The day started bright and early with Fajr Namaz at 4am. Usually waking up takes a long time but this morning  our Mentors recruited Zameer and Mohamed P to help wake the planet up. This was incredibly successful and we even managed to wake up our local sleeping champion to not only be in time for namaz, but early too!

We woke up at 8:30am and made our way to breakfast. For breakfast we had our usual wide variety of cereals and milk, toast, delicious Swedish Cheese and constant supply of tea but today we also had the choice of freshly made omelette.

After we fed and watered, we made our way to classes. The four teachers today were Sheikh, Suhail bah, Shan-E-Abbas bah and a new addition to the teaching team in form of Dr Akil Nurmohamed. The first class by Suhail bah was about keeping cool in the face anger. He told us a story about a boy who was told by his father, to hit nails into his fence whenever he got angry. One day the boy didn’t get angry so his father set him the new challenge of taking out nails when he didn’t get angry. After taking out all the nails the boy saw the holes which the nails had left, the lesson being that if you get angry at somebody the damage may still remain. The second class by Dr Akil was on healthy eating and drugs. We watched a powerpoint presentation and did a worksheet, learning that carbs are the best food and that sugars and fats are the worse type.

Break followed where we had a quick portion of fruit and a drink. Classes then resumed with Sheikh taking us outside and taking about two duas, Dua Nudba and Dua Ahad. We found out that it’s highly recommended to recite Dua Nudba on a Friday. Unfortunately the wasps spotted us so we went back to the classroom and talked about Dua Ahad. The fourth and final class then started with Shan-E-Abbas bah talking about the world of politics. We learned about the Houses of Parliament, the MPs and those people who are involved in making the laws. We also found out that the queen has to sign a law before it gets passed.

Zohr and Asr namaz then followed at 1pm where Shabbar recited Zohr Dua. Afterwards was lunchtime and today Saturn was serving. On the menu was some tasty spaghetti bolognaise. Following lunch was one of the camp’s special events: the group photograph! We were put into height order and lead outside as a whole camp in height order towards the lake. Everyone in the photograph was strategically placed by media man Mohammed Abbas Jaffer, who had to use his quick sprinting skills to get back into the photo after setting the camera to a countdown timer shot.

After the photograph was taken, we all made out way towards the classrooms again to have a session of Quran Khane. We learned about makhraj and touched upon the rule of qalqala. The main event of the day soon followed, we went cooking!! We got ourselves into groups of five and waited for our special guest chef flown in all the way from England to start the session. We were told we were making Victoria Sponge. Eggs, flour, sugar and margarine all went into the mixing bowl. At first the bowl looked really weird and chunky but after fifteen minutes of constant muscle aching mixing, we finally created the final mixture. We then added some cocoa powder to make a chocolate sponge and added it to the baking tin. All we could then do was wait!

After cooking we had an extended planet time. First of all we talked a while amongst our and then we did something we’d never done before, we played our first game of Ultimate Frisbee! We split into two teams, even Sajjad bah and Arif bah joined the teams. The rules are that you can’t run with the Frisbee, if you drop the Frisbee then the opposition gets possession and in order to score your team mate must catch a pass in the end zone. The final score ended 1-0 with Zameer making a diving catch. Shabbar nearly equalised, but the goal disallowed.

Next was dinner, and by majority vote, was the best dinner of the camp so far. Saturn served up an awesome meal of pizza and chips. Unfortunately for Neptune the arrived with only fifteen minutes of time left of dinner, unlucky!

The final events of the day then took place in the namaz room. First of course of Maghrib and Isha Namaz where Shuaib recited dua. As soon as namaz had finished we were all asked to move into the next door restaurant room which we’d never been to before. In the restaurant we all sat down and had our eyes firmly glued on the many bowls of ice cream being made. Ice cream was a very nice surprise, but the real surprise was that it was Dr Akil’s birthday today, so out came the Victoria Sponges we made early with candles in them, and we all sang Happy Birthday to him. The Victoria Sponges turned out great and ice cream was great. When the plates where all cleaned up we moved to PDT where we heard introductions from Shoaib Merali, we did four quizzes in Flag Recognition, Boggle, Memorisation and Lateral Thinking.

When PDT finished we all made our way back to our houses for a final session of Planet Time, where we starting working on our diaries. We’re all looking forward to starting the activities, especially the assault course, and we’re definitely ready to go for the football tournament.

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Sweden 2008 - Boys - Camper Diaries