Consultations: Season 1, Episode 11 of My Life as an Ansari
Charity consultation and consultation regarding a situation on the ground
Here is Season 1, Episode 11 of this article series — the story of my personal experiences and struggles as I became an Ansari (Helper) of Gazan refugees (Muhajireen). List of all episodes can be found here.
Mid-July 2024 found me surviving in quite an unhealthy state of being. To varying levels of success, I haphazardly kept fighting against the pull of my addiction — doomscrolling Gaza updates on social media. Shelters bombed, refugees being massacred, famine being orchestrated. The engineered social media algorithms worked their magic, and I kept falling into the rabbit hole, getting absorbed in the latest traumatic updates from Gaza.
In addition to doomscrolling my social media feed, two other things also incapacitated me. The first was reckless texting around Gaza: WhatsApp status shares, passing on appeals from Egyptians For Palestinians, getting back to direct messages of appeal from various Gazans on social media. “Bits” of time here and there, throughout the day, really added up. And secondly, this very blog, my Substack. I was trying to write and post an article about Gaza every week or every two weeks on this Substack. And it was time-taking. But I wanted to keep going.
My stress levels remained terribly high. Partly due to my sloppy activism around Gaza, and partly due to other life areas that I could have handled better. Stressing unhealthily became a default above a certain threshold of stimulus, I suppose. These unhealthy stress levels, along with my all-over-the-place social media use and activism, contributed to a very taxing state of existence: haphazard days of surviving chores, careless lack of sleep, and inability to generally get things done. All of which contributed to my self-esteem taking a hit, and further feeding my stress levels. It was a vicious cycle.
Various psychosomatic symptoms in my body persisted. But so did my attempts. My attempts to get my daily routine under control. To wake up and sleep on time (even though I usually failed, unfortunately). To get things done. To get unstuck.
The founder of the charity aggregator website got back to me on my request — my request to get us in touch with someone experienced who could advise Egyptians For Palestinians regarding maturing the charity during its initial, nascent phase. He was offering to get us in touch with a charity consultancy — but it was a paid service. He wanted to know if we were interested in proceeding. I forwarded his message to Hafsah.
When she didn’t get back to me within a day (which was perfectly normal and fine, as she was extremely busy on the ground in Egypt, juggling communications with a gazillion people), I went ahead myself and replied to the charity aggregator in the affirmative — without waiting for Hafsah’s confirmation that she wanted to. I took the step myself. I think I might have felt a bit rushed to reply to this big charity aggregator’s founder. Perhaps it emanated from an unchecked urge for people-pleasing; may Allah forgive me. I must have told myself in that moment that it wouldn’t hurt to push ahead and find out more information. I informed Hafsah that I was telling them to put us in touch with the paid charity consultancy, and let us find out more details.
Hafsah eventually replied — she politely said that she’d be happy to speak to him, but she also told me something else: she already had someone advising her from another country — pro bono. For free.
This would likely mean that my paid charity consultant would be redundant. Yet I had already forged ahead and asked for us to be put in touch with the guy.
Around that time, I also arranged a consultation call with a certain colleague from my day job, who is based in Egypt (my day job company has a branch in Egypt).
After that illuminating call I’d previously had with Hafsah regarding the current situation and needs of Egyptians For Palestinians, I felt that I needed some advice from on the ground. The particular person seemed like the best candidate from among my Egyptian colleagues, in order to give me the needed consultation: a pulse of the situation and sentiment on the ground in Egypt — to see if my Egyptian colleagues would be interested to be involved with Egyptians For Palestinians on the ground.
I asked this colleague about the prevailing sentiment in Egypt regarding the Palestinians and the genocide they were undergoing. Alhamdulillah, they explained to me that the majority of the people were definitely anti-genocide and felt for the Palestinians and their pain. Many, many people were boycotting pro-genocide brands, which made me happy.
People wanted to help out in terms of aid, but it seemed that they did not know how or where. And it also seemed to me that, as is typical, most people did not want to collectively organize and set up grassroots-level collectives and organizations, due to fear of government backlash. Aid efforts would likely be okay, but people had to be careful, it seemed.
All this isn’t over yet.
Alhamdulillah for the ceasing of this escalated genocide. Not that it’s a ceasing for us and our efforts, of course. The Palestinians are hard at work now — counting their dead, and many of them travelling back to their demolished homes, starting the slow and painful process of cleanup. Brick by brick. Turning debris back into a bandaged house.
And they need help. Lots of help from their ummah. The engineered famine is not over. The trickle of aid trucks is quite insufficient. The winter cold is still intense, and warm clothes are still very much needed. Transportation costs a lot. Travelling back, for those who are leaving their campsites to face the rubble of what was once home, costs a lot. Repairs and restoration cost a lot. Long-awaited medicines and prosthetic limbs cost a lot.
This is part of our test from Allah. Will we slack off now, and turn our backs? Or will we continue to serve Allah and spend in His Path upon our brothers and sisters in need?
This isn’t over yet. Not for them: not for us.
Relief 4 Palestine, in addition to their great work of water delivery, has opened their first hot kitchen. Please support them here.
