Tag: fiction

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Guns and Generosity: Eid Celebrations in UAE

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

I had helped a student who was partially blind last year and he invited me to join his family on the Eid holiday. I couldn’t so he telephoned and told me about the day.   “We go to the mosque and everyone brings their most valuable possession….” he said. “What do they bring?” I asked He tried to avoid answering. I repeated the question.  I could almost see him lower his face, “Their guns.  Some have old ones, some have machine guns.” “Machine guns?” I shouted.  “Men carry machine guns to the mosque!” I have to remind myself that tribal disputes … Continue reading Guns and Generosity: Eid Celebrations in UAE

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Engaging Students with ‘First Time’ Writing Prompts

Alice Delaney Walker, aka Dana Walker

      It’s difficult as a teacher to get students to write interesting compositions.  Over the years, I’ve invented bizarre topics to force my students to think.  However, transplanting American topics to the Gulf just doesn’t work culturally.  Gulf students are more private than Americans and don’t indulge in discussing the same topics which per-occupy Westerners:  for example, families. I blush.  High school and college nights were an endless dissection of my parents’ bizarre behavior and my six sisters’ endless cruelty and misunderstandings.  Even to this day, confidences both direct and dreadful escape my lips about my family.  Religion … Continue reading Engaging Students with ‘First Time’ Writing Prompts