Muslim Students Group at University of Kaiserslautern Germany

Some days ago we decided to attend a lecture in Karlsruhe. We being the Muslim Students Group at University of Kaiserslautern (Muslimische Studenten Gruppe, TU Kaiserslautern). This group existed before but ceased to be active some years ago. We reconstructed this group to actively arrange activities for all the students at the university. We are starting from smaller activities and progressing towards bigger ones. So first of these activities were an Islamic weekend. We went to Karlsruhe on Saturday to attend a lecture by a converted German named Pierre Vogel. The lecture was arranged in a sports hall which was full with audience, both Muslims and non-Muslims (including German) with as many women as men; reason being perhaps the topic: Position of Women in Islam. The lecture was in German and the speaker was a native speaker. So I understood less than my level of German understanding. Before going to the lecture we had lunch together and saw the Karlsruhe castle. We 10 men had travelled from Kaiserslautern with Train while about 8 women came in a van we had rented. Photos.

The next day we arranged a Bar B Que party for the members and potential members. Though it was summer, summer was nowhere to be found. It rained that day as well, however, with a bit of wind. So we found two covered places at the Uni for Grill. One saved us from the wind but not rain; the other saved from rain but not wind. After some to and fro motions, we opted for the second option. There were about 50 people at the party. We had beef sausages and chicken and people brought salads. We also gave small talks about our MSG in German, English and Arabic. As soon as we started the party, the weather got good. Photos.

Now we are planning a trip to Trier to see the city and attend a couple of lectures there.

Happy Independence Day

happy independence day to all. The independence to be corrupt and to rob and kill each other. Let us promise today that we will never do corruption, never give or accept rishwat, never accept or do sifarish, see our fellows above the divisions of language, province, ethnicity, sect, etc. Only then do we deserve to celebrate our freedom. Otherwise: long live our new masters (internal or external).

Receiving Pakistanis in Frankfurt

Last week we decided to go to Frankfurt airport to receive a batch of Pakistanis coming to Germany. They had received the HEC scholarship for phd and were being sent in 3 groups. Two groups had their flights 4 hours apart and the third group was coming 3 days after them. We opted to receive the first group while others chose to receive the second group. We started our journey in the morning, reaching Frankfurt city in the afternoon and strolled to a Pakistani restaurant "Shahid ka Dhaba". There we were served delicious dishes with hot roti and lassi. Then we went to a Bengali mosque to pray and subsequently to a Pakistani sweet shop (Akmal). We bought freshly made "Gulab Jaman" and returned to the train station to catch a train to the airport. The flight was delayed half an hour. PIA was banned from Europe shortly but now was allowed to operate again. This time around, they probably didn't have flights to Frankfurt. So the students were flown to Milan, Italy. Then they were to reach Frankfurt through Al-Italia airline. When the scholars finally reached Frankfurt, they told a horrible story of their change-over. The luggage of some of them was placed in the next flight. So these people chose to stay and wait at the airport.

We came back after sending the scholars on their way to their respective cities. Some other Pakistanis were to receive the remaining scholars at night. One of them tells the story of reception like this:
"In the next flight 8 scholars were missing. They were supposed to spend night at Milan airport as they were not allowed to go out side the airport but I heard that then some Pakistani from tribal area helped them & they spent night at some hotel. They arrived then next day at 11:30 am & went to their cities. Two or three of them had lost their luggages. The students arriving with 10 pm flight were very upset & many of them had lost their luggage (as well). All the clothes & important things were missing. I helped them to claim the luggages & hope the airline will send them when they (are) found. This was really very bad & was due to the PIA & HEC officials. All have told all the story to Pakistani embassy & also to DAAD."

btw, a funny thing happened as well. One of the students gave me the telephone number of the hostel's manager where they were supposed to stay. I called there and asked if all of the 8 scholars of that city will stay with him. He sounded like a Turkish guy. After confirming, he asked me a question: "these people coming from Pakistan, are they some high officials or some ministers or something?" At my surprised answer that they were just students, he exclaimed: "You are the sixth person to call to inquire about them".

Bar B Que party at my research group

This month we had the yearly Grill party at my robotics research group. We hold this party every summer at a Bar-B-Que location next to our building, and invite all the students who have worked with us during the last year. This year, summer has not come completely yet, so we were afraid of a bad weather. However the weather got better at the time of the party and we started a little earlier than scheduled. The initial phase, burning the coal, was tough, so we used a heat blower to speed up the process :)

I came back at about 11 pm while the party was going on with still a few participants there. Some left-over food and drinks now lay in our kitchen ready to be made good of...

Joining East and West Germany

A few days back, the university arranged a trip to Berlin. We travelled on bus with Brazilian students singing and making noise at the back for the first two hours. This was a ten hours journey because of our stopovers. We got a hostel to stay neat the city center in this relatively big city (but only a third the population of Lahore). There we were briefed on our location and where to go in the evening and which areas to avoid. Yes they told us two areas where we could be engaged by neo-nazis that got us worried. Nevertheless we got out and met a friend there who took us to an Lebanese restaurant serving tasty KFC style chicken.
The next day we went to a research institute to hear some presentations and see their super-computer. It was in a large noisy room with a long line of cupboards containing processor arrays. They had more than a hundred hard-disks which were used as temporary storage. The actual data storage was on tape drives on which a robotic arm was used to switch tapes. We also saw pieces of Berlin wall placed at city centre. There was a clear brick all through the city marking the position of the former Berlin wall. Since the Berlin wall was not straight, rather circular, so it was always difficult to tell which side of the wall (marking) was East and which West. Even the guide had problems sometimes. However, there were some things that provided some clues. Like the traffic signals for pedestrians were different. There was a very small portion of the wall intact at one place surrounded by a metal fence. Near it was a very long piece along the river with paintings depicting the history and sufferings due to the wall.
This wall made Berlin a very interesting and complex place. Like in other cities, foreigners were colonized on the outskirts of the city. In the case of Berlin, they lived near the wall as this was considered a dangerous place. When the wall vanished, these foreigner colonies found themselves in the middle of the city at important locations. So there are colonies like Turkish, Arabic, etc very near to the city centre. Secondly, once the wall was removed, Berlin was the first capital of the world with a huge empty space right in the middle. They didn't know what to do with it, so they sliced the area like a cake and divided it among huge companies. So now there are triangular buildings in this area made by Sony, etc.

Are you ready to die?

This video shows death of a soccer player on field while playing. The player is Miklós Fehér

Cricket series with Saarbruecken

Guest post from the blog of Omer Kamal.