The students enjoyed the story, but most wanted to talk about investigating Officer Michael Gebhardt’s police cruiser.

“I liked sitting in the back.  It was a hard seat,” said Gursharar, while snacking on a – bagel with a cream cheese and grape jam.

The afternoon was courtesy of Hoopoe Books Share Literacy Program, a non-profit that works with schools to encourage reading skills in students using a tradition from Afghanistan called teaching stories.

Earlier half of the students listened with rapt attention as teacher Joumana Mattar read The Clever Boy and the Terrible Dangerous Animal by Idries Shah.  Next door Brenda Bethancourt read the Spanish version of the book to the those in the bilingual class.

The story is about a boy in Afghanistan who discovers that the terrible, dangerous animal that is feared by villagers is nothing more than a gigantic watermelon.  The point of the story is to encourage children to be inquisitive and not be afraid of things that may be new to them.

While reading the story Mattar paused to ask the children questions.

“Have you ever been afraid of something you’ve never seen before?” she said.

One girl said she’d never seen a snake, a boy said he’d never seen a dragon.

“Have you ever been attacked by a watermelon?” said Mattar.

“Nooooooooooooooo!” chimed the class in unison.

Two weeks prior to the event the teachers went through professional literacy strategy training to learn how to read and teach the story more effectively.

“We get the kids to know the story through questions that are factual, and others than ask them to drawn on reason and experience. Then we expose them to what an author and an illustrator does,” said Beverly Taub, director of preschool programs for Fremont United School District.

The students had pre-event preparation as well.  They were treated to a watermelon party where they got to see one cut up and were able to taste it.  They were invited to experience the texture of watermelon and count the seeds. Then they were taught how new watermelons can be grown using seeds.

The watermelon party introduced the students to “the terrible, dangerous, animal” the villagers were afraid before they heard the story.

“That made it more real,” said Taub.

This is the second year the pre-school has worked with Hoopoe Books, which is funded by a grant from the Kaiser foundation, but this was the first time it was paired with a visit from a police officer.

“We wanted to make it a more special event and tie reading into what we do in every day life,” said Taub

Gebhardt was present during the read-along and ready to take the stage when both classes were combined in the playroom.

“We’re going to show you a helper of the community,” said one of the assistants introducing Gebhardt.”  He is going to become your friend too.”

Gebhardt had not received any training but quickly got into the spirit of things.

“Why is reading important?” he asked the class. “One of the reasons it’s good is you have to read signs. Like the big red sign that says…”

“Stop!” the students shouted.

He asked the students to think about what happens when they are riding in a car with a grown up and what they do when they see signs.  Then he broke it down further to colored signal lights.

“What do they do when they see a yellow light?”

“Slow down,” shouted a boy.

Gebhardt appeared very pleased by that answer.

At the end he asked,  “Who wants to be a police officer?”

Half of the hands in the room shot up high.

“If you want to be a police officer you have to know how to read and write.  We spend a lot of time reading and writing things down,” he said.

Each child was given a copy of the book paired with an audio CD of the story. Then Gebhardt and the students went outside to explore his car.  The students took turns flashing the lights and turning on different sirens.  Some climbed into the back seat and peered through the bars like suspects.

As the grand finale Gebhardt gave each child a police badge sticker and a hi-five.

Take a stroll through the Allegro Music Store and it’s rich history. Hover your mouse over the collage to scroll right and left or grab the scroll bar at the bottom. Pressing the play button in the bottom left hand corner will scroll the collage automatically. Click on the audio icon in the bottom right hand corner and press the play button to listen to the song “Training Day,” by the Marcus Shelby Jazz Orchestra, in the background as you explore the collage. Alto saxophonist Gabe Eaton works at the store. As you wander through, click on the various icons to watch video clips, listen to audio or read more about Allegro.

The Indian community gathered in large numbers at the Milpitas Indian Community Center on Thursday, December 4, to remember the victims of the militant attacks in Mumbai.

CLICK TO LISTEN

[audio:http://rosebud.journalism.berkeley.edu/~j200/510report/mumbaifinal.mp3]

Video by Tyler Sipe

Hundreds attended a candle light vigil at the Milpitas India Community Center to honor the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India.

In these grim economic times, chain stores and online retail companies still pose an increasing threat to small businesses. Linsay Rousseau Burnett brings us this report from one small Fremont business that has been a mainstay in the community for the past 47 years and remains full of life. Click to listen.

[audio:http://rosebud.journalism.berkeley.edu/~j200/510report/allegro.larb.120408.mp3]

You can view an interactive multimedia collage of the Allegro Music Store by clicking here.

Check out Allegro’s website: www.allegromusic.net

By Karen Weise  –

In a room twinkling with thousand of small gold pieces, the message behind the Asian Art Museum’s exhibit “Afghanistan: Hidden Treasures from the National Museum, Kabul” was unmistakable.

“A nation stays alive when its culture stays alive,” the final wall of the exhibit read.

For Dr. Mohammad “Mo” Qayoumi, president of California State University East Bay and the first Afghan president of a major U.S. university, that statement could not be more true.

Qayoumi said aside from the beauty and importance of the artifacts themselves, the dramatic story of safekeeping the treasures through war and crisis is enough cause for jubilation. Qayoumi and others said they are working to connect the East Bay’s Afghan community with the celebrated exhibition before it leaves San Francisco in the end of January.

