The Philippines: How to help

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With such a strong community of Filipinos – some of the sweetest people I know – in our compound, we watched in horror as Typhoon Haiyan slammed into six central Philippine islands just over a week ago.

By the time the first heartbreaking images of the devastation caused by the world’s most powerful storm flashed up on our TV screens, the agonising wait had already begun. Our housekeeper knew her family was safe (they live in a different part of the country), but many Filipinos residing in the UAE had no idea if their loved ones were still alive.

The aftermath: Children beg for food from passing motorists in Borbon town, Cebu. Photo from NBC News

The aftermath: Children beg for food from passing motorists in Borbon town, Cebu. Photo from NBC News

My friend’s housekeeper, V, from the island that was hit first, faced the longest few days of her life. All forms of communication were down and, while she was hoping for the best (her town was inland and surrounded by trees), her distress was immense. The anguish on her face spoke volumes.

Finally, several days later, she received word from her uncle that her family had survived the storm. He travelled to her hometown to check on her parents and niece – they’d lost the roof on their house, but were, thankfully, unharmed.

For others living far from their families, the news won’t be so good. And, now, as aid workers distribute food and water and provide emergency shelter, attention is turning – as it does after any natural disaster – to avoiding a health crisis. Waterborne diseases such as cholera and typhoid are always the biggest fear.

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Beautiful islands: This photo, of Coron in Palawan (where the typhoon exited on its way to Vietnam), was taken in April this year by my friend Jenny. She was in the Philippines at the time of the storm, but to our great relief was out of harm’s way

I know for a fact that people around the world have been deeply moved by the decimation caused by Typhoon Haiyan. Another friend’s update on Facebook said it all:

“A terrible tragedy for a country full of lovely people, which already has so much to deal with.”

And I do think that, here in the UAE, we have a special, and for many, very personal, reason to reach out. People are the Philippines’ biggest export, and 700,000 have travelled to the UAE to work. The majority are employed in our service industry.

Not only are they the gentle people who keep our households ticking over, but – as this post on Expat Telegraph highlights – they’re the hard-working “waiters and waitresses, the drivers, the paramedics, the lifeguards, the nail salon technicians, the school bus attendants, the classroom assistants, the receptionists, the shop assistants, the nurses.”

Let’s do what we can to help their families and fellow countrymen, in the typhoon-ravaged parts of the eastern Philippines. Here’s how:

Emergency Appeal – UNICEF Philippines Donation Portal: Children affected by Super Typhoon Yolanda need your help.

The Philippine Red Cross: 100 local outposts have been mobilised to help with relief efforts.

International Medical Corps: The organisation has deployed an emergency response team of medical personnel and sanitation experts to the Philippines and is accepting donations in order to ship medicine, clean water and food.

Doctors Without Borders’ Emergency Response Fund: As well as sending teams of doctors, nurses, surgeons, psychologists and sanitation experts, nine cargo planes loaded with water, sanitation and medical supplies are being dispatched.

World Food Programme: Donations are being sought for emergency food assistance. The organisation is mobilising quickly to reach those in need with high-energy (and nutritious) biscuits.

The Philippine government said on Monday that nearly 4,000 are known to have died. Four million are displaced.

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Remote: Taken by Jenny’s husband, this shot is the view from a restaurant built on a mangrove, in an area of environmental sustainability. What a beautiful country – it’s so sad it’s suffered so much. Haiyan was the second category 5 typhoon to strike the Philippines this year.

The verb hunt

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A new policy I’m trying to adhere to is to leave work on time. Often harder than it sounds, the reason for this is two-fold: the traffic in Dubai is abysmal (again), and my children have seemingly endless homework that needs supervising.

Tonight, I came through the door and called out my usual ‘hellos’. Son2 leapt up from his chair at the kitchen table and ran at me like a torpedo, while Son1 peered at me from behind the iPad, shouted hello loudly, then went back to his game like a techno-crackhead.

“Right,” I said brightly. “Who’s got homework?” I knew they both had work to do; and they both knew I knew. There was silence. Son1 sank deeper into the sofa, and Son2 actually went back to the kitchen table to eat vegetables.

“It’s verbs tonight, isn’t it?” I said, rubbing my hands with glee.

Yes, glee!

