Project 365 2019 – WEEK 11

Bismillah Hir Rahman Ir Raheem

Hey, guys. Hope you all had a great week! Here’s how mine went:

Sunday, 10th Jan

I finally got the pictures of my Welcome Party and they were great! Everyone looked great! Here is a picture of the precious lantern we tried so carefully to make fly.

Monday, 11th Jan

When Mama is in the mood to feed us heavily, her food speaks for itself. Here’s my delicious meal of lamb chops (or champai, according to us fancy Pakistanis) with mashed potatoes, french fries, mushroom sauce and fried vegetables. I really want to bake something but my schedule makes it difficult to do anything other than eat, pray, study and sleep.

Tuesday, 12th Jan

My throat has been annoying me lately. I took antibiotics a week ago when I got sick and it worked but a couple of days later, I had a non-stop cough that doesn’t seem to go away. I’ve said bye bye to soft drinks anyways not due to my cough and have taking cough-relieving substances like Strepsils, honey and Johar Joshanda but it’s not working so well. I have started  taking cough syrup. I will get my throat checked if it doesn’t get better.

Wednesday, 13th Jan

Today we had a Special Children’s day. After our first lecture, these children came to the park in front of our college where we interacted with them, played games with them, did hand painting and helped them plant seeds.

Initially I was nervous as to what was the best way to interact with them. I didn’t want to come across as heartless and unsympathetic or overly-compassionate where I’m just showing that I feel pity for them. But then after learning how my peers were interacting with them, I became comfortable and understood what I had to do; treat them as your own, talk to them as you would talk to your own peers (without going into a complicated debate), let them understand how beautiful the world is through your eyes and encourage them to show whatever potential you see or think you see in them.

One kid hated Imran Khan (our current Prime Minister), we encouraged him to be our future PM and that we would vote for him.

A grown man and a kid were sitting alone together with a blue balloon in each of their hands, knocking them off each others’ hands. I went to them and told them whoever had the balloon by the end of this event would win. They wouldn’t stop messing with each other’s balloons.

A peer handed me a stethoscope to measure a child’s heartbeat. I tried finding her heart but I couldn’t as the stethoscope was weird and she was wearing a couple of layers of clothing. I told her, “I’m sorry, I’m not a good doctor.” I handed it over to her after I asked her to try it out. When she ‘found’ my heartbeat, I exclaimed, “Wow! You’re a better doctor than I am!”

Thursday, 14th Jan

We had a Small Group Discussion where we were taught how to make Pedigree diagrams. It’s quite hard but fun. At one point, our facilitator asked which one of us would act as the doctor and which would be the patient. I became the patient and a boy from our group became the doctor. We enacted a scene of a consultation. The doctor was meant to ask me, a ‘pregnant  woman’, a series of questions related to me having a ‘daughter’ who is afflicted with a disease and my concern that it might transfer to my expected child. I was given a sheet that showed the diagram of First, Second and Third Generation family members, where my ‘spouse’ and I reside in the Second, my ‘children’ in the Third, and mine and my spouse’s parents in the First Generation.

I had to explain it to the doctor but, doing it for the first time, I got a bit confused which make the ‘doctor’ and my peers in the group confused but we laughed at that confusion so I didn’t feel bad. With the help of the facilitator, I understood the diagram so was able to explain it and the ‘doctor’ drew the diagram really well. It was quite fun to do.

My friend and another person had to do the same act  where my friend was the pregnant woman with a very large number of ‘in-laws’ that made us all very confused.

Friday, 15th Jan

Our canteen has a freezer cabinet filled with Mars and not a single bar of Snickers. I am so annoyed by that! I love Snickers due to its indulgence and crunchiness and both balanced together, which does not exist in Mars.

Today, a result for one of our weekly tests was announced and I came in Third position alongside another student. I was very surprised as there is alot of competition in our batch. Our coordinator handed out chocolates to the first, second and third position holders for fun and encouragement. I was annoyed to get Mars instead of Snickers but I loved her kind gesture. I ate the Mars.

Then a friend of mine, a Pakistani, returned from Coventry for a couple of days and he gave us chocolates, and I got full on excited when I saw a huge packets of Snickers! After so long of enduring the suffering of seeing Mars. My eyes can rest easily at night now.

Saturday, 16th Jan

I’m sure you all must’ve heard what happened in New Zealand. If not, I’ll give you a little summary of it: a TERRORIST entered Masjid Al Noor mosque and killed 49 people, both inside and outside. These included 6 Pakistanis, including a relative of both my parents.

I won’t go into detail about what happened but I’ll say this:

There is no faith, belief and ideology that supports killing other people senselessly which can be called humane. The Western media is trying it’s best to label the killer as a simple ‘shooter’, rather than a terrorist. A terrorist is someone who uses intentional and indiscriminate violence as a means to create terror among masses of people for some gain;  that can range from those who make the content of news channels you listen to, to a regular person who picks up a gun and decided to take a life without a justifiable reason such as self-defense (actual self defense). English isn’t the first language of millions of Muslims including myself, yet we have to tell these racists the definition of a terrorist.

It is comforting to know as in spite of all that is happening to people around the world, there are good people who stand by the oppressed, such as Christians who stood in front of the mosque to protect Muslims from praying. Faith doesn’t have to matter in scenarios like this.

You just need to be human to know you can’t take a life like that. If people don’t even understand that, then……………………………

May Allah protect all the good people in this world and put some humanity into the oppressors. Ameen.

Allah’s Apostle (pbuh) said, “Whoever has oppressed another person concerning his reputation or anything else, he should beg him to forgive him before the Day of Resurrection when there will be no money (to compensate for wrong deeds), but if he has good deeds, those good deeds will be taken from him according to his oppression which he has done, and if he has no good deeds, the sins of the oppressed person will be loaded on him.”Volume 3, Book 43, Number 629: Sahih Bukhari.

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So that’s how my week went. How was yours? Do let me know in the comments.

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