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Mr. Dunbar's Class. 31 August 2001:

We have finished "The World Order of Baha u llah" and Mr. Dunbar started off with the theme life of the Soul. He started by mentioning that 100 years of life on this planet are nothing when compared to the next life which is eternal, where time and space don't exist. Some interesting points to remember were with what Shogi Efendi's has to say about the soul and its progress through this life and to the next. That this life is like packing our suitcases, and death can come upon us at any moment and our suitcases may not be completely packed and we will have to then suffer the consequences of traveling in the next life not feeling so comfortable because we don't have everything thats necessary to live comfortably with us in our bags. The other point was directed to people that want to commit suicide. He mentions that people who do commit suicide arrive in the next life like arriving at a banquet uninvited, you know how if you show up at someone's banquet and you are not invited you feel very uncomfortable as well. He also mentioned that taking a human being's life is murder, so pretty much taking your own life is a human life and there for implies murder with all its consequences in the life there after..

It was a nice talk and the theme is a good one for questions and it should be really interesting. At the end we had a closing song by this guy from Turkey who sang in Turkish! It was really nice he has a really strong and beautiful voice.

Trip to Ber Sheva to see the Camels. 8 September 2001:

Its been a while since I made a trip. Seems like I have been pretty occupied with other things. Yesterday however I broke the routine and headed down South of Israel to a town called Ber Sheva. Someone had mentioned to me that there were wild camels down there and I have been dying to see wild camels.

I will first start by saying that the day before I took off from work to go pick up a friend from Costa Rica. His name is Heshmat, he is going to be doing his year of service here. I ended up returning late in the evening and made it to the end of Mr. Dunbar's Thursday evening class. I went out with a group of people to go Bowling!! It was actually pretty fun. Mr. Dunbar was there having a blast and we just had a great time.

The following morning, I got up around 6:30 am and headed for the train station. I had planned this trip with a friend called Maryam, so I met up with her at 7 in the morning and we both headed down on the train. As usuall the train ride is always amusing and fun we spent most of the trip talking about different things including Mr. Dunbar's class, since I had missed it I was curious to see what I missed. The train however wasn't going all the way down to Ber Sheva directly, they were doing some maintance on the tracks and so had to get off a couple of towns before. We ended up walking to the bus station to see if we could find a bus that would head down and waited for quit a while before we were finaly able to catch a sherut. The town we got off in wasn't that nice, it was actually pretty dirty and didn't feel very nice so I am glad we caught a sherut. The ride down was really nice because we went through the dessert and I got to see a whole heard of live camels!! There were maybe around 20 in the heard and it looked sooo cool!! That made my trip!! Thats all I really wanted to see. Maryam on the other hand was determined to go to some museum in Ber Sheva.

We finaly arrived in Ber Sheeva and it turned out to be a larger town than I had in mind. Ber Sheeva is located down South in the middle of the Country, it is on the way to the Southern tip of Israel where the Red Sea is located. We walked around town for a while and were really hungry, we hadn't eaten any breakfast, but we wanted to find this museum and then head to eat something. We managed to find the museum, unfortunately it had been closed for renovation. So we headed to go eat and had a big lunch at a cafe at a mall in the area.

To make a long story short time was flying by and we had to start heading back. We wanted to catch the last train from Tel Aviv back to Haifa. But time didn't permit that and we ended up taking a bus to Tel Aviv and then another bus to Haifa. We slept a lot on the bus and got to see some more sites that we couldn't see from the train which was good. I got to see more camels!! Man was I happy to see camels, I don't know why, Camels just looked really cool. It was kind of like seeing cows and horses back home but different, it was really weird and cool!! Anyway it was a great trip added to my site for future referance.

Thoughts and feeling after my 6th month at the World Centre. 21 September 2001:

Well I really don't know where to start. So much has happened here at the BWC and time has gone by so fast I can't even keep track of what happened the week before. I am working so hard everyday and in the evenings I have rehearsals both for Choir and the regular Band, Study groups for Ruhi, Mr. Dunbar's Class, talks and events, weddings, socializing, dinners, etc.. non stop. I have decided to set concrete goals, the Must goals for achieving before I leave this place and next month am going to settle down a bit and really try to focus on them. All the goals are all so important for exactly what I want to do when I leave and relate to my contruibution to society and to the Faith.