You might be surprised to hear that, perhaps oddly for someone who writes a blog, works on a magazine and LOVES writing, I don’t actually know one end of a sentence from the other. A product of the 70s, I learned (learnt?) to read and write at a time when grammar was totally out of fashion.

Back then, British schools were going through a period in which the teaching of grammar was thought to be stifling to creativity (or maybe I spent my childhood staring out the window? It’s possible).

1374281_658095677542759_1305527163_nInstead, I sort of feel my way through a piece of writing – in the same way you’d produce a watercolour painting, I can put together the bare bones of an article, flesh it out and add some detail. A read-through at the end, along with a flurry of fairly brutal editing, polishes it off, and, voila, I’m done.

But ask me about sentence construction, the future perfect or irregular verbs and I’m at a bit of a loss really. If something is wrong, it literally jumps off the page at me – and I can usually fix it (which is what I do in my job as a sub editor), but I couldn’t give you a technical explanation.

Which is why I’m loving the fact that my older son is actually starting to learn all this stuff at school – not only can I refresh my own knowledge, but I can honestly say that witnessing him starting to grasp grammar is a joy.

Until I take it a bit too far. “A verb hunt. Great!” I enthused. “Let’s go through my magazines,” I suggested, and reached for a copy of the business title I work on.

“Now then, tell me, where is the verb in this headline?” I asked him.

Son 1 looked at the page, blankly. He tried, bless him. But it was a story on Iraq, aimed at oil executives, not seven year olds.

“Mum,” he said, quietly. “I really want to do the other homework. The 3D model of a landform.”

They’re going to the planetarium tomorrow, as part of their unit of inquiry on how the Earth works, and he’s so excited.

“Can we make an iceberg, like in the Titanic?” he pleaded.

Grammar was never going to compete, was it?

The division of labour

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I’m enjoying a few days off from the office this week, and as well as catching up on a million things, I’m trying to squeeze a couple of friends in – and I do mean squeeze, quite literally.

A dear buddy I caught up with this morning has recently started a new job, which, as we all know, is a time-consuming beast. With both of us attempting to juggle work and kids, a meet-up was proving elusive – until, all of a sudden, a window of opportunity arose.

“I can do Tuesday morning, after drop-off,” she texted.

“But only until 9.”

“That’s great,” I replied. “We’ll talk fast.”

Remember how, pre-kids, meeting friends involved leisurely lunches and shopping bags? Now we're all caught up by 9am!

Remember how, pre-kids, meeting friends involved leisurely lunches and shopping bags? Now we’re all caught up and on our way by 9am!

And talk fast we did, over eggs benedict and tea, in a frilly restaurant that resembles the inside of a doll’s house, near school.

This lovely friend has children who are a few years older than my own and is a font of information about the myriad issues that arise. I was picking her brains about homework – when will they do it without me breathing down their necks? How much per night? When, oh when, does it get easier?

And why does the homework buck seem to stop squarely on the woman’s shoulders?

“It’s like a government,” she suggested. “I’m the Ministry of Education and the Department of Health. He’s the Ministry of Transport.”

It made perfect sense, put like that.

“He’s also the Chancellor of the Exchequer,” she continued.

And, when you think about it, there’s more: Food Standards Agency (me); Revenues and Customs (him); Archives Department (me); Department for Environment (me); Treasury (him); Ministry of Justice (shared, though DH is better at breaking up the boys’ fights than me); General Secretariat (me); Ministry of Social Affairs (me); Foreign Office (him); Ministry of Labour (depends what kind of labour you’re talking about). I could go on.

But as for the homework, we concurred – it’s, unfortunately, one of those pink jobs – which, given that my worker bees aren’t exactly cooperative, merits a big sigh.

Halloween part 2

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If you saw my last post, you might remember the photo I posted of a polite note on someone’s door, asking treat-or-treaters not to ring the bell. Here it is again, in case you didn’t see it:

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A lovely reader sent me a funny photo of the Scottish version of this note, which I’m posting here with an ‘excuse the language!’ footnote. Thank you Teresa for the laugh!

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PS – Do ‘like’ my Facebook page (above right), if you haven’t done so already! I promise it won’t spam your timeline and I’m trying to populate the page with some fun stuff (while enjoying some chit-chats too). Thank you! x

The morning after (the night before)

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If there’s a time when our living room resembles a scene from the movie The Hangover, it’s the Friday morning after Halloween.

