Ahlan ya Ramadhan~!

بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم

Last 28th August, i went on board the plane to kuwait from Alexandria.

There are not much of us Malaysian students going back home that day. Probably 30 something of us. We were waiting for our flight and I was sitting on the bench with my friends. Behind us is an egyptian couple. Well, I thought they were a couple but now when I think back, they probably are just friends. Now, this couple...they looked pretty much the same age as we are.

Here's the twist. Hannah was staring at them all of a sudden and I asked her why she looked at them that way. Apparently, the egyptian girl is reading some kind of book that caught hannah's attention. Then, Hannah said:

"MPP wei. MPP!"

I thought I heard she said that but actually she was saying "UTP", as in Universiti Teknologi Petronas~! ;p The girl was reading a book with UTP's logo stamped on it.

So, I didn't remember who asked the couple first whether it was me or Hannah or Iylia or Azie but we got them to engage into a conversation with us. And...she speaks PERFECT FLUENT English. I feel bad to say this but her English is even better than our professors, even better than any of us. We conversed more with the girl than the guy and she was very friendly too that made us feel at ease to ask her more & more questions.

The story was, she and about 80 other egyptians goes to UTP. They are all either under the governments' scholarships or PETRONAS' scholarships. She knows about nasi lemak, roti canai, baju kurung, and she said, "Your country is beautiful, you know that." While she is going back to Malaysia to resume her studies after her holidays in Alexandria, we were going back to Malaysia to spend our holidays.

But then, we said to her,

"So, you are going to spend your Ramadhan in Malaysia?
Is it nicer to spend it here or in Malaysia?"

And do you wanna know what did she replied? She said:

"There is no Ramadhan in Malaysia."

I wanted to ask her as how come she said that but we were interrupted and was asked to go on board the flight.

"There is no Ramadhan in Malaysia."

Aaahh, I think everyone would agree that Malaysians celebrate the Eid more prosperously than we do the Ramadhan. Say whatever we want to defy her saying,

"There is no Ramadhan in Malaysia."

but we still cannot compare our degree of celebrating the Ramadhan to the Egyptians.

Let's think about it. As scholars soon will be graduating from Egypt, maybe we should bring this unique culture of theirs, this spirit of theirs of merrily and happily and of how they embrace the coming of the month of Ramadhan to our country. Come on, they will soon be like thousands of us back in Malaysia. Can't we possibly pull this off? Still, easier said than done~

Ahlan ya Ramadhan.

Ah, it has been quite some time since I last enjoyed writing about something. Since I last had to restrain myself from writing on and on because I'm beginning to stray away from the key points.

It's only been 5 days and they are eating it to this extent?

I hope I brought back enough to satisfy them or they'd ask me to bring even more than I did this time the next time I'll be coming back home. I brought back like a bit more than a dozen.

Advice of the day:

"It is not a loss to be good & to do good."

"If you can find a place where EVERYTHING is not under the Lord's power. Then, do as you wish. Do as you please! But if you can't find such a place. Conform & comply to the Lord's orders. Who are you to be so ignorant and egoistic? You're just a lowly servant who can only find a place beside the Lord with the strength of your faith."

Wassalam.