Part 3: Chartered Changes

 

---

Bismihi Ta’ala

Mohsina

Being a woman in a male-dominated workplace is tough. Being a Muslim girl in the workplace is that much more challenging.

Often times I felt myself over over compensating. Going the extra mile. Making sure I never stepped out of line.

I supposed that’s why I was always watching my back. I wanted to be successful and I wanted this to work out. More than anything, that was my focus right now.

I turned to see Mickey (his real name was Mikael) approach and I let myself breathe a sigh of relief. Just another one of us. But just as well, the fun was over for this trip. It was time we headed back.

But wait. One more snap, before I left. I flipped the camera to face me, smiling widely as I tried to keep my scarf in place with the unruly wind. Perfect.

Now to post.

@mostlymohsina (my main Instagram handle and page) had approximately 6327 followers (well, the last time I checked which was about 2 minutes ago).

There were new follow requests every day though. Many were ex-students from the high school I attended, while others were people I had met along the way. I knew people spoke about my ventures. I had a knack of making simple things look super thrilling. That’s what social media was about though, wasn’t it?

Of course, then there were the few odd followers who I had no idea of who they were, but nonetheless, they were followers of my (seemingly) iconic lifestyle and I had to keep the game on for them. Things out there weren’t easy on the social media platform either. It was savage and it sucked you in, but I was already too far in to ever back out of it. In a way, it was my refuge too. When I was alone at night, it’s what kept me focused.

Ah yes, it was hard work. Keeping the posts and keeping people engaged. Sometimes a little drama was needed, just to create a new following and keep current followers hooked too.

Of course, I had to show the girls back home how amazing the corporate world was. Especially those who were probably sitting at home with a kid, browsing though social media, waiting for their husbands to come home. I couldn’t imagine that kind of life, to be honest. Maybe it suited other people, but it was far from what I had ever wanted for myself.

I was one of the lucky ones who had made it this far and I had to make it known.

The problem was, not everyone shared my sentiments.When I had expressed my views to Ma one day, she just gave me a:

”If Allah is happy with you then who else you have to impress?”

Pfft, as if it was so simple.

But she didn’t know. She didn’t know that the whole world was watching your every move, waiting for something in your life to go wrong just so that they could point a finger at you and blame it on your choices.

I turned my attend to Mickey who was gesturing for us to follow him. Hamzah wasn’t even bothered. The wind was blowing so fiercely right now that I had to shut my eyes. Why was the Cape always this windy?

Honestly, this was just doing sabotage to my impeccable hijab look.

”Come ON!” I urged Hamzah, getting impatient. If he didn’t follow I was prepared to leave the annoying sod to catch it from Faadil. I didn’t want to risk getting into trouble. “We need to make it before the bus leaves.”

“You mean, before bossman comes and hounds us for having a little fun when we’re allowed to?” Hamzah asked with a raised eyebrow, clearly knowing where my thoughts were as he caught me eyeing the time. 

I rolled my eyes at him. 

“Come on, Mos, don’t be such a suck up,” he moaned, turning to glance at me. “Get into trouble now and then. Besides, the guy needs to remove that carrot from up his behind.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

Okay, I’ll admit it. Faadil was a bit extreme with his bordering on oppressive manner and no-bullshit regime, but Hamzah had absolutely no respect for rules. None at all.

Although the two of them barely got along, there was no denying that the one thing that had gotten him selected for this trip was his genius auditing skills and ability to pink out errors in record time. He really was better than any one of us here, but he was too busy being a wisecrack to admit it. Of course, Faadil wouldn’t admit how valuable Hamzah was to the team either, because Hamzah just had a way of getting under people’s skin. And not in a good way.

I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, ready to leave, not tolerating Hamzah’s nonchalant attitude. Work was work whether he liked it or not. 

I turned to look behind me as I heard other voices with Mikael’s, hoping the Liyaket and Layyanah would come back soon from their little escapade.

Oh yes, let me just give you the low down regarding them. FYI, those two are obsessed with each other but I really hoped that they’d see sense and break it off with no strings attached before it was too late.

The fact was that though they looked cute in theory, the painful facts were that while Liyaket Khan was a hard working and motivated guy from a small town who was out to make it for himself, Layyanah was a typical rich and spoilt Jo’burg girl from HR who had paid to come on this trip just so she could be with him. And though we got along and being with him was somehow bringing her down to earth, I didn’t want to be the one to break it to either of them.

Besides the fact that I knew that they would never work long term, I really didn’t have the energy to worry about their forbidden romance. As I said, my focus here was on the work. I wasn’t here for the drama. 

I trudged along, hearing Hamzah talking to the other group members behind us now, taking some time to clear my head for the work day. It was time I focused and got my head back into the auditing game.

It was obvious that Layyanah’s parents would never approve of him, and that was why she was sneaking around seeing him- but Layyanah was the type of girl who was used to getting her way. Besides her being spoilt rotten, I sincerely loved this girl and the last thing I wanted to see was any of them hurt. 

I sighed as I shielded my eyes from the sun, not seeing either of them nor hearing Hamzah come up behind me, sandals in hand as he adjusted his cap with the other hand. 

“Don’t worry about the two love birds,” he said bluntly, walking ahead of me speedily as I fell behind. The others were far behind and showed no sign of hurrying up. “They’ll find their way back before bossman notices.”

“Hey!” I shouted, running after him as he sped up, overtaking me so he’d be the first back. The conniving rat! I gritted my teeth as I tried to beat him back, whilst trying to look poised at the same time. It was impossible.

Oh well, I thought to myself, glancing back once more for my friend who was still awol. I was getting late. I suppose the two love birds would have to find their way back on their own. As always, I had to worry about myself. I mean, no one else was looking out for me.

Little did I know, this was about to change much sooner than expected. Not too far in the future there would be a wake up call that would change much more than just the way I thought.

---

Dear Readers

This new theme and story line is pretty experimental so please bear with errors or anything that may be offensive.

Obviously there will be great lessons to learn. I would also like to go into Sunnah revival, so if anyone would like any particular Sunnah to be mentioned, let me know, or we can start with the basics and work from there? I’m still struggling to balance my time and since posts may be a bit longer in future, I was thinking I can do just one a week. Or two shorter ones.

Comments and thoughts are always welcome. ❤️

Much love

A xx

• Career
• Change
• Future
• Halaal love
• Haraam Love
• Love
• Muslim
• Past
• Women
• Work