Libya & FM

I read in some blogs and some Libyan websites that Allibiya FM radio station has closed down for a while and now that it has restarted under a new name, Allibiya, there has been some talk about the rift between the modernists and the hardliners who it seems have won at the end, what I found really ridiculous is that the hardliners objected to the letters FM that accompany the name of the radio station because they are English letters and not Arabic! so the new name does not have the English letters but what it doesn't have is the Arabic alternative to FM and that is for a simple reason, there is no alternative. Some big suits that lack a lot of education keep interfering with everything to the point of being completely ridiculous, I mean only in Libya they banned the words Television, Radio, Cinema and now FM, they used ridiculous alternatives such as جهاز الاذاعة المرئية (Visual Broadcasting Machine for TV), جهاز الاذاعة المسموعة (Audio Broadcasting Machine for Radio) and خيالة (meaning Cinema) and God knows what for FM!!, these were inventions that were invented by Europeans or western people, their names have become a Trade Mark and are used world wide, its in the same way that the English language uses many Arabic words for things that were invented by Arabs and rightly so. For these hardliners big suits I suggest they invent new things and then and only then they can call it any Arabic name they want, I mean who uses these Arabic alternative names? no one but Libyan TV and press, imagine the money wasted now just to change the name of the Radio station. I would understand their point if for examples they banned shops from using English names that do not make sense as I have seen in Egypt, where I saw Take Away restaurant that have the words Take Away written in Arabic! (تك أوي) another shop was Happy Family in Arabic letters! (هابي فاميلي) this is quite ridiculous and meaningless but to try to change what has become normal and has no alternative is not acceptable and is a waste of time and money.

There is a Libyan saying, من ليبيا يأتي الجديد , meaning: from Libya comes everything new, well sometimes I feel it should be changed to, من ليبيا يأتي القطاف الزايد , meaning: from Libya comes a lot of nonsense.

Libyan Blogs

The past few days have been strange in the Libyan Blog sphere, there are good things that happened but there are bad things too that can sort of make you feel a bit down and Allah forbid lose interest in blogging. Let me tell you what I mean:

Safia Speaks has been off her blog for about a week with just an update, I usually check her blog everyday and more than once and she never disappoints, there is always something new, something interesting about her never boring life, her blog being so quiet like that is very disappointing but I do understand that she has her reasons.

Another very active blogger, A.Adam, is to celebrate 3 years of blogging soon and do you know how? by ceasing blogging and probably deleting his blog! this man inspired many of us with his endless activities, new blog gadgets and pictures and now he wants to call it a day, why A.Adam?

Of course as cofman (who keeps deleting his posts!!) has mentioned, Life's Cycle has been very ill but Alhamdulellah she is better now and she is embarking on a new life with her husband, they are moving from Newfoundland to Toronto, we wish them every success inshaAllah.

Trabilsia has blogged about her visit to the Tripoli Medical Centre where they celebrated mother & child day, she uploaded many pictures showing the happy event but still some of the pictures are heart breaking and makes you think how lucky some of us can be, there really is nothing worse than parents watching their children suffer, thank you Dear Trabilsia for this wonderful post.

Another happy event, Lebeeya celebrates her birthday today with our best wishes to a kind and a happy person :o)

Ema's blog is missing! I hope its a temporary measure and that her blog returns soon.

One more thing, regarding my Arabic typing assignment, I was joking about someone helping me, guess what? someone did really help me, Maysoon offered to type some of the pages for me, I scanned 10 full pages and Emailed them to her, a short time later I received an Email from Maysoon with 10 Arabic pages attachment and offering to help even more, I really do not know how to thank her, she just proved that we Libyans are good decent helpful people, May Allah bless her and bless her family.

Update:

I forgot to mention the fantastic blog of Highlander, it has not been updated for a while (Thanks Safia for the reminder) of course her blog is to be proud of but it has been very quiet recently, are you listening Aladdin, Beacon, Piccolina & Maiuna? :o)

I am missing the long (very long sometimes) comments of Mani and guess what? I think cofman is doing a runner as well!

