That moment!

Do you live your life worrying about every little thing that may occur in the future, the wrong that you have done in the past, the ever growing list of things to do or the fact that its 2am and you have to wake up at 7am for a long day's work in the morning?


I don't! I put them all in this little place where I forget them but its all still there and sometimes spills out on to my consciousness from time to time.

For instance, lets start with the worrying about the future thing..... I always make it a motto of mine not to directly think about the future, I'm not saying that it's a good motto but perhaps a lazy one for getting through life with a little less responsibility on my shoulders, but I have realised maybe what I have always known deep down is that it does worry me I just seem to have chosen not to think about it and now I'm stuck on that very thin line of being a child and an adult..... hanging on by a thread shall we say.

I have developed this massive fear of getting married (settling down) ever!!, I guess I just never understood how a woman as strong, intelligent, wise and true as my mum could make a mistake 2ce in that department in her life. And if she can do it then I feel bound to do it. I'm terrified of letting my (possible future) children go through any of what me and my brother experienced down to a tiny mistake that probably just started with a glance across a crowded bar. And when I was too caught up with crossing that line into adulthood to see the possible dangers in front of me I was reminded of exactly how true my foreseen prophesy was. I fell in love, we grew together and I found true trust for the first time in my life, I felt secure, stable and happy despite my adolescent behavior at times and it seems that I can only really see that now. But it happened, the thing that I had started to forget was possible, he let me down.......he shook our foundations until I had no where left to stand and everything I was so sure of was compromised. So I did what any other coward would do and ran for the hills.

And now I worry about the future and the past, I regret my actions but have to live with them, secretly (also) living in hope that I'm forgiven and that the impossible could happen and I could turn back time. but that doesn't change the fact that I let my guard down enough to get violently hurt. I fell in love with him because he was everything that the other wasn't. Kind, generous, honest, Innocent, loving, emotionally strong, a Muslim. And since that I have this fear that I squeeze way back into my tiny mind, but am influenced by it still!! no mater how hard I try to loose it, it always comes back.

For that very early morning on the beach in Sahel I found the eternal happiness of a spotless mind. I forgot about everything, really forgot everything just disappeared and it was all about the sky the sea and Allah's mercy on me for that moment. I laughed so hard that I cried and didn't really know what I was laughing at.

Ode to that moment in my life. May I never forget it, may there be many more of them, and may I always be greatful for them...

...Ameen

DumiaT

I travelled to a place called DumiaT last week for 4 days as the grandfather of the family that I am staying with passed away (Allah ya rahmou).

I couldn't believe that there is an actual civilised suburb exising in Egypt!!!

It's right up in the north and contains the end of the Nile where it meets the sea. It's very clean by Egyptian standards and not crowded at all! all though there's absolutely nothing to do there but I can see it being a nice place to go back to once your children are all grown up, although it holds those annoying intracacies that every small town is familiar with, everyone knowing your daughters friends brothers son's business and the wonder of how such a shop that sells 1 thing every week manages o stay open. Although, everyone there are much fitter, because there are less cars and better weather (with it being so close to the sea). Loads of people ride bikes and the town is small enough and pretty enough for you to want to walk to get from place to place, where as you need money to move in Cairo.

So I went and saw Ras Al Bar (the place where the Nile meets the Sea). It's strange to think that a river so grand that stretches so far ends at that small point. To know that the water your looking at has travelled al the way from Rawanda, and that the prophet Moses sailed down the same river in his tiny basket many years ago is something else!! something you can only apreciate in such a quiet place.

Flying without wings!

So, I have started horse riding as a serious sport now.

Not just now and then.

I even have a friend who hooked me up with a trainer that teaches me to race with skill, and last Friday they up-graded my horse with confidence that I knew a bit more about control.

I loved my horse, you tap it a little and it revs its engines, just a slight click from the corner of your mouth with a double tap with your heel and off it go's!!!!

Sub7anallah the speed of acceleration is something else!! I don't know how fast I was going at my peek but I over took the trainer and as he yelled at me to pull back I turned my head and screamed "LEI!!!!" which in Egyptian means why. By this time I was going too fast to turn back fully to see him but I could here him laugh at me as he shouted "inti magnouna wa horsan bardo!", in other words (namely English) " you are crazy and your horse also!!!" so I pulled back bit by bit slowing down until he caught up with me and he taught me how to keep my horse close to his as we rode off together, with him teaching me to control the speed in order to be side by side.

I totally know now why they call it Horse Power, Sub7anallah! I was going so fast at one point that my bum wasn't touching the saddle!!!!!!

