You never gain weight from a donut hole

Wadi El-Waleh Adventure

2007-07-28T19:09:00.001+03:00

Salam!

My brother and I went to an exciting trip tp Wadi Al-Waleh between Madaba and Karak, this Valley finally connects to Wadi Al-Mojeb in the South. It was a great trip and we had fun with the new friends we met. The was hiking, swimming, abseiling, and much more fun activities! I publish some pictures here, hope you enjoy them.

Ali at the equator against the Dinosaur bird

2007-06-25T18:46:00.000+03:00

Salaaaam Alllllll!

I'm still alive :) All ok. Not much news from my side. But here are some of my new African experiences:

I went to the Equator line yesterday (5a6 Al-Estewa2). It was interesting having one leg in the north and another in the south. Basically, we drove 2 hours, took some pictures, then drove back two hours back to he hotel :S

We saw people putting fish in front of their cars they say this keeps the fish fresh, personally, I think that the diesel smog from other cars will certainly give it a spicy flavor :)

We went for Friday prayers at Mo'ammar Al-Qaddafi's mosques , it's huge Mashallah, but it took more than 30 Years to build ?! apparently some corruption was involved in the early 20 years of the project until Qaddafi of Libya stepped in as part of his African reach out strategy.

There is a huge bird called Maribu Stork (or what I like to call dinosaur bird) (attached picture), that is scattered all around the city. When It's standing, It can reach 1.5 meters! Wing span is Huge, but the meat of that bird is not edible, so people usually leave it alone, but if you see it flying above your head BE CAREFUL! They say that the birds dropping is Huge, and is very acidic that it can burn your hair and clothes and harm your skin! BOOOOMBS AWAAAAAAY :)

Anyways, that's what I've been up to, what about you? What's your latest?

Take care and stay in touch,

Ali Lord-of-War Jafari

Poverty, Violance, and Copyrights in Africa

2007-05-14T18:00:00.000+03:00

Salam all,

Work has been so hectic this month, and since the Jinja trip I didn't take any weekends, but this Sunday was an exception. I made sure it was by working until 9:30 PM on Saturday!

We went to Speke Resort in Munyonyo on the shores of Lake Victoria. It was a great day; we had fresh Tilapia fish with chips, went on a boat trip, and just basically chilled! Whenever I go to such a beautiful place, I always have my family and friends on my mind, and I recite verses from the Quraan, Sorat "Ya-Sin":

قال يا لبت قومي يعلمون بما غفر لي ربي وجعلني من المكرمين

"Would my People know (what I know),For that my Lord has granted me Forgiveness and has enrolled me among those held in honour"

If you want to see a video of the boat ride, click on:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykt5ipntqiw

When we were on the river bank, they told us that this lake connects to Rwanda, and that while the war (or ethnic genocide) was happening in Rwanda, more than 800,000 man, woman, and child were killed in the course of 100 days! Basically it was one tribe (Hutu) getting rid of the other minority tribe (Tutsi). They said that dead bodies of Rwandans would wash up on the Ugandan side of Lake Victoria! When they said that I got goose bumps (ASH3AR BADAN)I! They said bodies of children would wash up with a stick impaling them like they were barbecue! They said that the two tribes sometimes married from each other, and when the genocide started, the Hutu tribe would give a hacksaw to their men, and under point gun force them to not only to kill their Tutsi wife, but to cut her up while doing so… They told us that the only remotely safe place were the mosques, Muslim minority gave sanctuary to loads of people of different faith while people were being slaughtered. Rwandan Muslims played a key role in humanitarian efforts during the 1994 genocide; Muslims have been noted and honored by the national government for their roles in saving the lives of people regardless of their faith. Many people attribute the recent spread of Islam to these humanitarian acts.

On a lighter side, there is a great direct marketing scheme going on in Uganda for singers, I saw a truck with huge speakers and a band playing live while touring the city. They told us he is one of the prominent Ugandan singers, and that because of the piracy going on and non-existing copy right protection, singers would play their music on top of such trucks, and sell their albums directly form the back of the truck! Omar Al-Abdellat should try to do the same! But I think he will be stoned to death before he'll be able to sell a single CD :P

Before signing off, I want to point out that we are all blessed with so many blessings from Allah that we take for granted; Security, Electricity, Clean Water, Connectivity... I mean, only 10% of the population here have access to electricity, not to mention telecommunication and clean water! And that is not even a worry for a huge segment of people who don't even own a home! I remember a prayer taught to us that goes:

الحمد لله الذى عافانا مما ابتلى به كثيرا من خلقه
Thank Allah for he has spared us of many ordeals he tests others with

Take care and Stay in touch

Ali Jafari

Ugandan Legends

2007-05-02T19:25:00.000+03:00

Salam all!

