Category: In the Middle East

ASKING IS LEARNING

On one of his journeys across the desert, the Bedouin took his young son with him, so that he would learn something of the desert lore. As they set off at dawn, the boy asked:

“Tell me Baba, why does the sun rise every day on this side and set on that side?”

The Bedouin scratched his head through his kaffiyeh* and said thoughtfully:

“I truly don’t know. I never really thought of it.”

In the evening they reached an oasis and quenched their thirst from the spring beneath the palms. The inquisitive child had another question:

“Baba, why is it, that everything is dry all around and only here water comes out of the earth?”   

“A good question, but I don’t know the answer. It was always like that, even during our ancestors’ days.”

At night, when they the lied under their blankets, the boy looked up at the star-studded sky and wondered aloud:

“Do you know Baba, what the stars are?”

“No, Son,” - replied his father, - “I really have no idea.”

At the end of their journey, the boy said to his parent:

“I hope I did not bother you too much with my questions and that you will take me again.”

“You did not bother me at all,” - replied the Bedouin, - “you should ask questions. How else would you acquire knowledge?”

* Kaffiyeh: A cloth headdress fastened by a band around the crown and usually worn by Arab men.

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