I have been feeling very ackward lately kind of sad kind of happy, very confused but more detached from myself than before. After Mr. Dunbar's class a friend of mine came up to me and said something that was very nice and very sweet. He said you are the nicest guy I have ever met, every time you walk into the room you make me feel happy. He said it at such a perfect time because I wasn't feeling that well about things and it just hit me and made me feel very good. I don't think I have ever got a comment like that with the absolute sincerity he had on his face when he mentioned it. I thank God if it is true and hope to carry the same spirit with me when I leave. To be thankful for being an instrument is the one true source of happiness I think.

I am listening to Dave Mathews blasting in my headphones right now. There is a Cd with Dave Mathews and Tim Reynolds that Colin told me about but never really got the chance to listen to it till now.. It is really good!! He was so right..I have been composing some new music and part of my goals is to have a minumum number of songs finished and polished before I leave to do travel teaching to share with communities in the world. These songs are not going to be my traditional songs rather will be a source of energy for all to sing and particapte, at least that is what I want to achieve. My previous mentality for composing may have been more related to letting out my personal experiences but now I think my perspective of things has changed a bit, seems like I can view things from the outside, I can see my errors, my intuition is a little keener about both the Past and the future, its very weird never felt this way in my life. I am sure there is so many other people that feel this way.. I just took a long time to get to this point and still feel I havn't accomplished anything.. wow we are just so insignificant..

Its a Friday evening, I think I am the only person in the Seat of the Universal House of Justice right now!! Everyone is doing there own thing tonight and I am just mellow as can be no plans just relaxing and writing, such a wonderful feeling.. anyway I will leave it at that for now and will be updating this page with more information shortly.

The trip I planned to Herziliya by train. 09 October 2001:

It was tuesday morning when I had the urge for a trip by train down to Herziliya to eat lunch. I hadn't been out of Haifa for a while and was really dying to get out. I emailed a bunch of friends and planned it all out and when friday came along it turned out to be a lot better trip then I expected, with many more people. We didn't leave till about noon and John Hicks, the mailman, had to do his last mail delivery and so had a car.. it turned out that the post office was right near the train station. We had to pick up some people on the way and were afraid that we would make it on time to the post office before it closed to get the last delivery off!! But luckily Devin said a short prayer and wala!! Arrived at 2 minutes before closing time. Also according to the train schedule the train was leaving at exactly 12:25 and we arrived at the train station at 12:20 bought the tickets and right when we stepped out into the waiting area along came the train!!! It couldn't have been better.. not only that but it was a double deck train!! So we got to ride on the second floor of this state of the art train!! It was great!! We had a blast on the train everyone was laughing and telling stories and just having a really great time!!

When we arrived in Herziliya everyone was dying of hunger.... it was already 2 in the afternoon by the time we got there so you can imagine our yelling tummies!! There was a restaurant that I wanted to check out and we ended up eating there.. It was kind of like TGI fridays they had tons of really good food, we stuffed our faces happily... : o )
After this we walked over to a cafe to have some dessert and boy what a dessert!! We had slushes of moca and chocalate and ice and double layer white and dark chocolate cakes and or cafe cakes.

In this cafe we sat next to a couple who we noticed were speaking in English as well. They actually initiated a conversation by asking where we all came from.. and were suprised to hear how many different countries we represented! We told them we were Bahai's and they knew who we were!! It was great.. They happened to be recently married she was a school teacher and he was as profesional Israeli basketball player!! It was really cool we got involved in this basketball conversation and had a great time!!

It was started to get late as well.. Time went by so fast and there was going to be a talk by Mr. Sahba about the terraces!! So we left Herziliya promptly to catch a bus back to Haifa to make the talk on time!! On the Bus we were all trying to come up with a new word that no one else uses to describe something that wasn't good.. and it was so hilarious!! You can imagine the words we made up!! We were all laughing so hard..

We ended up making the talk on time, its amazing we were right on time for everything this day, and it was a nice talk with a slide presentation of the terraces.

After this we headed up the mountain to Markus the happening village on the top of the mountain. The international movie festival has started here in Haifa and there was tons of people on the streets and flags from all the countries. I heard the sound of Jazz music and headed towards the crowd..!! IT was really good!! I love Jazz... they had a pianist, bass player, sax and drums, and ofcourse a singer!! The singer was singing in English with a really good accent he had a great voice!! I later found out that in the front row of the crowd there was some famous actor.. I can't remember his name right now but they told me he was there today. I was also informed that he went to the shrines and had all the paperrazi around him taking pictures of him ofcourse but I am sure they got some of the shrine and pilgrim house as well.

