SISTERS Reads – For the People By the People: Muslim Voices, Human Lives

I always enjoy finding enticing anthologies, full of the potential to inspire, educate and entertain me in quick and concise reads during stolen moments in my over-scheduled days. Anthologies filled with Muslim voices are among my very favourite indulgences, but when I heard For the People by the People: Muslim Voices, Human Lives was especially good for da’wah purposes, my excitement deflated a little as I felt that meant it would be less for me and more for them. Fortunately I was wrong. For the People, By the People: Muslim Voices, Human Lives an Anthology is a wonderful collection of musings written by both converts and raised-Muslims, both brothers and sisters in the deen. The stories span from conversions to awakenings, not-at-all-trifling home and office epiphanies, to deeply personal reveals after challenging searches.

I asked FTPBTP’s editor (and regular contributor to SISTERS Magazine) Sabah Hadi what was the catalyst for putting the anthology together, and she explained, “The idea of FTPBTP was to give ordinary Muslims a voice to speak about their lives, their joys and pain, their everyday struggles and so on. By ordinary I mean those who have contributed towards the book are not necessarily writers (as would be the case with books, even anthologies) but people from different spheres of life. The main idea was to move away from explanations, proving oneself right, backlashes, the terrorism debate, the spotlight on the burqa etc. and present everyday Muslim lives as they are. I think that the contributors have done a great job in chronicling what, according to them, is important as Muslims and as humans.”
Perhaps because the contributors are not burdened with the weight of (again) excusing themselves to non-Muslims, there are a few instances in the book that frankly address some of the schisms within our own communities. I especially appreciated Sarah Bibi’s take on the intolerance in her community. A British-Pakistani, Bibi’s references in the essay to one of her own inspirations – drawing on the wit and wisdom of Muhammad Ali – closed the circle for me, indicating that For the People, By the People hits the mark at recognising and creating a mini-reflection of the greater diversity of the Ummah.

I was hoping for just a few good reads in this anthology, but truly didn’t come across any that weren’t enjoyable. Among the more eye-opening excerpts were explorations of racism and Islamophobia in the respective school and professional circles of Nazrana Mulla in South Africa and Nawaid Anjum in New Delhi. “Muslim” truly seemed to be the only link among the varied (though captivating) narratives, so I curiously asked Hadi, “What was the selection process – where did you want the writers to be from?” Hadi explained her curating process: “The contributors are from many other professions – very few writers have contributed towards the anthology. I tried to include people from as many different countries as possible. The criteria for selection of the contributors was very simple. Each one had to put down an experience that moved them and made them see the things around them in a different light. It made them aware of their selves and their lives, as Muslims and as humans. Something like Chicken Soup for the Muslim soul.”
Hadi succeeded at providing a well-versed ensemble for these Muslim stories. Sharing a range of insights from all over the world about their experiences around issues of identity and religiosity, For the People, By the People: Muslim Voices, Human Lives surely and generously offers inspiration and wisdom to all its readers. For the People, By the People is available on Amazon and you can further follow the book’s related activities at http://www.facebook.com/forandbythepeople.

A homeschooling mother of six and editor of SISTERS Magazine, Brooke Benoit is often asked how does she have the time to read so much. Perhaps it’s partially possible because she doesn’t commute and she doesn’t own a television.

This review originally appeared in SISTERS Magazine’s May 2012 issue which can be found right here. 

Read Full Post »

Last Day! Live Below the Line challenge

It is the last day of my Live Below the Line challenge to eat less than £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily and I have much to say and little time, so I wanted to at least bring this up. There is a hadith which I often see used in a way to support women to really dig into their roles at working in the home and serving their families. That’s great stuff, of course, but since I originally read the hadith with context, that wasn’t ever how I saw it.

Narrated ‘Ali bin Abi Talib: Fatima came to the Prophet asking for a servant. He said, “May I inform you of something better than that? When you go to bed, recite “Subhan Allah’ thirty three times, ‘Alhamdulillah’ thirty three times, and ‘Allahu Akbar’ thirty four times. ‘All added, ‘I have never failed to recite it ever since.” Somebody asked, “Even on the night of the battle of Siffin?” He said, “No, even on the night of the battle of Siffin.” (Bukhari)

The thing is, Fatima wasn’t asking for a “servant” meaning “domestic employee.” She was asking for a slave recently captured as war booty. “Slave”-  as in someone who is owned by another and has no autonomy.

