Ghazi's New Book

This morning I received by post my copy of Ghazi Gheblawi's new book of short stories in Arabic, which he kindly sent to me, the name of the book is roughly translated as " A Face that does not know Sadness". I am very exited as I am sure I will enjoy reading it and it has been sometime since I read any book in Arabic, Ghazi even signed the book for me.

I would like to give my best wishes to the multi-talented Ghazi and wish him every success and thank him for this valuable gift.

Thank you Ghazi.

Aida is 9 Today

Aida my daughter is 9 today, I want to wish her a very Happy Birthday and many Happy Returns inshaAllah, she is and has always been a good child at school and at home, a sociable and very friendly girl, may Allah bless her and give her the best that life can give.

Fight Night

Saturday I took the kids to the Libyan community Iftar which usually takes place every Tuesday and Saturday during Ramadan, while I don't actually like eating Iftar outside my home, I usually make an exception on Saturdays for the sake of the kids as they get to see some of their old school mates and it is nice to see them all happy and playing. The problem with Libyan gatherings is that I find many of the children that are about 10 years old or over are very rude and have no respect for anyone, one 12 year old boy whom I knew since birth stood next to me, I said salam to him to which he mumbled, I told him that he should make an effort to say salam properly since I am very well known to him, he looked at me then just walked off, many of the girls who I used to be involved in teaching at the old school do not say salam or anything and if i try to talk to them they just run away as if i was a stranger, and most of them I have known since birth, I am so glad that my kids do actually talk to everyone they know politely and respectfully, Alhamdulellah.

Of course many of these rude kids were doing nothing but fighting each other or getting in fights with local kids near the community centre, many of the parents didn't even bother to check what was going on, some would say let the boys learn how to defend themselves, what a stupid thing to say when in London kids stabbing kids is becoming more and more a normal crime.

I saw Libyan boys beating the hell out of each other on the street in the middle of the road where cars were driving, I saw Libyan kids playing with lighters, probably even smoking, I spent most of the time stressing over their behaviour while many dads were drinking coffee and having a good old Gurma (gossip), nothing new here, unfortunately the Libyan community is full of many ignorant people that just don't care about any ones feelings and yet if you dare mention that a certain boy was miss behaving then you risk getting into a fight with that parent instead of them actually admitting that their kids are very rude and that is exactly what happened, 2 fathers got into a fight because of their kids behaviour and nearly beat each other up.

Apart from that, the Iftar was nice and I enjoyed seeing some of my friends and the well behaved kids were a pleasure to see too.

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I found the following website called QuranFlash.com with a virtual Quran in Arabic which you can read and even turn the pages over, I thought it was good and Worth sharing.

Fun Pictures & Dalinda

Here is some fun pictures to help you with your day :o)

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I found the following songs, sung by a singer called Dalinda, in both songs she uses western Libyan Arabic dialect, all the information I could find about her was that she is Bosnian!

I think she did the Libyan Arabic very well:

an update on Dalinda:

I have received the following information by email regarding Dalinda

Dalinda is a Muslim Bosnian, she grew up in Tripoli, she used to live beside the french cultural institute. her last name is Topalbegovic. she has a sister called Indira who used to read the French News bulletin on Libyan TV, both sisters used to take Guitar lessons with Nasser Mizdawi. Thank you anonymous for this information.

Wigs & Bowling

Saturday early evening I had sometime to spend with my son Amir and a friend of ours before Iftar, Amir has been asking for a while to go bowling as he has never been before so we decided to do just that, I drove to an area where I know there is a bowling alley, I parked the car and we started walking when suddenly I realised that I was surrounded by wig shops!

There were no less than 5 shops selling wigs and all of them more or less next to each other, they had all sorts of wigs as you can see from the pictures, some fun wigs for parties and many proper wigs, it was so funny just looking at all of them, the widows were staked full of wigs, the one thing I noticed was the lack of male wigs in the windows, I'm not sure if that they didn't sell any or if they only had them inside, I think they probably didn't put any male wigs in the windows because people would laugh, something about male wigs is very funny, the truth they are ridiculous :o)

3 Wigs for £10, now that is very cheap!

After having a good gossip and a good laugh at all these wigs, we got to the bowling alley, booked a lane and hired the shoes and the 3 of us started playing.

