Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
Forget gruesome ghouls, vicious vampires and nightly nasties … the creative youngsters at Rainbow for Kids nursery can transform pieces of straw into works of decorative art.
The imaginative tots put their bright minds and crafting skills to the test to make scarecrows – which originated in the Arab world – to decorate the centre’s play area in Muharraq as part of a popular annual activity.
In one of the more abstract tasks I’ve been assigned since the beginning of my GulfWeekly tenure, I was asked by nursery principal Christine Hasan to browse the plethora of creations and rank the three most creative ones.
By the way, that’s going straight on my CV. How can any of my lifetime accomplishments ever top ‘scarecrow judging’? Walking through the playground, it’s clear that an incredible amount of effort went into the designs.
There were no half-baked efforts cobbled together on the morning (at least noticeable to these eyes!) and the display was arranged in a trail so you were almost walking through a labyrinth of scarecrows.
From the doom-mongerer dressed in black on the nursery’s front wall daring us to enter, to the Spider-Man scarecrow perched on the plastic castle’s battlements, to the poor horse rider who met a sticky end; it’s clear a lot of love and effort went into these designs.
A scarecrow is a decoy or mannequin in the shape of a human, usually dressed in old clothes and decorated with items to exaggerate the appearance. They are usually placed in open fields to discourage birds such as crows (hence the very literal name) or sparrows from disturbing and feeding on recently cast seed and growing crops.
They have been in use for more than 3,000 years, with the first recorded scarecrows used along the banks of the Nile in Ancient Egypt to protect wheat fields. In modern times, they are still in use despite vast advances in technology.
They have even become cultural figures, with numerous festivals taking place worldwide and characters such as British TV icon Worzel Gummidge and the popular Batman comic book villain simply called, The Scarecrow.
After coming to an incredibly difficult decision, Shlok Rai’s ‘Scared Scarecrow’ emerged as the deserved recipient of the gold rosette. A combination of using a broomstick for the body, padded out and bent into shape so that it could ride a scooter, plus the genuinely frightening face adorned with a plastic hooked nose, meant that it was the most accurate reflection of a scarecrow on display.
In second place came Christine herself, with Mr Lillycarp who was dressed as an Olympic athlete with tracksuit and ribbons. This creation impressed onlookers
with its wood shaving curls that substituted for hair.
Claiming bronze was Kaltham Malallah and Earth Mother, dressed up in hippie clothing and decorated with a crown of flowers to symbolise being one with the planet. Afterwards, Christine, who opened the British curriculum nursery eight years ago and oversees a diverse group consisting of more than 15 nationalities, discussed her delight with how the event panned out.
She said: “This is the fourth year we’ve done this event, but the first time we’ve opened it up to parents and other schools, not just our children. “We like making things as much fun as possible, so we do regular events here and this is one of our main ones. “The idea for this particular event came from a few of our kids being scared of costumes and certain characters. So, to counteract this, we got them to make scarecrows and realise that these are just silly things that can’t really harm you and are actually quite amusing.”