Amazing Conjoined Twins

Last night I watched a program on TV about the strangest conjoined twins alive! it was about the 16 year old American twins, Abigail & Brittney Hensel, what is so amazing about these 2 girls is that they share one body with 2 heads and 2 different personalities, Abigail has control of one half of the body while Brittney controls the other half, inside their body they do share some organs, other organs are separate.
It was really incredible to watch them drive a car and even type an Email with both hands at the same time since each hand is controlled by a different brain, even walking, it is so amazing how they coordinate their movements.

The one hour documentary featured their parents who said separating them was never an issue as in their case separation surgery is probably impossible plus it would mean a life time of surgeries and pain and having to have half a body, instead, Abigail & Brittney lead an active, healthy and happy life. This brought memories to me of the poor Iranian twins that died during their separation surgery few years ago, Ladan & Laleh, May Allah bless their souls.

I have found a short video on YouTube about Abigail & Brittney, prepare to be amazed by these 2 very brave young women:

All I can say is Subhan Allah - سبحان الله

Typing in Arabic!

Few months ago I was given the task of listing all the Arabic books that belonged to the late Dr. Zaki Badawi who was one of the highest Muslim authorities in the UK. I have spent many hours in his house going through the vast Arabic library he had and with the help of his English born widow, I managed to write down by hand all of the books names, authors, publishers and so on. Then came the really difficult task which I am still stuck with, to type everything into a proper list, the only problem is that my experience in typing is only in English, I am not familiar with the Arabic keyboard but I promised Mrs. Badawi so I had to get on with it! After typing about 2 thirds of the list (all together the list is about 60 pages) which took me about a month as I only type with one finger as my eyes are scanning the keyboard, my computer decided it had enough and it committed suicide and it took the list with it! I could not believe this would happen to me, I mean I typed about 40 pages of Arabic books names, each word probably takes me one minutes to type (btw I am quite fast typing in English) its all gone for ever :o(

So few days ago I started the typing again, my back hurts, my eyes are almost gone and I have a continuous migraine from staring at the damn keyboard, I mean most of these books are either Islamic or historical books with names such as ارشاد النقاد الى تيسير الاجتهاد or الرسالة القشيرية .

Most of the books are fantastic and I would love to read them but to type! I really am having a difficult time and can not wait to finish, I am on page 25 at the moment.

Wisam's Story

The following article comes from a Libyan newspaper so it does not necessarily represent my opinion, all I did was translate it to the best of my knowledge of English & Arabic, the mother who tells the story provided her name, I can not see how she would lie about something like this, there are points that do not add up like how come the first test result was Negative? here I leave you with Wisam's story:

Wisam is a handsome child with silky hair and large eyes that are full of sadness, he extends his arm to get the injection which has become his life long companion, Wisam is so full of pain that follows him like a shadow.
What can we say about Wisam that has been recked by the illness that took away everything that is beautiful from him?
Wisam Mohamed Al-Abdali was born on 09/02/1998, he was admitted to Benghazi's Children Hospital suffering from stomach pain that caused him to stay over night. Halima Elobeidi, Wisam's mother, said" I stayed with my son at the hospital, when I heard that there has been an out break of HIV between children especially children that were admitted to this hospital in 1998, I hurried with my husband and son Wisam to the hospital, my hands were shaking, I was scared and frightened, I can not tell how our wait for the test results was, the result was Negative i.e. Wisam was fine, his father was very happy but I was very suspicious, most of the children that stayed with Wisam in the same ward back in 98 were infected, how can Wisam be Negative? I started to insist to my husband to get Wisam tested again, I just wanted to make sure, I am a mother and was starting to feel that Wisam's health is not very stable, I can not describe to you the waiting moments. Wisam was playing with his brothers, two and half years we fooled ourselves that our son was not infected, we wanted to believe the first test results, waiting moments that can not be described, long boring wait, I was worried & restless, waiting for Wisam's father arrival from the clinic with the test result, it feels like a life time, my heart is beating fast. The father arrived holding that damn piece of paper, he threw it and fell on the floor, he fainted" Halima continues with tears streaming down her eyes " Wisam is sentenced to an illness that we can not even cope with or live with, Wisam has been stabbed just like the other children, our tragic journey has started, what ever I say about it its not going to do justice to how tragic it is. We Libyans are kind generous people, we are not used to deception and mean treatment. when I sit on my own and reflect on that horrible day, I feel I am going to have a breakdown, when we were admitted to hospital that day (1998) my family brought me a bag full of the popular grapes from the city of Marj, Sanjaka the Bulgarian old nurse was with us in the room, I chose the nicest grapes and offered them to her, she was happy to accept the offering and when she tasted it she really praised how nice they were then she left the room. In that ill fated night I was sitting on a chair next to my son's bed who was asleep. I am an educated woman and Wisam is not my first child, I follow all of his medication routine and know them very well, I know what the Doctors prescribe to him and the doses as well, back to that night, during the very late hours the room was semi dark, in front of me there was a bathroom with the lights on, I noticed a shadow in front of my son's bed I jumped quickly asking what was going on? when I saw with my own eyes Sanjaka injecting a syringe in to my son's drip, when the nurse noticed that I was looking she got scared and quickly hid the syringe, I asked her what was that medicine for and told her that he is not supposed to have any medications at this time, she said that it was to reduce his temperature, I must admit that I spent the rest of the night feeling concerned, in the morning I notified the doctors about what happened during the night. Yes I saw her inject my son with my own eyes, I saw yellowish white liquid and to prove that, my son's HIV virus concentration is low that is because she did not inject the full amount because she got scared when she saw me looking, she is a murderer".
Wisam's mum continues " because of the late discovery of our son's infection, his treatment started late, we went to Italy, Wisam started his long painful treatment, he has to put up with the injections which started then until now, he still has to have tests and continuous treatment that has not stopped even for one day, he has complained many times about the dreaded medical treatment and medications, he has asked numerous times why he has to take it on his own every day but not his brothers, we all tried to hide the truth from him, this made it much worse for us, as he grew older I talked to his father about the pain of not telling Wisam about his illness. When we went last to Italy for his treatment, Wisam asked to talk to me in private, he closed the door then sat for a while, he then lifted his head up and said "Mother I want to say something to you but please promise not to get sad" I said to him go on say it, he said " I know the truth about my illness" I was shocked when he continued "I know I am infected with AIDS, I knew because I noticed how you all follow the AIDS stories on the TV news plus the fact that I come a lot to the hospital where the HIV infected children get treated" I nearly lost my mind hearing that and nearly fainted, I gave him a cuddle and told him that he was injected by criminals that sold their souls, he then added " is it true what the doctors say that there is no cure for AIDS?" I replied that God can do anything, he then said "we should go back to our country" that was how I confronted this difficult situation which added to my sadness.

One of the worst things we had to go through is being abandoned by by friends and relatives especially at the beginning of our ordeal, yes most of them abandoned us because they did not know much about this frightening illness and how it gets transmitted, they were worried about their children. I am going to tell you this incident, I come from a village and once I was invited to my cousin's wedding so I took my children including Wisam with me, we had a happy time there and felt more confident, during the night as we were getting ready to go to sleep, I heard a lot of noise and shouting, I ran out to see what was happening, I saw one of my cousins holding her daughter she was screaming, everyone came over to her, she said Wisam bit her daughter after the kids had an argument, the happy occasion turned into a sad and nasty one, everyone started to be concerned about the girl, they then started to tell Wisam off and demanded that the girl be tested for HIV immediately. some of them said "why did they come to the wedding? they should have not come" I cried a lot that night which I will never forget, I woke up my children gathered our belongings and left their house, I could not stop crying and decided then that I would never go to another occasion unless I really have to and without Wisam who would have to stay with his father as I do not want him and us to suffer even more".

