new blog

my new blog can be found here and I promise faithfully that I will try and keep it updated, until I lose interest in the whole thing again...

Old skool reunion

Yesterday was the FOSIS/IIDR (or is it Awakening) scholars' bash on our very own Manchester campus. Unfortunately, I missed the actual substance of the event, as I was at a friend's house, and then went to provide moral support for Pink at the Student Union election count. It brought back memories of the fraught silences and sickening waiting for results of previous years, especially Fudge's bid for Student Direct Editor. I still don't know the results, but things were looking quite good when I left at 10pm.

Anyway, I got to the building where the talks were being held and met with lots of old friends who I hadn't seen for many a month, most of them not since the July wedding. After the talk finished, I went to give my salaam to Imam Suhaib, but unfortunately the huge number of brothers that were standing around waiting to have their heads patted made it rather difficult to get a word in, especially as I stand about one and a half feet shorter than him. However, with the help of Madd, I got his attention eventually and had the honour of being remembered by him. After all, these scholars meet millions of people who all claim acquaintance in some way e.g. Do you remember a dinner you came to in Manchester three years ago? Well I was sat opposite you three seats down!

It was a night full of nostalgia, as almost everyone I have ever worked with, or tried to avoid working with, in the past four years was there. Ah the memories.

PS a major well done to Pink and everyone who worked so hard on election. I would have firmly excluded Jughead, except that she was persuaded to do a few hours' grafting (aka flyering at North Campus with the wonderful Anjeza) at the Eleventh Hour.

henceforth..

..my blog will be defunct until my life becomes remotely interesting again.

bloods

yay I did five bloods in a row today! This may seem like a trivial accomplishment, but I had a shameful period of bloodtaking failure which was very embarrassing and led me to believe I should give up medicine and be a strawberry picker in Devon instead. Time after time I stuck needles in patients, with ne'er a drop of blood to be seen.

Muslim medics

I was going to blog about something entirely different, but here goes. I went into the medics' common room about an hour ago, and there were two people sitting there having a passionate debate. It turned out that one of them was the author of this article (I know how you like to ignore these links of mine, but this is definitely worth reading, especially if you're at Manchester Uni, and even more if you're a medic) and the other was a brother on the Islamic Society committee . It's about the 'hijab squad' and 'beard brigade' who refuse to integrate with anybody - and the fault appears to lie with the Isoc.

She made some interesting points, as it IS true that Muslims don't integrate that much, but the difference is that it's more obvious when they don't because of hijabs, beards or simply because most of us are Brown. However, to put it in the national student medic press is a bit Much. She might get people talking about it, but I don't see how it's going to force people to make friends with each other. Most medic friendships are forged in the pub or at MSRC events etc; most Muslims have good relationships with individual non-Muslims but socially, there is a huge gulf which prevents total integration. Yet nobody suggests the MSRC organise a 'Muslim-friendly' event, such as a picnic or quiz or alcohol-free dinner.

What is more galling about the whole thing is that shortly after I went downstairs to the computer room I heard some 4th years saying 'There's a massive argument going on upstairs..its Anisa and guess who? one of the muzzies!' Like that's good for dawah. I wanted to go up and tell the brother to back off a bit or discuss it somewhere else, but there wasn't much that could be done at that stage.

Leaving today

Have just slept off the effects of a seven hour minibus journey and am back in Cairo, surrounded by suitcases and clothes ready to be packed away. I think having an extra-good time in Dahab is going to make it even more depressing leaving this evening.

The Cow and I finished our PADI Scuba Diver course (about 2/3rds of the whole Open Water course) and Bikey even succumbed and did an introductory dive. The night before last we went on a 'camel safari with Bedouin dinner'. The camel safari was about half an hour in total (not that I minded, I was exhausted from being in the water for four hours) and the Bedouins - Mu'annath and his cousin Ramadan - spoke excellent English, quoted Bob Marley ('No woman No cry'), and owned PDAs. However, they gave us an excellent insight into Bedouin culture and how it's changed over the past few decades. Apparently they usually just keep quiet and lead the camels on these safaris, while the Egyptian guides claim 'They don't speak any English, they're just simple Bedouins'. Tourists miss out on a lot because they allow themselves to be lead by the nose by guides sometimes.

