Some thoughts..

Was walking down the street to my big brother's place after coming back from town and I was just thinking that things are thankfully beginning to look familiar. My surroundings don't seem as alien as they did a week ago. As they say here in Cairo and Malaysia - 'alhamdulilah'.
Am beginning to feel more comfortable with my surroundings - and am not so afraid to move out of my comfort zone. Taking the public transport is no longer as daunting as the previous week. I could even instruct the taxi driver yesterday how to get to the train station in whatever poor Arabic that I could remember from my housemate's crash course. Thankfully, he understood my instructions and I could get there in time for my class. *phew*

I find that travelling on the roads here can be a great test of faith. Every morning, when I leave my home for classes and have to cross the road, I seriously have to pray hard not to get knocked down. In the last few days, I've had friends tell me that they have friends who are involved in terrible accidents or they've witness it for themselves - one of my friends say that the taxi that they were in knocked someone down and the driver kept on driving. The driver said that the person was fine. :p My friend was understandably in shock. A secretary in the Arabic school that I'm in was in a terrible bus accident where someone in the bus died. One of her eyes were covered as glass went into her eyes. *grimace. She kept on weeping that day. *sigh* I myself witness another car bumping into another car. Thankfully, it wasn't serious. Also, on Wednesday morning, I was almost knocked down by a car. Thankfully, a lady who was walking next to me, dragged me across the street to the other side. Like I said, being on the roads here can be a serious test of faith. The traffic here is VERY CRAZY- like KL at traffic jam times - only 2 times worse. It's also jammed here at most hours of the day -even at 10 at night or 2am in the morning. I kid you not! I suppose this is what happens when 20 million ppl stay in the same area. :p

I had quite a fair bit of time to rest last week. My big brother and big sister here wanted to give me some space to get used to the culture here. So I've had time to really just be alone - to just talk a lot to God about a lot of stuff. On retrospect, it was something that I really needed at the time as there has been so much going on in the past month in preparing to come here.

I realise that the soul sometimes need a little more time to heal and rest. I feel much better for it -though sometimes, the darkness comes back. I'm just glad that the darkness is not as black as before and some of the things a friend told me to do helps. I'm also glad for friends who are really supportive here - even though they barely know me and I barely know them. I'm glad especially for my big brother and sister who have seem to have an instant rapport with me and I feel like I've known them for a long time. They've treated me like their family and welcome me to their home whenever I feel lonely. Their children are really adorable and when I hang out with them, I'm so glad that I can be part of their family here just for a little while. I thank God so much for them. Even though my big brother says that he is not a talented person, I see in him a beautiful heart for the people here and the people who is under his care and I praise God for him and his wife.