It's been a while...

I know it has been AGES since I last blogged! They've even changed the whole blogspot layout while I've been gone!

It's been a busy few months. As well as exams and the usual 'before I leave for the summer' busyiness, we've also been packing and shipping up our things to Iran! That's right! The Husband and I are moving back to Qum :-))

I'm planning to use a bit of my free time (in between catching up with friends and weddings and working) to load up some of the Syria pics that I didn't get a chance to while I was there.

As the situation in Syria worsens, I ask you all in this Holy Month of Ramadhan to remember all the people in your duas.

We do fun stuff at Hawza too!

There's an office in our Hawza (religious school) dedicated to culture! Their job is to organise non-academic stuff (e.g. we're doing a module on basic first aid/nursing skills this term) as well as competitions. Most of the competitions are hard! They involve reading a book and doing an exam... but since it takes me an average of 5 hours a night just to decipher my course books (learning the stuff takes another 5 hours!), the last thing I want to do is take on extra work!

So I was over the moon when they decided to hold a cooking competition- finally something I could take part in! I made a fake oreo cheesecake, but couldn't find the right kind of cheese, so it wasn't my best effort. On the day of the competition, they laid out all the food on tables and everyone helped themselves... it was a mad rush (so sadly no pics!).Results came out 3 weeks later at the mother's day celebrations! All the teachers who took part got a prize, as well as 6 students (all of them were Syrian!). There was some consolation in that I had helped one of the winners assemble her dessert!

There was also an arts and crafts competition. I managed to get some pics:

New (ish) supermarket in Sayyidda Zaynab

(I took this pic a while back and forgot to upload)

A new supermarket opened up in Sayyidda Zaynab over the summer. It's called 'A&T' and like all Middle Eastern things started off really good. Now, 7 months down the line, it's starting to go downhill. Sometimes we have to ask the employees for basics like salt and flour and they don't have any?! But the upside is that they have a good (ish) selection of freezer things and its clean (er) than shopping in most of the other cockroach infested stores.

The joys of the third world.

Power cuts

Everyday we get an average of 8 hours without electricity. The cuts come in chunks of 4 hours and they change the pattern every Wednesday. We like it when the power cuts happen while we are at school (happens quite a bit) or in the middle of the night (rarely happens).

The power cuts were getting really disruptive - imagine having to study by candle light wearing 5 layers and gloves! So The Husband bought us a generator. Its noisy and expensive to run, but at least we have lights and the fridge works + one other appliance (micro or washing machine or hand blender or small heater). So no excuse to not cook or study!

Things that make me chuckle

Someone once told me that if you live in a humid climate, its a good idea to put a few grains of rice in the salt shaker to stop the salt clumping together.

This restaurant was taking things a bit far LOL
(The cafe inside Grandmart Supermarket, Cham City Centre, Damascus)

Meet Irtibaat ba Khuda!

Each culture has a 'must have' prayer book. For us khojas, its the famous Tohfatus Saeemeen. Even though it's riddled with grammatical mistakes in the Arabic, no khoja household is without it.

For the Iranians, this book is 'Irtibaat ba Khuda' or connection with God.




I found a page stuck inside the front cover of this copy. It translates: "Don't backbite, Don't speak lies, Don't eat haram, and then your duas will be answered"

New blog category!

There are a lot of things in Syria that make me chuckle. Like the man that stands on the street corner with a ram, waiting for farmers to bring his ewes... and well you can guess what happens next! Sometimes they even have a lamb on display to show what the ram is capable of!

I read this on the back on a spring roll box and it made me laugh too (albeit a frustrated laugh):



"Please recycle"

Dude, please tell me where! I'd love to recycle bottles and cardboard and cans but the closest I've seen to recycling is the people searching through the garbage looking for things to sell and the cats eating the scraps of food! A little bit of me dies everytime I throw out plastics and paper and magazines with religious stuff? I take them back to London every summer!