to brood over…

 

We have spring holidays, alhamdulillah, and I had the chance to travel with the children to Marrakech, enjoying some beautiful and warm days in that red pulsing city.
It is always such a treat to be there, staying with our loveliest friends, eating the most delicious food and visiting the most awesome places this city has to offer.
Mostly, when I travel to Marrakech, my visit is not only for fun, but also for work or other reasons. This time I wanted to see the doctor. Not for any health issues, but to check something I brood over since several months, something that was quiet a shock in the beginning, mashaallah, something that needs time to develop, something that needed time to sit down in my mind, something that brings a lot of new changes into our family who was challenged by some difficult troubles over the last years and months, something that asks for new adjustments in my life which is already a busy one:
there is another baby growing inside of me! Subhanallah!

 

I am very thankful that Allah made pregnancy something to carry out during 40 weeks, alhamdulillah. I really needed these months to get used to the idea of a new life growing in my womb. And still I have several weeks more until due-date, inchallah, which I need to prepare myself and everything to be ready to welcome the new family member.

 

Allah’s ways are sometimes very surprising, not foreseeable at all, often leading to things we wouldn’t have expected or planned ourselves, but they are always full of wisdom, alhamdulillah, teaching us to trust in Him alone.

 

 

 

My Marrakech 02`12

 
 
 

Vacation is here and we have been travelling, the little girl and I, for some medical appointments:

Marrakech – always a wonderful opportunity to stay with friends, to share good company, to visit beautiful cafés, to ponder about all the contrasts everywhere, to feel warm weather and spring in the city, and although I became kind of shy and it always feels a bit strange to me walking through crowded streets, it is nice to go shopping, to eat special treats, to smell the orange blooms, and to enjoy for some days the liveliness and the vivid pulsing atmosphere of this favourite red city of mine. Alhamdulillah.
It’s a gift to travel from time to time, and it is a gift to come home with new inspiration. Subhanallah.

Blessed weekend friends, and keep warm, inchaallah!

A secret gem in Marrakech

  
 
  

A lovely oasis in the suburbs behind the Palmeraie.
A place of peace, beauty and inspiration.
A secret gem of natural blessings in a bohemian style.  
A firework of colors and wonderful little details.
A café with lovely food, juices and cakes.
A retreat for the whole family far from the smoggy, noisy town.

A dear friend in Marrakech recently showed me her favorite place to be with children. It is a real oasis and I immediately felt in love with this place which is so unusual inMoroccoand offers really unique things here. For people like me, who live already several years out here, things like children playgrounds, eco-food and hippy-style-locations are something special.  

I love the Flower Power Café and I really recommend it to everyone who needs a break from busy life in the red city. Happy weekend!

A Prayer

Today our prayers are with the people in Marrakech, with the victims and their families. May Allah reward their pain with something better, may He guide us all and protect us from every evil.

A good Muslim is one from whose tongue and hands mankind is safe.

 

Jumuah moubarak and may Peace be with you all.

My Marrakech 01’11

  

It’s been quiet a long time since I wrote my last post, I know. We had holidays over here and spent some days in Marrakech – only the girl and I.
It was the first time since a year that I quit our valley and the day we left it snowed and rained for the first time this season, subhanallah. It felt strange to leave home, the boys and the mountains to come back into modernity. With every hill we crossed, the rural simplicity faded away and vibrant city life welcomed us with lots of noise and new things to see.
Time was short and filled with professional appointments and things to get done. Unfortunately there was no time to meet all friends, to visit all the places I would like to, there even was nearly no moment to take beautiful pictures of the old town markets or of the warm colours of that vivid city called M’rrakch. But there were so many new ideas, inspiration and things to think about, but also a deep feeling of thankfulness to come back to our life in the High Atlas of Morocco, alhamdulillah.
I stayed with two dear friends and had a very quick but really lovely meeting with moroccomama Nora.
So here you go with some simple impressions of beautiful homes, typical views and lovely food.

Welcome back, wishing you a wonderful week!

 
  
 

Different Blessings

  
  

Over the weekend there happened some different sorts of blessings:

- We had the most awful rainy weather possible, with sometimes no electricity or no internet-connection, a lot of wind and water running down the hills. The fields in front of our house became a lake, it was stormy and cold and inside our house it dropped in some rooms, so we had to put towels and basins everywhere. Mud-houses are not really built for such heavy wet weather… But subhanallah, our outside-façade protected the main walls and yesterday, when the sun finally came out again we discovered only some broken pieces on the outside we will have to redo, but nothing really fundamentally bad. Alhamdulillah for the blessing of Allah measuring rain and water and how much He lets pour over us.

