Sunday, January 28, 2007

Randomness at Madresa


So I'm home for Ashurah, and I have several humorous stories (at least for us girls there) to share with you all. Note: Ignore the grammar/spelling mistakes I was in a hurry :)

-One of my roommates Salma, decides to scare some girls in another room (let's call it room B). So she sends a friend of hers (I forgot to ask her if it's ok to put her name so I'll call her...Nadia) Soo Nadia goes outside to room B's window and knocks once and all the girls inside room B got freaked out. They were all wondering if they actually heard it and if it was a knock at the window. Salma's there too, pretending to be freaked out. Then she sent Nadia again. Beside the window is Asfa's bed; she was sitting on it, with Layla, Lazeena and Anisa (the latter 3, all Americans). When Nadia knocked on the window again this time loudly and repeatedly, they all look at the window, scream and jump the to opposite end of the room simultaneously and everyone else in the room screams. All this happens while Salma is laughing out loud being entertained. And this isn't where the story ends, nope. Asfa, Layla and the other girls threaten to scare back Salma...

-Now the girls who got scared the first time, i think it was 6 or 7 of them, thought of ideas to revenge. While Asfa, the psycho genius, came up with a plan right there and then that would out do Freddy cooger, the chain-saw massacre dude and all the other scary dude's any day. So after I finish the “room checks” at 11pm, I go back to my room where all of my roomies where deciding whether or not the other girls would seek revenge on Salma. Because if they did it would be around 12am. so we talked to each other from our beds until 12, when we thought they must have forgotten, and then we fell asleep. at 12:30am Zainab and Lazeena (2 of the girls in on the scare) come outside to the door to check if we're asleep. They let us sleep for another half hour, while they got prepared, actually I should say, while Asfa got ready for action. And while preparing, they all scared themselves (A chill just ran down my spine as I remembered how Asfa looked).

Ok so this was their plan, all the girls (6 of them) get dressed in black., while Asfa wears black head to toe (can't even see her eyes), but with a huge white shawl draping over her head and carrying a candle. So all you could see was the white shawl draping with no face or body to hold it. AND THAT LOOKED FREAKIN SCARY IN THE DARK!!!!!! They come into my room, and let me tell you how it looked from my perspective, and remember I was asleep. I hear sounds of chanting, black things coming in and something glowing white glides to the middle (this is where I think I'm still dreaming) They all stand in front of Salma's bed, she gets up (the first thing that comes to mind to a madresa girl, when she sees anyone in white at night, is a jinn) she starts stuttering,

"Ma' ma' ma' maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah! (!X 10000000, and it was a high-pitch scream)

That's where I fully get up, gasp, hold my breath and pull my blanket to my chin. After she screamed she and everyone in my room (EXCEPT Naeema who did NOT hear a single thing, she didn’t even MOVE) realized it was them. Salma went back into her blanket and I was like, "what...huh...what's going on…(mumbled things that I don’t remember)?" then I fell asleep. The supervisor from the other end of the building heard the scream (and Naeema didn't!!!!!) she came running when the "scare crew" came out one by one. She thought they all went outside or something, and then she saw little miss Asfa (who by then took off the things from her face) and said,

"i heard someone scream?"
"Someone screamed?" The Mastermind innocently asks.

Well they told her what happened and even showed her how they did it, and our dear Supervisor agreed that it was indeed extremely frightening. It would cause any child to be scared of the dark and anything dressed in black for the rest of their life.

At fajr, I kept wondering if it all was a dream, but it wasn't. We have good laughs about that every time we remember...ok it just happened last week.

Oh yeah their original plan was to wrap someone in a white cloth and carry the body (the carriers in black) to Salma while chanting, "shaikh gupta (gufta?!)"

you gotta remember, the most popular talked about scary stories w(hen it comes to Madresa life) are about the Jinn.

- Another story, I wasn't at madresa for this one, but everyone described it to me pretty well. My roomies were all in bed getting ready to sleep. Salma, was listening to some anasheed on her mp3, Aamena was sleeping on my bed (since her bed was too close to the heater, and on top of her bunk Summaya J was already lying down) and on the top my bunk bed Naeema was cuddling in a soft spot against the wall. She usually sticks her hands down the side when falling asleep or just to annoy the person (usually me, but this time Aamena) sleeping at the bottom. The more she did that, the more her hand got stuck between the wall and the bunk. So in order to get out, she thought she could move the bunk bed by wiggling her legs, yes our Naeema is very clever indeed. The more she did that the more the mattress moved (instead of the bunk) from under her away from the wall and her self. at this point, Aamena decides to poke Naeema from the bottom bed through the bars, since half of her body was off the mattress and on the bars holding the mattress and her. So this is what it looked like:

Naeema's kicking her legs in the air and screaming because Aamena was guiltlessly poking her, Salma's listening to her loud mp3 since she thought they were all just messing about, and Summaya J tried to help Naeema but it wasn't working. Just then Anisa arrives to do bed checks and she sees all this happening, and she cracks up laughing at this hysterical scene. She then tries to help Naeema get free from torture while getting a good laugh.

- The supervisor has 3 daughters at with her at JAS. They're Arabs from Montreal, so they all have arabic-french accents. The youngest is our dear Salam. Salam is 12 (i think) and she is known for many good things like always waking up first for Fajr and waking up the rest of the girls (mashaAllah) and who's also very keen on seeking knowledge and becoming an Alima, InshaAllah. Well she's also known for her 5 famous lines.

"Serisly?" (seriously)
"Daaaaaamn Homie!!!"
"O Please"
"you're so eew man!"
"I joke I joke, I kid I kid"

Imagine all this said with an arabic-french accent.
It's cute, serisly.

