and then our exile

Bismillah!!

i am here!

...

i'm...here.

i'm here?

........i'm here.

!!!

As i told Zacharia yesterday, so far i'm just trying to..."absorb", rather than "analyze". i honestly can't complain for anything external--the word "hospitality" reminds me too much of Air Canada and too little of Damascene warmth--i left Ahmad al-Tassi's house this morning, and the whole family has been u:ber-wonderful. U:ber-u:ber. U:BER. i believe i see him again in a week or so.

Let me retract that, actually--i will complain about Arab pop, which is awful. Absolutotally. And is eweryvhere. There were other things i meant to complain about, but in the end inshaAllah all will be well.

It reminds me much of Lahore, but Mister Khalid grew offended at that--today we go to Zacharia's village-town, and he said he will show me some things i could not find in Lahore.

Things i forgot to bring: a translation of the Qur'an. Erm. Which is obvious, except not to me at the time. i did bring something by Solzhenitsyn, i thought i might want to read something of the sort on the many flights, but except for 30 pages next to a very bald man on the wae to Calgary, it remained untouched.

Jetlag still reigns as queen--have been sleeping in ten-hour segments.

The pictures of the GrandeHobbits are everywhere, but other than that and a few armaments in the hands of a few uniforms, there is little else in that direction.

Fruit of sabbarah is of beauty.

By now (or nearing?) Farooq must be back in Canadada--akhi, remember the little pen-lid!

...anyhow. Here is a post the day i have access to el internet; Muntaka sahib must be appeased, and so now he must comment.

Wasalam! Du'a!!!