Diary from Arizona ....

ta7iyyeh gawiyyeh men Arizona 3aroos el janoob o bawabbeh America 3ala el makseek


Winter has started in this beautiful city and I'm so happy we got rid of the heat, it was unbearable.During summer time people were almost celebrating in Tucson after breaking our local record of 39 consecutive days with a temperature greater than 100 F, o lalli ma be3raf ye7seb 100 F is 40, o lalli be3raf ye7seb it's 37.8, to me and everyone else these numbers were bullshit, they only help in putting Tucson in the news because there was no other way to do so. No matter what numbers were, summer here was a real hareega, and everyone had to develop his own ways of survival. Ya3ni when you visited someone awal eshi bethayfook is water, and you gotta drink what equals to sahreejain mayy everyday to avoid getting dehydrated. When I sat in the car i avoided rubbing my ass frequently with the seat because any unncessary friction could start a tragic fire.

Nuss el ma7allat has "Sun" and "Desert" and "heat" in their names, pretty much like we have hussain in our companies and swaag el khothra.

People still can't pronounce or spell my name correctly, both my first and last name. They can spell and pronounce the names of all qaeda members well but when it comes to Masannat I become Matasat or Masafat, and sometimes they just say Dr. Masa as in masa el khair yes3ed masakom. My first name is never said correctly and now I'm being called Fairoz since there's another resident with me from Pakistan whose name is Fairoz-and he's a guy by the way, so both of us are now Fairoz. Once I wondered if he had a great voice but after i heard him singing i got diarrhea for three weeks with strange nightmares and some depression.

Finally I decided to play Karate. I started taking classes in July and in 10 days I announced my retirement. My coach was a lady in her mid-50s and she taught me some basic moves and then we started playing karate... in the beginning i thought to myself "hal men el rujooleh enni athrob 7orma??" Well I didn't need to think a lot because that 7orma rafhsat bi batni, she then slowed down and kept teaching me more basic movements in the next 2 classes, and by the third classes i joined the rest of the class. The rest of the class consisted mainly of 8-12 year old kids, i wanted to beat the hell out of them, but once i saw them fighting with each other i realized that i'm the weakest person in the whole training center.

The coach introduced me to the rest of the class and despite the size difference i could easily spot those 10-year old chinese kiddos looking at me and smiling very confidently thinking "ta3aal ya abu karsh bedna nemsa7 el ard feek mase7". I had a flashback form when I was 6 years old practising Karate and they had to kick me out after i refused to take the white belt exam because i was crying all the time. This time i wasn't crying but during the entire class kont ga3ed 3am bakhra ta7ti so i eventually decided to quit playing before i would become the joke of the karate center........