I'm still alive, escaping from alligators and their sisters ;) Things are much different here, I mean, I've been to yemen, but that was only 3 hours away, here I needed 27 hours (including two stops, one in Dubai another in Adis-Ababa) but oddly enough, I'm in the same time zone as Amman!?

And dangers are really of a different caliber, each day when I walk to my room in the hotel, I must watch out for Mango's falling on my head from a giant mango tree! I usually find some on the ground, so I literally pick mango's from the ground and go have them in my room! Yum Yum!

Another thing cool here is the harmony among Muslims and Christians. I mean, for example, although the country has a president, it also has a king. he is called Kabaka of Buganda. The king here is more of a spiritual and influential post rather than ruler. The king family has two branches, one is Christian, another which converted to Islam. The way that a king is crowned is not straight forward. Actually, the first born of the king cannot be crowned as king. The crown prince is elected from one of the sons or nephews of the King. So sometimes you have a Muslim king, others you have a Christian! the king is now Christian, but the crown prince is Muslim.

We went to Friday prayers the other day, and saw the sidewalk leading to the mosque filled with students wearing cute outfits, and everybody in the mosque was wearing their most beautiful cloths. The yard of the mosque had a huge throne like chair, and many other chairs around it. We didn't quite understand what all this fuss was about. Later, and in the middle of the sermon (5o6beh), two guards entered, one of them, an old man (not less than 70) was wearing panther leather like Tarazan and holding a spear and armor. Behind them entered the crown prince of Buganda! We later learned that it was the prince's birthday! and that all the people came to this old mosque to greet him and wish him a happy birthday! as for the thrown, it was for the christian king! And the granddad Tarzan is the royal guard!

After the prayers, everybody went to greet the prince! And then the prince got out to pay respect to his uncle - the king. When we got out, we saw that the women's yard was separated from the men's yard by a low fence, and a man (orchestra coordinator) was singing to the ladies and they were singing back wish beautiful voices and much enthusiasm, and of course A LOT of drums were there! Yes, drum banging, ladies singing, people clapping, all IN THE MOSQUE! They never really sang Happy Birthday to you, and didn't bring a cake or candles, but everybody was cheering and clapping and singing along! Unfortunately I couldn't take pictures due to security, but it was a scene I will never forget!

We also learned that on Saturday, a similar ceremony was going to take place in church!

I attach some photo's of the temporary office we are in. It's basically a one floor house with a huge garden.

Take care and stay in touch!
Regards,
Ali Afrikano

Nile Source in Jinja / Uganda

2007-04-14T17:47:00.000+03:00

Greetings All!

Sorry for not being in contact, but the connection here is sometimes hacked by monkeys. All is well 7amdellah and people are really excited about us here.

Went to see nile source, it was amazing. I'm working really hard. Take care and enjoy!

By The Way..

if you want to see my dancing skills, go to

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBfOgUtwUH0

Yemeni Wedding

2007-02-04T13:17:00.000+03:00

Salam All,

Hope ur ok! I went to a yemeni wedding on the weekend. In Yemen weddings can go from one day to a week depending on the family. The wedding we went to was only a one day event. They start at around 3 PM with QAT, then the groom comes and they have ANASHEED, then they sit down for what they call " Tea Party" which is basically QAT and tea with milk and HEEL and QORONFUL. Then QAT until MAGHREB prayers. Then the groom leaves for a rest (from all the QAT), and the rest stay on the QAT diet. Then at 3ESHA prayers, the groom comes back with a ZAFFEH and sing along with ANASHEED on SALAT EL NABI and how much the groom is beautiful (or at least that's what I understood)! After that the groom enters for greetings and that's pretty much over. I'm not sure how the event is carried out at the female side, but I'm sure it's basically a Tea-QAT event.

I attach some pictures, enjoy!

What news you have? Update!

Take Care
Ali Ba-Ja3fari

Ali and Children of Yemen

2007-01-17T17:55:00.000+03:00

Helloz all,

Hope all is well. Eshtagnalkom and I hope you are ok. Here is a collection of best Yemen Children photos I took, plus other cool stuff. No news on my end, tell me yours!

