My second tale is all about greed.I have heard it over and over,as a child, and have always enjoyed it.This one comes from my grandfather,who as I have mentioned before,comes from a little town called yabroud,75 kilometers north form Damascus,Syria.

An old widow,and her only daughter,were so poor,that they could barely find money for food.However,as the case is with most story-heroes,they were always very content with their life,never envying others for what they have.

One day,as the daughter went out to buy some dibes(date molasses,popular product extracted from dates ,and usually eaten with tahini-sesame sauce,very nutritious),she met a very old man in the streets.The old man said:My daughter,I am very tired:(kubbi el dibes w e7mileeni)meaning throw away the molasses and carry me.The daughter knew that this was the only food they had and was not tempted to follow his orders,but he insisted that he was very tired,and asked her to carry him to her home.The poor girl agrees and takes him to her mother,as heavy as he was for her little body to carry.When they reach her house,he asks the girl and the mother to wrap him in a big mat called 7aseereh,which is a carpet made of woven hay,and to hit him very hard with wooden sticks.They insist that they could not possibly do such a cruel thing to an old man like him,but he begs them to fulfill his wish.And so they do.They hit him with the sticks and leave him overnight to sleep.In the morning when they check on him,they do not find the old man,but instead they find lots and lots of money and gold.Money that they have never been able to dream of earlier.They know that this is a reward for their compassion,and for the girl's sacrifice in throwing away her food to help him out.So the mother decides they need to weigh all this money ,and asks the daughter to go to the neighbors and borrow their scale.The greedy neighbor is cofused.What could this poor family possibly have to weigh?so she butters up the scales plates and gives it to them .Somehow,a piece of gold or a coin sticks to the scale(don't ask me how)and the neigbour finds out that they've been weighing gold.She interrogates the old widow ,till she tells her the whole story of the old man and the plate of dibes.So the neighbor sends her daughter off to buy some dibes,and orders her to throw it away as soon as she sees a tired old man in the street,and to carry him home immediately.The daughter does just that and as soon as she sees an old man ,she tells him:biddi akob el dibes w a7milak,meaning I will throw the molasses away and carry you.When he refuses ,she does not listen to his protest and carries him home to her mother,where they wrap him around with their mat, and beat him endlessly with the biggest sticks they could find.Next morning they wake up anxiously to collect their gold,open up the mat to find it filled with dirt and trash!And of course,that's when they learn not to be greedy,and and never to envy others for the things they have.

Ever heard of this one before?

Again,I ask,if you have an authentic arab tale to share,please do!

Haifa Wehbe,has a new song out, it's called wawa,and some claim it to be made for children.However,as appealing it is to children ,it doesn't sound too innocent to me.Or maybe that's just because it's Haifa who's singing.I think the lady is gorgeous,but she could have settled for being a model,it's not like she needs to sing for a living!

I couldn't find the song online,but listen to www.sawtelghad.fm they have it on at least 4 times a day.The lyrics(that's such a big word for the words in the song),go something like this:

Laik el wawa,boos el wawa,khalli el wawa yse7,el wawa shifto el wawa bisto ,el wawa sar ba7, yada yada yada , ana birdaneh a7, yada yada yada, and balbes jdeed w da7...

No comment.

Found it:Listen!

On my third sleepless night in a row,I started thinking of my childhood,and of bed time stories .I remebered vaguely some stories I used to hear from my parents and grandparents.In addition to the international,well known fairy tales,like little red riding hood,snow white,pinocchio,and the others,there were often a few local stories,mostly by my grandfather.I can not remember a whole story,since my grandfather died when I was only five years old,so the memories are from the mind of an even younger age.I was never able to determine ,wether these stories that I have heard,but never read ,if they were the fabrication of my family members minds,tailored especially for me and my siblings ears,or if they were famous arabic fairy tales.The international fairy tales are very well documented and illustrated in different beautiful versions and in all languages.My daughter has around 7 versions of little red's story.Then it hit me that maybe I should try and gather a few of the stories that we have heard,years ago,check if someone else has heard them and work on establishing a collection of these that may be ,one day,published.Only three vague stories pop to my mind right now,I will be sharing them in different posts,and I am asking for your help,too.If you can provide me with any of the stories you remember,please email them to me,with a little information about the person who used to tell them ,just to be able to relate to where these stories come from.Like for instance,my grandfather was syrian,and in his stories there were a lot of syrian references to foods like dibes and kishek(dried yoghurt,a little like jameed,only powdered and mixed with wheat ),and drinks like matteh(yerba tea),and I think it's important to mention such a detail.
So now,off to my first tale,which is not really a tale,it's rather a trick that my dad used to put me to sleep ,on the few nights that he wasn't working late,or when I was sick and sleeping in my parents bed:

-dad: shall I tell you the story of the oil jar?(a7keelek osset bree2 el zait?)
-me:yes
-dad:if you say yes and if you say no,I will tell you the story of the oil jar,so shall I tell you the story of the oil jar?(in olti aah w in olti la2 ra7 a7keelek osset bree2 el zait,a7keelek osset bree2 el zait)?
-me:yes,I said yes.
-dad:if you say yes and if you say no I will tell you the story of the oil jar.So shall I tell you the story of the oil jar?
-me,trying to be smart:no
-dad:if you say yes and if......

and so on and so forth,I guess it used to bore me enough to go to sleep ,and that was the wisdom behind it!

Has anyone ever heard of this bed-time tale,or something even similar?Do you have a story to share?Please take the time to write it before it all gets lost with time.It's part of our culture!

Till the next tale!

We all know Kinzi from her valuable comments around Jordan Planet.I got the chance to meet Kinzi a few days ago,and I must admit putting a face to the name was exactly what I expected it to be.Kinzi is a wealth of information when it comes to humanitarian issues ,talking to her is enlightening,and seeing her with her four kids was a great lesson in parenting.I can barely manage two,and yet in the hour we spent together,I could hardly feel there were any children in the house.I picked up a few parenting tricks ,like setting the timer to take turns with toys,new toys can be monopolized for one day only after which they should be shared,and she only asks them to look her in the eye,and it's magic!They know what she wants,AND do it too!!

I know that everyone who has read her comments can tell what a clever and fun person she is.

I can't wait till she takes the decision to start her own blog.That will be one thing to watch out for.Thanks for having me ,Kinzi,and hope to meet with you again.

They give females a bad name.I just heard a huge noise and looked outside.A girl in a Vitara hit a guy in a small Kia Picanto I think.She hit him from behind on a road going uPwards,totally her fault,his window was smashed and his side door badly hurt,her car nothing.She left her car,did not say a single word to the guy.Wrapped her shawl around her shoulders and strided confidently in her high heels to wipe the paint off her bumper.Not one word of apology.Seriously guys we are not all like that ,she really ruined my day.

What do you know about 6afileh?

Other than being the hometown of our very good friend ,Qais, 6afileh has always meant one thing to me:Dana Natural Reserve.Though he has always insisted that there's much more to 6afileh than that,in my mind,I thought,but of course,6afili jokes.Turns out he was right.The nature is out of this world.The mountains,the valleys,the villages and tiny stone houses,everything was just beautiful.The trip from Amman took us around 2 hours,and for 5 people stuffed in a not-so-spacious C class Mercedes,that wasn't very comfortable but quite funny indeed.

We were trying to imagine what to expect and one of the conversations went like this:
Basel: fee banat bisoogo?(Are there any girls who drive?)
Qais: Yes.
Basel: fee Starbucks?!!!


We went to the village of 3ain el Baida,the village of 3eess,the partially renovated village of sile3 and shortly to Dana.We checked out the restaurant thatQais has opened in 6afileh,and were very impressed. Qais is what you might call an entrepreneur.Apart from his job as an expert in microfinace in an international organization,he is always coming up with ideas that can benefit his hometown.The restaurant that he has opened a few months ago is a success story that made us all very proud.The degree of cleanliness and organization is unheard of in 6afileh,and it's far from any standards that the city is used to.He has located it next to the technical university and is currently employing 8 young men from his own village,and it's providing them with a very descent living.Qais was very anxious to show us around and we were very eager to see all those places that we've talked about a million times before.

We had lunch at Qais's cousins house,who run the restaurant for him ,it was absolutely delicious.Not your typical jordanian lunch,but chicken and vegetables cooked in a bag.That was amazing,and the family's hospitality can not be described.There were quite a bit of funny scenes in the city of 6afileh,one of them we couldn't get a picture of,a restaurant called (ma63am el 3afili minna w feena!),the rest you can see in the pictures.Abu Qaf,in the resaturant sign is famous there for having a daughter called Ba,and a son called steering other than his elder,qaf.
I could go forever about the nature's beauty,but pictures would express it better.Samer took the photos and I think they're lovely.Zain provided the sound effects for the whole trip,including a failed attempt at small talk with a donkey.We had a great friday and are planning to keep on touring around Jordan's spring for as long or short as it lasts.Next week maybe Jerash.