Friday, January 07, 2011

Christmas in Baghdad - story

For those who don't know Arabic (mine is very rough).

Baghdad at Christmas has no electricity. Abu Na'aal (old man) notices a little boy called Hamoodi standing in the cold. He asks him why he is standing there. Hamoodi answers that he is waiting for Baba Noelle (Father Christmas in Arabic) to bring him a bicycle. Abu Na'aal explains that Baba Noelle doesn't visit Baghdad and only distributes toys to children in America. Hamoodi is upset, and says Baba Noelle is known to distribute toys to children all over the world, so why won't he visit Baghdad, why? At this point Abu Na'aal has an idea (indicated by the gas lamp above his head, the narrator reminds listeners that there is no electricity, hence no light bulb to indicate the idea), and decides to call Father Christmas himself to ask if he could visit Baghdad. Santa Claus is not happy that Arabs call him Baba Noelle, doesn't want to visit Baghdad, and is generally not nice (there is a bit of bad language here). On being rejected by Santa Claus, Abu Na'aal then calls Noor Al-Maliki (leader of Iraq) to see if they can organise Christmas. Al-Maliki explains this isn't possible because there are 42 different departments, and it would take at least 100 years to organise things, and he decided to go for a smoke (found it difficult to understand this bit). At this point Abu Na'aal decides to organise Christmas himself. The man who came with the generator asked how important this all was because he had wanted to watch Massi playing for Real Madrid (??). Anyway, a massive tree was put up, beautifully decorated, and lit the whole of Baghdad, and it was so bright and beautiful it could be seen by the astronauts in space. Abu Na'aal appreciated the worth of this beauty. He understood that if you want something done you should not depend on others to do it for you. So, he then got himself a little carriage and a flying donkey and flew through the Baghdad skies distributing toys to all the children (the narrator notes he has no idea how the donkey flies, but recommended you ask Santa Claus how his reinder flew). The end.