Enjoy and stay in touch!
Ali

Old Sanaa Wadi Ma6ar and a Walk in the clouds

2006-12-16T17:59:00.000+03:00

Salam!

Hope all are ok! I moved to the compound, all is well thank god. I didn't take photos of my new home yet, so I'll send them later in another email. I swim almost everyday in the OUTDOOR pool! It's December and the weather is spring like here!

Work is ok and all is well 7amdellah. I went to interesting places this weekend. First to old Sana'a and Bab Al-Yemen Market! This place is soooo old! We went to the site of Abraha Al-7abashi Kullais (or Ka3bah) which he made to attract religious tourism after he saw the thriving economy of Makkah! Full story including TAFSEER SORAT ALFEEL can be found on this link:

http://forum.amrkhaled.net/showthread.php?p=1352805 عام الفيل paragraph

We also saw the old mosque (al jame3 al kabeer) which the Prophet himself (PBUH) ordered to build.

Next day we went to Bani Ma6ar dam and from there to a village between the clouds! Yes really!It was so high that we were driving between the clouds! I leave you with the pictures.

Take care and stay in touch.

@!i

Trip to Wadi Dhar/Rock Palace

2006-11-25T02:52:00.000+03:00

Salaaaaaamz

Hope ur all ok! miss u all and wish u happy days! I'm ok doing well thank God. Work is SLOWWWW here. I'm still in the Hotel until now! I found what was supposed to be a good apartment (by Irbid standards I wouldn't take it!) furnished 2.5 bedroom apartment for 400$ a month. We asked the owner to clean up the place and he dispatched the building guard to do so. After it appeared to be in a livable state, the sneaky guard showed it to other people and signed them with the brother of the guy we agreed with to get some commission out of it! hence the saying: (Abu Yaman LAAA Yo'taman)

I found a new home, tomorrow is crucial to seal the deal, ed3ooli!

There are two major attractions in Sana, that's why I'm trying to delay my field trips as much as I can, to get the assuring sense that there are still somethings to do here! The first is the old city of Sanaa, which I haven't visited yet, and the other - which I visited today - is called wadi dhar which has the stone palace. to get there is simple, just take the road to get out of San'aa, and keep on driving until there are no roads left! when you enter Wadi Dhar, you are stepping out of the end of a worm hole sending you 3000 years backwards! You first see watch towers on each side, then you encounter a city that precedes ancient Egypt, difference is, people are still living here the same way they did so long ago! I read somewhere that until the mid forties of the last centuries, the way of living of these people were untouched for thousands of years! they live in old huge buildings two, three, or four storeys tall made mostly out of clay! they have developed a unique technique that allowed them to build the oldest skyscrapers known to man!

The new buildings in that area were made using the same old technique, so they are indistinguishable from the old. People there are very hospitable and offered to have us for lunch (serve us not eat us :)). The main attraction is located in the middle of the valley, where a 5 storey palace is built in on top of a giant rock! the old building is prehistoric, but the one you see in the attached pictures was built in the 1930's for the old Imam who ruled Sanaa called Imam Yehya. It is huge and contains many facilities that are considered modern taking into consideration the time they were put into service. From chair equipped indoor bathrooms to wall refrigerators, its amazing the luxury he and his four wives had. There is also a 250m well dug into the rock!

I will leave the pictures to speak for them selves! enjoy and God bless!

P.S. Here in Yemen, they have their own pre-defined nick-names, for example Mohammad is (el 3ezzi), Abed is (el Fakhri). As for me, after being called 3li el-lebnani in Egypt, I am now 3li Al-Jamali!

Ali "Al-Jamali" Al-Ja3fari

Ali's Second week in Happy Yemen

2006-10-14T17:48:00.000+03:00

Jom3ah mbarakeh 3aleena wa 3leekom. It's my second week here, and although I avoid getting out of the hotel (ella lal shaded el awi), there are still somethings to talk about.

Sana'a is more than 2500 Meters above sea level in a desert-mountain settings. So there is not much oxygen, no humidity, and the air pressure is low. Weather is mostly spring like but DRY. At night it gets cold sometime – desert night cold, the kind that sneaks into your bones! Lack of oxygen makes you feel that you are not getting enough out of inhaling, A Yemeni guy told me that he would only need a four hour sleep in Amman to get the rest he needs due to what he called the (abundance) of Oxygen. That was explained by a Medical student friend of mine who told me that your red blood cell count well increase in Yemen in an above-natural count to grab what ever oxygen available in your lungs, so when you leave Yemen to a city like Amman, you will feel like SUPERMAN !