During my consultation call with my Egyptian colleague, we also discussed what was currently going on on the ground: how were people in Egypt currently helping out the Gazan refugees (at least as far as my colleague knew from their social circle)? Despite the prevalent sympathy for the Gazans, people could not publicly do too much, it seemed. I also knew that the economy of Egypt was spiraling downward; the cost of living shooting crazy high; even the Egyptian middle-class was struggling to survive. But still, it seems that there were people sharing urgent cases of Palestinian refugees that need aid.
Networking. Awesome. I particularly asked my colleague about which mobile apps were popular and were considered secure for such collaboration.
From my end, I shared with my colleague a brief about what the efforts of Egyptians For Palestiniains on the ground in Egypt — providing various forms of immediate aid to the Gazan Muhajireen (refugees) in and around Cairo — food, medical aid, and especially rent — as well as their long-term efforts for pairing up Ansaris / sponsors with the Muhajireen / refugees. Hafsah would be open to meet any interested colleagues in person, maybe take them along to meet some of the refugees they were supporting. I told the colleague about my intention to reach out to Egyptian colleagues, to see if they’d be willing to help however they could. If this was just about aid and so on, my colleague considered that it should be fine.
I appreciated my colleague’s time for the consultation, and we ended the call. Now the ball was in my court, to actually reach out to my colleagues in Egypt. Would this really work — would my Egyptian colleagues welcome the idea of being involved? In spite of any fears, would they respond with enthusiasm and actually want to participate?
My struggles to get my daily routine under control saw an uptick. A rise. Alhamdulillah. Around this time, I managed to get myself to stick to a very basic morning routine for multiple days in a row — Fajr, Quran, slight exercise as much as my unhealed wrist would allow, working on side projects for a few minutes. A couple of times, I managed to sleep on time. And I was more conscious with my diet, eating healthier. And I managed to keep this trend up for several days, Alhamdulillah, and it became an ongoing pattern.
I think I was going a bit easier on myself with perfectionism: on counting a win even when it wasn’t perfect. I also used to consume beneficial content from productivity-related content creators. Plus, my consultation calls continued with my mentor/coach — those helped too. Ultimately, all praise and thanks is for Allah, Who provided guidance for me through various means.
Unfortunately, I still could have done better to manage my stress. I was still carrying around significant amounts of stress throughout my days. And my body bore the toll with continued and increasing psychosomatic symptoms, such as eye problems, hair loss, and the unhealing wrist. If anything, my stress levels seemed to increase during those days. Despite my uptick with my daily routine and diet, I was still haphazard with my doom-scrolling and weak impulse control. But maybe part of the increased stress was also a level of healthy discomfort, as I struggled to climb upwards against my downward spiral.
Engineer Ibrahim Younis from Gaza City is married with three children, with qualifications in engineering / sciences. His eldest child is around 6 years old. Ibrahim had been working in his preferred field of digital marketing for 10 years, assisting the growth of startups.
The escalated genocide, with its power outage, brought his work contracts to a halt. Our brother Ibrahim was forced to flee with his precious family into displacement, and his house was materially destroyed.
Sewage and rainwater flooding the streets. Hunger. Fear. Desperation. Income loss. Dreams uncertain. In his own words, “The experience of suffering through the [genocide] in Gaza cannot be summarized or described”.
Ibrahim messaged me some time ago. During our conversation, he also told me that he has memorized the whole Quran, and got a “continuous chain of transmission [from] the Messenger of Allah [may Allah’s peace and blessings be upon him] reciting the Quran during the [genocide]”.
It seemed from his dignified messages that it was painful for him to even reach out for help. Please, please support our brother here.
The founder of the charity aggregator gave me the number of a team member of his, who could put us in touch with the not-for-free charity consultant. I reached out to this team member, and when asked for my email address to connect us to the consultant, I gave him both Hafsah’s email address as well as mine.
After days, the charity consultant sent us an email, giving us his number and asking us to feel free to get in touch. I sent a screenshot of that email to Hafsah, but around that time she went on vacation — taking a well-deserved break from her hectic work on the ground for Egyptians For Palestinians — and didn’t get back to me for a while. Anyways, she had already told me what she had told me: she already had someone advising her pro bono. Plus, Egyptians For Palestinians were working hard to gather enough funds for the many Gazan refugees, much less having money to spare for the luxury of paid consultants.
As days passed, it sank into me that this was not going to happen. Clearly. Case closed already. Why had I forged ahead with this idea in the first place? Now I needed to reply to the charity consultant’s email and politely decline. It might be rude to just leave him without a reply, besides the fact that the founder of the charity aggregator might follow up with me or his team member or the consultant himself, and I didn’t want to look like the non-serious guy who bothered him for nothing.
I wanted to reply to the email and politely decline. To tie up this loose end. But days passed. And more days passed. As per my unfortunate norm of struggling to get things done, I just didn’t do it. Despite wanting to, I kept putting it off — like a true anxious-avoidant.
So this turned out to be a dead end; nothing else became of this. Except that I kept this loose end untied for weeks and weeks on my plate, too avoidant / lethargic to close this off properly, to simply reply to that email. And that didn’t make me feel too good about myself. It did not help with my low self-esteem and my constant anxiety.
Continued in Season 1, Episode 12: What Anxiety Feels Like. Before you continue, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber to support and to stay tuned: