What possessed me to embark on three trips in six weeks?

Towards the end of September I visited Sharjah UAE for about three days. Yup. I traveled on a plane for 13+ hours to stay at a hotel in Sharjah for three days and come back.

It was for an international storytelling festival.

But the real reason I went was to meet with my Arabian publisher.

Was it worth it? I think so.

I told stories at the venue, attended the closing ceremony, and then I had a very fruitful lunch meeting with my publisher.

What I’ve found is that when dealing with international entities a face-to-face meeting can work wonders! I suspected that my publisher didn’t actually know much about me or what I can do and I was right.

Thing is publishers are like any other people these days–inundated! A face-to-face meeting forces people to slow down, see what’s right in front of them!

And I enjoyed meeting with them too!

I did not enjoy the flight back. Honestly you feel quite dirty after such a long flight. I actually saw people walking into the plane’s bathroom in bare feet and I squirmed!

Then there was the vacation to Morocco from October 7th – October 16th.

Subhan Allah, I never knew Morocco was so gorgeous! The tour guide we had explained that many American tourists found a lot of the canyons and scenery reminiscent of the American southwest and I would have to agree. The buttes and the mountains, the vast valleys with arid vegetation…breathtaking! One of the highlights was that we visited this Moroccan studio where they shot movies like Gladiator. Lawrence of Arabia was also, ironically, filmed in Morocco.

There was a lot of walking involved! But it was incredible!

Then home for about four days and on the 20th of October I was off to tour Trinidad for eight days.

But all the traveling took its toll and I went to Trinidad with the remnants of a sinus infection and feeling horrible.

A lot of people tend to look at traveling as an author as something glamorous. I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but honestly traveling is just work with more inconvenience.

I arrived in Trinidad after the flight was delayed several times because Trinidad just happened to be going through the worst catastrophic flooding it had experienced in over a hundred years.

It was so surreal to be going into a country when they’re having a natural disaster!

Even the pilot sounded nervous when he told us the main north south highway was impassable and his copilot wasn’t going home.

Trinidad and Tobago is a tiny two-island country in the Caribbean. I had always thought of it as being similar to Guyana, which I visited 35 years ago, but it’s much much smaller!

I was told I’d be staying with various Muslim families.

I have incredible respect bordering on awe for people who will open their homes to strangers. I was determined to cause as little fuss as possible.

So the flight didn’t arrive in Port of Spain till half past ten in the night and three other international flights happened to arrive at the same time. The wait to get through immigration was about an hour and a half of standing when I wasn’t feeling well, and I was wondering if the people who I was staying with had made it through the floods.

I wondered if I’d have to rent a hotel room, if there were any hotels available and whether I’d have to sleep in the airport.

But when I finally made it through and had collected my bag, there were the couple who’d come to meet me! I didn’t cry openly, but there were tears in my eyes and instantly I made several duas thanking God for them. I felt safe.

By the time we reached their home, that was a short distance away, I was exhausted and extremely thirsty! Did I mention Trinidad is very hot and humid!!!

My hostess, God bless her, brought out a frosty jug of slightly milky looking water. “It’s coconut water from our own coconuts in the yard,” she said.

There is nothing as thirst quenching as cold fresh coconut water. I think I drank about two thirds of the jug in that one sitting!

I was supposed to go down to a place called Mayoro on the south east coast of Trinidad, I was in the north west! But the roads were flooded so it was impossible.

Instead I rested up a bit at my hosts’ house and then we traveled down to Rio Claro, where the bookfair and festival was to be held in the following days. Half the main highway (the southbound lanes) were still flooded so all the traffic was using the northbound lanes as a two way route. The traffic was horrible. It took four hours to go a distance that would normally have taken half the time.

We didn’t arrive at my new hosts house till late in the evening.

I was bleary-eyed with fatigue, wondering if my head would start spinning as it sometimes does when I’m traveling too much, wondering what these new hosts would be like.

But that night I spoke to my new hostess and we immediately connected on a deep level. She told me that they’d never hosted anyone before. But her husband had heard of the need and volunteered. They’d watched my Big Red Lollipop video and thought, yes, I would be welcome.

And I was.

I stayed with them the longest. And they opened up their homes and their hearts to me, we had some fascinating existential conversations about God, faith and humanity, and when I got an eye infection, my host went out and bought an eye wash and antibiotics that cleared it up in no time.

I had brought thank you gifts and I gave my hostess hers but I still felt incredibly indebted so I offered to cook them an authentic Pakistani meal of Chicken korma and pilau if they could get me the ingredients. They only missed a couple. The meal wasn’t perfectly authentic but oh how they loved it! Alhamdu lillah!

And just when I thought I might have kind of repaid them for their incredible hospitality, they gave me another gift.

When I left on Friday morning I hugged my hostess and we both cried. She said she’d miss the sound of my voice and the conversations we’d had. And she said my coming had been a gift.

Subhan Allah!

I think of us as kindred spirits.

I spent the night at another lady’s house in San Fernando, a city on the west coast of Trinidad, halfway to back to Port of Spain.

Another kindred spirit! Oh she was such a lovely lady!

More deep esoteric conversations!

And the final night in Trinidad I spent back at my original hosts. By this time it kind of felt like I was coming ‘home’.

When we left for the airport the next day my host said to me that I had told them the first night that I wasn’t fussy, and not to worry too much about me and he declared that what I had said was accurate. That I wasn’t fussy and he’d enjoyed having me.

That was one of the nicest thing people have ever said to me!

I should mention that the guy who’d arranged the whole trip was one of the nicest people I met in all of Trinidad!

He’d basically invited me because the American embassy had complained that for its size there had been a lot of Muslims who’d gone over to ISIS and he had invited me because of my book Muslim Child, because he saw it as a de radicalizing text, he particularly liked the first story Fajr, about the boy farting during the prayer.

He said it effectively disproved the idea that Muslims couldn’t be funny.

Incredibly knowledgeable about the book business he put me in touch with so many wonderful people and all my books he’d acquired to sell, sold out!

It was an incredible visit.

I’m sure I’ll be digesting the experience for a long time. But I’ll never forget the kindness of the people who hosted me and all the warmth and love of all the people who opened their hearts to a stranger traveling among them!