THE HANDICRAFT CRAZE

Last Ramadan, the entire neighbourhood suddenly got consumed by this craze of handicrafts. It all started with our eccentric elderly neighbour, Aunt Maria, who, for some reason, thought it would be a good idea to hold this craft class behind her backyard. To this day, I have no idea what possessed her! But every single day after lunch, school kids to retirees would gather in her porch to learn how to make these elaborate macrame plant hangers, and suddenly the entire neighbourhood was caught up in some kind of macrame mania! I swear, it became an epidemic or something! Now, the funniest thing is that Aunt Maria would add these googly eyes to every single thing she made. Pot holders to wall hangings, you name it—it had to have these big googly eyes staring at you. Okay, that part isn’t so funny; I guess I can admit it was comical, but the creepy thing was that she was adamant about making them look as realistic as possible! She would tell her students to make the eyes look as lifelike as possible, as though the art pieces would come alive and watch them while they slept at night. No one had the heart to tell her how ridiculous it looked!