- Over a year ago I met sister Brooke through my blog. We came into contact and the last weekend finally she and her lovely family made the way to visit us. Subhanallah, I am so thankful to have met her and I am so happy about their lovely enriching visit. It was a very short one and the weather really bad, but it was a very blessed time, alhamdulillah. And the gifts they brought are really treasured around here now: a selection of great Waldorf-books (soon updated in our books-list), a giant plain paper roll to draw and play on, marbles, dates, coffee, yoghurt, cereals… subhanallah and thanks God for the blessings of internet-friends!

- Through my blog as well I met another dear sister again whom I already knew from meeting twice in Marrakech: Nora. Alhamdulillah, I am so glad that she found my little space here and made me discover her great blog about life in the red city http://moroccomama.wordpress.com. I really recommend reading her blog in which she describes so fantastically well things and reasons about living in Morocco. Mashaallah, and thanks Allah for the blessings of blogging.

What blessings did you experience? What are you thankful for?

White Greetings

...  and my best wishes to all !
May this old year end well and the new one begin with all things good, inchaallah!
Love and Blessings to you and your families, may God shower you with His mercy.
Ameen.

(Pictures taken at Dar Bellarj, Marrakech medina,
a wonderful place and art gallery to visit, right beside the Medersa Ben Yousef, free entrance)

We pray and hope

 

Salam alaikoum,

I wanna thank you for all the nice comments you wrote in the past weeks. I enjoy every one of them and am so happy to make knowledge of new sisters and readers so. But I am really sorry, I do neither find time nor am I in mood for responding or blogging regularly now.
My family in Germany goes through a very hard time at the moment and our thoughts and prayers are with them.  
We as Muslims know that Allah tests most those whom He loves most. That gives me hope and encouragement and I pray that it will give them strength, too.

I know how powerful this blogging community can be, so please make Dua’ for us, for inner peace, for guidance and relief.
Barak Allahu fikoum and a blessed weekend to all of you!

2:286 God does not burden any human being with more than he is well able to bear: in his favour shall be whatever good he does, and against him whatever evil he does.

6:152 We do not burden any human being with more than he is well able to bear.

7:42 But those who attain to faith and do righteous deeds – We do not burden any human being with more than he is well able to bear – they are destined for paradise, therein to abide.

65:7 God does not burden any human being with more than He has given him; and it may well be that God will grant, after hardship, ease.

 

 
 
 
February in Marrakech

First Blossom

 
 
 
 
… subhanallah, that feels so good after all the cold snow in England, the rain from last week and before going back to our winter valley: enjoying the first “hellos” of spring and the explosion of warm colours here in Marrakech; shining oranges in contrast to the blue sky; deep purple flowers in front of red walls; green palm trees surrounded by the snowy Atlas mountains; little Marguerites blossoming in the middle of city dust…     

Warm sunny Marrakech greetings to all of you!

Good Company

 

We are still in Marrakech because weather is quiet strong at the moment and lots of snow in our valley. So we decided to stay a bit longer here because the roads are not well to drive.
Here it is raining a lot, just sometimes a bit of sunshine. But it is warmer than at home and I take benefit of the time to enjoy the city infrastructure and to meet friends.

It is so good to see other Muslim women; feels so good to speak about religious topics, to be inspired by their strength in faith and to feel motivated to better myself.
I meet women who share the same background and others who are quiet different; I meet women who just recently became Muslims and others who are born so; I meet women who wear Niqab (=full face covering) and others who dress western.
It is this variety that makes all so interesting and vivid.
 
Subhanallah, I feel as if my Iman (=faith) gets pushed up by all the discussions we have; I love to hear about their beliefs and how they see things; I see how much I still have to learn and I see how important it is to be surrounded by good people.
Life is about good company, isn’t it? I really see how good people can make you behave well, how they support and encourage you to better your character and to make personal efforts every day.
And isn’t good company one of the three major things to strengthen one’s faith? (Together with Dhikr=Remembrance and Djihad=fight against the personal inner ego (=Nafs))

I do miss such conversations sometimes at home. I wish we had those religious meetings; especially meetings with women of the same background and with the same “reverting/Hijrah-problems”, to encourage and to support each other.

The women in our valley are great, but some subjects I cannot discuss with them and I still don’t know the Berber language that well, but I am sure some of them would be really interested in learning and reading more about our beautiful religion, even that they are illiterate…

So, alhamdulillah, I am really thankful for all the women I meet here and try to learn as much as possible to share all of this one day with the women living next to me, inchaallah.
Salaam alaikoum and a blessed week to you friends!