Even if I wake up the next day with a back as bent as an Egyptian police man, and my hands all covered in blisters from having to pull the rains soo tight its still my favourite thing to do in Cairo!

Beautiful- If you want to experience flying but are scared of heights, ride a horse!!!

the typical 2.4 children

So I'm still living with the family.
Things are still much as the same, although, finding my clothes have been worn without being asked and my freshly cleaned hijabs now scrumpled in a pile on my bed (although a neat pile it may be) is starting to grate on me. But none of it is done out of spite, and I suppose its nice that they feel so comfortable with me to be like this, it's just I am a funny so and so and I like my own space.
You see I do have my own bed (to sleep in) but it isn't my bed and I'm reminded of this when I come home after a long days work and just want to pass out to find school uniform and used damp towels amongst other things on my (oops I mean)/ her bed.
That's the problem I am in debt to her and her sister. You see I don't have any privacy but that's down to me, they don't have any privacy either and this is down to there generosity and kindness and I feel so guilty every time I feel my temperature raise at the site of my favourite jeans being worn by her slightly chubby sister! and when my expensive broach isn't in my accessories bag but on her mums abaya lol, OK OK that's enough moaning just had to get it out of my system.
The truth is I am really going to miss them all when I leave, the dad that insists on knowing everything but is sooo generous that drives the mum crazy who looks to me for advice in almost everything that she does and the doting little sister that wants to make everyone happy and is so comfortable in her own skin for a 14 year old that I'm constantly impressed.
Never the less I just need my own space!

So, I have been looking for a place with a small budget but they won't let me take any of the cheap ones because they say that it's not safe blah blah, (btw there are no woman that live alone in Egypt! this is strictly limited to the few foreigners that live here, only then is it acceptable). When I do find a suitable priced apartment something happens where it doesn't work out. Mainly because you have to rely on people here. It's all about who you know, and I don't know anyone, so I have on rely on people that do and Egyptians are very lazy!!!!!
SO....
I look for a job with better pay that everyone insists I can get for speaking English only and being a British national in order to widen my choice of places. But how do you get jobs here!?!?!?!? like in England you have the job centre, the newspapers, the untold amount of Internet sites and agencies, here, I just don't know. Again its who you know, and again I don't know anyone. But even when I do get an interview it's just like before; it turns out that there was an error in communication and perfect Arabic as well as English is a must!
So it's 2 steps forward 3 steps back.
I need to work on reversing these numbers!! then least then I'd be getting somewhere. I know that I will at some point but its all a waiting game here. If you want to brush up on your patience come to Egypt!

.....Further updates

OK, so I asked my salary, well I wasn't that brave I suggested to his daughter whilst he (Abu Hassan) was on the phone that I needed to know so I could estimate my budget when looking for an apartment....

EEEEK

It's not good its below what the job is worth really especially as I'm working 9-6 6 days a week which is very rear in Egypt, VERY!

and it's not even enough to pay for the minimum rent that is I would be lucky to get......

So, what do I do. She asked me if it was OK with me but I just smiled and said yes, I mean what can I say, they are doing so much for me and there even bribing someone they know so that I can get a longer Visa without the early morning paper work! not to mention that they are paying for my arabic teacher 4 days a week, who I really like! he's 29 a very much into his deen, you now the one beared and disdasha, which intimidated me a little bit at first. Speaks no English but never lets me give up. And he's teaching me from the beginning ABC... but really thoroughly. And after a slow convo in Arabic I found out that he started practising Islam at 21, before that he was just any guy at uni. So how can I say no its not good for me but Im going to have to sooner or later, besides Il just continue to the end of the month so that I can somehow repay them for all there kindness and explain my predicament. Although I know that they will just suggest that I should move into Abu Hassan and his Wifes house as they are in Saudi every other 3 months (as they already have done) but I want my own place that I can paint and fill with dodgy seccond hand furniure that I grow to love...lol you get my point though.

We'll see how it go's

Hajj

To carry out the pilgrimage rituals a pilgrim needs to be in a state of Ihram - a special state of ritual purity.
A pilgrim does this by making a statement of intention to perform the Hajj, wearing special white clothes (which are also called Ihram), and obeying certain regulations.

During the Hajj, pilgrims are forbidden to:
Engage in marital relations
Shave or cut their nails
Use cologne or scented oils
Kill or hunt anything
Fight or argue
Women must not cover their faces, even if they would do so in their home country
Men may not wear clothes with stitching.

