Diary Entry Number 3

Just tracking back to our flight to Sudan quickly,Sheikh Shaamil Panday of PE and I, Shared a couple of jokes on the flight. At one stage as we sat with Dates-in-hands waiting for" the sun that never sets" to erm…set, I noticed that on the left hand side the sun was still visible, whilst on the right side where we sat, it was darkness. I quickly jibe'd : " You guys carry on with your roza, on our side its Maghrib"  🙂

I won't forget what a hearty laugh Sheikh Shaamil let out, and later on when we had indeed broken our fast, I said to the Sheikh in afrikaans:" Nou Het ek Voema!" ( Now I have energy) He retorted What did you say? Now you feel like Zuma? It was my turn to laugh out loud…OK, back to where we were, where's that again? Aah yes OK, I remember now…It was here in Cairo International Airport that I was to meet a second close-friend-to-be, who, alongside Isfahan, was to be my  room-mate – Enter Yaseen Mohamed of Nelspruit. It is important to note that there were no and are still NO clique's in our group, we are united in action, seperated only by hotel walls.  The natural human tendency is to share a bit more with your room-mates then you would other members, but respect and goodness to all is a must.

At the beautifully modified exterior of the airport we realized that the younger guys would have to adopt the "last on the bus" approach, allowing for the Older members, then couples, then ladies be afforded earlier access to transport, etc…We were fine with that arrangement.

The road to Giza from the airport was dangerous yet extremely entertaining.

The Cairo heat was intense, but we managed to keep our cool. After all, our mission was far hotter then the weather.

The next morning we enjoyed a hearty sehri, which would become our staple sehri as the hotel felt it was a good spread, and yes, it I guess they were right in their assessment.

We rested after Fajr and met for our 1st group meeting with the Pyramids as a backdrop, subhanallah what a background to have!

We all met with ML Ighsaan Hendricks addressing the gathering…

"4500 years ago…" ML Ighsaan went on to give us the history of the area and informed ys of developments…this would become a regular occurrence and we were happy with it

He gave us the heads up on the comfort and discomfort of the journey ahead…This trip was surely, not for the faint hearted. He then explained to us how fortunate the group had been to be selected. "Boorito Antum" – Chosen from over 150 possible participants, narrowed down to 67 members. He went back to the time Moulana and his Colleagues decided to put action to  the idea of assisting the Palestinian struggle. Then Sheikh Gabriels addressed the group, followed by Sheikh Faadhil, who explained the history of Egypt, and implored the group to visit landmarks of Islamic History, for which Egypt has plenty. He also had so many intricate anecdotes of the history of this land that made it hard NOT to want to explore, as we waited for Permission to cross into Gaza…