The dryness is a killer to my beautiful skin, my face and hands are shedding skin like an apple tree in the fall. Another problem is that my allergies are surfacing here, not sure why since we are in a 2.5 KM above sea level desert! Someone pointed out the fact that the Gasoline that they use here is (ALLAH 3ALEEM FEEH) especially for a TANAKEH worth just above 3JD (compared with above 13 JD in Jordan!), so the air is filled with (ALLAH 3ALEEM FEHA) cars' exhaust emissions! But, to tell you the truth, the mixed combination of a runny nose and the dry weather has renewed an old passion of mine, nose picking (TANKEESH)!

Back to Sana'a streets, I am living in an area called (7addah) which is to Sana'a what 3abdoun is for Amman... Mo5ayyam al 7osien is slightly worse than here. But to be fair, there are a few decent places here -not a lot of options- but a person can live a good living here.

Back to the weapons issue, we went to (Al Fa5er) the other day, which is a fancy Lebanese ran Yemeni food restaurant. The place is really great. There was this Yemeni Giant who had a Janbieh (khenjar) in his belt, three Daggers, a big cowboy like pistol, and had a HUGE machine gun on his shoulder. His scruffy bearded face and large build suggested that he just came out of the Afghan war. I later learned that he was a Sheikh's body guard. The problem appeared when he came for Maghreb prayers with us, he (EN3AJAG '3EER SHEKEL) with the weapons he had – didn't know to put what where, and ended up praying in a form close to what the Holy Qur'an told us about War Prayer!

Last but not least, today is a national holiday for the revolution of Oct 14^th. There are lots of those vacations happening, the revolution of the north, the revolution of the south, the union revolution, the (north la7alo and south la7alo again) revolution, the unity PART II revolution, and so on. We saw great fire works coming out of a mountain top over looking Sana'a. With each explosion, the entire desert surrounding Sana'a would light up! Reminded me of Allah's words

(يكاد البرق يخطف أبصارهم كلما أضاء لهم مشوا فيه وإذا أظلم عليهم قاموا)

(Al Baqarah 20)

Sub7an allah, 3allam al ensan ma lam ya3lam

Missssssssss u allllllllll. Take care and see you soon . be in Amman on 18^th inshallah. Salam

Ali Al-Jafari

Ali's First week in Happy Yemen (QAT for all AWQAT)

2006-10-08T04:16:00.000+03:00

Salam from happy yemen

It's been a week in this country, can't say I'm too surprised. You might say it was less than what I hoped for but around what I expected.

I'm temporarily staying in a four star hotel apartment with one flat mate from Jordan. The flat has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, a 6 chair dining room, a balcony, and a living room with BIG ass TV. This week were dining in restaurants that are better than those in Amman, So you can say that I'm not mingling with the masses!

But I can't get too comfortable doing this because A. Living well in Yemen IS expensive, for example, Fotor in the Italian restaurant cost us after corporate discount 15 JDs! And the flat I'm living in costs 80$ per night, as corporate rate.

Yemen dishes are amazing! Me5bazah salta fa7sah 7aneeth mandi and lots and lots of Shrimps! You can say that I am (mebghal)

So you can say I haven't seen the REAL yemen. All I have seen are beautiful buildings, and Yemen's version of Tobacco Mulukhieh… QAT

It is really a major problem here, especially in Ramadan. Imagine that you are a chain smoker that smokes non stop for at least four hours a day, then imagine fasting in Ramadan! I'll get back to Ramadan later, first, abit on Qat.

Yemeni people believe that Qat is a magnificent tool to open up your mind and give you both mental and physical energy… but without the wings.

I saw a lot of testimonies to that, but -among 10000000 other things- there are three major problems:

1. After the qat's supposed high, there is a MAJOR down, that wil prohibit you from doing anything without it

2. There are many types of Qat around, most of the common kinds only give you the fix without the needed effect, the GOOD stuff will start at 50$ a day and reach thousands! Anything cheaper than that will be like chewing Panadol soaked Mulokhiah, which brings me to the third point:

3. Since there is overfilling demand on qat (90% of males over 10 years and a growing habit between females) a lot is being grown in (allah 3aleem feha) unsupervised conditioned filled with chemical fertilizers and pesticides, meaning that you are basically chewing a one way ticket to all sorts of cancer types.