Now frequently when they refer to the part of the hadith where Fatima (RA) complains about the pain in her hands caused by milling – ““Fatimah complained about the pain caused to her hand by the mill, and some prisoners had been brought to the Prophet….” People say things like “look at how she suffered for her family rather than take on a domestic worker”…. No.

Look at it this way. The Prophet (SAW) was in the process of discouraging the practice of using SLAVES- a social injustice. He suggested to her that is was better that she suffer than force that suffering onto another.

~~~

Poverty is not caused by lazy.

Poverty is caused by social injustices.

Narrated Abu Musa Al-Ash’ari: The Prophet said, “Give food to the hungry, pay a visit to the sick and release (set free) the one in captivity (by paying his ransom).” (Bukhari)

Thanks to everyone for the support and dialogue.

Here is where you can give to Association Bayti.

Read Full Post »

Day 4: Live Below the Line Challenge

I’m fasting today- hush, I’m not bragging, I’m making them up- so just had a little hot cereal and coffee for breakfast, but sending The Sons to the next village over to get us a chicken to splurge on for iftar. That will be a roughly 1 kilo chicken shared among seven people and hopefully keeping me on my budget!

~~~

Just want to thank everyone so much for their support of this project. So far you have donated $642 or £412 or 5,400 dirhams. That’s more than I hoped for and may He reward you with better, ameen!

Go here to give

Read Full Post »

Day Two: Failing to Live Below the Line

I’m not a hater. I’m actually a bit of a natural-born cheerleader. But in this circumstance I am quite relieved to see other people ‘failing’ (yes, air quotes- it’s my blog) the Live Below the Line challenge to live on less than £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily.

I ended yesterday with

$0.29 Sauteed veggie sandwich with processed cheese and pickles

$0.15 Cup of tea with splash of milk and less sugar than I would prefer

$0.12 Two homemade lumps of chocolate-covered raisins and peanuts (thanks Hun, you knew I would be a much better spouse and parent with some chocolate in me!)