I came downstairs today to find sweet wrappers strewn around the lounge, several containing half-eaten, sticky candies. Discarded costumes were still in the exact spot they’d been peeled off, and the children, who’d got up far too early considering it was such a late night, were sprawled on the sofa, pale-faced with tiredness and nursing sugar hangovers. If a chicken had wandered by, and pecked at the leftover sweets, I honestly wouldn’t have been too surprised.

Closer inspection revealed that the disembodied neck from Son 1’s headless horseman outfit had rolled across the floor, coming to rest by the TV. I spotted a gloved hand from Son 2’s zombie costume nearby and there was a devil’s fork propped against the bookshelf.

“So everyone had a good night then?” I asked, looking at my bleary-eyed, 7YO Halloweenie, who was holding his head in his hands. (A cold was compounding the sugar crash).

There was a resounding yes – and, I have to say, I did feel quite pleased that our preparations (which, let’s face it, take all month) had paid off.

I love that, on Halloween, our compound descends into collective trick-or-treatery and becomes a distant satellite suburb of the US, with spooky decorations galore. Last night, our wonderful American neighbours treated us to a pre-Halloween warm-up party; then the kids trooped round the streets in costume – gathering in porches lit by the glow of jack-o-lanterns to collect sweets.

Some villas had taken a theatrical approach, with haunted-house music and torches, and there was a witch strung high above G street, flapping gently in the moonlight.

It was a balmy evening, almost a little too hot to be wearing layers of cheap polyester, and our community was out in force – on foot and for a lucky few, drive-by style, in a six-foot trailer pulled by a quad bike.

After the commotion died down, I escaped to a party up the road, leaving DH to get the children to bed, and bringing Halloween to a wickedly fun end.

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The costumes were acquired by DH on a trip to New York earlier in October

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The pumpkin was bought at the fruit n veg market (12dhs, as opposed to the fortune charged by Spinney’s) and the innards were turned into this dish – my first ever pumpkin pie! We carved a watermelon too, which glowed luminous red

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Just some more e-numbers – spider cakes for the children

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But for some, Halloween is as easy as writing a (polite) note and posting it on the door (although they probably had to hide too)

You might also like: Halloween in the desert; Halloween in the hood

When customer service thinks for you

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So DH and I are at our local retail centre having a breakfast date when my phone rings. It’s the receptionist at a dental clinic in Healthcare City.

“You have appointment,” she says in a sing-song voice. “Wednesda-ay, 9.30 in the morn-ing.”

“That’s right,” I reply. “You phoned yesterday to confirm,” I add, a little confused because it was a fait accompli as far as I was concerned. I wonder if she’s about to tell me the slot’s cancelled and I need to reschedule.

There’s a pause. “Yes, Ma’am,” she says. “I’ll phone you again on Tuesday to remind you.”

“You could just text me if you like,” I suggest. “I’ve written it down.”

I’d have thought nothing more of it, but 10 minutes later, we encounter another circular conversation that suggests we left our brains at passport control.

DH and I go into the supermarket to buy our helper Catherine some lunch from the deli section. They sell Filipino food and we often bring it home for her.

"Sir, no. You want pizza, yes!"

“Sir, you prefer pizza, yes!”

“What’s that?” DH asks, pointing at a vegetable dish.

“You won’t like,” says the man behind the counter, shaking his head.

DH tries again. “But can you tell me what it is?”

“It’s Filipino food.”

“Could I have some please?” attempts DH.

“You no like,” he repeats, adamant.

“If you want, you must try first,” he then adds, helpfully. So DH does the taste test and smiles in approval. “Mmmm, yum.”

Still a little unconvinced, the man reluctantly spoons some of the dish into a small pot – filling it only half full.

We make it to the cash register, and I wonder if receptionists and deli counter staff are actually on a mission to save us from ourselves. You never know – customer service in Dubai can be a strange thing.

You might also like: Ordering a Subway sandwich

Doggy daycare

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Son 1 attended a 007, spy-themed party at the Ranches this weekend and as I drove through the rabbit warren of streets lined with beautiful identikit villas to collect him, it occurred to me that I might not know any of the other parents.

He’s on a school bus, so I have much less contact with his school than my other son’s (higher-maintenance) school, which I visit every day for the drop-off. Plus, the way they do a shake, rattle and roll each year with the six classes in each grade means both the pupils and parents get a fresh start each September.

