We do fun stuff at Hawza too!

There's an office in our Hawza (religious school) dedicated to culture! Their job is to organise non-academic stuff (e.g. we're doing a module on basic first aid/nursing skills this term) as well as competitions. Most of the competitions are hard! They involve reading a book and doing an exam... but since it takes me an average of 5 hours a night just to decipher my course books (learning the stuff takes another 5 hours!), the last thing I want to do is take on extra work!

So I was over the moon when they decided to hold a cooking competition- finally something I could take part in! I made a fake oreo cheesecake, but couldn't find the right kind of cheese, so it wasn't my best effort. On the day of the competition, they laid out all the food on tables and everyone helped themselves... it was a mad rush (so sadly no pics!).Results came out 3 weeks later at the mother's day celebrations! All the teachers who took part got a prize, as well as 6 students (all of them were Syrian!). There was some consolation in that I had helped one of the winners assemble her dessert!

There was also an arts and crafts competition. I managed to get some pics:

Pic from school...

The weather is still freezing here! It's so cold that even the marble floors that they love using in their houses are like ice! So much so that when we remove our shoes to enter the prayer room at school, it's very tempting to take off our shoes at the door, so our poor socked feet don't have to touch the ground, rather than put them on the shoe rack and having to walk across the frozen corridor.

That was until this pic went up at the end of the week...




And here's a close up of the sign they wrote up....



It translates:

"Dear Sister,

From the will of Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (a.s) to his son Hassan:
Allah, Allah, organisation in your affairs

Dear sister, do you love order and organisation??? How are you in your houses? Perhaps this is how you put your shoes?

Which picture surprises you? We want your comments."

Okay so the whole sign and picture thing was totally OTT. Although the message still stands... we are sooooo okay with throwing litter in public places, putting our shoed feet up on the seats in public transport and leaving the toilet messy and unflushed after using it. But we wouldn't dream of doing these things at home!

Back in London at our local Islamic centre, it was so common to see people going home without cleaning up after themselves and their children. Truly, it doesn't take more than 2 mins to leave your spot clean (i.e how you found it!) and save a poor volunteer having to stay back and clean up afterwards!

Message of the day - the world would be a much nicer place if we all pitched in a little!