminals. But the problem is that Pakistan’s run by a large group of criminals. (100 ministers went to hajj with their families on Zakat funds last year. None of them have been punished) How can you fight something like this? You feel really hopeless sometimes. But still, I don’t regret coming here! Though if someone asked me whether I thought it was a good idea to leave the US or UK and come to a Muslim country, I’d say yes, but try the UAE instead, ok? (not Duabi though, too wild and fancy free. The other emirates are a little more sedate…)

-sigh-

Yes, the rape stats in the US are MUCH higher than here in Pakistan. True, not all rape is reported in Pakistan, but nor is all rape reported in the US. If we’re going to compare the two rape rates, we can’t just compare America’s reported rape to Pakistan’s reported and unreported together (that would be biased, no?). Either compare both reported+unreported for both countries or just compare the reported.

To say that rape has nothing to do with lust and desire is like saying theft has nothing to do with acquisition, or murder has nothing to do with killing. True, a man can still feel desire for a woman who is modestly covered, but there’s a big difference between him lusting over a covered woman as compared to an uncovered one.

A man lusting over an uncovered woman is like a guy walking down the street and seeing a diamond lying out in the open, so he picks it up. Yeah, technically he’s stealing it, but the burden of responsibility for the theft rests on both him and whoever left the diamond out. The fact that the diamond was just lying there may not make what he did any more acceptable, but it sure makes the job for his defense lawyers easier! I’m sure the analogy is fairly straightforward. Though there is no excuse for the man to have stolen/raped, one wonders at the wisdom of the diamond owner/woman who left what was precious lying out in the open for others to covet.

A man lusting over a covered woman is the equivalent of a thief in a museum circumventing all the high-tech security devices and stealing the diamond that he purposely sought out (as compared to the diamond he just found lying on the floor). The owner of the diamond has done the best she can to keep it hidden and well-protected, and if someone steals it, the burden of blame does not lie with her in any way. She did all she possibly could, and if something precious was taken from her, it’s because someone maliciously sought it out, not because she was careless about it.

Logically speaking, if there were no diamonds lying about and tempting potential thieves, there would be a lot less opportunistic theft (rape). There is a big difference between premeditated crime and spur-of-the-moment crime. Unfortunately, modesty will not deter a man who is predetermined to rape a woman, who has premeditated the crime for whatever reason. Fortunately, what it will prevent is an incident like the Puerto-Rican National Day Parade in New York, in 2000.

The Puerto-Rican National Day festivities are notable for the fact that the women go there in the smallest, more revealing clothes possible. The young men go there with video cameras specifically to see these women. What happened that year began pretty normally, women in bikinis and cut-offs strutted around and the men whistled and hooted, and pinched, and horsed around, and then sprayed water, and then sprayed beer, and then surrounded the women and tore off their clothes, assaulting them in broad daylight. This mob of men went on a rampage for four hours, surrounding women and doing a lot more than just harassing them. A French tourist in New York on honeymoon had every stitch of clothing torn off her body. A woman roller-blading by in shorts was knocked over and assaulted. Another woman who had gone there in a bikini was stripped of her clothing (if you can call a bikini clothing) and…I’m sure you know where I’m going.

Could this have happened if the men’s testosterone hadn’t been stirred up? Would the men have been this out of control if there had been nothing there to excite them? Would this have happened if the women had been dressing and behaving modestly? Probably not. The men bear full responsibility for what they did, ( I think they should’ve been castrated) regardless of what the women were wearing. But the women also have to bear responsibility of what they were wearing. If we don’t take responsibility, we sure as hell better be prepared to take the consequences.

One may argue that a woman is a scarf attracts attention, making the scarf counter-productive. To that, I would say that the attention that a hijabi among uncovered women gets is the same attention that a yellow sun-flower would get if it were growing in a field of red poppies. It’s the contrast that catches people’s attention. But this contrast does not culture lust, just curiosity. A man glancing over and seeing a hijabi at a bus stop would probably go, Hmmm? As compared to a man seeing a woman in a mini-skirt at a bus stop, he would probably go, Mmmm…

It’s a biological fact that men are attracted to women. (I’m not going to talk about the exceptions, [homosexuality] I’m just going to talk about the norm.) The norm is that men are attracted to women, and the reality is that not all men control themselves. Therefore, to preserve order, the men have to try to behave and the women have to try not to make it hard for them. I’m doing my part, dammit. You better do yours!

Any other questions? As a hijabi I’m well prepared to talk this subject to death if necessary. 🙂

OOOOOoooOOOOOOOoooohhh…. (a sad noise, not a buffalo noise) Everyone is leaving! My friend Chai is in the States on vacation, Crayon’s going back to Europe for the summer, so are my swimming buddies from Sweden, and my Australian hijabi is going back to Australia! Nuts! Now I have to run out and make some new friends to replace the ones that are zipping off and leaving me here to melt like Asli Ghee in the heat!

The summer here is boring because everyone who can, leaves. The really rich (I mean foreigners) go back to their home countries, the medium rich rent summer cottages in Murree, and that leaves the Local Yokels like me to sweat it out and twiddle our thumbs. It was so hot today that I saw two bul-bul (a type of bird) hiding in the shade under a tiny bush and panting. They were just standing there with their mouths open, not chirping or flying or pecking anything, just panting. I shouldn’t complain though. It gets hotter in Multan and Sibbi and in most of the Middle East. I wonder what the birds do then?