Anyway, the party was still going on, so the parents huddled in the kitchen while a pair of energetic teenagers led the games outside. I struck up a conversation with another British mum, as the kids hurled water bombs at each other, and we exchanged details about our child’s name, class, etc.

(The drawback with mixing up the classes is I spend ages wracking my not-so-well-oiled brain, trying to work out if the mum I’m talking to is the same person I sat giggling with in a coffee shop three years ago, is the class mum – who deserves deep respect, in my opinion, and I probably owe money to – or is indeed a newcomer.)

The British lady and I didn’t talk about our children for long, because the conversation quickly moved on to her dogs. Specifically, the doggy daycare they were being treated to that day. Yes, treated to.

“Do you want to see some photos of my dogs?” she asked, rhetorically, then reached for her phone, pulled up Facebook and clicked on a post from the doggy daycare.

“There they are,” she said proudly. “Awww, look what they’re doing!”

"The masseuse is here, Sir"

“The masseuse is here, Sir”

I peered at her phone. Her dogs, indeed very cute (and known as Little and Large, due to one being big and the other handbag-sized), were pictured frolicking around a sizeable grassy, landscaped yard, with tunnels and other playthings laid out for them.

“That’s their swimming pool,” she said, enlarging a photo of a sparkling blue pool, big enough to hold at least 10 children.

“Swimming pool?” I responded, my eyes widening, “For the dogs?”

“Yes, and that’s where they rest. It’s great – they go every Saturday.” [“Means we can actually do something on Saturdays,” her husband interjected.] “In fact, we must dash – it’s doggy pick-up time at 6.”

She showed me one last photo of her cat [“Do they do cat daycare, too?” I ventured, my mind still processing this whole concept and spinning with possibilities for our moggy.] Then they called their daughter over to leave.

I’m not really a dog person, but later that evening, I found myself Googling it, intrigued by the idea of a pet daycare with a pool, that structures the day to include a dog-nap, has a webcam trained on the playarea, and posts updates on Facebook to allow ‘parents’ to see what their pampered pets are up to.

Turns out, that’s not the half of it. Dogs can board there, and even the standard suites are furnished with a sofa bed and plasma TV; the Urban Suite has a webcam inside; and the Junior Royal Suite offers extras such as a sheepskin rug, bonus cuddles, caviar in the feeding bowls and champagne through a hose (ok, I made the last two up!).

There’s a pet Limo service, a personal butler and a fully-equipped indoor gym with ‘Fit Fur Life’ doggy treadmills – where, I’m guessing, the doggy bootcamp for overweight pooches takes place.

You won’t be surprised to learn that classical music is piped into the communal areas and that eye-soothing views of an indoor oasis with fabulous fountains are advertised.

Seriously, I’ve been in Dubai for five years now and I thought I’d seen it all. But a 7-star pet resort for animals who need a luxury break from their day-to-day routine. That takes the biscuit, surely!

(And, yes, there is a cattery – I checked!)

Find out more about Urban Tails (in the Green Community) at www.urbantailsdubai.com

On being time poor

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“There just aren’t enough hours in the day,” I sighed, before flopping down on the sofa to waste the last hour or so before bed on my Twitter feed. It’s about all I can manage after a day spent cramming in a school run, a commute through heavy Dubai traffic, eight hours of work, dinner and the bedtime shenanigans.

When I watch my children, the thing that really strikes me is they have all.the.time.in.the.world. It’s just not an issue; time is laid out ahead of them like the toilet roll in the Andrex puppy-dog advert – it might undulate and unravel in bursts, but the hours in their day, the days in their week, and the months in their year, are long, seemingly never-ending stretches of glorious time.

At school drop-off, with just minutes to go before the classroom doors slide shut, my younger son can sit rooted to his seat in an indignant protest at me trying to rush him out of the car. He has time to dwardle on the walk in – if there were roses, I’m sure he’d stop to smell them.

Stop the clock! Time thief, be gone

Stop the clock! Time thief, be gone

At the other end of the day, when I have to wrestle homework out of them, the time gods smile on their scowly sweet faces again, and bestow bonus minutes on them. My older son will lose the pencil, break the pencil, need the toilet, suddenly become parched with thirst, and, the one that really irks me, just need five more minutes to finish watching something before starting.

