Blogs

A Startling Call To Prayer Murtaza Bhimani and I are driving to Kolda, Senegal to inspect a CAI school that was constructed here for the poor community a couple of years ago. Also, CAI is contemplating another small school in another village 4 hours along the way for the children deprived the opportunity of a…

Reminding Me Of Zainab: I am bleary eyed and woozy headed, seated on an Emirates Airline flight waiting to be flown to Mumbai after completing the seemingly non-ending 15 hours flight from Orlando to Dubai, with an added 3 hours transit wait. So, you will appreciate I am not in the best of moods. Especially…

CAI has built and operates 6 medical clinics in the remotest lands in Allah’s creation – the treacherous mountain terrain of Afghanistan. These distant lands are home to perhaps the poorest and disadvantaged people on earth. Most of the 300 sick people who are treated in these clinics daily, for free, have never seen a…

I have observed Mohammedhadi Somji, a distant relative of mine, for a few years. I have seen him attending lectures at HIC with an aid of an along-white cane, sitting cross-legged through lectures and ignored by his peers, leaving for home with his parents. He intrigued me. Although I greeted and kidded around with him,…

Hameesi, Mullah Mchungu’s grinning native Tanzanian caretaker, lets me into the sparse apartment in the ancient and drab building that is Mullah’s home since he was born in Dar es Salaam eons ago. He points, still grinning, to the still form of his boss, relaxing in an antique hammock type seat that I used to…

My Tears Of Blood – Asma’s Story I have been associated with Burma’s Rohingya minority since 2012, when the initial massacre by the country’s army sent refugees teeming into Bangladesh for succor. Then, CAI donors assisted with food and tents sent to the victims at the camps set up by UNHCR. I was also able…

Hopping Through Dar / Tanga / Pemba / Zanzibar Emirates flight EK725 from Dubai lands Dar es Salaam 5 minutes ahead of schedule, the American pilot tells us it’s because he helped push the aircraft…haha. He has been joking since takeoff, telling us that he wears his seatbelts all the time because he is scared…

Land Of My Imams / I Am So Upset, So Mad FlyDubai is a terrible airline. It has modern aircrafts and all, but an unfriendly crew and lousy service. It is as if they know they play the second fiddle to their cousins at Emirates and the resentment shows. Flying economy, nothing is free. Since…

My Name Is Salman Khan! So brags Salman, a circa nine-year-old I encounter the day before yesterday, walking the short distance from the Leela Hotel, a stone’s throw from Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport. It simply used to be called Bombay International Airport during saner, more cheerful times. Although the Leela is a piece…

The #MeToo Movement, Scary Times. For Me. Mullah Mchungu has me scared silly. So scared, that I have begun living the life of an upright mo’min in India, to the tee. It all starts here in Mumbai, where I am holed up for a few days, auditing and making sure CAI’s many Indian projects are…

An African Trip – Of Hope And Toothaches Royal Air Moroc have a policy, I suppose, of total darkness in the aircraft cabin from the minute the cold and tasteless snack service is over to the time it begins descending at the destination. It’s a cue to all traveling in cattle class to sleep, no…