This Tragedy Continuous....

Mother & Child Day in Libya

Today Libya celebrates Mother's Day, I would like to wish my mother and all mothers everywhere a very Happy Mother's Day.
For some reason Libya celebrates both Mother's and Children's Day on 21 March which is a bit weird, I remember when I was young my mother on Mother's Day would tease us and tell us to be extra nice to her, to which we answer its Child's Day too so be extra nice to us. Another thing I remember, my parents used to take me and my brothers on this day to watch the Fancy Dress Parade which used to go through the streets of central Tripoli, I used to like all those colourful costumes, is this still going? I wonder! anyway I would like to wish a Happy Child's Day to all of our kids too, May Allah bless all mothers, fathers & children.

A special Happy Mother's Day wish to all blogging mothers:

Trabilsia

Safia Speaks

Khadija Teri

Um Dania

Libyan Violet

Chatalaine

Hannu

MaySooN

This is for you, for my mother and mothers everywhere:

Hand Painting

Enjoy these pictures with a different view to hand painting:

When Tony Blair met Catherine Tate

As mentioned on a previous post, Friday was Red Nose Day which collected about £40 million pounds for charity, many celebrities took part in Comic Relief night of entertainment on BBC television including the British Prime Minister Tony Blair who took part in a comedy sketch with the very funny Catherine Tate. Here is the sketch with Tony Blair and Lauren Cooper (played by Catherine Tate):

Who said Politicians can't Act?!

Today is Mother's Day in Britain

Among the parents, the status of the mother is three times higher than that of the father. Quran says :

“In travail upon travail did his mother bear him, and in years twain was his weaning.” (31 :14)

The prophet (Peace Be Upon Him) greatly stressed mothers’ rights by saying

"Heaven is beneath the feet of mothers"

Today Britain celebrates Mother's Day, here in the UK mother's day always falls on a Sunday so the date varies from one year to the other, unlike Libya and I think all of the Arab world that celebrates it on 21 March.

It is a chance for people to show their appreciation and love to their mothers although I believe every day should be a mother's day.

Happy Mother's Day to all British mothers and mothers all over the world

A Very Rare Picture of Libya's Exiled Queen

I found this very rare picture, it shows Queen Fatima, the exiled Queen of Libya with Mrs. John Tappin, the wife of the American Ambassador to Libya 1954 - 1958.

All my life I wondered what Queen Fatima looked like as I could not find any pictures of her anywhere so you can imagine how pleasantly surprised I felt to find a very elegant lady that was the Queen of Libya.

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Red Nose Day :o)

Today Britain goes Red Nose Day crazy, Red Nose Day is a fun day that is usually staged every few years and its for collecting money for charity, it is done with the help of Comic Relief, millions of pounds are usually collected to help the poor and disadvantaged here in the UK but mainly in Africa. It is something that the British public do best as they always prove their generosity by giving a lot of their money to this good cause. The money raised is split 2 ways, 40% goes to needy charities in the UK and 60% goes towards helping the poor in Africa.
Many organizations, businesses and schools take part in RND (Red Nose Day) its a day where you get to play jokes on your seniors and teachers, my children are taking part in their school, its a Uniform free day where kids can wear anything they want, it was strange driving to work seeing 100s of school children dressed in their normal clothes, many had red items on, some even had their hair sprayed red!
I am sure they will have a great day and I hope they manage to raise a lot of money for this good cause.

