"Whenever a little girl ran to the dancers in the
middle of the room and started dancing, the faces of the older women
lit up,
they laughed loudly, for life had taken on a new rhythm, a rhythm that
was before us and would continue after we had gone…Yet when an
old woman got up to dance, suddenly, something that was there could
not be expressed in words – a gift, a woman’s prayer filled
the room, borne by the subtle, nearly wise movements of one who stood
far ahead of us in the long chain of women."
– Rosina-Fawzia Al-Rawi from Grandmother’s
Secrets