It’s been an extremely busy day today, and anything I blog about will most likely be in the form of whining. Therefore I shall do my class work instead. Here, let’s make sentences with the following vocabulary words…

Vacillating: Gee, it’s so hot I need to turn on the vacillating fans!

Impede: The pir sneezed and the buffalos got scared and impeded.

Upheaval: After eating sixteen pieces of pizza the boy felt sick and experienced an upheaval.

Discourse: I asked him how long he had been studying here, and he said it was six months since he started discourse.

Posterity: What that boy needs is a good swift kick in the posterity…

It’s 9:30 and I think I’m going to pray and go to sleep. I can’t help it, I’m chronically sleep depraved.

(He he.)

Well, I’ve done it. I’ve sewed my new jilb, and I’ve learned that sewing involves a lot more than just….umm…sewing. It also involves-

A bit of mechanical engineering:

“Mom, I can’t get the bobbin back in.”

“Take off the stitch plate and poke around with the seam ripper.”

“I already tried that.”

“Then just beat it back in. Show it who’s boss.”

A bit of math:

Nape to waist, 17 inches. Shoulder to shoulder, 15 inches. Waist to hip slope at a roughly 70 degree angle, corresponding parts of congruent triangles are congruent…

A bit of history:

You made the same mistake last year, remember?

A bit of drama:

She closed her tired eyes and slowly lowered her head so that it was resting on the sewing machine. Could she, would she, ever finish? It seemed as though the sewing machine’s mechanical stutter had been going for hours. She could hear it even now though her foot was no longer resting on the pedal. Oh wait, yes it was, and now she had sewed her sleeve shut again. Nuts.

A bit of aesthetics:

Which shape should I use to trace the neckline, this rectangular grammar book or a scoop-necked dinner plate?

A bit of philosophy:

Abez: How much faith should one put in fellow man? Especially when that man is a tailor?

Plato: The actual is preexistent to the actual in potential.

Abez: True, but couldn’t we give him another chance? Even just to finish what we’ve started and don’t feel like finishing?

Plato: To start and to finish are interchangeable, and The Beginning and The End often masquerade as one another. You must find your own way and see where it leads you and –

Abez: Hey, who sews your togas?

Alhamdulillah, the jilb I sewed turned out ok. I did make the sleeves a bit narrow, but I’m pretending like I did that for effect. It’s a totally simple A-line, in a really deep purple that I refuse to call ‘wine-colored’ for religious reasons. Nothing I wear is wine colored, dammit. It’s really dark 100% halal grape juice colored, ok?

I’d blog more but I’m all tuckered out from sewing, and I still have to hem the sleeves, and I still have to do my class work for tomorrow. But I must include the link for the New American Century Project that I got off of a comment on Tora’s blog. This is the official (and unrepentant) site for that horrible colonialist Neo-Conservative project that I mentioned a few days back. www.newamericancentury.org

I saw a guy on a bike carrying a live peacock under his arm today. Gotta love living in this country…

Well, I’m putting my money where my mouth is (200 rupees to be exact) and I’m going to sew my own jilb. -gasp- I just bought a piece of georgette and I’m clicking my scissors at it in anticipation. The good thing is, I think it’ll turn out ok, InshaAllah. The bad thing is, if it comes out awful, I can’t blame the tailor for it. And if it turns out REALLY awful, I’ll be disillusioned and I’ll have to go back to the tailor. The possibilities for disaster are endless. Hmm.

Had an interesting discussion in class today. One of the funny things about being bi or trilingual is that you hear words in one language that mean something totally bizarre in another. This came up when I noticed that every single one of my Turkish students giggled when we came to the word ‘pathos’ in a vocabulary sheet. In Turkish, pathos are potato chips, and apparently this is funny.

My Irani student was telling me about how the name of a popular Pakistani sweet translates to an extremely obscene word in Persian, and one Pakistani man who knew this took very obvious and very perverse pleasure out of insisting she have some. (moron)

Speaking of morons, our new Prime Minister Zafar Something-or-other Jamali, personally initiated the festivities of the Urs at Bari Imam. That’s the malang Woodstock (props to Shad) that all those filthy fools are in town for. Today the paper is full of pictures of them up to their usual Urs traditions, dancing, smoking charas (marijuana resin) and going into trances. I saw several Urs processions on Sunday, hundreds of people led by malangs, waving colorful banners, beating drums, singing off key and carrying around a big, decorated box, not unlike the Ark of the Covenant (Indiana Jones and Raiders of The Lost Ark.) It was covered in shiny bits and draped in flowers like a Hindu shrine or a Catholic saint statue.

What’s in the box? I don’t know. What could be so important that they would decorate it and have four guys carrying it around on their shoulders for all the devotees to touch and adore? My mother thought the box might be a reliquary containing some body part (like a tooth or a fingernail) of the Bari Imam. Aniraz thought it would be a big box of mithai. You know what? They’re both wrong. That box is actually their week’s supply of DRUGS!

Losers.

Well, I’m going to go menace my new piece of cloth with a yellow crayon. I’m going to draw lines for where I think things are supposed to be (sleeves here, waist there) and in the end we’ll compare this to where things actually went (sleeves there!? waist where?).

This could be interesting. But chances are it’ll just be tragic.

New stuff on my fotolog. Actually, all of it’s old, but it’s new to you, ok? Just go look. Sensei sez so!

Eeek! Eeek! Eeek! The Beginning of Another Week!

