Tribes and breaktimes

Assalamu Aleikum!

School breaktimes with the Bedouin are an interesting affair. We have 2 breaktimes at the school and no lunch break. We start school at 7am and so finish at 1pm in time for the kids to go home for lunch. The first break is a conventional playtime and the second is given over to Zuhr prayers.

We can usually tell when first break is starting by the camel calls coming from the boys. They have a technique for calling the camels which is a bit like shepherds in the UK whistling to their sheepdogs. Their call sounds more like shouting though. The teachers tell us that the boys love their camels and they love this call. Once in the playground the boys head as one towards the tuck shop. Stationed strategically at the tuck shop are teachers whose job it is to ensure good order in the queues. Queues, I hear you say. Queues and Muslims are not words you're likely to use in the same sentence. But it is our job to try to do just that. Once the queues have been established the boys buy some food. Food on sale include pizza, crisps, falafel & juice. The amount of food consumed is extraordinary. It's not unusual for one boy to have 3 bags of crisps, 2 pizzas and 4 juice drinks. As you can imagine there are a number of overweight boys.

As I was keeping order in the queues one day a teacher turned to me and said,"See that."
"See what?"
"Those boys sitting in groups."
I stared over to where he was pointing and sure enough there were groups of boys sitting in circles on the floor. Each group had about 10 boys.
"That's their tribe. They sit with their tribe."
And he started to name each tribe and the group they were sitting with. I expressed amazement at this and tried to compare it with my old school in the UK. After a long pause the teacher turned to me and said, "They want to be in the desert. They want to be with their camels. This is how they would sit in the desert."

Masalamah
Yahya