Hwange Safari Lodge - Elephants!

Before we went on our trip, Aunty Fawz asked me what animal I wanted to see the most.  My answer?  "Elephants!"  And boy, did I get my wish :-)

Not long after we arrived, the elephants started trickling in...

Here's another one. See the Egyptian geese and Blacksmith lapwing?

And they came with little ones...

 

And they started drinking...

 

Here they are all together with the zebras and warthogs.

Just to give some perspective, here's what the view was like without zoom. (definitely worth it to bring a camera with high optical zoom)

And then... the whole pack started to come in for a drink.

Can you see them in the woods?

Here they are...

More elephants than I can even count!

Look at the baby elley!

:-D

Hwange Safari Lodge

Yes, it's been over 2 years since my last post to about my trip to Zimbabwe in 2012... but I was looking through the pictures yesterday and they're just too beautiful not to share.

So, after much delay, here are the pictures from the first part of our Hwange-Victoria Falls trip in the end of June/early July 2012.

First, here's an interesting lizard we saw as we stopped on the road to Hwange.

After several hours on the road (yes, the road is pretty much that quiet and empty the whole way)...

...we arrived at Safari Lodge!

As soon as we got there, look who we saw at the watering hole:

Zebras!  (that one is just lying down...he's ok...he gets up later)

And warthogs!

 

See, the zebra got up. He's ok. (I'm pretty sure the one on the left was the guy who was lying down.  Although, it's a little hard to tell with these guys)

Here's what the watering hole looks like without zoom (warthogs are on the left, zebras on the right).

Next up... the elephants!

I am as my servant thinks I am...

This weekend, our masjid was open as part of Doors Open Toronto.  Alhamdulillah, over the course of the weekend, we welcomed over 700 visitors, who took tours of the mosque and learned about Islam and Muslims.

As part of the tour, we had a calligraphy display, which included selected verses from the Qur'an and some hadith.

At one point, I started speaking to a woman who was studying the calligraphy intently.  She paused at this piece, saying she wasn't sure if she really understood what it meant.

I am as my servant thinks I am.  I am with him when he remembers Me.
- Hadith Qudsi

I told her that a person's experience of God is based on way that they think of Him.  If they think God is kind and merciful, they will see His kindness and mercy everywhere.  If they think God is uncaring or vengeful, that's also what they will see.

My favourite example is one that I heard from Shaykh Hamza Yusuf.  It's the example of the atheist. 

I used to work in a lab, where we would study chemical, biological and physical processes in the field of nanotechnology. 

In the field of science it's not uncommon to find a lot of atheists. 

I and my atheist colleagues would read the same papers, look at the same experiments and phenomena and come to completely opposite conclusions.  While the complexity and perfect balance that we observed everywhere we looked would reinforce my belief in God's existence, the exact same observations would reinforce my colleagues' belief in God's non-existence.

They didn't believe He existed so, as He stated in the hadith qudsi,  no matter where they looked, they would never find Him.

A matter of starting

It's one of those lessons that I seem to learn and forget and keep having to learn again...

There's some big task that I need to do and I find myself procrastinating. 

It might be my taxes, some piece of writing, or the work that goes into coordinating a community event.

And as I procrastinate, the thought of that task weighs on my mind constantly.  I may be doing something else or nothing at all (I've learned to procrastinate in different ways :p) yet I'm constantly thinking that I need to do this thing.  It can go on for weeks.  A constant level of stress and anxiety about something I'm not doing but should be doing.

The funny thing is, after all this stress, there's always a way out.  And it's not even that hard.

I just have to start.

Instead of thinking about the whole task in all its complexity, I just need to do the first thing.  The tiniest little first step of the whole process.  It might be picking up a pen and opening my notebook and starting a checklist.  Or looking up some information or sending an email..  Or dialing a number and asking a question.  It's never anything extraordinary or complicated.  Just a single action, which often naturally leads to another action, and another.  And sometimes that's all it takes to get the whole thing done.  And if not, I will at least feel so much better for having started.

And then I just need to do the first little thing to get started on the next part.

Not a final exam

I attended a talk by Amira Hass a couple of years ago where someone asked her if the protests we saw in Israel that summer would bring about social change.  In her answer, she said that social change is not like a final exam.  It's not a one time event that we prepare for, execute and then forget about afterwards.

That's true for a lot of things.

Maybe the problem is that we're in school for so long that we forget this.

Life isn't a series of semesters where you take a course, write the exam, pass and get the certificate.

It's about showing up every day and doing what it takes to make things work and make things better.  Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year...

It's how relationships work.  How businesses work.  How society and social change work.  It's how life works.

It isn't a final exam.

Never lose hope

Dalia Mogahed gave a talk at RIS this morning on the political situation in the middle east -- on the wars and daily tragedies that are tearing the region apart today.

At the end of the talk, she told us to never lose hope.

And reminded us of the story of Musa 'alaihi salaam.

When he and his people reached the shoreline, they stood facing the Red Sea as Pharaoh's army approached imminently from behind.  The situation was hopeless -- by secular standards.

But then, God told him to strike his stick and He parted the sea.  And they were saved.

God didn't need Musa to strike his stick.  He could have parted the sea on His own without any action from Musa.

But He told Musa to strike his stick.

And there's something to learn from that too.

We must never lose hope in God's help and His mercy.

Our job is only to do our part and be witnesses to God's miracle.

Be a gift

At the Reviving the Islamic Spirit Knowledge Retreat this year, a sister from Quebec asked Dr. Tariq Ramadan what Muslims should do when they live in a community that is increasingly hostile to them and the practice of their religion.

She's joined others in opposition to Quebec's proposed values charter.  Meanwhile, her friends who wear the hijab have difficulty finding jobs and are faced with increasing animosity and abuse on the streets.

She asked, at what point do you just leave?

His response...

When they try to portray you as a threat, be a gift.
Stay.  And be a gift.