The tree of life

It is very hard to see ones family, relatives and friends disappear one after the other, taken away by death before one has the chance to say goodbye, convey best wishes and show the love and affection one holds for them.  I am not against death as all of us will die, but I am devastated that I havent completely  told each person that I lost what I really thought of him or her and what they had added to my life.  

When one says that life is too short! we laugh but truely life is too short to be taken lightly and to spend it in hating one another or ignoring one another;  we must say what we want as soon as the want  comes to our mind. We must say what we think without hesitation and we mustn't let anyone stands in the way of our thoughts or stop us from seeing our friends even if the friends were not that friendly to them. 

Unfortunately though we live in a time that politics and friction is the norm but friendship and sisterhood is a way of the past.  We cannot say that we like this person or that person in front of anyone in the fear that that person may hold some strong feelings against them. We cannot be seen with some people because there migh be some factors that will make other people judge us and in turn hate us.

Politics and religion have changed everybody,   these two subjects were created to spread peace, but in realty haterdism was created and life  became intolerable.

Should we just set down In the park of life, watch our loved ones fall like leaves from the trees and hide our sorrows?  or should we expose our feelings without fear of being judged?

I think that I will do the second choice. I will show my feelings and if anyone hates me for it then so be it.

This blog is dedicated to my university friend and the person who taught me that silence is virtue Ms Samiha Rajab who died at the age of 57.  Samiha is a dedicated mother, a teacher and an artist. She spent her life searching for something which she couldn't find and died fighting cancer.  God bless her soul.

Now you know.

I had a real nightmare last night and I blame Egypt for it! I am serious, I blame egypt for every problem that we are having in the Arab world.  I blame Egypt for making us love the movies, love the theatre,  love the Fouol and the Kushari and for having such an inense history, with the Pharaohs  and what not.  I blame Egypt also for poetry, education, novels, for translating all the comic books that I read when I was a child, and for the first children books that I read that are similar to Sherlock Holmes, and so on.

My nightmare was not in that regards though, I was watching one of the soap opera that are shown in the month of Ramadan.  Let me first explain about Ramadan, we stay hungry the whole day and stash up the whole night, and during the hunger and the stashing up, we watch soap opera from different parts of the world but mostly from Egypt!! oh no, not again.  I for one don't like to watch the series as I don't like to be stuck to the TV everyday at the same time.

Ok,  so one of the ones I watched last night while having dinner at 2 in the morning, was about the olden days and the villagers in Egypt, and how they marry their little kids to older people and how these older peoeple first wrap their forefinger, and middle finger with white cloth, and stick them inside the child's vagina to open her virginity and that too in front of three older witches who held the infant so the older guy does what he was supposed to do;  he lingered longer and made the girl bleed to death.

I shouted at the kids for watching such savagery, and went to sleep.  Of course that is when all the nightmares started, I remembered the women who spoke on Boldtalk and their stories about the practices in africa, and how voodoo witches tell the men who are infected with aids that the only way they can cure their desease is by raping six months old kids! and of course the kids would die, and the men will continue to have their aids. Also how they mutelate women equipment to make them less attractive to men, and how men try out the girls in the hope that they will gain back their manhood, and many of such humiliating stories to our women kind.

When would all of these things are going to stop? wheen will womn and girls be empowered and trained as martial arts fighters to kick the backside of the assholes (excuse my french) to stop the invasion of their precious bodies.  I dont think these habits will stop if we do not constantly talk about them and enlighted the young minds of such shameful behaviours.

Is their a course at schools that teaches these habits? if there is one, then it must discuss the subject in such a disgusting way so no boy or girl will even think of it and if they did, then the nightmares will start.  I hope these will not be like my nightmare last night.

The "E" that is missing in our countries

Do you think that we are living in an electronic age? well if your answer is NO, then you must be living in the jungles, and sorry for this preamble, I know that it sounds rude, and I sound irritated.  yes, I am irritated.

On the one hand our countries are saying that we have a lot of traffic, we must measure our carbon foot print, we must look after the environment, we must and we must. Of course our countries puts sever measures to make you cut down on your trips, and had created the best transportation systems, metro, trains (very soon) also put a toll system and every time you want to renew your car registration you have to pay a lot of money for the renewal.

Great, so far so good.  Now let us ask ourselves, why do we have to take too many trips, and why do we have to call this person and that person to see if we can get some preferential treatments and have our work completed on time? What work? and why do we have to talk to anyone? why isn't every paprwork electronically completed? well, that is what I thought.  well, now we know why we have so much traffic jams, when the other parts of our governments are working so hard on stopping traffic, there are organizations who love to show off their people and wouldn't attempt the electronic world. That is why everything you need to do has to be done in person; you have to have a rude person that pisses you off too so you tend to remember that there is no reason why you have to face suce a face.

I will just mention two incidents in Bahrain, and one incident here; I was trying to obtain a trade license, it took me almost a year and a half, costed me 1.3 million dirhams and I still don't have the license; the second incident was when I was renewing my ID card (this is hilarious), I don't reside in Bahrain permanently, but I am a Bahraini, so I need to have an address, So I gave my brother's address as that is where we stay when we go to Bahrain.  The woman asked  me to call my brother, so he can come to where the ID card is, signs in front of her that he approves it, then she will issue the card.  We waited for a mere "couple of hours" until my brother arrived, soaked in sweat due to the hot weather and the heavy traffic, he signed, then we got the ID card and left together.  Did I need to go to that building to renew my ID card? couldn't my brother sign online? couldn't the whole thing be done online?