$0.12 Banana

$0.09 Four (or five?) Jelly candies

Total: $0.77

Daily Total: $1.50

I think my fail happened around an extra jelly penny candy or two and then… I added some couscous broth to the sauteed veggies. Yeah, plus I skipped lunch- which was a beautiful platter of couscous with chicken and raisins and… and I stole a couple spoons of the broth. And ate two or three too many jelly candies. Fail.

~~~

Please go here to help relieve extreme poverty. I’m off to prep a bunch of cheap veggies for lunch whilst drinking “all the tap water” I can.

Read Full Post »

Live Below the Line: Day 1

Wells, it’s Day 1 of my five day challenge to live like billions of people the world over (unjustly) do- on less than  £1 ($1.50) worth of food daily. Today is not so bad as I am fasting anyway and will be skipping lunch, still half of my food budget was used up by a modest breakfast:

$ 0.20 Coffee

$ o.41 Eggs with processed cheese             

$ 0.11 Millet porridge

$ 0.06 Bread

Total: $ 0.78

So, my idea of “not so bad” means forgoing my usual butter, jelly/honey and sometimes fruit. Oh yeah, plus skipping an entire meal. Mmmhm. Have I mentioned that I am a nursing mama?

I have also posted this story about food/poverty in the US which I wrote a few years ago, and it makes me think of my sweet friend Aneesa who is doing the challenge in the US.  Go read, go give. Please

Read Full Post »

Who is living below the line?

Addiction runs in my family, manifesting in various ways: drugs, alcohol, food… I’m pretty sure that I am at least a bit of a workaholic. I know that being Muslim doesn’t provide my children with some magic cloak, protecting them from these various forms of addictions, so I talk to them about it frankly and frequently.

A couple of years ago, during the quickly warming springtime in Casablanca, we were having one such talk at a little café. These outings were rare for us as I wasn’t working much at the time and although the snacks weren’t too expensive, they were definitely a luxury when compared to the national median. The waiter had just served our strange selection of French fries, mousse cakes, cappuccino and panaches when I noticed a figure stop just next to our table, but on the outside of the large picture window. He wore a dark hooded sweatshirt and began breathing heavily into a small plastic bag. He was a teenager sniffing glue.

Oh God. Tears threatened to burst out of their ducts and I had a feeling of panic rush over me. Really? Was it a sign? Was I really supposed to use that child as an example to my own? I did. I tried to be casual, yet not callous. My children freaked out. They were ready to rush out of the café and save the young man. “Can we feed him? Can we give him money?” they asked. No. He was too high right now. He would likely just buy more glue or stronger drugs if he could find them. We would have to find the safe house kids like him stayed at or some other organization that helped them and give them whatever funds we could.

Once, the blessed companions were on a journey and decided to slaughter a female sheep. Someone took it upon himself to slaughter it whilst another took the responsibility of skinning it. A third took the responsibility of cooking it.The Messenger of Allah said, ‘I will collect wood for the fire.’The blessed companions said, ‘We will do that.’The Holy Prophet said, ‘I know that you can do it for me but I do not like to be privileged. Allah also does not like it.’(It’haaf-us-saadat-ul-mutaqeen)

As spring bloomed into summer, we came across more and more kids like the hooded boy. I noticed that the groups of kids hanging out in a park by the masjid were not the same as the kids who hang out in the mall across the street. They weren’t as stylish or energetic. They were homeless and often intoxicated. I fantasized about feeding them, but knew they needed much more than the one meal I could provide. One morning my two sons and I came across two young boys; I mean maybe not even tweens, waking up on their cardboard beds not far from the library we were headed to. Articles about child prostitution in Morocco crossed my dash online. I asked friends if they knew of any organizations specifically working with homeless children in Casablanca. They didn’t, but eventually we found one.

Association Bayti has been helping “youth in difficult situations” since 1995. Along with billions of people without choice who do so every day, on April 29^th- May 3^rd I will be living on less than £1 ($1.5) than per day while taking part in the Live Below the Line campaign to bring awareness to extreme poverty and raise money (redistribute the wealth) for Association Bayti. The following contributors have been cited as among the contributors to why children become homeless – without their parents- here in Morocco:

* Unfair distribution of resources and opportunities in the community, such as lack of adequate employment opportunities, problems in working conditions
* Political and economic conditions

“Unfair distribution” = privilege and injustice, two things the Prophet (SAW) warned our Ummah about participating in. It is my hope that by participating in this activity and focusing some of my time and energy into this activity that I will come to better understand economic disparities and how to work against them.

Please sponsor me for Live Below the Line- all money goes to the ngo Association Bayti and their work to feed and help children in Morocco. You can give money directly to Association Bayti in Casablanca or go here and give via me and Paypal.

You can read more about Association Bayti and street children here.

Read Full Post »

Live Below the Line: Coffee!

When I very first considered doing the Live Below the Line challenge to live on less than  £1 ($1.50) a day, one acquaintance responded, “No way! That’s less than what I pay for my daily coffee.” Well yeah. Isn’t that the standard fundraising slogan these days: “Give up your coffee for just one day…” or week or whatever. I know that nowadays (here in rural Morocco) I pay much less for coffee than I have all of my adult life, but still I freaked out a little about having to give up the cuppa and so the cost of my daily coffee intake was the first thing I calculated – before committing to the challenge!

My very first coffee (other than stealing sips of my mom’s iced coffees when I was a kid) was one of these. It was free as I was working in a café that did vocational training for an awesome non-profit org. I still remember the manager surprisedly saying “You’ve never had a mocha? Let me get you one…” I was immediately hooked on the good stuff: double shot with whip and always, always chocolate! Fortunately (or not?) I worked in the food industry for several years, so my coffee habit was often work-subsidized.

When I did make coffee at home, it was usually made from beans like these here ($8-$12 per lb/half kilo)- or perhaps more spendy ones when I was a) feeling rich or b) feeling like being spendy. Chocolate was often added needed, and sometimes I used the more-expensive-than-milk vanilla soy milk or the husband’s preference half and half.

Jumping several years ahead in my coffee consuming ways, in Casablanca, we usually bought coffee by the kilo for barely less than what we paid in the states. Out here in the sticks, where I am living now, we would get these little air-vacuumed packs of coffee that cost about 80 dirhams ($9.36) per kilo. A slightly less expensive bulk coffee is available at my local epecerie for 40 per kilo grams. Initially I started calculating the vacuum-packed stuff for my challenge since that is what we normally have, but you know what? That stuff is made by an evil company. And I seriously cannot taste the difference anyway! Too many years of burning my tongue or coffee really is just “yuck” as the kids say, either way I don’t drink it for pleasure and maybe after the challenge I should revisit my coffee addiction, but in the meantime…

I use about .9 dirhams of coffee a day (when I only drink it once!) and I pay 6 dirhams for one liter of fresh local milk everyday. Thank God. We were buying cartoned stuff for 10 dirhams a liter, and that was a lot of packaging we were wasting… So I use about .75 dirhams worth of milk and I calculated my sugar to be about .11 dirhams per cup of coffee. I will be forgoing chocolate, I know mushkin (*rolls eyes at self*).

Grand total: 1.76 dirhams (20 US cents) a day for coffee. I’m in!

But I note that my daily coffee intake,though immensely scaled down from what it once was/could be,  is still quite a luxury compared to my neighbors’ habits. Next up I need to figure out what I’m going to be able to eat! Maybe I should just fast on those days…

Please go here to sponsor my  Live Below the Line Challenge.  All sponsorship will go to Association Bayti, a Moroccan NGO that feeds and helps “youth in difficult situations.”

Now I need to figure out what I can eat with my remaining 11 dirhams ($1.29) per day…

Read Full Post »

Live Below the Line: I’m Going to!

Occasionally I like to challenge myself. You know, get out of my comfort zone, learn new things and all. The adjustment to my diet (read “losing my food preferences, cravings and splurges”) has been one of the bigger challenges of moving my family out to a rural village in the High Atlas Mountains. Of course when I consider the unjust states which others are forced to live in and I keep my deen in perspective, I know that I am extremely privileged. I mean I can’t get avocados, Lays and hamburger that easily anymore, but come on, I still manage to make myself a mocha nearly every morning. So when I read about the Live Below the Line challenge on the Eco Muslim’s blog I thought Good for her! but didn’t consider the challenge for myself until I began making up some baby-related missed Ramadan fasts a few weeks ago. Once again I was reminded of how much food I really do have and take for granted, alhumdulillah. So I’ve taken up the challenge-

Insha Allah from April 29th – May 3rd I’m going to

LIVE OFF £1 A DAY FOR 5 DAYS!

While I hear mumblings about how much easier it is for me to do this challenge here in Morocco where food is cheaper, it’s important to realize that 13 dirhams a day is still not enough to support an adequate calorie intake for anyone- yet at least 20% of Moroccans live like this daily- not just for a one time challenge- and of course the majority in poverty are children. So, by doing this event, it’s my hope to:

Raise money (more than I could give all by myself) for those who do Live Below the Line all.the.time.

Please sponsor my challenge to Live off of £1 ($1.50) a day for 5 days. *The challenge is over, but please continue to support  Association Bayti:

• Donate directly to Association Bayti in Casblanca: Km 12,5 Ancieene Route de Rabat, Sidi Bernoussi, 20610 Casablanca, Morocco