To say they don’t have a sense of urgency is an understatement.

Except time is deceptive. I know that, because somewhere along the way – I think starting in your 20s – time suddenly seems to speed up. So that, by the time you reach your 40s, it’s picked up such a pace that life starts passing, literally, in a blur. I can even find myself coming out in a cold sweat, worried that it’ll suddenly fast-forward another decade in the blink of an eye. (Like it did in my 30s – the ‘lost’ decade of pregnancies, sleepless nights, bottles and nappies.)

“One day,” my mother warned the time-rich, whinging 8-year-old me, “you’ll wish you could be bored again,” she said, sagely. And, you know what, she was right.

Enjoy it kids, before the time thief catches up with you too.

Meet the granny au pairs

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It’s a divisive issue that newcomers to the Middle East soon encounter: ‘Should we or shouldn’t we hire a helper?’ ‘Won’t it feel weird having someone living in our house?’ And, after a prolonged search for someone reliable, ‘Have I developed maid envy?’

For some cultures, whether to hire help at home is a no-brainer. They grew up with live-in staff and fully intend to carry on that tradition. In other families, both parents might be working and an extra pair of hands around the house is an essential cog in the wheel – the glue that keeps the family, with all its comings and goings, functioning.

I wonder how long until she gives in

I wonder how long until she caves in

For others, it’s a complicated decision that often starts with resistance (‘I didn’t have help at home, why should I need it here?’), becomes a grey area where you’ve warmed to the idea (husband’s travelling, baby has colic, school run takes two hours, family are 8,000 miles away), then ends with a full-on, wide-scale search for the right fit for your family.

And, personally, I don’t believe that those who choose to hire a live-in helper do so simply because it’s much cheaper out here and they’d rather be in the salon or handbag shopping.

The decision is usually based on the need for back-up and the realisation that society in the UAE is geared towards having domestic help. (Gyms with childcare facilities – forget it. The assumption is you’ll leave your child at home with the nanny. And a nursery that DOESN’T run on a school-term system with lengthy shut downs for holidays – unlikely. You’ll have to fork out for camp for your tot if you need holidays covered.)

Of course, every family is different, and many expats in the UAE survive perfectly well under their own steam, but if you did want to hire a live-in helper, what are the options? Here are three ways you can outsource some of the countless tasks that keep a family happy, healthy and smiling.

A live-in maid, who helps with the housework and children: Invariably from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Ethiopia or India, a housemaid is a popular choice, despite the fact she’s unlikely to have any childcare qualifications. She’ll need to be sponsored by the head of your family (which means assuming responsibility for her), but if you hire someone whose personality you like, who knows when to take the initiative and when to step back, and is liked by your children, this arrangement can be wonderfully beneficial, for both you and her. Find out more about hiring a housemaid at ExpatWoman’s Maids in Dubai section.

A pampered housekeeper: She’s worked as a housemaid-come-nanny in Dubai for a while, in the Marina or somewhere in the Ranches, and expects perks, from flat-screen TVs to satellite packages, use of the pool, a blind-eye to her boyfriend, Wi-Fi and travel on a national carrier like Emirates rather than a budget airline. When you respond to her ad, she’ll interview you, bringing the conversation to an abrupt end if you reveal you have more than two children.

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Reinventing the au pair: Sonja Franke is a Dubai ‘granny’

A granny au pair: An au pair with a similar background to you might sound like the ideal solution if you’re looking for someone to care for your children while you’re at work. Add the ingredients of age and experience to this female export and your family life could be transformed by a caring, grandmotherly figure.

I didn’t even realise this was a possibility out here, but there’s a German agency that’s providing families all over the world, including the UAE, with mature au pairs, aged between 50 and 70. Many are women who have brought up families of their own and are now keen to travel or learn another language.

It’s a win-win situation for both sides, as the idea of an au pair is based on mutual help. The granny helps with housekeeping and children, and gets free board and lodging in return.

Older women are usually better than younger au pairs because they have more experience of life, says Michaela Hansen, founder of Hamburg’s Granny Au Pair agency. “Families like to take them on because they are reliable, serious and know how to be strict.”

CASE STUDY: “We had fun together in the Range Rover, even in traffic jams”

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After nine months as an au pair in Switzerland, Evelyn jumped at the chance to make Dubai her next stop

Granny au pair Evelyn Eis spent four months in Dubai earlier this year, living with a German family with two boys, aged two and four, in Nadd Al Hamer.

