Blogs

Am I Going Bananas? – Ali Yusufali 2017 New Year’s Eve finds me in Mumbai, yet again, after my stint in Myanmar and Sirsi and Agra and Delhi. Our UP schools have been enriched by the Savory’s, the educators who traveled all the way from Vancouver, Canada to train the school teachers in new and…

My current trip, to distribute rice to the Rohingyas escaping persecution by the powers to be in Myanmar (Burma), at the border area with Bangladesh, is turning out to be quite a gut-churner. Both in the physical wellbeing of my body as well as the trauma to my mental/emotional health. As I see and hear…

The cute WestJet Airlines stewardess asks me if I want to something to drink, so I ask for black coffee. I’ve just had a spicy guacamole jalapeno veggie sandwich so bitter coffee with complimentary cookies sounds might fine to me. The lass’s smile is infectious, so I take up the courage to ask for another…

Give Me Money, And I’ll Build You A School Mumbai India in general and Mumbai in particular, where I am now, is in crises mode. Prime Minister Modi’s well-meaning and noble-intended, but hasty and ill-planned ban on the Rupee 500 / 1,000 currency notes has bombed. Badly. The poor are panic-stricken, and many fat-cats are…

The flight from Orlando to Mumbai with a stop in Dubai is over twenty-three hours, and jet lag does not let me sleep much last night. Still, it is the wafaat of my Imam Hassan (a), so I have to pay my respects, naturally. So I take the crowded Metro line from the Leela Hotel…

Haiti is a dismal place; it was drab back in 2010 when CAI was involved in humanitarian efforts for the victims of the colossal earthquake that claimed 230,000 plus lives; it remains dingy now. Read about my experience then, here. It’s depressing after six years, made more so by Hurricane Matthew’s fury about a month ago, which…

It is only nineteen days to the history-making day in my fine (adopted) country; the final presidential debate is over, and I’ll soon return to not hearing ‘he said she said’ rhetoric and all the excitement and vigor of a robust and relatively free democracy. Not ideally free and democratic, but still one of the…

I testify there is no god but Allah. I testify there are no associates to Allah; He is One, the Only, the most High, the absolute Authority, the most Just, the Master of the Day of Judgement and that I am only a mortal slave of Him. I further testify that Mohammed (s) is Allah’s…

I have covered India, United Kingdom, Nepal, Morocco and Senegal on this trip thus far; UAE and Afghanistan await. So I am not to be faulted when I land in Kabul feeling a bit jaded. Sohail Abdullah, my fellow CAI Trustee from New York, accompanies me on this leg of the trip and we clear…

Flying from Orlando to Dubai on Emirates Airlines recently, I encounter a Kuwaiti family who are seated in the same cabin as I. There is the elderly mother, in hijab, abaaya actually, who converses with me in flawless English, and her two daughters. One’s married and has two children, twins, both undisciplined terrors who give…

I get mighty irked when airlines claim my flight is delayed because their incoming aircraft is tardy. I don’t care an ant’s ass if your aircraft is late. What if my car got snarled in traffic or had a flat tire and I was checking in late? Would they wait for me then? This flight…

Was it fun? This is a question someone asks me the other day, after I complete a seven-mile run. It is a question frequently asked by many who I encounter. I guess it is out of politeness and a conversation starter perhaps, because nobody really cares a hoot if I run seven or a hundred…

I promise my teen daughter Zainab that I’ll treat her to a snazzy vacation if she has nothing but A’s in her first year of high school. She delivers, except for two Bs. Close enough. So I swap Emirates miles with Riaz in Vancouver and we are on our way flying Air Canada, to the…

My hero, the person I have admired and wanted to emulate the last eighteen years, indeed since the inception of Comfort Aid International, Abdul Sattar Edhi has died, aged 88.  This holy man, may Allah bless his soul and grant him a very lofty place in Jannah, was a prime example of someone who followed…