Advertisement: celebrating fatherhood! Part 2

[N.O.R.F]

Why lock the topic Admin? Cant we discuss fatherhood here for those of us who can attend?

 

Interesting though. I can see Ngonge and Duke having a discussion on how to best change nappies at the conference

 

[Castro]

Somalis celebrating fatherhood? Ma anaa waalan mise London baa laga heesayaa? Surely a "Truth and Reconciliation" conference would have to precede any nomadic father celebration. I mean, really, what has your father done for you lately?

 

Northerner is probably a good example of the neo-nomad father. Though he remains true to his nomadic roots and probably moves around in search of better grazing pasture (nowadays called jobs), he has likely departed from his own father's and grandfather's tough (and distant) love. He, most likely, stays up all night caring for his fevered child and yet goes to work without a moment of sleep. He's not embarrassed to carry an infant in public and if nature had properly equipped him, he would even breast feed in public. While he was growing up, a man helping around the house while wearing a ridiculous apron might have been unspeakable but Northerner wears his multicolored aprons with pride. He can do laundry, change a diaper and cook a feast while his wife watches Oprah in bed.

 

Some would say Northerner has sold out to Western lifestyles and values but he knows better, of course. He is fully aware that the investment he makes in time and effort has been encouraged by his faith and is one that will reap him infinite rewards.

 

Celebrating motherhood should be the theme for next year's event. Then celebrating parenthood. And sisterhood. It's a yearly event, ain't it?

[N.O.R.F]

Welcome back Cuban

 

You know you are right in some respects but i cant cook (it would be an embarrassment to the men of my sub-tribe ).

 

I was surprised by this event but its ecouraging to see is it not? I think parenthood would have been better as it would promote both mother and father figures.

[N.O.R.F]

 

Wait a minute, is it a Somali event?

[Libaax-Sankataabte]

"I mean, really, what has your father done for you lately?"

 

Bad bad father. Welcome back Amigo. The great Cuban was a no show at his parade today. Bad news indeed.

 

This event will be a great event Inshalah. It is organized by Somalis so brothers and sisters show your support and join other nomads to celebrate what it means to be a Somali father. Buy the tickets first.

[Captain Xalane]

Maybe they should organize a thing or two for bachelorhood too.

[Paragon]

Celebrating motherhood should be the theme for next year's event. Then celebrating parenthood. And sisterhood. It's a yearly event, ain't it?

Lol, Castro. Actually, as I am aware of, it is organized by Somali sisters who are the brainchild of this event. We (men, of course) have been busy sitting around engaged in fadh-ku-dirir and now the ladies have gone ahead have done something for fathers. That is what I call Foorjo to men.

 

PS: I am hoping after attending this event (and I am not a father yet, just yet ), we can, as Idi Amin once said to the Queen of England, "we will revenge" your good hospitality ladies when our turn comes.

 

War raggoow boorka ha la iska jafo.

[sheherazade]

The Times mentions it. I'll be there- where there's a story, there's Sheherazade. Can't wait. It's for and by Somalis and it's for all ages. My dad's going, LoL. Grab yours too.

 

Where's Ngonge?

 

A good way to tell tales out of school

 

Children pestering for a story? Blame Prince Charles, Nicolette Jones says

 

 

ON THURSDAY CHILDREN ALL over the country came home from school and pestered their families to tell them stories about their past and their ancestors.

This was because the Prince of Wales wanted them to. His Arts and Kids charity is behind Storyquest, a nationwide project to encourage the telling of stories in public and private over the next few months. Schools received an imaginative publication suggesting activities to stimulate storytelling, and children were asked to find a tale to retell.

 

In Mexico, Thursday was the Day of the Dead when families gather to celebrate their history. It was hoped that stories would be told in homes around the dinner table, encouraging not only what Prince Charles calls “passing down the stories that make up our shared cultural heritage” but also “the dying art of eating together”.