Customer Service

Since many Eastern European countries joined the EU, thousands of Eastern Europeans have come to the UK to try and find better paid jobs and to improve their lives especially Polish people, now everywhere in London you find shops that sell Polish food even main supermarkets are beginning to stock on Polish delicacies. Where ever you go now in London and other cities you are served by Eastern Europeans, some of them do not speak good English but what most of them share in common is that they are hard working, polite and respectful people that do actually serve you with a smile, something that is almost extinct in London these days. a couple of years ago I watched in the news a demonstration consisting of white, Asian & black British people demonstrating against the new immigrants coming to this country taking over their jobs, it was funny yet strange to see different colour communities come together for a change, within short years the Eastern Europeans have established themselves and taken over many businesses like plumbing, maintenance, building & decorating ..etc... how can anyone blame them? costumer service in this country was becoming really bad, you know you would be conned by cowboys if you had a blocked toilets or needed to paint & redecorate your home yet there was not much that you could do about it, now there are so many people that do it for a lot less and with a smile, few months ago a Bulgarian couple did some maintenance in my house, they were very polite did their job in record time did not waste their time taking tea breaks and I am sure their charges were very reasonable.

This past weekend I had 2 bad customer service experiences, the first one was in a corner shop run by Asians, I walk in straight to the counter, the lady working there is reading a newspaper, I stood there for a while waiting for her to look at me, she didn't, I said excuse, she looked at me, I said do you have so&so? she shook her head as to say no and went back to reading her newspaper without saying a word, I told her off and walked out the shop, funnily enough only then did she open her mouth and swore at me :o)

On Sunday I went to Curry's to look at simple cheap MP3 players, they were all on a low isle and attached to a security wire, I bent down and started looking at them, after a while I noticed someone was standing next to me, I looked up and it was the store detective watching me, I said all right? he said yes, few minutes later he was still there starring at me, I felt so uncomfortable, I stood up and said to him, look they are attached to a wire so even if I wanted to steal them it wont be possible, he said no sir I didn't mean blah blah blah, I told him that I was trying to buy something but he put me off by treating me as if I was shoplifter, I told him to go and perhaps keep an eye on people much younger than me that might be there to shoplift and I left the shop, again this man was from an ethnic minority, don't get me wrong many non whites in London are decent, the Turks and the Lebanese for example would serve you and treat you like a king.

So I am not surprised and in fact pleased to be served and looked after by Polish and other Eastern Europeans as I get value for money and respect which is in short supply here.

The children as I have mentioned before have been going to the Qatari Arabic school every Saturday, 2 weeks ago they had tests to check on their progress, my children used to go to English/Arabic full time school so they did have some back ground in Arabic & Islamic studies. My 8 year old daughter who is in Year2, Aida got 98% success rate in her assessment (MashAllah) on the other hand my prolific talker 6 year old son Amir who is in Year1 got 52% which is hardly worth celebrating :o) I told him that this was not good enough and that he needs to work harder, I know it can not be easy for kids brought up abroad as they have to live with 2 languages but it has to be done. anyway last week Amir had another assessment, so after they came back home I had this conversation with him:

Me: Amir how was your day? did you do well?

Amir: yes baba, Miss (teacher) was very pleased with me and said that I am the kindest student in the class.

Me: MashaAllah that is wonderful, I am proud of you, what else?

Amir: Miss said that I am nice and polite to everyone and very helpful.

Me: that's very well Amir but what about your assessment, how did that go?

Amir (after a short pause): Miss said that I am better than before.

Me: that is good but what rate did you get?

Amir (again after a short pause): I got 53%!!

Wow I feel like celebrating, he has improved by 1 % Allah bless him :o)

Victims of War!

This picture won the best news picture of the year award, chosen out of thousands of pictures taken during the Israel - Lebanon war last year. It was taken by an American photographer working for Getty Images, Spencer Platt.

Looking at this picture would bring to mind the saying... only in Beirut! it shows destruction, glamour, rich people and a fast car, I like this picture because you can not get a better result if you asked people to pose for such picture, it is real yet very theatrical and does have a good message.

The picture was taken on 15th August 2006, the day after the cease fire began, people were returning to their homes after the war to check the damage and see if their houses survived the vicious Israeli attacks, the neighbourhood in this picture is in South Beirut which is a strong Shia area, the people in the car are a brother with his 2 sisters and a couple of friends, all are Christians with the exception of one Muslim female who's face is covered in the picture by her friend, they are all residents of that part of Beirut and were returning to check on their homes.