Wouldn't it be nice la lalallalalalala

Well, both of the incidents above were completed online, and with no hassle what so ever;  where: in New Zealand!  the country that everyone in the gulf was laughing at me when I said that I am going to send students there!  one of the students said to me "I don't want to be a sheep" and the other one said: " I don't like cheese". The sheep and cheese made my life easy, I was able to buy a house, start a company, order passports, renew passports, change names, and do whatever one can possibly think of without seeing a government official! everything was electronic.

The second incident is with RTA.  We had to get some parking cards done, and we were given a receipt as well as a map.  I first asked if I can pay online, as I really don't have time to do this, everyone said now.  Then the saga started, I followed the map, it was like a witch hunt. I couldn't find the building, so I called RTA, oops, they have no number on their phone menu for customer services or "to find our buildings press 0"; so I dialed again, and pressed the lost and found, when the person behind the line asked me what I had lost, I said your building in so and so area. so she asked me for signs, then she said that the building should be behind me.  I parked, went inside, and asked, it was not the building.  Then I called a friend, who directed me to the right place, as despite the map, the building was on the other side of the road.  When I reached there, I took my code, complained a lot, and paid, then took my paper, went to the other place where I will receive the parking cards, and went to the office cursing.

Now you know why we have traffic? because we have to do unnecessary trips that could be avoided if we apply the letter "E" properly.

It is my wish. 

Food

Everyone tells me that I am fat and need to lose weight, my kids keep on reminding me of the size of my body parts!!! the trouble is,  I have a weakness for food, and since looking at food makes me put on weight, then I might as well eat it.  This is true folks, my husband can eat a whole box of chocolate without adding an ounce over to his body, on the other hand, I will put on few kilos just by looking at him with disgust!! having been on diet since the age of 18, I am not going to opologise to anyone about my size, and I will eat if I felt like it.  Needless to say, my first ever cookbook was written by an Iraqi chef, and it was one of my most valuable possessions until someone stole it of me.  I learnt all me cooking from it.

Why am I saying all of this? well, I have a friend who sends me blogs about food, just to tease me I bet, but this last blog touched a sore point, we all lived in Iraq for a while (when we went to University there) and we all loved the Iraqi food, which is, needless to say, fatty, oily, rich from all aspects, but we loved it!  we hunted all types of restaurants and joints to try the varieties over there, even we ate in makeshift tents made by old men who sold very sweet Iraqi tea and served with it some sort of rusk which we dipped into the tea to make it softer, and the taste was out of this world.  You will only understand this if you drink that tea.  But hold on, you cannot go there now, they are still killing each other, I just wish that the chefs of the food you will see below are going to be living when the killings subsides and the country returns to normal living conditions.  I am forecasting another 20 years, but who know it may take longer. Of course there are many blogs and forums out there talking about the same thing, I am only addng my own flavour to it,  see this site for example: http://bit.ly/14lElnS

Without further ado, see below and enjoy:

بعض الاكلات العراقيه سوف أعرفكم على أشهر ألاكلات العراقية التقليدية والتي توارثها العراقيون جيل بعد جيل والتي سوف تبقى مدى الحياة كأكلات اساسية في كل بيت عراقي   السمك المسكوف هذه الاكله تشتهر بها محافظه البصره ولان موقع البصره على شط العرب فالمسكوف الاكله الاكثر شعبيه هناك المسكوف  الباجه تشريب باكله ((باقلاء)) ايضا يستخدم الخبز في عمل باقلاء بالبيض وهذه الاكله مفضله عند العراقيين خصوصا في الصباح وعند العطل الرسميه لان بدها مزاج ووقت لاكلها ليس كما في السندويج يؤكل على الماشي صباحا باذنجان محشي باللحم المفروم برياني دجاج--- برياني عراقي يعمل من لحم الدجاج او لحم الغنم حسب الرغبه ويزين باللوز والكشمش وسلق البيض ووضعه على الرز أول شئ نبدأ نعرفكم بالخبز العراقي التقليدي هذا الخبز البعض يشتريه من المخابز والبعض الاخر يعمله في البيوت نعود للاكلات الاخرى الدولمة (محشي ورق العنب أو ألسلق)   ويستخدم بها ورق العنب والسلق والبصل البعض يضيف الخيار المحشي واللهانه والباذنجان وأهم شئ تقديم الدولمة وهي حارة حتى تبقى محافظة على طعمها الاصلي نعود الى الشواء وهذا الصنف لا يخلوا من المائده العراقيه واذكر والدي الله يرحمه يستعد لتحضير المنقله قبل الغروب استعداد للشوي ولا يزال شوي الكباب بكل بيت وهذه كانت امتع اللحظات في رمضان بعد الشواء وما يحلى الكباب اذا ما يكون مع الطماطة المشويه على الفحم والبصل المشوي   ناتي لانواع الكبه وهذه التسميه لا اعرف موجوده في بعض الدول ام تحمل الكبه اسم اخر كبه راس العصفور او كبه حامض   مقلوبه ومكوناتها رز وشعريه مطبوخ بعد ان يتبل في البهارات واللوز والكشمش ويضع في قدر ويقلي الباذنجان واللحم والبصل ويضع فوق الرز ويرص تم تقلب وتصبح شكلها مقل الكيكه من الاكلات التي يستخدم بها الخبز الثريد باللحم  الشاي ما يحلو الا بعد الافطار    زلابيه عراقيه