When my uncle called and asked us to come down to San Diego I was reluctant to go. I didn't know what to expect there and I wasn't sure if I should go or not. I decided to make istikhara and see how things went. It seems like since the moment I finished the istikhara things started to point towards me going. Now that I am back home and I have had a chance to think about the trip I am really glad I went. By not being at home I was able to focus on personal things that I hadn't had time for while I was at home. Likewise, I learned a lot of lessons while I was down there and gained experience while teaching at the school there and having the responsibilities of the "ameer's niece".

The time that I spent at home (uncle's house) I often spent in seclusion. I would go down when asked and sometimes I would go voluntarily if I thought it would bring benefit but in general I spent it alone. This time alone gave me time to think more and like I said to do things that I have wanted to do for a while. I don't really want to write a lot about home life though.. so I'll move on to writing about the masjid.

There is one thing about the masjid in Corvallis that I love: you never feel like a stranger there. As soon as someone new walks in they recognize that and do their best to make them feel at home. Although I have been to different masaajid in a few different states I've never felt this anywhere else. Unless you know someone at the masjid conversations don't go past salaams, if even that. You can imagine my shock, and happiness, when I found that seem type of attitude and feeling in the masjid in SD.

I met some really wonderful people down there...people that I don't think I will ever forget. Be it the little kids I taught, the grade school kids that I did homework with, my little sister's age friends, the girls my age, the "college age" girls, or the aunties. There is at least one very memorable person in each of these groups. One of the very special things about these people was how attached they were to each other and to the masjid.

The masjid there has something going on just about every day. On Mondays there is dinner and women and children Quran class. On Tuesdays there is an Arabic class. On Wednesday there is a mens Quran class. On Thursday there is dinner and a Fiqh class. On Friday there is jumuaa', lunch, dinner, and a Tafseer class. On Saturday there is dinner and a general lecture. And on Sunday there are boys and girls youth groups. The one thing that both the masjid and the Imam lacked in (inshaAllah this is not backbiting since it has already been discussed openly :/) is 'Aqeedah and Tawheed.

'ala kulli haal, from this you sort of get a picture of how my days were spent. Although I did not go everyday to the masjid I was there a lot and I enjoyed the time I spent there. At home I was often upstairs in my uncles study/office. I also went to a few different people's houses, including my dad's cousin.

Some of my favorite people in SD:

Umm Nuh and her family. Umm Nuh is American and she is married to an Egyptian. Her husband is overseas a lot on business but mashaAllah she has raised her kids so wonderfuly. Her oldest daughter, Amina, is a year or so older than me. We got along pretty well and developed a good friendship. She also has a daughter whos a little older than my sister, Bayaan, this girl tabaraakAllah is one of the most sweetest and awesomest people I met there. And ofcourse her two littlest ones Daniyah (8/9) and Mohammad (7).

Fatima, her sister, and little bro. This girl is afghaani and mashaAllah she is also amazing. Shes college age and we got along VERY well. I'll write about some of the things we did together later but ya shes great. I also got close to her sister, Safiyyah, who is my age and her little brother Yusif who is 8.

Firdows!!! I've got to say she was probably my best friend down there.. although its hard to choose just one person. Shes a little older than me...nursing major... half Somali half Yemeni�head of the girls youth group and just an amazing person.

Anila. I didn't get to see her a lot but from the few times I did see her we got close. Shes Pakistani and very sweet. Also in university.. (notice a trend? most of my friends are older than me :S). I promised to email her often but havnt had a chance to email even once since I came back. tsk.

Aisha (who spells her name Isha). This girl is the funniest I have EVER met.. but she also has a very serious and sentimental side to her.

Umm Khalid and her daughters. Umm Khalid was probably one of my moms best friends while we were there. She's yemani/eritrea and one of the kindest people I have ever met, mashaAllah. Some of her children are married but the two daughters that live with her still, Intisar and Khalida, were some of the people that I got very very close to. Both of them are in uni and both teach at the masjid school. I got closer to Intisar though.. and man I miss her.

I could list people for a long time but I promised myself to start working on homework at 11..so this will do for now.

As far as some of the best memories I  had there.. ahh they're too many but I'll try.

