Dirhams...

We're now learning the numbers in Arabic. Sounds easy? It's not!

Anyways, our teacher sometimes diverts and tells us interesting stories in Arabic to liven up the classes. Today's story was about a king who was trying to teach his son the value of money. One day, he asked his son to go out and work and bring home his wages. Instead of going out to work, the son asked his mother for a dirham (currency commonly used in the Middle East). When he got home, his father asked him for his wages and the son presented his dirham. The father threw the coin into the fountain and told him to go back to work the next day. The same thing happened the next day... the son took a dirham from his mother and gave it to his father and the father threw it in the fountain. The 3rd day, the son was a bit puzzled by his father's behaviour, but instead of asking his mother for money, he actually went out and worked. In the evening, he presented his father with the dirham that he'd earned and just as his father was about to throw the dirham into the fountain, the son grabbed his hand to stop him. (i.e. how can my father throw the dirham I've sweated to earn into the fountain!!)