I'm Back!!

Yaa Halla!  Halla Wallah!  I have been away for so long but I had good reason and so much has happened.  Alhamdulillah, I have finally become a Citizen of the Good Ole United Arab Emirates.  Yaaaay!

Anyway............


As I have mentioned before, I have two teenaged kids at two different stages of teenagehood. 
Its interesting for me to see the differences between boys and girls. 


When I was about 13 years old I noticed the boys around me were are all about asserting their manhood and their toughness. "Nobody mess with me!" was their attitude. Another favourite attitude they had was "I don't have time for any nonsense" and sometimes "If your looking for trouble you'll find it with me, I'm gonna kick your a**". They became very territorial and even aggresive. Hormones were working overtime.


We girls were all "Am I beautiful?" (what other answer is there except "yes"?) "Do I look fat?" ,  " I need new clothes"  (said very loudly),  "Do you think he likes me?" (whispered to a friend)  ..................


*sigh........ I'm still saying the same things mostly....lol.

Dirty Hoes!!

Warning: 18Plus

I was chatting to a UK friend of mine the other day and this subject came up.  He told me that in the clubs in London, people often have sex right there in the dark corners or in the bathrooms.  This is what he said.  Whaaaat!  I haven't seen this in all my long gone partying days in Nairobi, and we partied a lot!! I don't know what it's like now, maybe some of my younger, still partying friends can enlighten me? 

My late brother was the DJ at what was then known as "Visions" and there were a couple of burly bouncers who took care of any over enthusiastic shows of affection before they got out of hand.  I DO remember seeing young couples snogging in the corner at the famous Carnivore but thankfully nothing more.  Maybe this was going on but I didn't see this as I was always busy dancing my night away.  There were always prostitutes there trying to hook up with "clients" so they could leave and go do it in some seedy hotel room or quickies in the cars or whatever.

The question is this: when we see a woman selling her body for money then we can define her as a prostitute, but what do we call the women who just feel like getting some and go trawling in  clubs for it?  Maybe she's in between boyfriends, or divorced or whatever so she sees nothing wrong in behaving like many men do.  If she needs it, she goes out and she gets it, without getting paid, or paying anyone.  What is she called?   Can she be termed a whore if money doesn't change hands? Some people may even think she has a right to fulfill her needs as she sees fit.  Is it not just a basic need like eating and sleeping?  But on the other hand, aren't we women emotional creatures?  And is the driving force really just a physiological need for sex or an inner desire to feel loved and wanted?   Sometimes a woman (or a man) just needs to be held.  Maybe this is the closest thing to a cuddle they can get?  I do feel sorry for these women and I am not one to judge, that is Allah's Supreme right.  All I know is loneliness is a terrible thing and I pray that we never get desperate enough to allow our bodies to be used just to get some short lived male attention. 

By the way,  I have a bone to pick with some of  you men: C'mon! step up and pick up the slack, there are so many good women waiting for you, and why do you always prefer bitches anyways?  That's another post for another day once I've read THIS book by Sherry Argov....

Copy / Paste

If you, like me, grew up elsewhere it will drive you insane when you see how some ("some' not all!) of the people here want to be rewarded for just being nationals.  They want certificates without getting an education, and they will take any shortcuts to get what they want. They cheat in exams and pay teachers to give them better grades.  They use hidden bluetooth headsets to listen to the answers from their partners in crime hiding in the corridor outside the exam rooms. All their assignments and thesis are copy /pasted from the internet.  Copy/paste is their best friend in this whole world.

A colleague came to me last week for help.  Her sister is in university and she had to do a  paper entiltled  "Factors that Affect Consumer Taste in Different Parts of the World".  (btw, we did this in 'A' Level Economics). She was very upset because they were told by their professor that he wanted them to do their own research and express it in their own words.  "Haram!" she said "How could he expect them to do that?  Maskinah my sister, she's crying, she can't do it, he is so mean, so cruel!  Please help her!" 