Once in Mecca pilgrims enter the Great Mosque and walk seven times round the Kaaba (a cube-like building in the centre of the mosque) in an anti-clockwise direction.
This is known as Tawaf.

Pilgrims also run seven times along a passageway in the Great Mosque, commemorating a search for water by Hajar, wife of Prophet Abraham.

DAY 1: FIRST STEP
Pilgrims travel to Mina on 8 Dhul Hijjah (a date in the Islamic calendar) and remain there until dawn the next morning.

DAY 2: STANDING AT ARAFAT
Pilgrims then travel to the valley of Arafat and stand in the open praising Allah and meditating.
At the end of the day, pilgrims travel to Muzdalifa where they spend the night. Pilgrims gather up stones to use the next day.

DAY 3: STONING THE DEVIL
In the morning, pilgrims return to Mina and throw seven stones at pillars called Jamaraat. These represent the devil. The pillars stand at three spots where Satan is believed to have tempted the Prophet Abraham.

Pilgrims sacrifice an animal (usually a sheep or goat). This commemorates the incident related in the Old Testament when the Prophet Abraham was about to sacrifice his son and God accepted a sheep instead. Nowadays many pilgrims pay someone to slaughter the animal on their behalf.

Pilgrims shave their heads or cut some hair from it and return to the Great Mosque at Mecca for a further Tawaf, walking around the Kaaba. They then return to Mina, where they spend the night.

DAYS 4 & 5
Pilgrims spend time in Mina, continuation of the ritual of stoning the pillars.
If a pilgrim has been unable to return to Mecca to walk around the Kaaba, he or she does so on the fourth or fifth day.

Where is she now?

So once again I have landed on my feet, and here is a brief update for those that want to know;



A friend offered me her house after I realised that the budget my flat was giving me would result in an earlier departure then wanted (due to limited funds).



When I say offered me her house I mean a 2 bedroom flat along with her sister her brother and both her parents.

Hmmmm....6 people in 2 rooms?, how does that work you may ask! very nicely actually. Her and her sister share a bed whilst I get the bed of the other in their room, her parents and her brother share between the other room and the sofa bed in the front-room. Sounds tight I know but it works and Im comfortable her mum doesn't want me to leave because...



A) she wants to learn English and has the chance to conversate with me

B) apparently her children are acting better since I've arrived,



Her father is an easy man to talk to speaks English well and loves that typical slapstic egyptian comedy. It was he who hooked me up with the job Im at now. A patient of his owns a travel and tourism company and is expanding at the moment by planning to offer boat trips from egypt to Saudi quicker than a plane journey.

And so here I am over looking the purchase of some very large ships for this very kind man called Abu Hassan in his late 70's lives between here and Saudi Arabia and is treating me like his daughter.

His whole family are doing everything to help me. He gave me a lump of money before I started as a good will gesture, invites me into his office to eat with his family every day at the end of work, sends me home in his Merc with his driver, and gave me some money yesterday 'as a father to a daughter' his daughter said as I protested to take it. His daughter passes by the office almost every day with her daughter. His 3 sons all grown and married work within the business.



They ask me every day what I need, to the point that I feel I should make something up, untill finally I mentioned that I needed an arabic teacher. Within secconds his son was on the phone and after I finnished my food I was called into the office where a teacher sat and they discussed my schedule for study to be 4 days a week here at work for 2 hours all paid for by the company.



It has overwhelmed me the generosity from both these families just as I was about to write off all egyptians as cunning con artists, ok not all but most. And I feel greatly indebted to both a debt that Im worried I will not be able to repay.



Although it has put me in a bit of a pickle, I don't know my sallary and all these kind gestures have made it almost impossible for me to ask...but I need to know if it is suitable for what I am able to live on. I also work 6days a week something I learned the day before my presumed 2-day weekend, another thing that I want to talk to him about but feel like I don't have a right to almost! 1day is not enough for me to enjoy my life, I usually go horse riding every Friday but sometimes the people I go with change it to a Satuirday being the other common day from there weekend here in Egypt and I go swimming on Saturdays which is the only day available for many reasons and I have Friday off only..... Insallah I'l sort this after a week or two.

....So aparently before getting my hair cut I have to ask the hairdresser if they re generos with money or not!

If there answere is 'not' then my hair will not grow well after they have cut it!

in the words of an egyptian...

EH DA??

Kind words from a good friend

little jessi,

He is going to regret his disision for the rest of his life. He could have had a diamond but instead he settled for quartz. Allah has obviously better plans for you, I can't wait to see what they are as long as they are back in England, London.