~~~

I’ve started calculating my diet plan for my LIVE OFF £1 A DAY FOR 5 DAYS! and it’s not looking too exciting- 1/4 of my money may just got to coffee, without chocolate obviously. I’ll post pics and details as soon as I get started on April 29th. In the meantime go check out the fabulousity of my sweet sister sponsors:

Yezarck Fine Art

SISTERS Magazine

The Eco Muslim

Read Full Post »

Homeschooling: Getting Dad on Board

I frequently hear moms asking “How do I get my husband to agree to homeschool?” and, well, I have great empathy for their plight. I’ve heard that if it’s not dad’s idea to begin with, it can be very difficult to convince him to homeschool. This week when someone asked me about this common dilemma I thought back some ten+ years to the beginning of my family’s journey and tried to remember- how did I get my husband to agree to homeschool our kids?

Initially the husband seemed to agree with my homeschooling idea. Perhaps he saw my enthusiasm- pouring over hsing books, joining hsing groups, taking parent and child courses at our local Waldorf school- and he thought something like, She’s going to be great at this! I just asked him how he was so easily convinced in those early days and he says it has to do with him being “weird” by which he means “unconventional” and he says that he’s quick on his feet and “just got it right away that homeschooling was a good thing to do.” I may try again to jog his memory about that time because…

… and then about a year later we moved to Morocco and the man buckled. He began pressuring me to put our four year old into preschool. Now he says “that was only about the language.” Yes, of course. Muslim homeschoolers who move overseas often cite language acquisition as a reason for indoctrinating putting their children in schools once they are in Muslim majority countries. The other main reason is so that the children will learn Quran and Islamic values.