Back to Ramadan, basically a person would be feeling down all through the day, once iftar time comes, a person would eat then go to ta5zeeeeeen qat until dawn, the next day he will have a hangover like nothing he seen before, so he stays at home. Basically specking: stoned at night and hungover in the morning.

But to give them cridet, there is a growing trend in yemen to stop ta5zeen, but it's still in it's early stages.

You can find what ever you want in Sana'a, you just need to look hard and know that you will have limited options. American companies have entered the market in two ways: clearly (like Pizza hut and KFC) and (bel3agel) like pizza hut's first ventue (7owais Hut for Kebabs) and (Yemen Ce-town)… true story.

The social grid is pretty much meshed here because of the qat sessions, you would have a Minster, his driver, and a couple of whitat drivers (whitat is the plural of white, which is a water tanker) all in the same room doing the qat ritual for hours.

The whole Yemeni culture is around qat, all major economic, business, and political decisions are made around qat. Even the houses are designed with qat mind. A simple house would have a separate room especially for qat with only a small window. The window (as I was told) is small because when a person is chewing (be5azzen) his body temperature rises, so a draft would send him into an epilepsy (sara3) episode. Hence the small window. A more sophisticated house will have two or even more rooms for that purpose.

Yemen is not really an Islamic state; it's more like a Bedouin socialist state with an Amsterdam like 7asheesh feeling and some representatives of qa3dh here. There are even Yezedieh She3ah here, but too stoned to be any different than sunnah. Iran tried once to get the 12 Imam she3ah thingy going in Yemen, they shot all of them dead (the shee3ah, not the 12 Imams)

Speaking of weapons, I'm no sure if the statistics are true, but it is said that there are 3 pieces of weapon for each man woman and child in Yemen! And that's only counting simple handsets like the klashen (pistols are child toys here). Janbieh (khanjar) is the Man's bling of choice, some would cost more than 50,000 $! The price is related to the handle (good ones are made from dear horns), the owner, and the age+history: all janbieh have certificates of ownership history. For example, I could buy a janbieh from an important guy for 50,000$ but when I sell it, it wont get me shelen.

Anyways, I know this is more of an essay than an email, bas sallek 7alaaak! Work is a huge challenge, but living within good standards and not much spending is possible.

Ed3olna wa salmoooooo

Ali Abu-Salma Al-Yamani

The meaning of >> /dev/null 2>&1

2006-07-31T14:39:00.000+03:00

When you end your command with ">> /dev/null 2>&1", this means to send any standard output to /dev/null (the linux trash can) and to redirect standard error (2) to the same place as the standard output (1). Basically it runs the command without any output to a terminal etc.

This is mostly helpful in scripts, especially those running in the crontab, were you don't want any output sent to screen or to the /var/mail or the cron record.

Checking disk space

2006-07-31T14:36:00.000+03:00

For checking disk availability:
df -k
or
df -h
as for folder sizes, use
du -hs

Putting a startup entry for your linux machine

2006-07-31T14:23:00.000+03:00

Put the path of the script in the file /etc/rc.local

Independent Online Edition > Science & Technology

2006-03-19T12:17:00.000+03:00

Independent Online Edition > Science & Technology

Great Article on how muslim scholers changed how the world looks today! I just pray to Allah to lead us back to true Islam.

Finally! Got me a website!

2006-03-15T10:57:00.000+03:00

WOW! I finally did it!

I finally bought a domain name and I have started working on my website! I bought two domains, 5 GB hosting, email and blog, and a lot of other stuff, all for 41$! Now it's time to put the pieces togther.

I am busy at work and hope to start working on the site on th eweekend.

Finally found it! DJ Tiesto - Beautiful Things

2006-03-14T09:48:00.000+03:00

After almost two years of search, I finally found this song! it really a haunting song with great lyrics and a dark dance beat in the back, powered by the gr8 DJ tiesto. I have been listenning to a lot of dance music these days, a far cry from my alternitive days! I used to hate the word re0mix, now it's the only thing I am searching for!

I include the lyrics of this greast song, because the way I found this sond was by making a google search on bits from the lyrics!

DJ TIESTO lyrics

Startinn to Blogggg!

2006-03-13T12:33:00.000+03:00

Hi PPL!

This is my first try in this, hope my blogs keep you coming for more!

This is a pic of me during the days when I had Hair :) I am now shaving my head. Nothing political, it's just Im getting some bold spots, so I am just preparing my self mentally for baldness :)