Ladies

Since I got my very first muslim friend last December I've always wanted to have female friends. I wanted to get to know my friends' wives, but they were hiding. I thought all ladies were hiding in Pakistan...

Then I met Zaheer (you can read about him in my post "Where there is a will..." 14 Oct 2013.) He became the bridge to Pakistani ladies.

Let me see, how many ladies I met in two weeks.

First Quratulain (I call her Dimple) wanted to be my friend. She is a nice girl, a colleague of Zaheer in Lahor. We often chat to each other, like sisters.

One day I found a post of Zaheer about an ELT (English Language Teachers) conference in Karachi. The group's name which shared the information was SPELT (Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers)

I asked Zaheer about SPELT, and he said it was a very good group. It has/had about 3900 members.

Ok, let me ask to join the group! I sent request but being not Pakistani I doubt I would be accepted. But yes, I was! Very soon!

And guess what! I found 3 mutual friends in the group! I knew about Zaheer, but Shahbaz Mustafai was also there and most surprisingly Duncan Baker was the member of the group! (Radical English Teachers' group was founded at Duncan's house last year in England.)

Im very visual and profile photos tell me a lot. There was a very nice blond lady, member of SPELT. Her name is Salma Mahmud, lives in Canada, Toronto. I thought she was from Canada with a Pakistani husband. But I was wrong. She was born in Pakistan, Karachi, having a Pakistani husband and they've moved to Canada recently. She is a beautiful friend and colleague. 

At the same time I found an other beautiful Pakistani lady (Saheefa) in the group who showed up her face. I sent her request as well, not knowing, that she works at British Council... She was the teacher of Zaheer who married to the student of Zaheer, who works also at British Council. Wow!

As I was watching photos taken at the conferences of SPELT I saw a lady on the stage (Lubna). I sent her request. Why not? The worst can happen that she ignores my request... But she didn't! I sent her a thank you message and she replied saying

"Technology has shrinked the world, Dr. Judith Findlay and I met on fb few years back. In 2011 she presented a webinar and in 2012 she managed to join us as a plenary speaker for the SPELT 28th Conference. Today we are colleagues and working on a project together. So you never know, may be in the next conference , you make it as well."

Lovely! Let me find this Dr Judith Findlay! Not a difficult job at all! 15 minutes later I was a friend of Judith and was chatting to her! She is 70 years old teacher in America who is in love with Pakistan. 

I looked back and remembered when I wanted to find some contact to Oxford University Press and I couldn't have any in half a year!!! I sent several emails, tried to contact via LinkedIn, but it was like talking to a deaf wall. (it's a Hungarian saying...)

Something is happening to me...

The Circle is Complete

Last week somebody signed me as a friend on Facebook. Some kind of muslim of course.

I told him I wasn't collecting contacts. I accept friend requests only if I know the person more or less. I asked him to introduce himself, but he didn't.

Well, I found one mutual friend, so I asked about him and I was told he was all right. So a few days later I gave up my theorem and accepted his request. We had a few words of chat then nothing.

One Friday I sent him a short message. It was an accident, I wanted to send it to someone else but after the message we started chatting.

Very soon we found that he had been the school-friend of a third person who is also my friend. The circle has closed up.

I asked him why he signed me. He said he liked my smile... He realized it only some time later that we have a mutual friend.

Now, my dear friends! If you find out who my new friend is, I offer you a nice reward. No guesses are accepted. You can tell me the right name or don't tell anything.

The Blessings of my First Eid

No, not first aid, first Eid. Which is one of the biggest muslim event in the year. It's like Christmas in christian countries.
They remember Abraham who was ready to sacrifice his son. Doesn't matter which son, what matters is the fact that he was ready to sacrifice him.
Muslim families buy an animal to sacrifice and give the one third of the meat to poor people. Also they share one third with relatives and keep only one third of it for their own family. Life stops for 5 days, everybody is going to meet relatives.

I virtually took part of the preparations. Everybody was talking about the animal which was prepared to be sacrificed. One family bought a cow, another one a goat, the other one a sheep. They all were very excited about the day of Eid. Children were playing with the animal then learnt they have to sacrifice it. What a lesson! Yes, some of them were crying, but the lesson is still there. Sometimes you have to sacrifice your beloved things.

I liked Salim the best who told his children 'we are poor, we can't sacrifice an animal this year'. But bought a sheep in secret and surprised his children with it.

Dursun performed a complete live-show how Hacer, his wife was baking baklava for Eid. Thank you for that!

What about my blessings?

In the morning of Eid I got a whats.app message on my mobile saying "Eid Mubarak" - which means something like Happy Eid. But I didn't know the phone number the message arrived from. Started to chat to the person. We both were confused. "How do you know my phone number? Who started the conversation? Why did you send me that message? Are you playing with me?"
No, he wasn't playing. He got my phone number from Skype (I cleared it immediately). He is a young boy working in Mekka at the Clock Tower.
Where does your family live?
'In Pakistan' he replied. 'I thought so, but where in Pakistan?'
Yes, I wasn't surprised when he said 'in Pakistan'. Where else could he live? Everybody lives in Pakistan!

I don't think things happen accidentally. But who or what is the organizer, I have no idea. I feel like being moved by an uncontrollable power.

Nearly the same time I got a request on Facebook. Another muslim-sounding person. NO, NOT HERE! I wanted to close down!!! At this point I wanted to leave everything and run away. Don't do it with me!
Guess what happened about three hours later? I accepted his request. Yes, Pakistani. Of course...

Other blessings?

Video talking to Tahir's family... Getting invitation from Tahir's wife...

Talking to Zaheer first time...

Talking to Ahmed about language teaching...

Getting several Eid-greetings on Facebook... Such lovely words and good wishes...

And Eid hasn't finished yet...

All the blessings my dear friends on this very special Eid!

Where there is a will...

I checked my LinkedIn contacts and found about 950 contacts. When I checked them by location I found most of them from Hungary, than many from Turkey, England, Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, UAE, Argentina and then Pakistan with 16 contacts.

What about my personal contacts?
I have many from Hungary, one from Turkey, some from England, none from Saudi Arabia nor China, one from Iran, one from UAE, none from Argentina, and four from Pakistan. Absolutely illogical!

After checking my contacts I made a big decision. I decided to do what I hadn't done before: I would write a short message to each one of my Pakistani contacts about my plan to go to Pakistan and ask them to have a closer personal contact.

There was only one person where I hesitated. He looked too professional, and I thought he wouldn't talk to me anyway. I was afraid of being rejected. I don't like being rejected!
But later I turned back to him and wrote a few words.
Guess, what happened! He is the only one who has talked to me so far! And even further, he is the one who solves one of my great problem: getting contacted to ladies in Pakistan. But it's another story.

I'm so thankful for my 5th friend in that 300 km circle! Thank you Zaheer for accepting my friendship.

Gave Up

"Where there is a will, there is a way"

I'm ready to go to Pakistan. I've found nothing to stop me.

I have more and more close contacts in that 300 km circle.

The idea has been born too. It would be all about education. Children's education. I've asked my friends if they can arrange me visitings to schools and I've got some positive answers.

Also I would like to visit places where children can't go to school and find out if there is any will or desire of learning/teaching at home.

All signs show to go.

And at this point I gave up.

WHY????

To "give up" has another personal meaning for me than usual.

For me it means to give it to the strongest power ever, the power of God.
For me it means I do everything what I can, what I need to do, while being in contact to that higher power.
For me it means it's not me who want to make all efforts to succeed but leave it to the One who knows my way much better than me.
For me it means I know it will be GOOD.

And the most difficult time has arrived. To wait.