The emirate had long been a source of fascination to Evelyn, making an au pair placement in the UAE a dream come true. “I’ve always been interested in Dubai – a whole new world to me, with its great architectural buildings, warm air and sea, and Arab culture,” she told Circles in the Sand. “I wanted to get to know the emirate better – for myself, rather than hearing about it in the media.

“I had the good fortune to be placed with a kindly German family with two lovable boys. The area in which they live is predominantly local and when I did my buggy walks each morning, people would stop their car and offer me a lift. They weren’t used to seeing an older woman with a child walking the streets and it was so nice to meet such kind locals who wanted to drive me!

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Footie in the park

“I also met men and women from the community at the beautiful neighbourhood park. The women let me see their faces when speaking to me and sometimes we’d arrange to meet the next day. I was invited to visit them in their villas and was introduced to other members of their families, while my two boys played with their children in their house and garden.

“Every day, I’d drive the older boy to school in the morning and pick him up at 2pm. (The younger boy was, in the meantime, with the Indian housemaid.) In the afternoons, I’d take both boys to various activities, ie, football or swimming and, once a week, to meet other German children and their mothers at one of the city’s many parks. The different meeting places were not easy to find, even with a sat-nav. I’d drive between 20-40km just to get there in ‘my’ great-big Range Rover. But the boys were always happy with me in the car, because we had fun together, even in traffic jams. I miss them now!”

Families looking for a ‘Granny’ are encouraged to contact Granny Aupair at info@granny-aupair.com. More about the service can be found at www.granny-aupair.com

Holidays (again)

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It’s the Eid al-Adha holiday here in the UAE, which means – for public sector workers and our children at least – a nine-day holiday, if you count the weekends too.

At Eid al-Adha (Feast of the Sacrifice), Muslims make a special effort to pray and visit the mosque. They also wear new clothes, visit family members and friends, and may sacrifice an animal (a goat or sheep), to commemorate the biblical story of Abraham, who was on the verge of sacrificing his son when God intervened and substituted a ram in the child’s place.

It’s a huge Islamic festival – with days off for the private sector too (three days mid-week) and all the schools out for the whole week. The city has swelled in size, with visitors flocking to Dubai from all over the Gulf and lots of special activities laid on to cater to the crowds. There are fireworks each night down on the beach, the Metro is running until 3am, and, today, the emirate geared up for the start of another 48-hour shopping bonanza.

Coupled with the weather beginning to cool after the long, hot summer, it all makes for an upbeat atmosphere, with a real holiday feel.

Except I haven’t actually felt it yet, because I’ve had to work. My field is publishing, a weekly magazine, that still has to come out, so the editorial staff get days off in lieu (it could be worse, we could be working round-the-clock in retail).

The week began well – no crack-of dawn school start, the easiest drive into work in a long time, and a text message from the RTA promising me free parking all week (sometimes it’s the small things).

By day 2, it was beginning to pall. Leaving the children behind at home was harder than I thought (my DH, who has this movie-star schedule on his airplane, was looking after them); the coffee-stand where I buy my treats for the day had shut; the sandwich lady stopped coming, and then the toilet paper ran out.

The dress code for Eid at work was jeans, so it has felt quite Mufti-style, but with the air-con on arctic, and snow predicted in the office, it’s felt rather odd sitting at my desk feeling cold, while the rest of Dubai heads to the beach.

So, I am grateful to my friend S, for cheering me up today (my last day in the office) and to whom I give my best Eid Facebook post award.

S is an American who I totally respect for the way she’s embracing all the different cultural experiences available to us in this part of the world. Her photo was of a goat hot-hoofing it down the street, having escaped the yard of the family she was lunching with, just as they were getting ready to sacrifice him.

“Two men are running barefoot through the neighbourhood trying to catch our lunch*,” she posted – conjuring up, for me, images of the ‘Tamworth Two’ – the pair of pigs that escaped while being unloaded from a lorry at a British abattoir and were on the run for more than a week. I did wonder, as I looked at the photo, willing the goat to LEG IT.

* To finish the story, the goat was caught, but not eaten for lunch. The family had apparently purchased a truck-full of goats, which were sacrificed to Allah, and the meat was then given to the poor.

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