The first two neighbourhood schools I begrudgingly toured with my husband were taught primarily in French. And they happily informed us that the children learn all about Papa Noel and wear costumes for Halloween. Did this appeal to the Western Mom? No. Their curriculum was also cra substandard and they did not have an outdoor play area for the children. Well they had cement driveways. Nice. The third school we toured was a 40 minute drive (not during commute hours) from our home. It was an “Islamic school” located within the compound of a lovely mosque. There was a plush lawn covering the grounds and a slide. One of those detached slides you might buy from a toy store for your own kids.

We arrived at Option #3 just in time for Thuhr prayer and got to witness all the little kids (remember- preschool) pulling on their hijabs and thobes, rolling out the enormous plastic rugs, and lining up to pray. Truly adorable. Then we learned about the curriculum. Yes, we were proudly informed, these three and four year olds were learning not only Classic Arabic (as opposed to the Derija or Tshilhit they speak at home) but they were also learning English. Argh. I was hoping to follow the Better Late Than Early model. The husband was impressed. He decided the son would go. He decided my little four year-old would-be-homeschooler should commute to school six days a week for several many hours every day. I remember there was an option for him to come home for two hours every day for lunch, but obviously that would be futile with the more than an hour’s worth of driving back and forth, so he would be there all day. Full-time.

I decided to opt out. “You want him to go, you have to get him up, get him ready, make his breakfast, get his lunch ready, drop him off, pick him up. I’m not doing anything to help,” I said (and meant). My husband did not get up and get my son ready and make his breakfast and make his lunch and drive him in Casa traffic (similar to LA or NY) to school and then drive back to our side of town and then go back hours later to get him. My husband didn’t put our son in school after all. This solution didn’t come to me immediately or easily, but it came to me and it worked. That was the end of that and the beginning our homeschooling journey.

I hear that dads are more inclined to listen to professional advice regarding these matters of making choices that very much go against the current grain, especially the advice of other males. So you may want to do another thing I did, which was to load the coffee table down with books and printed out data about the success rates of homeschoolers. But then again, that didn’t seem to entirely work for us. Otherwise, some Muslims appreciate a good fatwa, so here’s one if it helps at all- though I’m sure you could find support out there for an opposite view…

Homeschooling our Children is an Act of Obedience to Allah

Question:

If a woman wants to home school her children, to protect them from evil influences, can she do so against her husband’s wishes? Can you provide any articles about educating our children, especially in this secular liberal society?

Answer:

The danger in the non-Muslim schools is definite, and sending our children there when there is a good alternative available is an act of disobedience to Allaah. If you know that you can properly home-school your children, and you know that you can get by it despite your husband’s opposition, then do it by all means, because, “No obedience may be granted to any creature that involves disobeying the Creator.”

Shaikh Muhammad al-Jibaly

imanbendjedidi.blogspot.com

Note: You do not have to be a teacher or have a university degree to teach your children at home. Studies have proven that home educated children are approximately five years ahead of children that attend public school, regardless of their parent’s level of education.

More and more Imams are encouraging homeschooling and some are stating it is a requirement, alhamdulillah.

Read Full Post »

How Green is Your Deen?

Hope this quiz will help you recognise how green you are. Or aren’t…

1. How close is the connection between Islam and the environment?
a) Global warming and stuff like that are not as important as establishing a khalifah.
b) We are each khalifahs (guardians) of the earth; as such, I try to keep my carbon footprint very light.
c) Muslims didn’t cause all these problems and shouldn’t be responsible for them.
d) The earth is Allah’s (SWT) creation and must be treated as such!

2. Your tech-gadget habits run along the lines of:
a) I throw away and replace my smart phone quarterly and my laptop annually.
b) My family helps to facilitate collecting and re-homing used mobile phones to persons in need.
c) I haven’t bought any new electronics in ages but if I did, I would be sure to first check their eco-ratings online.
d) What do you mean that “You aren’t supposed to throw dead batteries in the bin?”

3. When pausing to consider your water consumption, you closest agree with the following:
a) The water-cycle is at least as old or older than humankind and my consumption is my fair share.
b) I have to drink only bottled water. Tap water makes me gag.
c) I use my grey water to water my garden.
d) I allow myself a five litre daily allotment for all my water usage and if I run out, I make tayammum and go thirsty until the next morning.