This picture actually reminded me of when Iraq invaded Kuwait back in 1990, thousands of Kuwaiti tourists were in London at that time, of course all of them could not return because of the war, all of them were either rich or at least well off, they demonstrated against what Iraq was doing to their country, the press here in London reported their protest by saying: diamond wearing fur clad refugees demonstrate in London. The good message that the winning picture carries is: you can be rich, you can be poor, you can be Muslim, you can be Christian, you can be so different from each others yet you all share one thing in common, you are all victims of war which does not differentiate between status or religion.

Can We CoExist?

Last week I met a Scottish friend of mine while I was out walking, he introduced me to another Scottish man that was with him and told me that he was a new comer to London, I chatted for few minutes then left. Few days ago I saw my Scottish friend again, he told me what had happened after I left him and his friend that day, his friend asked him if I was a Muslim to which he replied yes, the other guy then said that he was surprised because he thought I was nice (i.e. not a nasty Muslim terrorist), my friend asked him why he said that to which the other guy replied that he does not trust Muslims, my friend asked him how many Muslims he knows, the reply was non, he never even met a Muslim before, he comes from an isolated community in Scotland and it was his first time in London, my friend then told him that he should be more open minded and that there are good & bad in every race & religion. Obviously I was not very happy when I heard that and thought the guy was an ignorant person and I told my friend that coming from an isolated community does not give this guy an excuse to think that all Muslims are bad, I mean this man is in his 30s or 40s surely he knows that the media can twist everything and did he forget when not so long ago here in Britain Christian factions used to kill one another over the Northern Ireland issue? cant he see what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians & Lebanese, did he not hear of the atrocities committed in Rwanda by people that are not Muslims and is he so ignorant that he can not see what is happening in Iraq!
We all know that a minority of stupid so called Muslims have committed awful crimes in the west but any educated decent person would know that they do not represent all Muslims, that would be like if I said that I do not trust Christians because of what they did in Bosnia for example, of course this is nonsense as these crimes were committed by people that have nothing to do with Christianity. Unfortunately it seems many people in Europe have forgotten about many atrocities committed until recently yet they seem to think that all Muslims are criminals and should not be trusted.

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Addition:

The New Wembley Stadium

At last the new Wembley Stadium is ready, its keys are to be handed to the owners today, it took six and a half years to complete which is about 2 years over due at a cost of about £800 million which is double its original budget.

It can seat 90,000 people which makes it one of the biggest in the world, it has 2681 public toilets which is more than any other building in the world,the FA Cup Final will be held at Wembley Stadium on 19 May and the first ever pop concert will be held there on June 9 &10 by George Michael.

Working in Libya

Of course I have mentioned before that I am like many others thinking of returning to Libya hopefully in the near future and that decision depends on how easy it is to set up home and find a job and schools for my kids..etc... This will be a major step for me so you can understand how I felt when I read the following article written by an American who works in Libya and has experienced what its like, I mean knowing Libyan people, most of them would respect a westerner/American quite a lot probably more than I would get if I go back yet there he is complaining about what he experienced, although I have never worked in Libya as I left when I was young, I have a feeling that what he wrote about is not far from the truth, I hope I am wrong but unfortunately his story is quite familiar and many have experienced similar stories, I just hope people would stop & think, is this how we want our country to be? are people prepared to change some of their habits so that our country improves and joins other countries that have over come these problems or is that just wishful thinking from me? I will leave you with some of what he wrote and let you decide if he was right or not:

"As usual in this country, relying on the locals for anything related to a time line is worse than hopeless. Repeated delays due to lack of planning, general stupidity, and an inability to understand the concept of respect for another's plans make working in this country unbearable sometimes. Don't get me wrong, the people are great, but you just can't depend on them for anything "on time." Having spent seven months here now, I can tell you there's reason this country is considered third world. Imagine a society where no one congratulates you on hard work, rewards extra effort, or recognizes true initiative in a person. Now apply that moral characteristic to whole countries' labor force and you begin to see the ramifications it has on technology and innovation. No matter how hard you work here, no one is going to promote you to something else unless you're related to the boss. No amount of skill gets you a "good job Mohamed," or anything else like that. Living in that environment, these people have adopted a "I just show up and do what I'm told until I can't do that anymore, then I stand around twiddling my thumbs" attitude. Simply put, these people just don't give a damn.... about anything. They're not interested in furthering their own lives because they have no concept of the capitalist momentums that are ingrained in Americans by age 6. In America, we all have small jobs as kids, earning money by mowing lawns, etc. We are reward oriented in the fact that parents give their children a treat for doing really well on a test in school, or something similar. That mentality carries over to our adult lives as well. When we join the work force, those of us with a drive to succeed will work harder to earn that possible Christmas bonus, or get a promotion, etc.
Here, none of that applies. In fact, last month a British friend of mine I've met, who runs the accounting division of an oil-related company paid a Libyan man here a small bonus for actually going the extra mile and surprising her with his efforts, coming in on his days off to get work completed, etc. The first thing she found out was that the other locals shunned him because he's working too much, doing more than they feel is necessary to get the job done. The second thing she was hit with was a line up of Libyans with their hands out, ALL expecting bonuses equal to his. There is no reward system here, so to them it means that they all get more money this week because Joe-blow got the job done faster. Even the concept of personal reward is alien to these people.
The reason I believe it will never change is due in large part to their religion. I can't tell you how many times I've heard the words "En Sha-allah." It means "if God wills it." Basically, they apply this to every single facet of their lives. We will get you on a plane sometime, Mr. Tommy En-sha-allah. Yeah, really? Friggin amazing. I absolutely LOVE the culture here, the people, the society itself, but when you're talking about working in it, it's ludicrous. I'm slowly working on becoming self-sustaining, procuring my own vehicle so I can drive, etc. Relying on these locals for transportation has cost us thousands of dollars, no.... tens of thousands of dollars in wasted payroll and per-diem because we have to sit around and wait for days and days and days to get things done. To date I've been in this country 24 days. I checked my journal today to see how many days I've actually NOT worked because we can't get anything done due to Libyan stupidity... ten days. That's ten days of lost work in three weeks because we have to wait on Libyans to quit scratching their ass long enough to sign for a driver, or whatever".

Amazing Pictures

The following pictures show the development of a Cockatiel from an egg to a fully grown bird, they are truly amazing pictures سبحان الله

I am sorry if I have put you off your breakfast or egg sandwich :o)

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I have had a request from Beacon on a comment on his current post about Road Safety, I am going to paste his reply to my comment, please if you think you can offer any help then it will be very much appreciated:

Thanks AL, you are absolutely right.I think a lot of people are shielded from the gruesome truth, which although can be shocking and disturbing, it can also leave an indelible impression which can change dangerous behaviours and may be halt or slow down the general break down of safety which we see today with tragic consequences.I think, as individuals we can do our own bit in increasing awareness starting from our own families.For example, people who have siblings or like you AL with children, its important to teach them the importance of being aware of road safety, for example, teaching your kids never to forget to buckle up their seat belts, or even telling them to remind their parents or elders if they don't use seat belts. There are many things to teach, and there is a lot of material on the net and special web sites for kids and elders as well. I have links on my blog, please check them out and spread the message as well. I have previously asked some of my visitors to try to translate some of the English material into Arabic, as I think ,my Arabic is much lacking to do so my self. Perhaps we could set up a joint blog like Libya Hub, where people can join and participate in providing material, ideas, posters, documents in Arabic which they could write or translate. I don't have much traffic on my blog to inspire people, but may be you can A.L, if you could hint on this idea on your blog, it would be a great start and it will have more impact than you could imagine. Of course the "Ajer" will also be great, lives will be saved.

God bless.

Beacon