Blogs

A Journey For Iftaar With The Orphans Of Syria 150 150 Comfort Aid International

A Journey For Iftaar With The Orphans Of Syria

A Journey For Iftaar With The Orphans Of Syria I’m heading to Syria once more. My recent visit to aid the victims of the earthquake in February 2023 exposed me to the precarious plight of orphans in the country. Sohail Abdullah, senior CAI Trustee, and I have made a determined decision to put more effort…

Ramadhan In Sanford / New Novel – Excerpts 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Ramadhan In Sanford / New Novel – Excerpts

Ramadhan In Sanford The holy month starts while I am in Sanford, which has balmy spring weather. As usual, Allah bestows His mercy and tranquility settles on my fasting; the hunger pangs and thirst are easily endured, even when I hit the gym in the afternoons; I feel very little pain or discomfort. Wonderful. Masjid…

Air Travels / New Novel – Excerpts 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Air Travels / New Novel – Excerpts

Air Travels I’m traveling from New York to Minneapolis on a raw day. While it is 45°F in New York, it is forecasted to be about 7°F in the Twin Cities. So, this weather is the core subject of discussion with almost all the passengers within earshot. A nervous-looking lady approaches my row, inspects me…

Manakara / A Cyclone Chase / Nepal / Syria 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Manakara / A Cyclone Chase / Nepal / Syria

Manakara We have a grand opening of Al Mahdi School in Manakara, Madagascar on Valentine’s day, a proud BCT / CAI undertaking. A wonderful day for about 300 girls who will have an opportunity to quality education for the first time in their lives. Manakara is a poor town south of the island, and difficult…

Mullah Mjanja / A New Novel 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Mullah Mjanja / A New Novel

Mullah Mjanja / A New Novel Mullah Mjanja I had known Mjanja (an alias, naturally) almost fifty years ago, from my time growing up in Tanga in the seventies. Mjanja means shrewd in Kiswahili. This is a title our friends gave him because he used to be cunning with his teachers, friends, and foes, getting…

Haazar. Chashm. Agreed. 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Haazar. Chashm. Agreed.

Haazar. Chashm. Agreed. The blessed month of Rajab is here. There is a deluge of Facebook posts, WhatsApp forwards, and emails extolling me to become more pious and Allah-conscious this month. Our respected and revered aalims, too, are all fired up – recite this and that dua they extoll in sermons, recite ziyaarats, pray these…

I Want To Die 150 150 Comfort Aid International

I Want To Die

Kisukaali, I want to die. These words are from Mullah Mchungu as I sit alongside his bed. I feel safe, as the menacing walking stick that he sometimes brandishes is nowhere in sight. He is ailing again. At just over eighty years old, I’d expect his human engine to have ups and downs, and aches…

Slipping And Sliding 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Slipping And Sliding

Slipping And Sliding Working and traveling for CAI takes me to numerous hot spots in this world and although most of them are dicey, uncomfortable, and sometimes outright dangerous, a recent trip to commission a completely renovated CAI donor-funded school in a remote village in Tanzania is one that I will cherish – for the…

Pakistani Dairy 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Pakistani Dairy

Pakistani Dairy I purchase an Emirates ticket to fly me to Multan, Punjab, Pakistan. Emirates gives me a seat on their partner airline, Flydubai because they do not fly to Multan. Flydubai reassigns my seat to a vague airline, Smartwings, an airline based in the Czech. Rather confusing but here I am flying in a…

A Pudgy Flight, A Dicey Ride, And Babul Ki Dua 150 150 Comfort Aid International

A Pudgy Flight, A Dicey Ride, And Babul Ki Dua

A Pudgy Flight, A Dicey Ride, And Babul Ki Dua A visit to the chaotic town of Gorakhpur and a drive to the village of Hallour in UP is not for the faint of heart. But nothing that I cannot handle, except the early morning flight from Mumbai, is packed and the fellow beside me…

A Jungle School / Dar es Salaam – Heat, A Beggar, And A Death 150 150 Comfort Aid International

A Jungle School / Dar es Salaam – Heat, A Beggar, And A Death

A Jungle School After the depressing trip to Pakistan where Sohail and I oversee the logistics of administering the purchase and distribution of 10,000 blankets and 7,000 tents to the victims of the devastating floods in September and October, we head to Manila, Philippines. Manila is a replica of any metropolis in Southeast Asia. Crowded…

Water, Water, And More Water 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Water, Water, And More Water

It seems the Pakistani government is finally convinced I am harmless since they issue me a one-year multiple-entry visa for the first time and I find myself at Karachi airport. The arrival hall is jampacked and it’ll take me at least an hour or more to clear immigration but a sympathetic officer pulls me aside…

Amna Naqvi – The Unwanted Daughter – Part One 150 150 Comfort Aid International

Amna Naqvi – The Unwanted Daughter – Part One

There is very little joy in Amna Naqvi’s (alias) tender life of eight years so far. All she knows as the daughter of a peasant farmer is an arduous and dreary existence; a daily routine of early mornings, before sunup, drawing water from the backyard well, sweeping dirt floors, washing clothes, and shaping stinking, still…

My Anguish Realized, RIP – Farishta 150 150 Comfort Aid International

My Anguish Realized, RIP – Farishta

My Anguish Realized, RIP – Farishta It’s a pleasant spring evening here in Dar es Salaam and I’m enjoying the gentle breeze blowing from the Indian Ocean half a mile away to my 10th-floor apartment. I’m typing away furiously on my laptop, trying to pen ideas in my head for my new novel before I…

The Queen Is Dead! – / Pakistan – Afghanistan 150 150 Comfort Aid International

The Queen Is Dead! – / Pakistan – Afghanistan

The Queen Is Dead! Queen Elizabeth II died peacefully on September 8, 2022; I’ve heard and read of very little else since then. Bapre. You’d think the world was about to end. Okay, so, almost all of us know who she was, as she reigned over more than a billion people of the Commonwealth at…

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