4. Whatever you are shopping for, you are always sure to check the label for:
a) The price.
b) Whether or not the company tests its products on animals.
c) To be sure that it’s not made by a poorly rated company in your pocket-sized green shopping guide.
d) You don’t, you simply pay and be on your way.

5. What’s your drive?
a) Nearly all my transport is done by foot, though I do take the train weekly to go to an organic you-pick-it farm during the summer and I belong to a car-share program for those rare instances when I truly need one.
b) The mini-van is called “Mom’s Car”, the SUV is considered “Dad’s” and we felt a brand new car would be safest for the 16 year old, so she has a Mini Cooper.
c) Why yes, of course I drive one. Actually, I nearly live in it with all the errands I must run and all the extra-curricular activities these kids do.
d) I inherited my mom’s low petrol usage compact and have been keeping my eye on the prices of electric cars.

6. How is your energy situation?
a) I’m a little sluggish, but will be fine once I get my triple no-foam latte.
b) We just finished re-caulking and plastic-covering all the windows for winter, and when the snow melts we’ll be installing our new solar paneling.
c) I’ve been meaning to apply for home energy subsidiser program, but you know…
d) Among our many tricks for keeping our energy use down, I turn the thermostat low at night, cuddling in our family bed instead of burning that midnight oil, and we always use just one mudd of water each to make wudu with.

7. “Fair trade” is defined as:
a) An exchange made in which the buyer saves a lot of money off the ridiculously inflated retail price.
b) A purchase in which both the buyer and seller are happy about the price paid.
c) A barter made on a day with clear skies.
d) A purchase made in which the producers of the item are not undercut, but rather receive fair pay for their work and/or product.

8. “Re-use” is practised in your home by:
a) Tonight’s dinner will likely yield tomorrow’s lunch.
b) Re-use is what I try to do with everything before I repurpose it.
c) I’m not a very creative person.
d) I’ve been meaning to buy one of those plastic bag drying racks so that I can re-use produce bags, but you know…

Tally: 1. a=2, b=3, c=1, d=4. 2. a=1, b=4, c=3, d=2. 3. a=2, b=1, c=3, d=4. 4. a=2,b=3, c=4, d=1. 5. a=4, b=1, c=2, d=3. 6. a=1, b=3, c=2, d=4. 7. a=2, b=3, c=1, d=4. 8. a=3, b=4, c=1, d=2.

Results:
8–12 points: You are not-at-all an environmentalist: The grass isn’t greener on the other side, rather there is a haven of drought-resistant landscaping over there and you should get some. You would benefit greatly by reading ‘The Green Deen’ by Ibrahim Abdul-Matin and/or regularly visiting the websites of The Green Prophet and the Eco Muslim.

13–21 points: You are a ‘Greedy Greeny’: Most of your contributions to environmentalism are economic-based; you use reusable batteries and light bulbs because they save you some money, but you aren’t too impressed with toilet-paper made out of 60% post-consumer materials, and you don’t think twice about the numerous single-serving disposable packages you use daily, such as your yoghurt tub and organic smoothie cup. You can afford to be a better khalifah (who can’t?!) and so you should be.

22-30 points: The Eco-Jihadi: You are concerned about your responsibility to the environment, and do what you can to keep your carbon footprint as light as possible. Good green job!

30+ points: An Extremist: You fuel your body by only eating foods grown in your hydroponic garden, composted with your own guano. You haven’t bought a single newly manufactured item in nearly a decade and fashion your wardrobe from repurposed cast-offs from second hand shops. You only buy what can be found within walking distance of your home and have immense guilt about the carbon footprint created by your Power Mac, but find some solace knowing that your footprint has been slightly offset by reading your beloved SISTERS Magazine via a digital subscription. Hey Greeny, swerve a little back to the middle-road, you’re giving off some bad eco-dawah with your incessant shaming.

To learn more about your carbon footprint (or increase your green-speak if this quiz is all muddy for you), take the ‘Ecological Footprint Quiz’ at earthday.org

Brooke Benoit lives in a traditional mudhouse in the High Atlas Mountains where her guilty non-green pleasure is cheese puffs in a single-serving cellophane package.

Orginaly published in my current favorite issue (until the next one!) of SISTERS Magazine- the magazine for fabulous Muslim women.

Read Full Post »