Tour Through The Kids Cameras

At the Gardens in Bahji Behind the Shrine of Baha'u'llah

We were feeling so guilty about giving away or selling most of the kids stuff before we moved. The last week before our departure we went and bought them each a small digital camera. These pictures were all taken by Yasmeen and Nadia. They both love to take a close up pictures of their friends and of each others lots of silly faces but in this post I wanted to selected the ones that will give you a feel of where we are. I am sure when they start their own blog they will make good use of the other pictures.

Walking across the Lower Terraces at the Baha’i Gardens in Haifa

Looking through the window from our living room, to the right is the mountain to the left the busy city of Haifa



Walking in Old Akka. I did not include any of the pictures to the Baha’i holy places in old Akka. As I would like to do that in another post later on after we do our staff visit and I will include some of the historical events that happened in this city

This is one of the view we see on the way to school. We also get an amazing view of the Shrine of the Bab just before we turn to the main street to their school. It is really hard to capture this city in pictures as every corner different.

At the Zoo next to our home

Our Dreams

There are so many thing on my mind not sure where to start. Our girls; which is always a good place to start. The girls seem to get in each others nerve more often there are so many new things that they both are trying to adjust to and things here are in constant change. Yet in between all this madness there are so much good and they do so many little things to help each other all the times. This morning I read this quote:

O YE RICH ONES ON EARTH! The poor in your midst are My trust; guard ye My trust, and be not intent only on your own ease. -Baha’u’llah

Reading this I starting thinking as we grow older we seem to lose all these wonderful dreams that we had as kids. Those dreams that will help fix the world and make it a better place. We become more and more busy with life and work we don’t have time to see those poor people let alone have time to help them. But we all know they are everywhere in the USA or here at in the other side of the world where they are more visible.

Through the eyes of my kids I see the world in such a different way. Things that we feel like it is out of our control and we just want to accept and move on they seem to have a simple solution for it. I think it is these dreams that will make the world a better place. I feel like there are few things in life no mater how painful we should just except as God’s will and move on. Yet that is not the case in most of the other things around us; we can change if we try.

Other than for punishment for giving our parents hard time and it is pay back I think that having kids is Gods way to help us not forget about our own dreams and give us another chance to stop and think and help them make their dreams into reality. Questions are coming at me from all sides with the kids. I don’t even know where to start. Yasmeen wanted to know why they don’t have many black people here among the Arabs and Jewish community. She looks at everything and notices everything. She has this sense of justice that is amazing and nothing seems to really scare her. She is growing very fast and seems so mature; she uses her music to escapes when she is frustrated. She can’t play the drums as the area we are in is very quite and people around us are not that easy to figure them out. Everything seems to bother them since they are older and only few kids around. But she has her key board and she plays that all the time.

Nadia has this plan to open an orphanage in Lebanon for all the kids that got hurt and have no parents. In her diary she writes the name of the people that she talked to and said that they will support her. She have sketch for the rooms and the layout of the place and the dog as kids need pets to make them smile she said. I am not sure exactly how but she think by the end of our 5 years here she will have all the money and the support she needs. Watching the news before our departure seem to have really effected her. Lately she has been thinking about it a lot, few days ago I noticed that she was in the shrine for extra long time saying prayers I asked her if everything is Ok and what was she saying prayers for. She said for all her cousins; she names them one by one and for all the kids that got hurt in the war. Then she said she always say few extra once in case she forgot something while she is praying she can ask for it.

I hope that you have a wonderful week and that all your dreams will become reality.

The Mountain

Getting out of this crowded city into the mountains was wonderful. The kids had good time. I walk around and saw wild flowers like “Asayet El Raye” which I used to pick as a kid from the mountain and bring back to my parents.

Nothing like being on top of the mountain with a friend

Don't they look like they are ready to save the world?

Sounds of the World

Once a year talent show done by the staff for the staff at the Baha'i World Center. An amazing concert. Watching a group of people from around the world with all sort of background come together to produce this amazing night is breath taking.







After the show the kids goofing off on stage

The Master's House

We had really nice week. One of the main events is that we had the privilege to visit the house of the Master. This is something we can do once a year or in special occasions. I still can’t believe that we are here and we can do these things. We are especially thankful for the timing as the kids could only go after the age of nine years old. Nadia just turned nine last month. For the kids to learn the history by actually seeing these holy places is amazing. It is located few blocks from the kid’s school. I believe it is the only residence of the Baha’i family that were built during Abdu’l-Baha’s time most of the holy residence were rented or bought since the holy family was here in exile from Iran. Later on this also because the resident of Shoghi Effendi and Ruhiyyih Khanum.

