Amira El-Noshokaty goes to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina to learn to iron out her scribbles, and try her hand at Play-doh Click to view caption Arabic calligraphy can be tricky. Should the letter be on the line or beneath it? How should you style the changing faces of the same letter? They are questions, however, that find answers at the first Arabic calligraphy workshop for children aged six to 12. The Children Section in the library is on the first floor. Sitting quietly, on the red and blue benches, were 20 kids, their hands busy scribbling across reams of paper the letters they have been learning over the past 15 days. "I come here to learn calligraphy so I would know how to read and write," explained six-year old Toqa Mohamed as she played shyly with her pencil. Earlier she had been making letters with Play-doh. The twirl of a squishy kaf (k), which sat beside her notebook, looked more artistic than literal. "Keep in mind while writing, that the letter kaf (k) is like two sides of a railway, they can never meet," explained Mohamed Roteil, famous calligraphist and the workshop's instructor. As he drew the letters on the green board, the 20 children watched silently. "Then you link the railway lines together with a curve and you have the shape of a snake. That is in the case of the snake-like kaf, the one we put in the beginning and middle of words. Beware, it bites," he keeps a straight face, but the children giggle. "The idea behind the workshop is to get youngsters to love to write," explained Roteil to Al-Ahram Weekly. Roteil himself was a former student at the Arabic Calligraphy School of Alexandria and has studied with both Mohamed Ibrahim, who founded the school in the thirties, and famous calligraphist Kamel Ibrahim, whose work is on permanent display at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. This workshop is the second of three. Children come in three times a week, free of charge. "The best-known styles of Arabic calligraphy are: naskh, req'a, tholouth, faresi, diwani, galidiwan, and the many genres of kofi. Here, we teach the children how to write naskh and req'a, the two styles they are likely to use at school," Roteil said. Aside from learning how to write, the young children are introduced to history of writing. Little Maha is particularly interested in this aspect of the course. "The name tholouth has a story," she explained with obvious pride, "In the old days they would make a writing brush from the hairs of a horse tail. They started out with 24 hairs, which was very thick. And so they narrowed them down to eight. Eight is one third of 24. That is why they called it tholouth -- one third." Then the dal (d) game started. Everybody closed their eyes and when they opened them, the dal had transformed, with a rounded stroke, into a heh (h), which, the teacher points out, resembles a twisted hair ribbon when it occurs in the middle of a word. Children should learn correct calligraphy as early as possible, said Roteil. "It is very difficult to improve your handwriting once you had developed bad habits. For example, fingers should be kept at a 45-degree angle from the pencil." So far, 50 children have taken the course. Malak El-Samahi brings her granddaughter to the workshop regularly. "Being in a [foreign] language school, Malak needs to be encouraged to focus on her Arabic as well. These workshops encourage her love for the Arabic language," El-Samahi told the Weekly. These workshops are the beginning of a long list of children's cultural activities to take place after the official inauguration next month. "The point is to make the library part of children's daily routine," explained Raafat Saleh, supervisor of the children's library at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to the Weekly. As we toured the premises, he pointed out: "This is the reading area, where the older children get to read stories to the young ones. We have a puppet theatre, where some of the characters of such stories come to life." There is also an audio-video corner and a computer-Internet facility. Pointing out the alphabet in Braille posted on the walls, Saleh added that the children's library will cater to blind children as well. Topping the red bookshelves is a small exhibit of the children's Play-doh work. It boasts a fortress with no gates, a human skeleton with six ribs and a tiny very colourful replica of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina. "Educating the young is like etching on stone," beamed Roteil.
