Yasmin and Azzam were excited to have so many cousins to play with. Azzam was 17 months old and Yasmin was nearly three. Azzam had pale coloured skin with white blonde hair and blue/green eyes. Yasmin had olive coloured skin with light brown hair and hazel/green eyes. They were both playful and happy children and loved being outdoors. Fawaz's family home was situated on the outskirts of the village next to fields that grew wheat, sunflowers and chick peas. When the children were a few years older they would play in the fields behind their grandfather's home in a special rawdha(garden) where they caught frogs and collected tadpoles and crabs from the ponds. Azzam would chase the geese until they got fed up with him and turned on him. He would run down the hill with his arms flapping and slipping on the mud in his red and yellow rainboots. He loved animals and often made friends with the local Bedouin shepherds. He would sit for hours next to his newly made friend and watch the sheep grazing. He was always under the watchful eye of myself or one of his uncles or cousins.
When he was three years old he went missing for a couple of hours until Fawaz found him at the local rubbish tip with a couple of seven year old ragamuffin neighbours. He was scavaging on his knees with his little bottom in the air alongside a mother pig and her piglets. Azzam had many like adventures during his childhood growing up in Skelbieh and I created a story based on his childhood adventures and named the young boy in the story Rudy Rascal.
At night, when the children would be settling down to sleep I would make up another Rudy Rascal adventure to tell them. I didn't have any story books to read to them so I would tell them all my favourite Grimm's fairytales,Hans Christian Anderson and make believe stories.
When the children were four and five years old we were living in a self contained room. The eastern wall faced the neighbours' verandah only a metre or so apart. A window was bordered in with a thin sheet of plywood. I would sing to the children each day. Unbenownst to me, I was also singing to the young woman who lived next door. She told Fawaz that she used to listen and cry to the sound of the sweet sadness in my voice.

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