Subhan Allah, the time goes so fast!

I’m down here typing this blog post while I wait for the time to break my fast. Got about half an hour left and I’m feeling pretty good alhamdu lillah.

Went by one of my daughters and my grandkiddies were all there. After giving me a big hug, my five year old grandson pinched his nose.

“What’s the matter?” I asked. “Do I smell?”

He nodded.

“But I’m not stinky.”

“Your breath.”

Oh, of course! I’m fasting! And his mother scolded him for being rude, but I told her not to and I told him that I can’t help it. I’m fasting. But he’s too young to understand yet.

Ran my errands.

Tired, a bit of a headache because I’m thirsty and my mouth is dry, but honestly, you have to look at all the carnage that is going on all around the world and really we have nothing to complain about!

My heart just breaks for Gaza.

The Jews did not deserve the suffering they endured during the Holocaust, and the Palestinians don’t deserve the suffering they’re going through either. Nor do the Rohinga in Myanmar, nor the Uighur in China, nor the Syrians, oh the Syrians! And nor do the Ukrainians! Or the Africans!

And I think the biggest lesson we should have learned from the Holocaust is that the idea that a people are considered measly enough to be exterminated while the world looks on and does nothing, is horrible! We should never, ever, be lulled into the idea that oppression in any form is justified. That “they just do that over there”.

So much bloodshed, so much heartache and we’re all fixated on soccer!

Well the Germans won, and good for them.

They certainly worked for it.

It’s funny what you can do when you put your mind to it, even when you’re fasting.

Yesterday I drove about two hours, to do a storytelling presentation in Waterloo. It was a hot day! And storytelling is physically exerting even when you’re not fasting. And not drinking on top of a hot day and an hour of telling…wasn’t sure how I’d handle it.

In fact there are times when I’m telling that I can feel that my vocal chords are getting strained. And when they do, my voice loses its timbre, it gets squeaky and I start doing that dry cough.

Not good!

Well, it turned out that the storytelling tent was next to the ‘workshop’ tent. The organizer warned me that they’d been holding all kinds of workshops in there the day before, including Arabian dance with loud music and drums.

As we were waiting for my time to start, an ominous sign.

People walking by with big, and I’m talking, HUGE, drums!

Yup.

They started their drumming workshop just as I started my stories.

The audience started out very small! About five people, three of them kids. And I had to shout into the microphone to be heard over the drums.

But I got two stories done, and then things toned down, and by being so loud, I’d actually attracted a number of people who’d been walking by towards the parking lot. They sat down and listened, and by the time I was done, I had an audience of twenty to thirty people.

Of course in that situation people come and people go. They’ll wait till you finish a story and they’ll just grab the kids and leave, and you simply can’t take it personally.

Often it’s about logistics, nap time, snack time, bathroom, etc.

At the very end there was five minutes to kill and I don’t know a story that takes five minutes, and since most of the audience were adult by then, I told them the idea behind Wanting Mor.

Then my time was up.

And as I was packing up my books and stuff, a lady who’d joined the audience, asked if she could buy a copy of Wanting Mor. Of course, I replied.

Then she told me that I’d ‘caught’ her as she was going to her car, and that she simply had to sit down and hear my stories.

I ‘caught’ her.

The idea makes me smile.

Hope she enjoys the book!

Came home with my voice a bit strained, and very very thirsty!!!! But feeling pretty good over all and thinking hey, I’m stronger than I thought I was!

I survived storytelling in Ramadan!