...ice cream

This afternoon my grade 11 girls were talking conspiratorially.  I couldn't get them to focus, so gave them a few minutes to get whatever was so important worked out.  Finally, Esraa looked up and said, "Miss, we want you to go to Baskin Robbins for us." 

My students are farm girls.  They live way out in the toolies and don't have the freedom to just zip into town for ice cream as American teenagers would. And even if they could, there'd be no place for them to go.  The town of Liwa has a grocery store and a gas station, but no fast food and no ice cream parlors.  The town of Medinat Zayed, where I live, is a big city to them.  Here we have the City Mall (a structure about the size of J. C. Penney's back home) with Pizza King and Burger Hut (no joke!) upstairs in the food court, and best of all, a Baskin Robbins just inside the front door.


After some discussion, I finally agreed that I would go and buy their ice cream this evening, put it in the freezer overnight, then transfer it to my cooler in the morning for the 45 minute commute.  I told them to write their order down, and to be specific.  They asked me how much the ice cream costs and I told them I honestly did not know--I had never been to Baskin Robbins.  There was a stunned silence, and then they were talking again.  Qummasha looked at me, puzzled.  "But Miss, we see you eating ice cream every morning!" 

I laughed and told them that it was yoghurt that they had seen me eating--ice cream wouldn't be a good way to start the day (on a daily basis, anyway!).

So right now there are eight tubs of ice cream in my freezer.  The clerk tried to convince me that a large tub would cost less, but I had my orders:  4 large dishes of chocolate ice cream with chocolate sauce and "nates" (nuts), and 4 large dishes of caramel ice cream, also with sauce and nuts. I think the plan is to put it in the freezer at school until breaktime, but I could be mistaken--it's just as likely that they'll be enjoying ice cream for breakfast.