Sitting at the computer eating barbeque sauce (fridge is empty) and drinking Amrat Cola (boycott Coke and Pepsi!) and having another hermit crab moment. -I don’t wanna go back to work tomorrow morning. I feel like pulling a William Wallace and screaming out at the top of my lungs, FREEEEEEEDOM!

-sigh-

I watched the most disturbing documentary on BBC World last night. I don’t know what it was called, but it was about the Neo-Conservative take-over of the US government. Btw, Neo-Conservativism translates into : Pro-Israel, Pro US-Imposed Democracy, open and un-ashamed use of military might to reshape the world according to US interests.

There was this paper written by a bunch of Neo-Conservative brains called The Project of the New American Century, and it outlined how to safeguard US and Israeli interests. This outline included reshaping (by whatever means or force necessary) the entire Middle East to best ensure US economic security (insert oil war here) and superiority. It specifically mentioned regime replacement for Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. The scary thing is that half of the people who took part in writing this paper (including Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle) are in the Whitehouse.

Some big-nosed chick (her first name was Mayrev) was very smugly telling the camera that Neo-Conservatives (she’s one of them) haven’t brainwashed the president, it’s just that he’s so very open to their suggestions and willing to listen to their logic. (she actually used the word susceptible) My theory is, you can’t brainwash someone who doesn’t have a brain, but I digress. She was very happy about how they’re in power now, and quite ok with the democracy-thru-violence program. (I think she called it a war for liberty and democracy the world over.)

The reporter interviewed many of the people who took part in this paper, and one of them, last name Cohen (can’t remember his first name), said this was World War Four, a war against the type of Islam that is hostile to the West. (his WW III was the cold war against communism) You know, I’m not a conspiracy theorist. When things are this open, who needs to be?

I don’t know why they even both pretending about this ‘war for democracy and freedom’ and crap. It’s just good old fashioned colonialism. The US is locking in cheap oil prices and safeguarding their interests. They’re not making the world safe for anything but themselves. (last I checked, dropping bombs was a distinctly un-safe thing to do)

Oh, wait, they’re making it safe for capitalism too. Forgot about that. There was a great cartoon in the paper the other day. A starving Iraqi kid is sitting on a pile of rubble, and in dances Ronald McDonald with a briefcase that says ‘Oil for Double Cheese Burgers Program’.

I keep thinking about one of the T-shirts that a guy was wearing at a pro-war rally, ‘First Iraq, then France’ and then there’s always my favorite bumper sticker, ‘Kick Their A**, Take The gas.’

You know, it’s a good thing the world will be wiped out on Judgment Day, cuz it’s all going to hell in a hand basket anyway.

“Are they who plan ill deeds then secure that Allah will not cause the earth to swallow them, or that the doom will not come on them whence they know not? Or that He will not seize them in their going to and fro so that thereby no escape for them?…” -The Holy Qur’an, 16:45…

They’ll get theirs. (wait then, we too are waiting)

I just got back from a condolences reception for the mother of one of our friends. (She passed away and was buried on Wednesday, but they were receiving visitors this weekend.) I didn’t really want to go to the reception, who would, really. What do you say to someone when their mother has died? Formally, you say, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss,’ etc, but what you’re really thinking is ‘Thank God my mother is still alive.’ And then you feel guilty because really there’s no way you can begin to even relate to the person who lost their mother because you still have yours.

It was awkward, but I‘m glad I went. It’s true, you know, remembering death polishes the heart. I’m thinking about what it would be like if either of my parents died and suddenly I’m feeling guilty. The Qur’an orders Muslims to be super-good to their parents, “And say not to them a word of disrespect, nor rebuke them…”

The ‘word of disrespect’ mentioned in the Qur’an is ‘uff!’ (fa la taqullahuma uffin wa la tanharhuma). Every culture has their uff!, the little noise that people make when they’re exasperated or irritated. In English I think you say ‘tsk,’ and then you roll your eyes for good measure. In Urdu it’s ‘oof!’ and then you slap your forehead. I’m guilty of rather a lot of both, being bi-lingual and all, English disrespect for my mother and Urdu disrespect for my father. Shame on me, really. Especially since I know better.

My nephew (say MashaAllah!) and his mother (my sister-in-law) lived with us for five months. He came when he was five months old, and at that stage he fussed a lot and had to be changed every few hours and fed all the time. Even with my mother, my sister and I helping my sister-in-law out, she still had quite a job on her hands. A kid, at any age actually, is a lot of work. My parents raised four of them, each one two years apart. It blows my mind when I think of how anyone manages to take care of one kid let alone four of them. The love and devotion that a parent puts into each and every kid pales in comparison to the pathetic amount of love we give back, and yet we have the nerve to say uff.

I’m going to go hang my head in shame now. And I’m going to try to be much more patient with my parents. I shouldn’t have to wait for one of them to die before I remember that I love them.

“Your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him, and that you show kindness to your parents. Whether one or both of them attains old age, say not to them a word of disrespect, nor rebuke them, but speak to them a gracious word. And lower to them a wing of mercy and compassion and say, ‘My Lord! Have mercy on them both as they did care for me when I was young.’” The Holy Qur’an, 17:23-24

Must give props where props are due. Props to:

Aniraz, for the creative brilliance behind ‘Tartar sauce, the fish that doesn’t swim.’ I forgot to attribute that quote to her.

Sahar, for helping me replace my defunct tag board. *dies*

Usman, for ALMOST making me forget that he owed me a guest post. ALMOST. I’m still waiting.

Crayon, for a lovely time a lunch today. Hello!

