Marriage Doesn’t Always Work the Way you Want it to…

by Phulan

Tears came out of my eyes when I heard that the man I was going to marry was dead. I didn’t get to even meet Hamir, but his parents and family were so nice. Most of arranged Husbands and their families aren’t very nice, but I was lucky enough to meet a  family and a husband who was kind and Dadi said “Hamir is noble and strong and handsome.” (pg 146) Hamir’s family also owned a large piece of land. But one day when Shabanu and I went to the canal to get water, Nazir Mohammad a land owner at the village of Mehrabpur was with some other men. Nazir wanted some of our land, but we wouldn’t give it to him. Dadi warned us about Nazir, so after the group tried to attack us we ran and told dadi. Dadi said to pack all of our important things and go to Derawar and he’d meet us there. Dadi was going to fight off Nazir with Hamir and Murad. Then when we were almost at Derawar, a ranger gave a message to us that everything was fine and we should go back to Mehrabpur. Dadi and Murad were fine, but they said that Hamir got killed by Nazir and his men. I guess that Shabanu will at least have a good husband from the family, she is going to marry Murad.

How to Make Chapati!

by Phulan

My family lives in the hot warm desert where we don’t have many resources besides a tiny bit of water and whole wheat. So every day we eat chapati. Chapati is a bread made from water and whole wheat, it is round and flat and cooked in a pan. Sometimes when we don’t have enough water from the toba, so we have to get it from the well. Unfortunately water from the well is salty, so when we make chapati with water from the well, the meal becomes more of a salty bread than a little sweet.

First you take some whole wheat flour and mix it with some water. We don’t have exact measurements… Sometimes you can add salt, but if our water is salty we don’t need to add salt. You can sometimes add salt for a little bit of flavor if you would like.Then kneed the dough and let it rise for 10 minutes. Once the dough has rised split it into pieces and pat it until the dough is thin. Once you’ve done that it’s ready to go in the pan, cook it until it’s brown and a little puffy!