Anuradhapura – ancient city of Buddha In the morning, you wake up early. You hear the silence that is no longer fully silent: somewhere far away, people are chanting. Someone outside the door is wiping the floor; the strokes against the ground remind of others, on other early mornings...
The overgrown Beatles ashram There is a place in Rishikesh, just outside the city on the eastern banks, at the end of a road that leads past brightly coloured ashrams with every morning meditation and orange waistcloths hanging to dry from the balconies. You have to make your way...
Small town story So I happened to be in Falköping one morning, it was a Saturday around 8.30 or 9, with half an hour to spend. I was going to meet my mum outside the place where she goes for gym classes, which is on the main street leading...
Algeria, Algiers, Alger, Algérie It was inevitable in a way, given the geography and shared history of the North African countries, to begin contrasting and comparing. When arriving in Algeria, it was my last place in the region to visit: immediately, I started thinking: Ah, the bread here, it’s as important as in Morocco, but not...
A new Mashallah News It was more than 5 years ago that we first clicked “post” and published the first article on Mashallah News – we were four back then – well, four plus three actually, because the graphic design team AMI were with us from day one, and...
Head elsewhere Interesting links from the past few weeks. First, a read that I got from Habib Battah, a Lebanese journalist who currently is over in Oxford for his PhD but continues to write about political and urban change over at his blog/site Beirut Report. It’s about the issue of sectarianism in Lebanon and...