Otty: for letting me know that all I had to do to fix my tag board was get new html. You’re a genius!

And well, obviously I must thank Allah for creating me and giving me health and blessing me with Iman and all that really great stuff that I would be dead without. Alhamdulillah!

What else? You know, I’ve started three different blogs and then deleted them all. The first one was about how the flies have hidden the flyswatter from me. (clever little buggers) The second was about how hot the weather is and how much I’d rather be eating ice-cream than real meals. The third was about how it’s silly for me to try to blog when I have nothing of worth to mention and I’d rather be building teeny-tiny castles instead. You see where this is heading?

I’m going back to the castle. My people need me.

(All Hail! King of the Losers!)

Actually, I don’t spend all that much time playing games. I’m mad at the game, it’s been cheating. I built a stone wall to protect my filthy little peasants from wolves, and you know what happened? The wolves walked through the stone walls and devoured roughly thirty percent of my population. Those wolves are not supposed to be able to walk through stone walls! Hmmph!

I’ve decided that I should try to make use of this summer. Maybe get myself a pool membership (finally) and go back to studying Arabic. Perhaps even go back to college. True, I’m an English teacher now, but that’s not what I want to be ten years from now. You know, I’ve always wanted to be something exciting, like a doctor. Or a pirate. (That’s pirlanta in Turkish, in case you’re wondering)

Medicine is an expensive subject though, I wonder if Punjab University has a faculty Marine Mayhem? Yelling out stuff like, ‘Put yer backs into that swabbing ye lily-livered sea-dogs lest I keel-haul ye!’ sure is more exciting than teaching English. English is a boring language. They tell me that even German is more exciting. A mitten, for example, is called a hand-shoe in German. Cool, hunh? And a scoundrel is called a shlingel. ‘Du bist ein shlingel’ sounds better than ‘You are a scoundrel,’ doncha think?

(No, not often.)

I wish I could blame the heat for my lack of mental prowess, but it’s 1:30 am and relatively cool again. Oh nuts, I have work in the morning. It never ceases to amaze and disappoint me that having a job means you can’t sleep till noon anymore. Who was it that mentioned this on their blog eons ago? It was either Usman or Shad, one of them was telling everyone to enjoy the lazy days now because once you have a job they’re over and done for. It’s true. My normally excessive sleep schedule has been so damaged by having a daily job that even my weekend sleep is ruined. I’ll wake up in the morning on Saturday and stare at the alarm clock in horror, thinking I’ve overslept and haven’t prepared any of my lessons. I do realize what day it is eventually, but just the shock of it all ruins my dreams till I get out of bed again by noonish.

I’m going to sleep now. -sigh-

Work today wasn’t as bad as I dreaded. I did have three classes, and I did get a mysterious paper cut, but on the other hand, I got two cups of Turkish tea, a glass of juice, a video game and a magazine. The video game is just borrowed, thank God. If I actually owned it I might spend the rest of my free time building castles and bossing miniature soldiers around. (I’m playing Stronghold, it’s a strategy thing.)

I get to be Bravely Bold Sir Lord Robin. Quite a title for a knight only a centimeter tall, eh? I strut about the castle ramparts ordering around badly trained, itty-bitty armies to defend my squalid group of dirty, drunken, surly peasants who steal cheese from the granary and flex their muscles at the screen. Filthy inebriated ingrates!

I try not to spend so much time playing video games. First of all, because I’m supposed to have better things to do. (actually, if I wasn’t playing I’d probably just be raiding the empty fridge or making a mess in some other part of the house) Second, because it makes my eyes water and my brain atrophy.

Ah! I just remembered what I wanted to mention. Aniraz and I were driving to work this morn when we were cut off by a white Corolla. As it sped off, we noticed that there were stickers on the back windshield spelling out ‘Smooth Criminal.’ Aniraz and I were like, hmmmm….so we caught up with the guy and stole a peek at Mr. Smooth Criminal. You know what? He looked neither smooth nor criminal. His sticker should have said ‘Hairy Punjabi’ instead. (What’s with Punjabis and really big moustaches? I guess we’ll never know… )

They have the craziest stickers on people’s cars here. Just the other day I was driving behind a taxi, who in turn, was behind a huge bus. The sticker on the bus said, Look Me. The sticker on the taxi said, OK Bye. It was too much a coincidence, both of those stickers together. I don’t know what it meant, but I’m sure it was important…

I can’t think of much else. Probably because I’ve just gotten back from work and all I can think about is….work. I have work again tomorrow morning and nothing is ready and I’m dead tired. Aaaaargh! I still have a sore throat, maybe I can call my students and manage a few pitiful wheezes and they’ll say I sound terrible and I’ll tell them I need a day off. Then they’ll get suspicious because I was better yesterday than I was all last week and there‘s no way I could have relapsed into my cold having just gotten over it. Then if I want a day off I’ll have to go and mortally wound myself or run out and catch a quick disease of some sort, because injury and illness are valid excuses, but tiredness is not. Sigh. Maybe if I try hard enough I can burst my appendix again. Hey, it worked the first time.

I think I’m having a hermit-crab moment. I want to quit my job and stay home in the air conditioning and play video games wearing a soggy bandana on my head. The soggy bandana is quite important to proper rest and relaxation. It keeps your brain from overheating. You guys must not think ill of me for this madness. It was 99 degrees (Fahrenheit, that’s 39 in Celsius/Centigrade) today and I feel baked. When monsoon comes, I’ll be stewed instead. In case you’re wondering, I’m best served with onions, shallots, and mushrooms in a light hollandaise….

I’ve been neglecting my Islamic quote of the day. Quick Aniraz, read me something out of that book!

“Only an honorable man treats women with honor and integrity, and only a mean, deceitful, and dishonest man humiliates and insults women.” -The Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessings of Allah be upon him, reported by Ibn Asaker.

You know, I think I’ve posted that one before, but Aniraz really did just read me the first thing she came across.

Three cheers for randomness.

(Tartar sauce, the fish that doesn’t swim…)

DeKep is DeFunct.

I got to go to Faisal Masjid for Maghrib jamaat the other day. It’s got miles of cool white marble, soft yellow lights, and it’s nestled right in the Margalla hills so there’s always a breeze going. I get to wander around barefoot and just soak in the spiritual ambiance. Man, I love Masjids. 🙂

You know what’s weird, Faisal Masjid is also a tourist spot, so aside from it being full of barefoot people on their way to prayer, it’s also got a sprinkling of politely reverent-looking foreigners, and openly awed local villagers. The villagers are the easiest to spot since they come dressed up like they’re headed for a wedding, and instead of praying, they sit around and gawk at the Masjid and the musalleen. (musalleen= those who pray). I was walking to the prayer hall when I passed a group of villagers. Just as I walked by, the man pointed to me and said to his family in Punjabi, “And look, there’s an Arab!”



(And to think, this whole time I’ve been struggling to learn Arabic and it’s been my first language all along! Wow!)

What else? Well, it’s been a tough fight, but I think I’m winning the battle versus the bacteria (I have a nasty cold, or rather, a nasty cold has me!). Myself and the rag-tag surviving elements of the Army of Immunity have regrouped and we’re getting ready for a counter-strike. It’s true, the nose has been lost and the lungs have betrayed us, but the body is ours yet! We will never surrender! -koff koff- You know what’s weird? When I cough, it sounds like little gears are grinding inside my lungs. Neat, hunh?

(pin-drop silence)

Ok, so it’s not neat, but I don’t have many things to mention at the moment, ok? Aside from this snotty, messy cold and the daily day-in, day-out of teaching, nothing much has happened. Oh wait, something has happened. I have another installment in the series, Terrifying Tales of Tailoring!!! (queue scary music)

I’m a pushover, a pansy, a softy, so I gave the tailor another chance and three suits. Well, he didn’t disappoint me, he just crushed my faith in humanity and sartorial goodness completely. One of the jilbs was so big it hung off of me like a 40 kilo sugar sack. The shoulders were on my elbows, the hem hung to the floor. The other two were actually wider at the torso than they were at the hips. (what the hibbity-dibbity?) Charming, I assure you. One of these had a grease stain on the back. So aside from wearing them, sweating on them and occasionally vomiting on them, I guess now he’s wrapping pakoras in my jilbs then, eh?

I spent this evening repairing my summer jilbs even before being able to wear them for the first time. I’ve gotten so much sewing practice off of things he’s ruined that I’m starting to wonder if I should just skip him and make the jilbs myself. I know how to sew, I’m just lazy about it and prone to making mistakes when I get tired. Once I sewed my sleeves shut. (…just once? Wait, actually I think it was three times…) Plus, even on his worst days, the tailor is still ten times better than I am. Then why would I do my sewing myself? Because I am free and he is not. Khallas.

Hmm. It’s 2 am and I would be finished with my worksheets for tomorrow’s classes if it weren’t for the fact that I’m blogging instead. You know, for someone who’s pretending to be a teacher I sure am a lazy bum. But sssshhhhh, that’s a secret. Can’t tell any of my students that I’m nothing more than a doofus in disguise. I go home after class and play video games and watch cartoons and when it’s time to go back to work I whine and go, “I don’t wanna go to class!” Then I try to convince my momma that I have a fever or something. You know all those tricks that kids do on TV, warming the thermometer up with a light bulb or pretending to be ill, these tricks only work on TV. No mother in their right mind buys it. Especially not mine. I go, “Mom! -koff koff- I can’t go to work, I’m sick!”

And them my mom goes, “What’s the matter?”

Then I moan and quickly rub my forehead in the hope that the friction will generate some heat. Then I shuffle over to my mother and put my forehead on her shoulder. She feels my head and says, “You don’t have a fever.”

“Yeah,” I says, “But I think my appendix just burst.”

“They took that out last year.” she says simply.

“The other one burst, the one they didn’t take out.”

“And what are your other symptoms?”

“Well,” I says, “My eyes are burning and my head hurts.”

“Your eyes are burning because you just woke up and your head hurts because it’s empty. Now get dressed and go to work!”

Then I have to go to work. Bummer.

Tonight’s English Night and I have brownies to bake and things to type up and stuff to do. (stuff!) If anyone asks, I’m not home, ok? Talk amongst yourselves until I return. Adieu! -Sensei

A man stumbles into his house drunk, and his wife starts screaming at him. “Where have you been?!” she yells, “I’ve been waiting for you all night!”

The man gives her a fuzzy smile and says, “I’ve been to the Golden Saloon! You wouldn’t believe it, the chairs are golden, the bar is golden, the cups are golden. Hell!” he yells out, “Even the toilets are golden!”

“I don’t believe you, you stinking old drunk,” the wife said.

“Fine,” the man says, “Call them and see for yourself.”

So the woman gets the name of the Golden Saloon from the operator and then dials the number. A bartender picks up the phone.

