What sort of places are we all living in?

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam,

I have been experiencing the life of being enabled access to a computer as a remarkable priveledge. This was brought home with a renewed emphasis in the past few days when I watched a television program about Muslims in the slums of Jakata. Though perhaps those very persons would not consider that their homes were slums. My home seems very large and comfortable by comparison, yet it is in the equivalent of a slum of a large Australian city.

So I got thinking about how we who use the computer might be inadvertently making a larger impact than we are representative of. That is, we Muslims affluent enough to access a computer have a more immediate access to the world of Islamic thought, and so may be making an impact upon the lives of all the many Muslims who have no such access. But perhaps, if they are wise, might not evey wish for such.

So I though I could start a thread in which users of this site can write a little about the place we live in without even revealing where exactly we are; and write about how it is that we can be accessing a computer.

In Australia it is becomming almost essential to use a computer for most study and work purposes. Because of this there are many libraries with computers. The public library systems in all Australian towns and cities have free internet access for members. Also many other libraries, such as at Universities have such available. But now I need to break this post into two posts because there is another person booked into this computer now. wasalam

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam again:

Where I live is an outer suburb of a large sprawling city. There are many "green" areas in this city. A Green area is either a park or undeveloped land. Distances are big here, but that is usual for Australia. There are a few different libraries at which I can access a computer. This is difficult for me to afford because of the travel required. There are two public libraries within walking distance from my house. My house is close to a train station though so if I have a weekly public transport ticket I can move around the city to any public library. That is more convenient since the futher away libraries have more computers and I am allowed a longer booking.

However closest to my house it is that heading away from the city there is a new suburb with lots of very big houses and a big posh shopping complex. The library there felt a little intimidating at first. It takes fourty five minutes to walk there and the first part of the walk is through an industrial estate. The cement factory is the largest local landmark. In an easterly direction there is a more pleasant walk for about an hour to reach a different shopping complex. People in that area are poorer in material means and there are many persons waiting to use the library computers. There are more black people around that area, from many parts of the world, and also are large vietnamese community who have their shops at that centre. On the way walking there are a few Buddhist temples and a few Vietnamese Christian Churches. There is a Baptist church shop for poor people to buy food from cheaply and with free bread. There is a Mosque in a the direction of the city and only a little bit closer, but it is the biggest Mosque in this city.

On the way to the library near the Vietnamese shops there is a little foot bridge with frogs and nearby a big truck loading bay with heaps and heaps of yellow trucks. Also the whole area is quite close to a big river in the other direction. Sometimes the river has flooded and many of the houses are up on stilts. But where I live are poor peoples houses that are built without being up on stilts so bad luck if it floods. But right now is the longest drought on record in this part of Australia ever since white folk began to keep such records, that is not much more than for a hundred odd years.

There are so many books in the libraries that I could never read everything that interests me. The houses are almost all small three bedroom houses. I am not much liking the house I am in, but it was difficult to get a three bedroom house while my children are not living with me, but I can not get my children back unless I am in a three bedroom house.

I could be a rick person in money, but I choose not to since I perceive that all around me those with money are more deluded about reality than are those with less money. We are fortunate in Australia that education is accessible without much money for most people. It is far harder to access education though for persons of known Aboriginal ancestry, and/or black skin.

The place I like best to travel to for using a library takes a half an hour of train travel and a half an hour of bus travel before arriving. It is a place that had the first undercover shopping mall in Australia. There are a series of protected natural walkways through here that go to the beach in the east, and the hills in the west.

So now I want to know about the places that other Muslims are living in? How easy is it really for any of us to access a computer? What sacrifices have we made to be able to use a computer?

Occassionally I pay for a twenty four hour period of computer use in a commercial computer game place in the city: and that usually cost me out of my food budget; so then I eat with the homeless folk in the city whom are really quite well provided for by the charities. I can not help but wonder about the larger population of Muslims and whether the sort of dialogues that occur in internet sites are in any way helpful for their immediate needs.

What are your situations that bear relevance to this?

wasalam

[Selising]

I lives in a semi-detached house. land area is 45'x80', build up area is about 25'x38'. Quite comfortable, but since it is considered in country area, it was cheap. Our housing area is the only developed housing estate consists of 250 houses. We are surrounded by kampungs.

Kampung means most of the houses/land was inherited from their parents. They build houses without sending their plan to the authority. No proper drainage and sewage system. Some will build wooden house, some will build a concrete one. The location of one house to another was not properly planned. One brother might build a house just behind his sister's house.

Our houses was developed by a single developer. A wooden house will not be covered by insurance, ours are covered.

Most of my friends lives in a double-storey link/terrace. The land area normally 20'x70'. Some will stay in a single storey terrace.

