al Ghazzali Centre - a peek through my eyes

"Boohoo I miss al Ghazzali Centre-Sydney" - I thought to myself
"... how about you blog about it" - said the other me.
"hmmm...sometimes, when you're not bugging me with your stupid winging and what not, you have good ideas?" said I "what do i saaay??

It's amazing how you realise the quality of some-one or some-thing, once they are no longer a part of you. Being a part of the AGC Sydney team was an amazing experience.
First of all the beautiful, selfless bunch of individuals that make up the team have made me realise that there are people out there who do do things because they care, not for any other (worldly) benefit. For the sake of Allah only; and it is so sweet to see.

I miss the Ansaar Project. It has really helped me get trained to boss people around. O what a feeling!
I started with chopping onions and worked my way up. I remember my first shift, it took a bit of time conquering those carrots and cutting them into sticks. Not weird looking-miss-shaped triangles. And I cut myself pretty quickly on the day too.
Then there was frying samosas. That was pretty fun. Nowadays we bake them. It's healthier that way I guess, and saves time too.

The best part would be breaking-the-spaghetti-pack tradition, where you hit the bottom of the spaghetti pack on the table, as hard as you can, so that the other side of it breaks the top and whalah!

Cooking. If you wanna cook cook ie not just cut the vegetables and meat... you gotta go through some training. Once you're done, you're ready tooooooooooooooo.... cook. On your own!

So I passed all the training (YAY!). Came the day where I was cooking on my own. How nerve wrecking, for someone who knows close to zilch about food, other than eating it and if it tastes good or not. Luckily I had other experienced cooks on my shift, who chose to chop veggies for the day, but were readily available to help me whenever needed, taste the food for bitterness and so on.

Finally I got trained how to be a team lead too. YAY! O God, if I thought cooking on my own was nerve wrecking, wait till you experience leading a whole team of 12-16 people and making sure everything is chopped properly, on schedule, the cook’s got what he/she needs, allocating everyone to a task, making sure everyone’s being productive. Requires thinking non-stop. Gee my brain cells get fried by the end of the day!! And I still smell like curry, even though I didn’t even cook for the day =S

But the feeling of doing something that my Creator has asked me to do, help those in need – nothing like it!! <3

Cooks river. I wish I got involved with this environmental project a bit more. Weeds are such impostors. Every month there’d be a gazzilion more of them *angryface*. On a number of occasions my skirt and shirt and hijab would be infested with some spiky things… im not even sure where they’d come from.

The feel of soil on your hands (of course if you’re not wearing gloves) is so nice. Note that if you do choose to wear the gloves, you do miss out on half the fun, but you do protect your hands. Up to you what you do!!

Sitting amongst all the bushes (now they are little trees, since we planted them =) ), pulling out weeds, chatting to other volunteers, planting trees, cracking jokes, yelling out “Nelly (the coordinator)!!!! is this a weed?” etc etc – all make up the 3 hours every first Saturday of every month, at Cooks River.

The volunteers have done such a wonderful job that the Canterbury council put up a board of recognition in the middle of the bushes =)

Unbelievably I miss coordinating classes. Such a simple task, yet there was so much joy in it. From meeting all the people who come in to the class to learning so much from each class. As imam Afroz usually says, all the classes are very much connected; and trust me, as a student who’s attended many of them, they are all connected in one way or another. If you do have a chance to attend them all it will open up doors to knowledge that blows you away. And all you can do is go SubhanAllah!! Laa illaha illa Allah! No joke!

It was also interesting noticing which students came to which class.

Most importantly, I miss my mentor, imam Afroz. Not sure if he realizes but his students watch his every step. mukhahahahahah To learn of course! Trust me, it works like this, at least for me; from how he teaches his classes; the techniques he uses; how he makes connections, with what he teaches, to the world around us; how he interacts with students; how he responds when someone asks a seemingly stupid question; how he handles the team when we’re doing really well as well as when we slack behind etc etc etc

To me, he’s always been a great example of what a Muslim should be, and continues to be so. However living interstate, there’s not so much of a chance of watching his every step no more. Khayr inshAllah! I’ll stalk his every move on facebook now *evil laugh*. He does have some interesting stuff on there every now and again.

“I miss all the AGC Family kids” – said my annoying self now.

“Shut up you” said I, in an Indian accent “go and study, the retreat is next week, you’ll get to see them”

“..not all of them will be there buuuut...” – she winged again

“aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrghhhhhhhhhhhhh shooooooooooooshsshhshshshshshssh…………”

To be continued……………………