The days between the birth anniversaries of Lady Masumah (who is buried here in Qum) and her brother, Imam Redha (the 8th Imam of the shias) are known as "Roze Karamat". The streets are decorated with banners, flags and lights and people are generally in a good mood! When we went to buy rugs last week, I told the salesman that I wanted a good discount because it was Roze Karamat, but he wasn't giving in!
At school today, lessons stopped for an hour to allow everyone to get together for a lecture, sing song and most importantly - the shireeni (sweet pastries)! The Farsi section usually has separate gatherings from the rest of the schools, as our lectures tend to be in simple Farsi. Having said that, my Farsi is still not good enough to understand lectures, so I spent much of the hour catching up with homework!
The mosque complex where Lady Masumah is buried had an art exhibition during Rose Karamat. I dragged TH there last Thursday. While most things here are below the standard that I'm used to, the same CANNOT be said for the art work! Even TH (who hates art exhibitions) was impressed. Most of the pictures were based on the Prophet's family. Some of the exhibitors were demonstrating their skills by working on new pieces in front of live audiences. I've attached a few pics, although I apologise, I was the only one taking pics, so I didn't take too many (didn't want to stand out as a tourist). and I'm still not sure if its acceptable to take pictures of strangers.
(sorry... tried to up load pics, but the upload keeps cutting out due to the slow dial up :-( will upload them as soon as we get high speed internet!)
3 comments:
Salaams
I really enjoy reading your blog and your experiences about living in Qum and your comments. Its really nice so do keep it up.
We are based in London and are interested to move to Qum and would very much like to get in touch with you to get some advice.
How can I get in touch with you to ask you some questions?
Take care
salaams Alia
Salaams
Thank you :-)
I think that your husband has been in contact with my husband about moving here via the WF office in Qum. (Is that right?)
If so, ask your husband to send my husband your email address!
My advise to you is not to move here!!!! Only joking! Life here is different and takes some getting used to. Its only in the last couple of weeks that I can truely say I am beginning to enjoy life in Qum.
Hope to hear from you soon!
heh heh u are funny. Looks like you have a sense of humour.
Anyway my husband knows that there are 3 guys in the WF in Qum and it would be funny to ask all of them if your wife is a Qum girl, heh heh. Anyway this is the email address
sweet_therapy2001@yahoo.co.uk
By the way there is this really nice website about learning farsi and I have been doing it at home and its absolutely brilliant. I think you would like it very much. I have already learnt so much from it. Its http://www.easypersian.com/farsi/persian_lessons_archive_1.htm
Also I used to teach English in Spain and I have some brilliant books and activities that I used to use with my students. If you have a specific topic, I am happy to send you pages and if possible I can even scan them for you and send it to you.
Keep up with writing your blog. Its brilliant.
Take care
Alia
Post a Comment