For kids playing they do raise the side rails to stop the ball from falling in the gutter (see picture) and it makes it a lot easier for children to play and enjoy. After few goes Amir became so confident that he was imitating other players by holding the ball then taking a stop forward running to the line but then instead of throwing the ball he would come to complete stop, pause for a second then drop the ball on the floor with this all mighty bang that just shook the place, people sitting next to us could not stop laughing, he was very funny and very serious and really trying hard, well at the end of the game Amir had the last laugh, he won the game with a score that was much higher than what we got :oS

Muslims Un-Unite & The Stinky Husband!

Here we go again, another year, another Ramadan and the Muslim world is just as un-united as ever, every year we wish that we would all agree on when to start fasting but it never happens.Only Libya and part of Iraq are fasting today, so much for the Libyan centre that announced Ramadan can only start today, although Libya may have got it right few times but it actually really bombed few times as well and made Libyans fast when it was not Ramadan for sure.

Most Muslims start fasting tomorrow yet again there are more countries that would not even do that, Pakistan & India start fasting on Friday! another year with some Muslims celebrating Eid on a different day than the rest, Muslims need to get their act together and just stop complaining about being criticised by others until they do get it right, is it going to happen? inshaAllah it will but probably not in my life time.

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Yesterday on a news website I read the following story:

a 37 year old Egyptian women went to court and filled for divorce from her husband because he stank like hell! she pleaded with the judge to grant her divorce after she said she tried for many years to get her husband to wash and clean his teeth to which he just kept refusing. The judge tried to mediate between the couple but the wife refused as she said she gave up on her husband ever being clean, she was granted divorce.

The poor woman must have really had it with that dirty stinky man :o)

An Update & Ramadan Mubarak

It seems the dry spell that hit most of the Libyan bloggers is coming to an end, thank Allah, although I still feel it is staying a bit longer with me!

Recently I have been so wrapped up in personal stuff that I just could not find the energy or the will to update, now that Ramadan is upon us I am hoping that all of us will find a new lease with many interesting stories to tell, just like last Ramadan, another blog that will definitely be very popular this Ramadan is Our Favourite Recipe Centre, I remember last Ramadan when I was at work and feeling a bit hungry, I would check it out and drool all over the food pictures :o)

The Libyan community in London has hired the Pakistani Community Centre in Willesden for the nightly Taraweeh prayers as has become customary every year, they usually have an Iftar there twice a week as well.

The main news in the UK at the moment is the naming of the parents of Madeleine McCann as formal suspects (ARGUIDO/ARGUIDA) by the Portuguese police (I have written about this case Here) although this does not mean that they are guilty just yet but apparently the police have found a trace of the little girl's blood and DNA in a car that was hired by the parents 25 days after the girl vanished, I have always felt that the way the parents handled this case was a bit fishy and that there is more to them than what we already know.

The other main story today is the death last night of the founder of The Body Shop , Anita Roddick died of a brain hemorrhage, I remember many years ago when I was studying in Oxford how she suddenly became world famous after taking a bank loan of £2000, Anita got recipes for beauty products from Arab Bedouins and native Asians and South Americans, she marketed her products as Eco friendly and not tested on animals, her shops started to open all over the world (is there a Body Shop in Libya?) when she eventually sold her shop chain and made well over a £100 million, she gave about £30 million to charities to help the poor all over the world, she was a woman that Britain will always be proud of.

Finally I'm not sure if it is going to be Ramadan here tomorrow although I think Libya already decided it is. so Ramadan Mubarak to all of you and to Muslims all over the world.

Transport

The school holiday is over, kids went back to school today, the roads are now back to normal, heavy and congested traffic everywhere.

The past six weeks have been a bless, not much traffic, not too many 4x4 cars driven by mothers doing the school run, actually the traffic has been bad for the last few days as we had a strike by the London Underground Network, this caused chaos all over London as many people tried to use the buses instead which became almost impossible to use, other people resorted to using their cars which caused the traffic to become heavy.

While I sympathise with hard working people such as the people that run the underground system, I cant help feeling that when they do strike they hold the whole city to ransom. One person I heard comment on this on the Radio, he compared the people that organized the strike with the terrorists that blew up trains and buses 2 years ago in London and brought the transport system to a halt, I think he was right, this is a democratic country that gives people the right to strike but it is just wrong for some strikes to take place, the public has nothing to do with this, some years ago the Fire Services had a strike and caused major problems, the government then had to use the army to distinguish fires while Fire men sat in their working place drinking tea and doing nothing, I mean it is common sense, public services should not strike, it is wrong, it makes the public suffer and endangers many lives.

I will not go as far as saying that public service providers should be banned from having a strike, this is a right that was given to them many years ago but they themselves know its wrong and should find other means of protesting.