On a personnel level also this is a very special place for me as that is where my dad has his room and lived here during Shoghi Effendi’s time away from the rest of his family that had returned to Iran. It is so wonderful feeling to walk around and see the little things that I recall from stories that my dad used to tell us a children.

Below is the general update of this week.

General Update

I feel good and in very positive mood. I took the kids and Naim to work and came back to update my blog and start my day. At the gate to Naim’s work we stopped and chat with an older Arab security gentleman, something we do often, who insist on us getting a fresh turkish coffee that he makes at his stand. About twice a week I go to the market to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables for the day and walk around and take my time to talk to people. About once a week, I stop and pick up a falafel sandwich and eat it as I am chatting with the owner of the shop. Other times I stop to walk at the gardens of the shrine and just look across the mount to the streets of the city a little further out I can see the Mediterranean Sea with its busy port. What a way to start the day.

To update you on the kids, they are still doing well. Studying hard continue to find ways to make new friends and enjoy life. We visited the zoo with one of Yasmeen’s friend’s family and we had good time. Now they can actually put their books for the day without my help which is step forward. Nadia is more interested in learning the cool things. She goes in front of the mirror and practices how to do the sign for no. As most Arab speakers know what I mean, for no they make this “Chic” sound with their mouth and move their heads upward and some times left up one eye brow. In the evening they still play with their Jewish friends in the neighbor hood and now they mix Hebrew words with their Arabic. So slowly there are figuring things out.

Naim is doing well he is working hard and seem to always be occupied with things for work on his mind. As for me, I know I said that I will not start working for another few months but I could not really help myself. I started few days ago working on this simple project to gather information about drinking water, then will evaluate the data and look into new filtering systems to use for the buildings. I am getting to know myself better and now that I am much happier when I am involve with things that challenge me and keep me thinking and learning. I am also trying to be realistic so I will only be working at one project at a time and work most of my times with the kids.

I hope you all had a wonderful week and please keep the email coming as I would like to also know what is going on with you.

Ladies Night Out

At Bahji with Ekitti

Girls School Tests

It is almost 2 am and I am half asleep. I had a lot of things to follow up on after the kids went to sleep and just realized how late it is. I can’t believe it is already Monday and I did not want to forget about updating the blog. A lot is happening but the main thing is the girls tests. Yes, the girls are taking tests for the first quarter already. The least I can say is that it has been a challenging week for all of us specially the girls. I feel like I been living in the school meeting with teachers or dropping and picking up kids. The principle had agreed that we don’t need to worry about taking tests the first quarter and wait until few months for the next tests until the kids language is better ;but Yasmeen and Nadia are the ones that been more pushing to get involved with the test process. For the History tests, Yasmeen did not want to just set and do nothing while the other kids take the test but she could not read the test to answer so she took a paper and wrote the history lesson in English. She knew the events as I been readying for her the history in Arabic and translating it to English. The teacher was very impressed and gave her 100% in the exam. She was walking around the house singing an Arabic song 100% Habbitic. Nadia came home after her math test crying and said that when she saw the arabic in the paper her hands and legs started to shack and she think she forgot everything and did bad to be exact she said she thought she got F-. Friday she came smiling and I said what is going on she said she got 19/20 in the math test. I said what happen to the F- she said well I guess I did not do so bad. The math questions are in Arabic but the numbers are in English. They also got so far A in Geograph and Science.

As for me I was I was trying to ignore a cold and hope that it will go away but it did not work and I ended up losing my voice completely for a day and then sounded funny for few days after that. Which made it harder to study with the girls but we managed. I thought that is God’s way to ask me to be quite, reflect and meditate during the day so no complaint but the truth is I was not able to do a lot of resting. I hope I can do that this week.

The most exiting event for this week is having a very dear friend visiting from Florida. Ekitti is visit from Sunrise. He is here for his nine days pilgrimage. We were able to spend some time together. We saw him shortly on Thursday between his program and Friday night we had dinner together at a nice restaurant. Saturday we went to the Market picked up some food and went together to Bahji “Akka” to visit the Shrine of Baha’u’llah. This visit was extra special as for the first time the Mansion at Bahji “the house of Baha’u’llah” was open for visitors on Saturday and the girls where able to go for the firs time. We spent all the day at the shrine, the gardens, and the Mansion and had a wonderful day.

Naim and I both are still taking the Hebrew classes couple of more weeks to go. As much as I am enjoying it and learning as much as I am ready for it to finish as it is getting harder with doing that in the evening and spending all this time working with the kids study. I am sure all will pay off soon. But for now all I can think of is my bed is waiting for me.

Hope you have a wonderful week.