-Walking to the store after Jumuaa' with Bayaan and getting loads of junkfood. The last jumuaa' that I was in SD I didn't eat anything before going to the salaah. I was feeling a little sick that day. My uncle told me he would get me lunch from downstairs after the salaah and I said ok. By the time he got me the food it was just us and Bayaan (who like lives in the masjid =P). My sister only asked for soda so my uncle sent up a plate of macaroni and two sodas, and tells us hes invited out so hes leaving. AFTER he leaves my sister says shes hungry and Bayaan mentions that she didnt eat anything.. I told them I was still feeling sick and to share the food. After 'Asir I realized that 1. I was really hungry and 2. they weren't full.. I figured ok, we'll go to the store.. only problem was that this was the ONLY day I didn't bring my bag so I didn�t have money, bank card, or checks. Somehow we managed to put together 9$ from change I had on me, my sisters purse, bayaans purse, and bribing her brother into giving us some money (which I did pay back btw!). So what exactly did we end up buying? Half a gallon of ice-cream, 4 candy bars, a bag of chips, and lemon aid... we had 0.1$ left =P. And yes we all got sick.

-Doing skits with the little kids at the youth group! This is a memory I don't think I'll EVER forget. It was one of the sweetest things I did while I was there. It was only me, Firdows and the kids. We split them up into groups by age and had them do a skit each. They said it wasn't fair that we weren't going to do one so we did one as well.

-One of the nights my uncle calls me and says "the masjid administration has to discuss some issues so I'll be back in like half an hour", he ended up not coming back till almost 1am. It was us, Umm Nuh's family, and another auntie. Umm Nuh had 2 other girls with here so there was a total of 7 girls and Mohammad (Nuh went home with a friend). First thing we do is go down to the parking lot and play tag.. then we go down to the men�s area and u know.. I got really bad asthma because of all the running outside lol.. so we're in the car with my uncle and I was coughing so he goes "maryam, are you ok?" and I was like "ya, alhamdulillah" and my mom told him whyyyy I was like that.. so he goes "you don�t have your medicine?" and I said "no".. so he calls up an uncle and goes and gets me medicine from him. aww!

-Watching the sunset at Howayyah's house. Everyone thought we were leaving a week before we actually left so on the second Saturday that we were there they had the first "goodbye" party for us. It was at a sisters house and this sis's backyard was a porch. Under the porch was some land and then a lake/resevior. I spent a lot of the time we were there sitting on the fence of her porch�looking out at the lake and just chilling. Mohammad came to me and was like "I got you some brownies", it was seriously the cutest thing EVER, tabaraakAllah. The sunset was beautiful.. it was one of those like really calm and special moments that you wish the special people in your life were there to share with you.

-Helping the kids with their homework. Like I said before the masjid is like a home to the people there, so one of the things that I saw that left me in awe was how the kids would come from school straight to the masjid and sit there doing their homework until the time for the dars. I would usually sit with the younger ones and help them with their work. One day Yusif and Mohammad had like major overloads of work and I sat with them for an hour or so and they finished it. Yusif had 17 pages of math that he was supposed to do over a few weeks but left it until the night before it was due. When I told Fatima he had finished them her comment was "you have to move down here.

-1...2..10! I'm an English major! Fatima was trying to get the kids to shut up during one of the lectures so she goes "ONE.. TWO... TEN!!!".. the only problem is her saying that caused more noise. All the girls sitting around her found it comical that she said Ten after Two.. her justification of it was "Hey, I'm an English major.. I'm not expected to know how to count!". So ya, that became the joke for the rest of the time we were down there.. When Intisar didn't kept confusing where Oregon was we'd tease her and say "Oh, I forgot... you're a GEOGRAPHY major".

-Me and Intisar "fighting" at the last goodbye party. It was sad. I didn't want to say goodbye to her and she didn't want to say goodbye to me (even though we saw each other again at the masjid the night before we left couse she came to say goodbye then! aww).. so she started a playful fight "wow, I cant wait till you leave" type of fight.

Alright, I'm fifteen mins past the limmit I set for myself.. maybe I'll update more about SD or maybe not. Right now I'm cramming to finish my classes in time. I have been staying up till 2 or 3am everyday in attempt to finish and alhamdulillah I'm getting there..