 

The Prince believes that passing down such knowledge is “one of the most important things that we, as parents and grandparents, teachers, aunts and uncles, musicians and artists, can do for young people”. There are few families in which personal history does not throw light on wider events. Think of all those grandparents who can recall the Blitz, or evacuation or being called up, escaping the Holocaust, the end of Empire, Partition, the SS Windrush . . .

 

No doubt the Prince has a few good family stories of his own. But even if the stories told to children are anecdotes about the day they were born, or adopted, or the things that they said as toddlers — and sometimes stories in which they figure are more interesting to children than ones in which they don’t — telling them imparts a sense of identity, encourages verbal skills, teaches them to listen and knits families together.

 

Storyquest is not just reaching into schools and homes. Hundreds of stories — historical and fantastical, new and traditional — are being told in historic houses, art galleries, public gardens and shopping centres between now and Christmas.

 

They are aimed at children aged from under 1 to over 16. The project began last week at the Unicorn Theatre in South London, where an Irish bagpiper led a line of children to meet the storytellers Ben Haggarty, Jan Blake and Hugh Lupton.

 

The project, supported by the London Centre for International Storytelling, has no government funding, and its principal sponsor is Land Securities Group, which owns shopping centres. So there will be storytelling in marquees at the Gunwharf Keys Centre in Portsmouth on the afternoon of Bonfire Night, followed by fireworks. On the same afternoon children can hear stories about fire at the Seven Stories, the Centre for the Children’s Book, in Newcastle upon Tyne, or curl up with cushions and hot drinks in Wimborne, Dorset, to hear Dark Tales for Dark Nights.

 

There will also be, to name but a few, Islamic tales in the National Museum in Cardiff today; Story- telling Sundays at the Lady Lever Art Gallery, Liverpool; spooky stories and mulled cider in the Saxon Hall in Stourport, Worcestershire (on November 11); Asian tales with music, dance and slides in Rotherham (November 11); stories with puppets in Canterbury (November 18); personalised stories in Stafford (December 9); poetry and comedy celebrating fatherhood in Wood Green, North London (December 16); riverside tales at Henley, with kits to help to invent your own (December 16); and an event that would surely appeal to the Prince: Talking Trees in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh, on three Sundays in December.

 

If you cannot make it to a local event, you can share the experience at home. Try some suggestions from the Storyquest brochure: tell jokes, ghost stories or family anecdotes. Make story tapes. Draw story boards. Tell half a story to one child and half to another, and get them to take turns in telling each other the whole. Play games in which stories are told around objects, or gabbled at speed to someone who tries to repeat them. Or tell stories based on place names. That sounds good to me.

 

 

Nicolette Jones, who lives in Plimsoll Road, is the author of The Plimsoll Sensation: The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea (Little, Brown)

 

Visit artsandkids.org.uk, storyquest.org.uk, or, for a full list of Storyquest events, go to tinyurl.com/y73xpc

 

The London Centre for International Storytelling is at thelcis.org.uk

 

celebrating fatherhood in the Times

 

P.S: they got the date wrong! It's on the evening of the 15th of December.

[Valenteenah.]

^ 15th Dec! 15th Dec!

 

I'll see if my dad can come along, I'A. We haven't been anywhere together for ages.

[N.O.R.F]

It sounds like a decent event is in the making. Please inform how it goes.

[sheherazade]

LooL, thanks Val. You make sure he comes, inshallah.

 

It should be Northerner.

[StarGazer]

awww! hey Mecca2Medina is performing....they're talented! sounds like a much needed event.

[Zafir]

LoL@Castro. I half-heartedly agree that we are far better fathers than our fathers were. But

why are so worked up about this good Castro? Is my dumaashi pregnant again?

 

[Edit]: To those that make it to this fuction, please let us know, how this gathering unfolds.

[Valenteenah.]

Heh, it better unfold spectacularly because I just bought seven tickets. Insha'Allah Khayr.

 

 

It's too bad I'm going to be going straight from work, otherwise, I would have donned an extra-large dirac and ayeeyo's dahab. Ah well.

[Che -Guevara]

^^^Entire clan maa soo ka xaynee