Zoya's Story "Crafts"

Description

Digital Story from the Bawso Stories Project. In this story, which was inspired by a visit to the National Wool Museum, Zoya recounts the different traditional crafts she would have to do as a child before and after school to help make money for her family. English transcript: When we came to the museum and we went upstairs, we saw the lady was doing the knitting. So this reminded me of my childhood. So, we was in the school. We finished the school. Our uncle, when we came back from the school, our uncle said, sit down and start doing the knitting and do the baskets and the mat. The mat called sijada and the basked called selah in Arabic. So, we have to climb all the way, because we have lots of date trees, very long. So, somebody have to climb and take it out the leaves, because the leaves are very strong and we do the weaving. So we have to make it one by one. Like you do with hair, plaiting. We have to do that one and make it one by one and attach to each other. But it takes us a whole day, and then when we finish this one, go back home and then study for one hour and then tomorrow, early morning, we have to again wake up. So, we didn’t have chance to play or speak to friends or something like that. But it was, it reminded me of my childhood how we was working hard for little things. So, it’s really nice when I went in the museum.

Also, when we went around and see different clothes. So, we used to sit down, like with my aunty, mother and my sisters and they, the person brings us like clothes, where you have to do the designs, embroidery. So, he brings small, small bits, different colours and he gives us the design. So, we have to do this one. It takes us like two weeks to finish all the dress. Someone brings their weddings, someone brings the traditional dress to do it. So, it really reminds me of lots of things. The one she was doing in her thigh, so it reminded, because we got lots of sheep and animals, so we do have to cut their wool and bring it and then we give it. So, they teach us how to help them. So they do it with their thigh, make it very thin so they can then use it for the sewing as well for the clothing and doing other stuff with it, but it feels like, when I see my friends they are playing… they call me and they say you should come, we can play. We were you know forced to do something, so it’s really hard. Our hands used to be in pain and even when we tell them, they say, no you have to do it because if we don’t do it, from where we can get money or how we survive? So, we used to help and do the things they us to do. I want my children to learn this kind of thing, but not forced to do something. For us, it wasn’t like we wanted. It was all by force. You have to.