story exchange with the Germans!
Published: August 10, 2017
Ahlan wa sahlan! Kayf halkom? How are y’all doing?!
Some noteworthy events of today are that some of our villagers completed their candle-making project! The candles are drying by the art room at al-Waha, and inshallah, you will be able to smell them soon!
The villagers also became even more proficient in calligraphy!
In the musalsal, Assma thinks up of a scheme to get Sameer to come back to her house. She gives the mysterious figure a banana, claiming that Sameer left it at her house!
Meanwhile, Waseem goes to the marketplace to buy some flowers for Assma. The scheming Hashim sees a thief on the fringes of the marketplace and invites him to kill Waseem and take all of his wealth, explaining to the thief that Waseem is a very rich man.
The thief attacks Waseem, and a sword fight ensues! Fortunately, Waseem defeats the thief, and sends him off to prison.
The mysterious figure searches for Sameer until he finds him. When he tries to give Sameer the banana, however, Sameer firmly denies leaving any bananas at Assma’s house.
The mysterious figure begins to wonder if something is up with Assma.
After Sameera leaves the mysterious figure behind, she thinks to herself once again, that Waseem is such a lovely person, and wonders how she can ever confess her love while disguised!
Hashim also finds out that Sameer is actually Sameera!
For the evening program, we held a story exchange with the Germans. We at al-Waha focused on two tales from “1001 Arabian Nights” or “alf layla w layla.” We started off by meeting the king Shahrayar and his current wife Shahrazad. The king is evil, and marries a wife every day only to kill her every night. But Shahrazad is quite intelligent and comes up with a plan to prevent this from happening, so that she can live and prevent the king from killing more women. She requests stories from the villagers of al-Waha and Waldsee. She plans to tell a new story each night, but not complete the story until the next day, so that the king cannot help but let her live to see a new day.
The first tale was about a fisherman who catches a genie’s bottle. Unfortunately, the genie has been trapped in the bottle for four hundred years, and so, is a little grumpy. Instead of offering three wishes, the genie offers to let the fisherman choose how he wants to die. The fisherman is understandably terrified, but he keeps his wits about him! He tricks the genie back into the bottle by wondering how anyone could possibly fit into such a tiny space.
The second tale from al-Waha was about a trader with a big family, and his encounter with an evil genie, called a ‘afreet in Arabic. The trader is walking one day, in search of water, when he finds a well. He sits down by the well to have some water and snack on his dates. As he eats the dates, he throws the date pits left and right. One of the pits lands in the well, and so the trader unknowingly kills the ‘afreet’s son, who happens to live there (traditionally, evil genies live in places like wells, sinks, toilets, etc…). The ‘afreet comes to the trader, saying that he must take the trader’s life in exchange for what he did to his son. The trader begs and pleads until he is allowed to have one year to say goodbye to his family. After a year, the trader returns to the well. As he is sitting there, two old men pass by and hear his story. When the ‘afreet returns, the old men bargain with stories to give the trader more life.
From the German camp, we viewed two rousing performances of Hansel and Gretel, as well as the tale of Rumpelstiltskin!
After that, we said good night, and headed off to bed!