“Hello,” he says.

“Is this the Golden Saloon?” the woman asks.

“Yeah, this is the Golden Saloon.”

“And do you have golden chairs?” she inquires.

“Yeah.”

“And a golden bar?”

“Yeah.”

“And golden glasses?”

“Yeah”

“And a golden toilet too?”

The woman hears the bartender exhale loudly and then call out to someone else in the bar, “Hey Mike! I think we got a lead on the guy who peed in your saxophone…”

People sez: Is the glass half empty, or half full?

I sez: Who cares. Say Bismillah and drink the water. Thank Allah for it and put the glass away. And stop sitting around and contemplating glasses of water, you weirdo!

I had an -ahem- interesting morning today. Woke up at ten o’clock (instead of 9) because the electricity was gone and none of the alarm clocks were working. Rushed off to work late and sick, finished and then went to pick up my mother. Got home, stepped out of the car, and tore a HUGE hole in one of my favorite jilbs. Then I walked into the house, sat down to lunch, and poured myself a lap full of lentils (yes, on the same jilbab). While I was washing the lentils off, I got my ring caught in the hole, and when I moved my hand, the hole got even bigger. It’s now so big I could put another plate full of lentils through it without even touching the frayed edges.

It’s a good thing that we Muslims don’t believe in omens, because otherwise, I’d say that the ‘Universe’ was trying to tell me that my jilbab had to go. In actuality, it’s just Allah testing my patience. The trick to winning the test is to not tear at my already-torn jilbab and scream. That would just make my throat more sore anyway.

In times of stress, it helps for me to apply what I call the ‘Post-Mortem’ test. (post mortem means after death, but I am NOT autopsying anything, unlike Sana….) I just ask myself, will this matter post-mortem? Will I care after I die? Will my torn jilbab affect my standing in the world and afterlife? No? Then relax, stupid! The only things worth getting really worked up about will be the ones that will count for me or against me in my book of deeds. Yeah, I tore a gaping hole in my jilb and then gave it an equally huge grease stain, but that‘s ok. The jilb couldn’t last forever anyway.

Inna Lillahi wa inna ileihi rajioon.

Verily we are from Allah and verily to Him is the return.

Aaargh. This always happens…I’ve picked up some imported germs (imported germs are from imported students, I teach English to foreigners working for embassies and whatnot). One of my students has had a cold and flu, and what a surprise, now I’m getting sick too. I’ve learned that foreign germs are the most belligerent and most effective because they use tactics that my immune system is unfamiliar with.

See, the foreign germs knock on the main gate, and the security guards of my immune system go, “Hark! Who goes there?” Then the foreign germs offer a sporting chance for my immune system to surrender or be ignominiously defeated. Bewildered, my immune system security guards run off to find a translator, because the foreign germs have issued their ultimatum in a foreign language. This leaves the gate undefended, and then foreign germs look at each other and shrug, and then yell out, “Chaaaaaaarge!”

And that is how the battle begins. So far, the foreign germs have taken control of my olfactory center, and are using the dreaded ‘Runny Nose’ attack. They are also gaining a foothold in my throat, and have caused damage to its infrastructure with their incessant attacks. This is called a ‘Sore Throat.’ The biggest problem of having a sore throat is that it changes my voice, making it a notch lower and kinda scratchy sounding. Then people on the phone don’t believe who I say I am, they think I’m a man. This is bad.

I can’t let myself get too sick. It will be a fierce battle, but I will win!

:::queue rousing, inspirational battle-type musical score:::

Abez: (Standing solemnly in front of an Abezistani flag, addressing the First Army of Immunity) Many of you will die before this day is over. I can offer you no comfort, no promises, except that should we lose, everything we hold dear will be destroyed. All that we love will be lost. The Foreign Germ Legion will commandeer the body and turn all available cells to the production of the two resources that the ruler of Germistan prizes so much: phlegm and mucus.

We have already lost the battle of the nose, and even as we speak, our comrades are falling in defense of the throat. We must see that their deaths are avenged. We must ensure that their blood is paid for with the blood of our enemies, that their lives are appeased with the lives of our enemies.

I know that it is a daunting task, our foe is an evil if not powerful force, and our fear of him is not unjustified. But our courage must be greater than our fear, for our losses shall we greater than our imaginations should we fail.

I call on you, Oh Chicken Soup Cavalry, and on you, Militia of Dr.Mom, to answer the call to battle. Together we will defeat our enemies and restore health to the body. We will fight that others may have peace. We shall die so that the body may live.

(cough cough)

May God have mercy on us all…

Well, now that I’ve gotten my hands on a copy of Microsoft FrontPage I’ve been causing all kinds of chaos. And since I somehow broke my tag board in the process, you can see that not all of it is the good kind of chaos. Well, I’ve repented. I have to get someone to give me a Front Page tutorial before I get all excited and start tearing up the pea-patch again. (Read James Thurber’s Sitting in the Catbird Seat) I’m having a terribly hard time trying to restore my blog to the way it was before I messed with it. I don’t know what the problem is, but when I look at the page (even though I’ve restored the original HTML that Tora sent) I get little A’s all over the page. Is anyone else getting that? I need help undoing the damage…

Well, it’s 3:30 am, and I’m still awake. Aside from the fact that I’m tired, I enjoy being up late night/early morn and hearing no cars, no city sounds, just chirping birds. Though I would enjoy it more if I wasn’t frustrated with my inability to successfully alter my blog. -sigh-

I learned something yesterday that I wanted to mention. That is: the reason why the UN vehicles in Islamabad drive so obnoxiously is because the drivers are instructed to always be the lead car when they stop at a light. That’s why they’re always rushing around and cutting people off, they don’t want to get stuck at light behind any other cars, because they consider that a security risk. They’re afraid of being blocked in traffic if they ever need to make a quick escape.

This may not sound very interesting to my comrades in blogistan abroad, but if you live in Islamabad and are cut off or driven off the road by at least two UN vehicles a day, then this is an epiphany. Suddenly the speeding, the passing on the shoulder of the road, the running of red lights, this all makes sense! Wow! How did I learn this? One of my students (who works for the UN) told me. We were talking about the many security precautions that some foreigners take here.

Basically, there are three types of foreigners in Islamabad. The first type is the First World Embassy/UN foreigner. This type is never seen outside of the embassy without a guard and a look of genuine nervousness and anxiety. Their security officers are always rumor-mongering and frightening these poor people out of their wits. I remember the last US embassy briefing we got was: “Terrorists posing as common street vendors will be targeting US citizens! Our intelligence tells us that they have bombs strapped to their bodies and can detonate themselves at any minute!“ Because these people are brainwashed to have an “us vs. them” mentality, they never mingle with the locals and lead very sheltered, very isolated lives.

The second type is the Second & Third world Embassy/NGO foreigner. Since none of the second world countries are particularly politically rapacious (for example: Mauritius, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, the Maldives, Nepal…) they have no reason to be afraid of the local political retaliation, and do not usually have armed guards, with the exception of the ambassador, and maybe the military attaches. They, as well as the foreigners working for NGO’s, zip around freely and enjoy themselves in the big hotels, tourist resorts, and shopping bazaars that the first-worlders live in mortal fear of.

The third type of foreigner in Islamabad is, ‘The Local Yokel.’ Those are foreigners who have gone native, usually from marrying a Pakistani or studying or working here for a long time. They usually speak tolerable Urdu, drink the tap water, shop local, and fit in pretty well. I think they have the most fun. Well, at least it seems like they’re having the most fun. I know I’m having fun! Part of the experience of living in Pakistan is in the bazaar food (and the ensuing illness) and the interactive shopping, the meeting of new people and seeing new places. You can’t do any of these things if you brush your teeth in bottled water, shop only in import stores, and hide in the embassy. (except when sunbathing at the UN club)

I feel kinda bad for the foreigners in category number 1. We know a guy who worked at the US embassy who used to be stationed in Karachi. Because Karachi is a bigger, rowdier, riskier city, the embassy staff were allowed to travel only between the embassy, their houses, and the McDonalds. No joke. Even for shopping, the embassy had a commissary store, you didn’t need to go out to buy anything. I suppose those poor people have more freedom when the US isn’t busy making itself World Terrorist No.1, but for now, they’re all holed up.

Ah, something exciting happened to me today. I was attacked by a lizard, a big dirty-looking one with beady eyes. Normally I have no problems with lizards. In fact, I think they’re rather cute. (I also think snakes are smooth and pretty, go figure) But today, as I walked into a stationary store, a lizard dropped down from the ceiling not one foot away from me onto a pile of notebooks. I looked at the lizard, and the lizard looked at me. It was a staring contest. Inevitably, the lizard won, because as far as I know, lizards don’t have eyelids. I could be wrong. But I blinked, and the lizard scurried through the notebooks, making quite a papery commotion, and then ran back up the wall.

Aniraz maintains that the lizard came not to attack me, but to revere me, since I am a friend of the lizards, not an enemy. That may be true, but the lizard came pretty close to landing on my head, and with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Woke up for Fajr this morning dead tired. Why? Because I’m a genius. I stayed up until 12:30 making my English Night prizes (with glitter, beads, cardboard, sequins, a glue gun, MWAHAHAA!!! Oh, and I et the egg.) and then I suddenly remembered that I had work in the morn. So then I was up until 3 am doing grammar sheets and class work.

So, when the alarm clock went off for Fajr at 4:45, I shuffled to the prayer rug, prayed, and then fell asleep after dua in sajdah position. Then I woke up at 5:30, disoriented and confused about what the heck I was doing sleeping with my face on the floor. It wasn’t all that bad, except both of my legs had gone completely numb.

I staggered back into bed and then woke up at 9:45, precisely two minutes before I was supposed to leave for work. I skulled a cup of lukewarm coffee and ran out the door trailing a wrinkly scarf and grammar sheets in my wake. The moral of this story? Be nice to your English teachers, they’re morons just like the rest of you. And if they sound like they’re tired and don’t know what they’re talking about, assume it’s because they are esoteric geniuses and you’re just too dense to know what they’re talking about.

What else was I going to blog about? Oh yeah, I’ve been teaching my students proverbs in English, and learning theirs in return. I learned some new ones to add to my repertoire.



The mouse cannot fit into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail. Means: You can’t even do the basics (fit in the hole) and now you’re trying to do the impossible. (fit a broom into the hole too) For example:

Techno-Twit: “Don’t worry, I’ll fix your blog up and give you some spiffy special effects!”

Joe Shmoe: “Fix my blog? You haven’t even fixed your OWN blog! The mouse cannot fit himself into the hole but he is trying to go in with a broom tied to his tail.”

The chicken has one leg. This is used when a person is lying outright. It’s the equivalent of, “Yeah, and I’m Mary, Queen of Scots.”

Quasimodo: “I am not only the best looking person in this room, I am also the cleanest, richest, and best-smelling.”

Joe Shmoe: “Of course. And the chicken has one leg.”

They have tons of cool proverbs in Ibo, a Nigerian language. You’ll find dozens of them in Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a tragic but excellently written book.

The old woman laughs uneasily when you joke of dry bones.

The sun shines on he who stands before it stand on he who kneels.

Like the lizard who jumped from the high Iroko tree, I will praise myself if no one else does.

Eneke the bird says: since men have learned to shoot without missing, I have learned to fly without perching.

If a child washes his hands he can eat with kings.

Ug. I’m going brain-dead. Trying to remember these proverbs has sapped my brain of what little energy was available. I think I’ll pray Asr and go crash on the sofa. That is, if I don’t fall asleep on the floor first…

“And your Lord has said: Pray to Me and I will hear your prayer.” -The Holy Qur’an, 40:60

oops. I posted double but I can’t just delete. How silly. Oh well. Here’s a different post then.

Some primal termite knocked on wood

Tasted it, and found it good

And that is why your Cousin May

Fell through the parlor floor today.

-Samuel Hoffenstein.

Karachi Rox!

I should just take Aniraz’s advice and not blog when I have nothing to blog about, but quite frankly, I’m just not that smart. If I was a smarter man, I would do things differently. I would do the work for my classes all at the beginning of the week instead of doing it a few hours before class everyday. That way I might have some free time even on days when I was working. As a smarter man, I would also resist my periodic urges to eat peanut butter. I caved today: I threw a dollop of peanut butter into some chocolate pudding and stirred at it with much enthusiasm. Then I et it, and I can’t believe I et the whole thing!!! Now I have heart-burn. Now, you’re supposed to use the ridiculous line my cousins always use, and you go, OoooOOooh, who is your heart burning for? Then I throw things at you.

Actually I miss my cousins. I have a whole horde of them in Karachi where my father’s half of the family is stationed. Visiting there involves sleeping all day (waking up for prayer and going back to sleep again) and playing cards all night. It also involves lots of junk food, lots of games, lots of really hilarious times. After Chicago, Karachi is what I consider to be my home city. I’m thinking of popping in for a week or so. I miss it- the greasy, hot junk food from the bazaars, the noise, the chaos, that funky Karachi smell. Karachi smells like diesel + sweat + spice.

Islamabad, on the other hand, smells only of car exhaust. It has its plusses though, like the fact that it’s clean, traffic is tolerable, there are other foreigners all over the place, and the best part is: It’s so darn small. I can get from one end of town to the other in under half an hour, not just because I’m Sensei Speed Demon, Terror of the Tarmac, but because this town is just so small. I remember living in Chicago, I commuted for an hour and a half, each way, just to get to college. In Karachi, it’s an hour to the beach. Here, if I drive for an hour, I’ll find myself half-way to Lahore! (Actually, Lahore is four hours, but who wants to go there anyway? It’s full of…ugh…Lahoris! 😛 j/k)

I’ve been to Lahore, but just the dirty out-skirts. I’ve also been to every single town and tiny village on the Grand Trunk road between Islamabad and Karachi. Multan, Kala sha kaku, Toba tek Singh, Sadiqabad…you name it, and I’ve stopped in it’s gas station and eaten its samosas. I must say I was very disappointed though. I blame global marketing for the fact that every single town looked exactly the same as the last: Low cement buildings completely plastered with Pepsi, Coke, and Capstan cigarette ads from here to Karachi. The same posters on the same dingy gray walls. I know that Pakistan has a beautiful architectural heritage, I just don’t know where they’re hiding it. Hmmmph.

Randomness to the Extreme -or- When Abez Blogs at 1 am.

How to kill a moth with window cleaner: Squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt squirt, victory dance.

****

One of my students is taking a vacation, and another one of them wants a rescheduling, and another one of them one wants more homework, and I am going to have an aneurism! Aaaargh! I should have been a hermit crab instead. But I shouldn’t complain. I should grin and bear it, and then go eat peanut butter when no one is looking.

****

I like this poem:

The Hamster

by Ogden Nash.

There is not much about the hamster

To stimulate the epigramster

The essence of his simple story,

He populates the laboratory

Then leaves his offspring in the lurch

Martyr to medical research

Was he as bright as people am

New York would be New Hamsterdam.

****



More multi-lingual sound effects, this time in Turkish!

Dogs: Hao Hao

Chicks: jik jik

Chickens: Goon goon

Gun: put put (put, like golf put) or dish-dish

Car: vvvnnnn or vvvzzzzhhhh

****

“And remember your Lord within yourself (in the heart) humbly and with awe, below your breath, at morning and evening. And let you not be among those who neglect.” -The Holy Qur’an, 7:205

****

India has just agreed to reopen its borders to Pakistan for trade and travel. I wonder if this sudden display of friendship has anything to do with the fact that India has SARS and Pakistan doesn’t? Hmm, sounds fishy to me.

****

Two people tried to kill me today. The first guy was yakking away on his cell phone as he pulled out directly in front of me. The other guy was a brave taxi driver who thought he could gun it across two lanes of traffic instead of waiting for an opening. I was very grateful (Alhamdulillah) in both cases that the brakes on our old car are ok even if the tires are bald.

****

Best Day Supermarket in F-10 has marshmallow fluff, and it’s HALAL!!! Chai, Crayon, I just thought it was important that I tell you these things. Thank you. The End.