Seftali's Adventure Travels in the Middle East -The Heart of the Nomad - Lone woman traveling

Today I met another guy at the mosque . He showed up long after Isha while I was still doing zikr. 

Started hanging around , looking at the locked door . 

He finally asked me if the mosque was still open. I said no , you are late. 

He said “ Hmm” and kept looking around . I finally asked “ Can I help you with something ?” He said “ Yeah, I was going to ask them about prayer...like , can I join them , can I just go in there and pray with them ?” 

We started a long conversation, it turned out that he was American , from Seattle, he knew two of my Jewish friends here ... I wondered if he was a Jew himself . 

He told me, he had been in the Philippines and visited Mindanao, the Muslim island , and he had watched the islamic prayer there and discovered that it was something that united people from all over the world in a peaceful way.

And now he had come to the mosque still with the Mindanao dust on his boots , to pray salat himself... He asked me if that would be acceptable if he just joined the prayers , even though he is not as muslim ? 

I started to wonder if my sufi master had sent me this guy ... 

He said , he would probably see me more often from now on since he is going to join the prayers sometimes ...

"So you stand in a long and pretty civilized queue in the post office, thinking, inevitably, about those 50+ human beings killed "by mistake" in their homes in Raqqa, with bombs paid for by Western tax-payers who are trembling in fear of ISIS. Then, about how the West is not so concerned anymore about the dictator still murdering the good people of your country every day, priority is ISIS now, Assad is bad but not a threat to the famous Western Way of Life... your turn is up, the lady asks you if you intend to send the letters Normal or something else... you try to remember what was the term for Registered Mail in German... you fail to remember, she becomes impatient and starts looking around and over your shoulder, you end up surrendering: Normal, bitte... Nur Normal!
She processes your mail, you pay, leave the queue to the next person; what is she, the next person,  thinking about? It cannot possibly be more than 50 people killed... such thoughts do not seem to fit, such thoughts cannot "integrate"."

Written by a Syrian movie director

I spent years reading everything Milan Kundera ever wrote. Then I went through all of John Irving . Then finally decided there is no cure for not belonging .
The first time I felt roots again was when I set foot into Damascus old city. I slept like a log in my hotel with it's half a meter thick walls. Asked what it takes to move in and live there for a while.
Then this happened .
Nothing left other than Rumi's other tavern.
" Einschreiben", Orwa.
This morning I realized , I have forgotten the name of the martyred cousin of my friend . Was it Dr Jamal ( that just came back?) Jaffar ? The pharmacist who died in a shabeeha prison in Homs in about June 2011 after being caught with a video camera and footage of demonstrations ?
I tried to mention him when Rami spoke about Bassel Safadi and how he spoke up. Jamal said :" Once I started speaking my mind and breathing freely, I felt like a bird out of a cage and could not go back ..." Something like that .

I was asked to write for a new Syria website , but not about Raqqa, not about daesh, not about the hostages we never saw again, not about whose bones might be found in that cave of theirs once they are gone ... " because only Westerners worry about that" " Raqqa is not a priority" the editor said .

Another comment by his friend : 

"Orwa never fully arriving is why we're always on our toes, and cannot forget cruelties and injustice. it's what we do. sending you love <3" 

Me: " I think you must be right. Those without a comfort zone don't stop thinking and feeling unsettling things." 

I am someone who can relate to Shams e Tabrizi better than to Rumi.
Rumi is esthetically beautiful and describes the ideal, but Shams is human, the rough unpolished diamond, who expresses the whole range of feeling and thought, who talks wisely and also gets angry and impatient and defiant .
Shams was a rebel while Rumi was from the establishment .
I feel welcomed like by a soulmate and breathe freely when I read Shams.