After lighting a fire and cooking a chicken for dinner, we settled down for a bedouin folk tale. Unfortunately, Mu'annath's story was very difficult to follow, and Bikey, the Cow and I were in fits of silent laughter, due to his naming his main character 'Nuss in Size', i.e. half (nuss in Arabic) sized boy. I guess you had to be there. It was supposed to be a scary story, so he was bewildered by our reaction. After this, we had some bedouin games, such as getting Mr C and Ramadan to rise from a lying position to standing with a full glass of water on their foreheads, and blindfolding two people and getting them to feed each other spoonfuls of rice.

Later on, we went to visit the Bedouins' home, and met their womenfolk. We were given a concotion of powdered pomegranate pith in hot milk (supposed to be good for your digestion) and had a quick chat. Sometimes the women drive up the mountains and have a party by themselves, singing, dancing and feasting in complete freedom. A couple of them spoke very good English which surprised us. we found out that the Bedouin girls we always saw selling things only went down to the tourist areas between the ages of about 6 and 12 or 13; after that they stayed in the village and had nothing much to do with tourists at all. Many of the bedouins dislike the influence of tourists on their lifestyle, and also the presence of Egyptians, who come to Dahab to take advantage of the industry.

Yesterday Mr C and I went snorkelling around the Blue Hole, a world famous diving site with amazing reefs all around the edge. It's the ultimate challenge for divers who attempt to dive to the bottom of the Hole and then come out from a tunnel through the other side. Needless to say, it's pretty dangerous, and it's got a reputation for causing several deaths each year. We were just content to look at the reefs and the fish, but the water was cold and choppy so we only spent about 40 mins in the sea in total. We also went quadbiking, which was good fun, especially as we went at night, but the accelerator was stiff and my thumb is still sore!

OK i'm off to pack now. I'm sad.

As black as boot polish

It's a good thing I'm married, because I would never catch a Bengali husband at the rate my skin's tanning! The combination of beautiful hot sunny weather and the reflective properties of the water mean that my hands are four shades darker - I've had a ring on one hand since the beginning of the holiday and the skin is a totally different colour. It's quite cool.

All the people in the internet cafes seem to be having dodgy chats with foreign women on MSN - it's amazing what people will do in public! People have no shame. I went to a place in Cairo to get my medical elective papers signed and the man had the most disgusting sites in his history and had no qualms about me seeing them.

Anyway, Dahab has been good fun, though I do feel guilty reading poor Bikey's blog - hopefully we'll be spending a lot more time with her after we finish our scuba diving course tomorrow. For some reason, even though I will hardly ever get the opportunity to dive after this, and certainly would never be brave enough to do it without a guide, I have become obsessed with getting my PADI Open Water Diver qualification. Reason tells me it is pointless, but I still keep thinking of ways in which I can create the time to do the necessary lessons...I don't think it's going to happen though. Yesterday we had a not-so-good instructor, resulting in a miserable day. Firstly she got us in our wetsuits about an hour and a half before we got into the water, so we were both sweltering. We absolutely couldn't lift our weights or tanks, and our equipment kept going wrong, and then to put the icing on the cake I ended up bashing the poor Cow with my air tank and giving her a nasty nose bleed. We decided it would be fun to give Bikey and Mr C a scare, and were contemplating whether to take her blood stained towel back and just say that she had met with an accident, but then we decided it would be kinder just to ring and tell them. She's ok now, and I'm sure she will give her own version of events in due course.

Today was a million times better, a much nicer and more enthusiastic (and English not American like the previous one - call me a xenophobe!) who was also very thorough. We avoided all the mistakes of the previous day and both ended up having a great time in the water. This is in spite of my ears - the first time I went diving they wouldn't pop and the pressure was building up to the point that it was causing me severe pain..we haven't done any 'Open Water' dives yet, i.e. in deep water, so we'll have to see how I do.

In our last two days we will be doing 3 dives, kayaking, a camel safari, snorkelling and quadbiking! I think I'll be 'all funned out' as the Cow would say, and just about ready to get down to some studying.