She also has her own english dictionary. Asfa (remember...the psycho genius) asked her,
"Salam, what's hard drive?"
"What its mean like, like..uhh… it's hard to drive?!"

- Some of the girls who grew up in the "hood" or have friends from there, decided to teach me a thing or two. For example the different hand shakes...forget it, I won't even bother describing them lol I wouldn't be able to do justice to them. Maybe some other time...

-It snowed more in Bowmanville then in my hometown, most of the snow froze with the rain that fell on top. Sooooo on our way to the cafeteria Salma and I would run a little, and slide on all the smooth surfaces all the way to the caf and back. So if anyone ever drives by, and sees 2 niqabis sliding down the road as if they're on imaginary snowboards, you know who it is.

I actually have a big list of stories to share from madresa, but I think this is enough for now...

I guess, I'll share a poem that my roomies (who get really bored sometimes on the weekend...all the time I should say) wrote in Urdu. They wrote a whole lot of them, but for now I'll share one. Oh and just a note, urdu is not our (my roomies and I) mother-tongue, so this is pretty funny and interesting at the same time.

For some unknown reason, all of their poems are from a desi husband's perspective on his relationship with his wife…

Tere pyaar mein ro ro ke andha ho gaya
Tere baare mein bol bol kar gunga ho gaya
Tere baatein soon soon ke behra ho gaya
Tujhe maar maar kar lula ho gaya

-Naeema, Aamena, Salma and Summaya J

(I thank Allah I wasn't there that weekend)

Ok it’s not all fun and jokes there, I had to sit down with some of the girls in order to remember some of these stories. I’ve been saying so many sarf tables at madresa, that at home at random times and places like in the kitchen or car, I start saying “amr” tables and when I think I forgot a grammar rule I start saying things out loud. For example yesterday in the car, I randomly just said,
“mustathna, mustathna minhu”
And my sister (believeress) hears it and says, “Oh mustathna!!” (like it’s her childhood friend or something)
Then she thinks and says, “what’s that again?”
You would imagine me ranting on about it, but I went blank and thought to myself, “what’s mustathna??!?!” Then it came to me (alhamdulillah), and that’s when I started ranting out the rules until one of my family members’s (can’t remember who, I think it was my mum or all of them) told me to shut up.

Yeah so we’re having a nahw test on Tuesday on some of the Mansubat. Make du’a for me people, especially since our exams are coming up in March, I’m in great need of them!!!

Take care all!

Oh I just read the bottom post (posted by believeress), interesting...

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

SUMAIYA! I miss you so much!!!

1) It was SHAGUFTA that we wanted to say over and over again. We knew we couldn't come in quietly because maybe you guys wouldn't wake up. So we decided on something to say over and over again. My first idea was lawnmower, but we figured you guys would be traumatized whenever you heard/saw one. So then I remembered the horrific name [which we all agreed to never name our future child: SHAGUFTA.... sorry to all the shaguftas out there =/ ] It's funny.. I found a picture of niqaabis dressed just like Asfa did, I'll send you the pic. It made us crack up, but it might give you chills "muahahaha.."

2) It was actually just 4 of us. Asfa, Layla, Zainab B, and I. Just to show you, don't mess with AMERICA =) [Actually, Asfa's not American, she'll be there soon thought INSHA ALLAH. And Zainab took the Shahadah, so Alhamdulillah, she is American now]

3) I had a dream where Aamena was all up in my face saying "Nenga nenga nenga" over and over again.. it was scary. And the lights in your room was flickering and.. yeah.. it was weird.

4) Ahem! I was NOT scared by Nadia. It was obvious someone was messing around after the 2nd knock came. I was just flipping out because I thought Anisaa was gonna jump up and land on me.

5) Ah.. I have the memory of your crouched up on the radiator behind Asfas curtain =)

6) It scares me how deeply Naeema sleeps.

7) It was really funny, that day Asfa and I must have asked Salam about 50 different words and she came up with these wild definitions. I asked her what FUTON, CUSHION, AND SPECTACLES were and she kept telling me to stop asking her Gujrati words. Also, I told her that 'Patla' was when you were sitting on something and you got pushed off from it, as in a chair, bed.. anything sittable upon. Poor girl. Daaaamn homie, I miss her... and her little head bop she'd do when she's right.

Ah okay, I think I've said enough. So many Bowmanville memories, especially within my last days there.. the scare and all, your damaged skirt.. Naeema beating me up...*sigh*

Enjoy your Nahw test, do well inshaAllah.

As salaamu alaikum wa rahmatullah

Anonymous said...

heyy salaam..
sumaiya INTERSTING post =p lol
the day i got stuck..ONLY I WUD NOE how it felt..mixed feelings..lol..i wuz laffin, kickin, screamin and felt liek cryin LOL..
and I STILL CAN NOT BELIEVE THAT I DIDN'T WAKE UP WEN SALMA SCREAMED!!! =|
omg!! lazeeeenaaa!!! i miss uuuu =(...*muhahahaha* beatin u up wuz FUN =p lol..
o yee and the poems were so jkz..haha lol...the nite me & aamena went crazyy =p
k take caree *x0x*
cya tmrw

Umm Haniah said...

awwwww LaGina!!!!

I miss you as well, sarf and Nahw behind the curtain ain't the same without you!

I'm going back in an hour inshaAllah.

See you there Naeema, and I couldn't make the cake, I was at Aishah's place most of the day. And Aishah gives her salams to you two.

Anonymous said...

aww its okii..i cudnt make teh mac. salad either..
w.salam

Ninjabi-K said...

as'salaam Wa'alikum,

lol, subhan'allah your so right!
in the madrasah over seas that' exactly what happens! even though it's nothing.


though it is something to be weary of! INsh'allah may Allah protect us all. Ameen.

excellent story! awesome ideas to scare the living daylights out of someone!

take care
ws