Discoveries

Assalam u alaikum,

"Every day is an adventure," as Mustafa says. I'm not sure why we always tend to see our normal lives as boring. Actually (theoretically, as I can't claim to be like this) a Muslim shouldn't ever be 'bored'. Nothing ever remains static. As my Arabic teacher was telling me, the heart is constantly moving and changing. The word qalb in Arabic means "heart" and also, as a verb, means "to turn" or "to flip". So that's how we are, actually, always turning and flipping and changing. Unless your dead, which a lot of people are.

Alhamdulillah among the greatest things that we found in the last couple of days is a sheikh who can listen to our Qur'an every day. His name is Sheikh Bilal. The masjid where he leads salah is, uh, shall we say, unfinished, but it is still worth it to pray there. Masha'allah he has really good recitation, really good character, and is surprisingly young. I pray that this will be good for us insha'allah.

We have also discovered...a new restaurant! Castro's is a restaurant that has absolutely nothing to do with Fidel Castro, although they have pictures of him and Che Guevara plastered everywhere. They have really good pizza and (oh boy) hot dogs. But I think we better take it easy, since for some reason I don't think pizza is a health food.

You know how Mustafa is always thinking up new ideas for a business? Well he was inspired by Castro's and decided he wants to open up a new restaurant on Whyte Avenue called "Che" (how original). The restaurant will specialize in a "revolutionary" diet that is vegetarian, organic and really cheap. I hate to think what he will think of next.

Today we played soccer in the morning as usual. It's even more fun now than it was before because we play with the Turkmenistanians and Russians first, then with a whole bunch of students from all over the world. Our games with the students are 10 minutes long and intensely competitive. The characters who play with us are unforgettable: Moin bhai from Bangladesh, Hamza from Russia; Abdul Malik, an African guy from Britain who has crazy ball control; Dawud, who almost cries if he misses; another wise-cracking brother from New York who's name I've forgotten, and the unparallelled DR. SAIF!!!! I'm gonna let Mustafa describe Dr. Saif because I'm sure he can do a much better job than me, but I'll just say that he is like a cross between Tanveer Phupha and Azhar Usman. Just You Think It!

Alhamdulillah everything is going really well. It's almost been a month and a half, but I think that it's gone well so far. We need dua's the same way we need water.

Ma'asalam,

~Ameer