Blogs

Mullah Mchungu And The Super Bowl I am well rested from my trip to East Africa where cases of the Doodoo are on the up and up once again, especially in Tanzania. The increase in the death toll within the Khoja community in Dar es Salaam has prompted the powers-to-be to be extra vigilant and…

An orphan’s Baba I am done with the fun and adventure in Vietnam and Cambodia, and although my injured leg from the bicycling accident in Vietnam is still giving me throbbing intermittent grief, I find myself, accompanied by fellow CAI Trustee Sohail Abdullah on an airplane heading to Kabul. Joining us are well-wishers Shaida from…

Happy New Year? The year 2020 is history. Unprecedented in the misery and death it spewed. I don’t believe my ancestors going back 100 years experienced anything like this past year, where the very air we breathe is suspect. Friends and family greet me on New Year’s Day with a chirpy happy new year and…

This COVID doodoo is creating so much havoc in my life, I feel it is the ‘greater jihad’ that the maulanas keep on reminding me from the pulpit. Murtaza Bhimani and I try to take off for Kampala from Dar but the Center for Disease Control in Dar works on their own leisurely pace and…

I am on my way to Africa. It’s to Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda this time. CAI donors have invested in multiple projects in Kenya and we must make sure all these are defect-free. In Tanzania, I’ll commission the new Sakina Girls Home in Zanzibar, caring for orphan girls with total care and an opportunity for…

I have known the Kutchi family for years; indeed, I went to high school with Ameer Khuchi in Tanga, Tanzania at the Popatlal Secondary School. It was a family not unlike mine then, or any other middle-class family of Asian Khojas whose ancestors made East Africa home. Ameer Kutchi was an athlete, a good cricketer,…

My cellphone with Mullah Mchungu’s name flashes about a minute after CNN calls the duo of Kamala Harris and Joe Biden as victors of the 2020 US presidential elections. I am glued to the idiot box the last three days, breaking only for salaat, sleeping off and on, using the loo, or working out; I…

The Land Of The Imams – II Since my last Blog riled the fiery feathers of a solitary fan because I used a supposed curse word (shit), I have decided to be super-nice and script only the nicest of words for Sohail’s and my second leg of our current trip; from Afghanistan to Iraq via…

Sohail Abdullah, my colleague and Senior Trustee for CAI, and I are traveling to Afghanistan for our semi-annual compliance audit of the very many CAI active projects in the country. This is my 45th trip to this overwhelmingly depressing and very challenging country that albeit has a special place in my heart. Traveling long distance…

My Tears Of Blood – Asma’s Story – Lest We Forget. I circulated the following Blog in December 2018. I am republishing an updated version now to keep the Rohingya tragedy and genocide alive with us – lest we forget. Little has changed in the two years since, except the ‘temporary’ camps begin to look…

Mullah Mchungu is the first person I’ve come to visit since I fly in from Sanford, FL, so concerned I am about his health, what with the Corona Doodoo spewing death worldwide, especially to the frail and elderly. I am dreading the worst but Hameesi, the Mullah’s lifelong caregiver, looks cheerful and upbeat as he…

Muharram Amongst The Doodoos The solemn days of Muharram are fast closing in so I rush back home to Sanford, FL from Tanzania where I am for two weeks inspecting/auditing CAI projects. Why? So that I can avoid the crush of Khoja mourners making their way to Dar from all over the world. It is…

Officially, Tanzania has a policy that all travelers entering the country carry a COVID-19 negative certificate. Murtaza Bhimani, CAI’s Africa representative brings this requirement to my attention a few days before I am to take off, putting me into a tizzy, trying to arrange a test. This is not so easy in Florida where the…

I Remember I remember Mama giving me a sumni (half a Tanzanian shilling; worth nothing now) to go purchase a half loaf of bread; a whole bread was a shilling (about US$0.000043 today). It was a karak-crisp white loaf, still kiln-warm, emitting tummy-rumbling aroma, the only variety available for purchase. The bread aisle at Walmart…