stapelei

Went to send Nadhrah for her P1 orientation yesterday. Alhamdulillah, she likes her new school and the new building.
My only concern now is her Arabic (and Eema's for that matter). Truth be told, we hardly speak arabic at home, except when greeting, baca doa makan/tidur, solat, doa. So now I'm panicking. I'm looking for a FEMALE arabic tutor who can come 3 times a week to our house at the ulu place. I hope I can confirm one by this week.

While in school, I also collected Eema's tudung. She already has 3 from last year. 1 is a bit torn, the other two.. well that's not enough, based on last 2 years experience. Eema comes home from school each day like we're doing some detergent commercial. Almost every single day she comes home with some stain on her light yellow tudung. One day it'll be some sambal stain, the next day chocolate, and then mud.. (mud? how did mud get on her tudung? don't know).. then pencil or pen stains and at other times, unexplainable ones. So much so that, we'd be surprised if she actually comes back with a stainless tudung. She's so cute.
Her track pants are also always torn at the knee area. Even though she says she didn't fall or anything. That's just the way she is.

After the whole school thing, I sent Nadhrah home and went out again to (hopefully) look for a shoe rack. I went to Tanglin Mall, where I was quite sure I would NOT find, a or the, shoe rack that I want. But I went there anyway, because they have many many cute, artistic, stuff there, and it's been a while since I last went there.

As expected, I didn't get the shoe rack. Instead, I got this toy for myself.

It's called stapelei - and that's german for 'stack' It's a cute game toy made from wood. Instruction as follows:
STACK

A game of skill for 1 - 4 players aged 4 - 99 (which qualifies ME.)

Contents :
1 donkey (small wooden one, not real)
40 sticks (in four colours)
1 sugar cube (small wooden one also, not real)
1 set of game instructions

Aim of the game:
Who has a steady hand and is the first to be able to place all their sticks on the back of the donkey?
Beware : Nothing must fall off while piling up the sticks.

Preparation:
Put the donkey in the center of the table. (a steady one, if I might add) Each player takes all the sticks of one color. If there are less than four players, the remaining sticks are kept in the tin.
You don't need the sugar cube for the basic game.

How to play :
Play in a clockwise direction (but who cares if we want to play in an anti-clockwise direction?). Whoever has already seen a real donkey may start the game. (if everyone at the table has seen a real donkey, then whoever saw it most recently can start. Or if nobody at the table has seen a donkey in their lives, then the last one who saw it on TV. If that still fails, then consider a horse instead.)
Take one of your sticks and place it carefully on the back of the donkey. Be careful that the stick doesn't fall off. You did it? Well done. Now it's the next player's turn. (this almost reminds me of Japanese instructions in English.. it would sound something like this, only with broken english and wrong spellings)
If however, one of more sticks fall off the donkey's back, you have to take them and add them to yours. Then it's the next player's turn.

End of Game:
The game ends as soon as any player has put their last stick on the donkey, thereby winning the game.

Variation:
For younger players.
Younger players take fewer sticks (e.g. six per player)
For less than four players
If there are less than four players, the remaining sticks can be distributed amongst them.
For especially skillful and daring players (like me)
The game becomes more difficult when you place the sugar cube on the back of the donkey before piling up the sticks. You can place either the larger side of the cube on the back of the donkey or, to make it really wobbly, the smaller side.

Yup.. that's it. It's quite a simple game. And I have it in my bag.
So next time any of you meet me for a drink, ask me and we can also play Stapelei. :)