I have internet at home. Our area is covered by internet. For houses that do not have internet or students who stays with friends, they will go to cyber cafe. the charging ranges. Some will charge as cheap as RM1.50 per hour. Some will still charge RM4.00 per hour, about USD1.

[Curaezipirid]

Alaikumassalam Selising,

thankyou for telling of your place, my only experience of Kuala Lumpur is the flight in and out of the Airport from Tokyo to Sydney on then borrowed funds. The view out the windows of the plane as it flew into Kuala Lumpur was astonishing of the pre-monsoonal clouds in May 1991. The plane flew down through one layer of clouds and then there was a whole other layer in which there were huge mountains of cloud which the plane had to fly around because it was bumpy inside. I felt then very blessed to see such a sight with my own eyes.

Truly I believe that the stories of each place will all return to that place in time. I hope other persons can share their place and help us all comprehend the utility of the internet more clearly.

wasalam

[Curaezipirid]

I really wanted this thread to have lots of peoples responses, so I am answering it now my self again. (this is only the second time I made a post to put a thread up in the lists of threads)

But I should adhere to the topic also.

Tonight I am at an all night internet games cafe which is in Queen Street Mall in the very middle of Brisbane City. Queen street is the main shopping street with a pedestrial mall that this place is a downstairs shop front from. It is a very well lite place. The trains leave from only two blocks away and run until midnight and from four thirty am. I often stay up all night here on my pay day when I can afford to, because the overnight price is less. Also I like being in the City occassionally, because I like people, even when there are so many too many of them. There are two coffee shops and two fast food outlets within 100 metres of here, which are all open 24 hours also. There is a big Christmas tree across the road in between the new Brisbane City Council building and the Casino (which is the old Treasury building). The new Council offices has a new library with an automated book sorting machine which cost two million dollars. It is bizzare. Today there were circus performers working in the mall just metres from the door of this place. Often the Council pays street performers to entertain the public. (also for Tai Chi lessons every Sunday morning if I can make it, and even if I can not)

There is a man who plays his digeridoo in the mall regularly, and he told me that he was here watching when they were paving the mall. The Hilton Hotel is near also, and if I want to pay $5 for a coffee instead of $4, or $1.50 at MacDonalds, or for free with the homeless people, then I can sit up in the Hilton and fake being able to afford it. The Hilton coffee shop is like a scene from that movie called Brazil, and so occassionally worth the $5 just to prove that this ain't all real. But my story about it is! For now.

That's all.

What is it like where you are?

[IbnAbdulHakim]

well we live in a house, 2 floors, 4 bedrooms Alhamdulillaah, small gardens but its good mashaAllah. wooden fence n everything. Allahs blessed us Alhamdulillaah.

[Woodrow]

Up until last year this is were I was living. this is the view from my back yard.



the view of the front yard looked the same. Yes that really was my backyard.

Today I am living in the city of Austin with my daguhter and her family in an apartment complex. Things look different. This is the place where I am now.



I'm still trying to get used to city life.

[IbnAbdulHakim]

your old lifestyle looked better uncle lol, nothing beats nature, all though all the tree's can get a bit spooky sometimes ffended:

[Woodrow]

your old lifestyle looked better uncle lol, nothing beats nature, all though all the tree's can get a bit spooky sometimes ffended:

But I miss them trees. I was in one of only 2 remaining areas in the US that still has wild Ocelots roaming the woods. There was a Female Ocelet that had kittens and for several weeks her and the kittens slept on my porch in the day time. I miss the wild critters.

[IbnAbdulHakim]

^ mashaAllah !!! that sounds good , would you prefer to move bak there?

[Woodrow]

^ mashaAllah !!! that sounds good , would you prefer to move bak there?

If my health would permit it. At the moment it is not a very feasible option.

[glo]

But I miss them trees. I was in one of only 2 remaining areas in the US that still has wild Ocelots roaming the woods. There was a Female Ocelet that had kittens and for several weeks her and the kittens slept on my porch in the day time. I miss the wild critters.

Wow!
I would love to see ocelots in the wild.

My little nephew had asked me to knit him a hat with an ocelot pattern on it - so I had to check their pattern out. Very beautiful animals! And the pattern is striking. Not like any other wild cats.
It took me ages to knit (and of course is nothing like the real thing!!)

Back to the topic, me and my family live in a small traditional Victorian terraced house (like thousands here in the UK)
Small kitchen, three bedrooms, long thin walled garden. Not big by any means, but big enough!

[Selising]

OK, this is the picture of my house 4 years ago and still in the same shape excepts the plants



mine is a semi-D, so I just took our half



with my 3 kids