So her sister copy/pasted someone else's work from the internet and sent it to me to condense it into 1500 words and diguise it to look like it was originally done by her.  I did it because I am too kind, I should have just said NO, let her use her brains and write her own paper. Let her EARN her degree/diploma or whatever it was.  But I was sure she would not understand. She would think I am jealous of the fact that she's a national, sailing her way through university without doing any actual work or learning. She probably thinks that all of us want certificates without the education to back it up. After all these years, I know these characters well, so to avoid drama, I just rewrote it to make it look like "her own" and sent it back to her. It took me all of 25 minutes.  I wonder what grade I got?  I hope it was an "A"! 
I can see her a few years from now, clueless, crying again at the unfairness of it all, because they did not promote her after 3 months of mediocrity in her chosen field.

That's the UAE, baby!

Btw, I am so thankful to Allah for allowing my parents to provide me the education that they did. 

Frenemies Forever!

There are friends, there are enemies, and then there are frenemies. 

Frenemy:   A person who pretends to be a friend, whilst all the time demeaning you and trying to destroy or claim for themselves your self esteem, your reputation, your style, your achievements and anything good you may have.

Alhamdulillah, I recently got rid of one. I'll just give you a small example of the type of things she did.  If I bought a pair of shoes, she would say "Are those from Aldo?  I saw them but meh!".  Next time I see her she's bought the exact, same shoes and she would make it a point to inform me smugly "I have those shoes". And she did this also with perfumes, mobile phones, handbags and anything I had.  Wtf!!  I guess she didn't like them enough until she saw them with me!

She told everyone that she and I are exactly the same. NOOOOOOT!! 
I am not an insecure, impolite and selfish human. She was jealous of my friends and would insist on meeting them. I introduced her to my lovely friend "H" who owns a tailoring shop.  She had H's tailor make a few dresses for her, but when H's father was in hospital, she didn't even call H to ask about her father.  When he passed away (Allah rest his soul), she didn't call H to give her condolences.  When she wanted more clothes from H's partner about a month later, she feigned embarassment:  "I'm ashamed I didn't give her condolences on her father's death".  I told her "Well, now's you chance".  Amazingly and disappointingly she still didn't do it even as she bought a pileful of Moroccan jalabiyyahs at an amazing price from H's partner. The words  "thank you" did not even pass from her lips. Later on she told me that she just "didn't feel like it". She wanted to show me that my friend H meant nothing to her solely because she knew how much I love H.

Why did I tolerate her for so long?  Because I am patient and I pick my fights carefully.  So I let all her nasty little comments and deeds go, only because I felt that arguing with a fool makes me a fool too. Sometimes people mistake patience for weakness.

I was waiting for a chance to get her out of my life for a very long time but it was difficult because we are married to brothers. Thankfully, she moved house further away and she made it easy for me to make a full break (I knew she inevitably would) by picking a senseless fight on a day when I had absolutely no patience for her nonsense.

She called me to complain and accuse me and the other brother's wife of being jealous of her new house (really??).  When I told her I prefer to be far from her and I don't want her calling me to gossip about other people, she went berserk, insulted me and said that I was selfish, did not support her in her vendettas against other friends and I am envious of her and everything she has.  So I said, "Oh well!  If  I'm all those things then what do you want with me anyway?" 

It went back and forth for a while.  Oh God! How I hate bad drama! The call ended with a hint of desperation on her part.  She reckoned we have to stick together because everyone was jealous of our friendship (really???) and I shouldn't let them "win" by breaking it up.  It was starting to sound creepy and I knew then that she was out of her mind!  Soon after that she tried to orchestrate a group effort in her campaign to malign me via of all things, Facebook.  (Damn you Mark Zuckenberg!!)  But as of now, the little group seems to have disintegrated. They were probably too jealous of her "beauty and riches". Hehehe!  You have to laugh at the dramatic lunacy of it all!