Well thats about it for that journey. It felt really nice to get out again after not doing it for so long. But even better that it turned out to be so perfect!!

Trip to Eilat. 15 November 2001:

Ok!! Where can I start this one? Hmm lets see... The day was thursday 15th, a beautiful bright and sunshiney holiday ,the commemoration of the Martyrdom of the Bab. That day we headed out to pick up a car from Hertz. Initialy we had intended for a group of ten people to rent a couple cars, but as it turned out it was much more convenient to rent a large van with capacity for plenty of storage room and about 11 people. That evening we had the commemoration held on the ground floor below the concourse of the Universal House of Justice. More details about the commemoration are in the highlight section of the whats new page. We planned to meet all ten of us after the commemoration that was due to be finished around 5:30 P.M. After getting organized and pack everything we could into the car, mostly junk food, we finaly were able to head South at around 9:00 P.M.!! Yeah I know, you know what it takes to get 10 people organized and out on time... virtually imposible!

It was a very nice and comfortable ride down through Tel Aviv and then to another city called Ber Sheva, which is the last big city of the trip and about the half way mark to Eilat. After this city there is nothing but desert, mountains and mountains of plain nothingness!! It was great even though we couldn't see much in the dark the bare silhoutte of the mountains gave way to our journey through the curvey road through the desert!!

We finaly arrived 6 hours later at around 2:30 A.M. and managed to find a place to camp out on a small beach. Ofcourse by this time we were all too tired to first of all find the tents in the car with the amount of junk food and baggage we had laying around, and second of all find the strength to set up a tent... we all just crashed right on the beach. Pulled out some blankets and managed to sleep through some of the freezing tempatures that evening.. The weather here has gotten really cold. Today you could see snow on top of the Northern Mt Hermon up North. We were awakened by the bright desert sun arising from the east and were overwhelmed at what its light shed upon!! Beautiful cristal clear water with beautiful bare mountains, the red sea with all its beauty and splendor right before our eyes. The only port of Jordan accross the bay, Saudi Arabia to the South and Egypt just accross from Saudi Arabia!! A clear visibility of all 4 countries!!!

We had no idea where to start or what to do. But I guess the first thing is energy. And energy is food. We pulled out the grill and started a fire and worked on some chicken, fish, and bacon!! It wasn't the most pleasant breakfast but anyway we managed to stuff our faces. After this we packed up and decided to find a diving area and rental place. Some of the members of the group had already been diving and we had some gear with us. We also had plenty of snorkeling gear. As you may know already, the red sea is one of the most beautiful places to dive and snorkel in the world.

After much semi consulting and agreements we ended up breaking up into three groups. Some people went diving, another snorkeling, and others including me parasailing!!! From what I heard of the snorkeling three people got to actually see dolphins and a ship wreck, the diving group was able to re-live their diving memories, and the group I was in had a blast flying 60 feet in the air!!! A boat took us out to the center of the red sea and then I stood on the back of the boat with a parachute attached and just flew off way up into the sky. The wind factor was pretty strong so we would get blown up and down and all around. It was a lot of fun.

That very morning I also forgot to mention that we booked a camel tour for the afternoon through the desert. So we all met up together and headed towards the camel ranch!! It was a 4 hour tour on camels and included a view of all four countries from the top of one of the mountains. After watching the sunset over the hills of Egypt we went down into a valley, gathered around a bon fire and cooked fresh pita bread and cheese with tea. They actually made the pita bread right there in front of us! It was so great!! We were all feeling pretty good around this fire, our eyes twinkled by the fire blaze as we told stories and described a little about ourselves and what we do and where we come from to the guides.

Well that pretty much sums up the trip. Just a few paragraphs with some of the biggest highlights. There is many other little details that are hard to describe in a written form, like getting lost in Tel Aviv on are way back or some of the games and topics we came up with on the trip in the van... so hilarious!! We had a really funny group so if we weren't sleeping we were dying of laughter!! Anyway it was expremely relaxing, I arrived to work full of energy and ready to do service to the max. I think a little overboard too. Yesterday my internal clock woke me up at 4 in the morning and I was at work by 6:30 A.M.!! Got a lot done, went back to sleep with a big smile on my face. Looking forward to another waky adventure in Israeli land.. till then signing off.. hasta la vista..