Protecting heritage through times of war: Secret vaults, sealed lips

As a central hub in the Silk Road, Afghanistan has 15,000 known archaeological sites, charting millennia of trade, invasions, settlements and dynasties. Since 1922, as artifacts were excavated, Afghanistan preserved their national treasures in the National Museum in Kabul, growing the collection to 100,000 artworks and artifacts.

The Soviet invasion in 1979 to the ensuing decade of civil war threatened the museum’s collection, with war lords selling artifacts on the black market and eventually, the shelling of the building. Starting in 2001, the Taliban systematically destroyed 2,500 works of art, according to the exhibition.

Fearing the complete destruction of the national treasure, in 1988, a small group of museum staff hid crates with the most precious artifacts in a vault in the presidential palace in an attempt to protect the treasures. The handful of staff, known as key holders or tahilwidars, kept quiet about the secret vaults.

In Oct. 2003, two years after war ousted in the Taliban, the museum’s director, Omara Khan Massoudi, decided conditions were finally safe enough to reveal the treasured pieces. Afghan archeologists and National Geographic staff opened the crates to find the artifacts intact. The pieces were first shown at the National Gallery in D.C., and are at the Asian Art museum in San Francisco until Jan. 25. The show will stop at Houston and New York before returning to Afghanistan.

CSU’s Qayoumi said the Afghan community’s response to the exhibition was a sense of “jubilation.” The complex, cosmopolitan artifacts countered decades of pessimism. “You look at what they have heard about Afghanistan for the last 25 and 30 years, and it has been the war, destruction, refugees, misery,” he said.

CSU’s Qayoumi said the “sense of stewardship and custodianship” the keyholders showed is an aspect of Afghan culture he homes becomes noted. “When you are trusted with something, you have to protect it with your life,” he said. Qayoumi cited several other instances of unsung “heroes,” such as a corps of guards who protected the American Embassy for close to twenty years without payment.

Qayoumi said he believed the custodianship over nearly two decades should quiet naysayers who question whether the current Afghan government can protect the exhibit when it returns to Afghanistan. “My belief is that all of these artifacts were protected because of the people, not the government,” he said.

Connecting to the East Bay Afghan community

To get the word out, Qayoumi said he did interviews on several Afghan television stations, including Fremont’s Le Mar TV, as well as presented at local organizations such as the Hayward Rotary Club. The museum translated the exhibition brochure into both Dari and Pashtu.

For Saturday, Dec. 6, Rev. Bruce Green, an interfaith facilitator at Centerville Presbyterian Church, said he is organizing buses and free admission for the Afghan community, particularly the poorer and elderly members. Using buses donated by Fremont’s Bridges Community Church and free admission provided by the museum, Green expects 200 people to make the journey from the East Bay. One pick-up was scheduled for the Afghan Coalition office in Fremont, and another likely will be in the Concord area.

“It’s too good for any afghan to miss,” said Green. “It’s their national treasure. Anyone would be really inspired about it.”

For more information, visit: Asian Art Museum, the National Geographic Society and the National Gallery of Art.

Fremont – These are tough times for Rahim Aurang. After working for many years with a staff of helpers to aid thousands of newcomers to the United States settle in the Bay Area, he now sits alone in his office in Fremont.

Lack of funding means Aurang, an Afghan-American, cannot afford to draw a salary for himself, let alone a staff. The services of his non-profit agency, the Bay Area Immigrant and Refugee Services, are also severely curtailed.

Rahim Aurang sits at his desk at his office in Fremont. Photo by Mateen Kaul

But with a shrug of the shoulders, he downplays his troubles and talks animatedly about the future. He plans to open an office in Concord to work out of for a couple of days a week, to serve the Afghan community in Contra Costa County. And he is approaching international aid agencies to seek funding for a humanitarian program to assist orphans and widows in his country of origin.

He squints his eyes, raises the pitch of his voice and gesticulates as he talks about the suffering of women and children in the war-torn country, particularly of young orphans in the harsh Afghan winter. “I’ve seen myself, little children sleeping on the sidewalk, their eyes and faces swollen with the cold,” he said.

He thinks much of the money poured into Afghanistan for its reconstruction since the US-led war to oust the Taliban in 2001 has been wasted. “So much money has gone in. What have they done with it? No one knows,” he said.

He hopes to open a center for widows and orphans with money from aid agencies.

Aurang has a long association with the US. He was educated in the US in the 1960s and when he returned to Afghanistan in 1970, it was to head a hydroelectric project funded by the US. But then the Communists seized power and, suspicious of his connections with America, removed him from his job. “They probably thought I was with the CIA,” he joked.

He left Afghanistan in 1982 and took up residence in the US, where his first job was as an employment counsellor for immigrants in Oakland. He opened the Afghan Support Agency in 1989, which later became BAIRS, to reflect the fact that it served not just Afghans, but all immigrants, he said. Aurang estimates that the agency has helped some 10,000 Afghans alone settle in the Bay Area.

Last Year, Aurang moved his office from Oakland to Fremont, on the advice of Afghan friends who were convinced it would be a good idea to come to a city with one of the biggest Afghan populations in the US. It’s a move he regrets. He now gets fewer clients, and many clients of nationalities other than Afghan have been lost. His office is in a less prominent location.

The services on offer have also had to be curtailed, because of lack of funding. In Oakland, the agency ran programs to give refugees professional training, help women and warn youths of the dangers of drugs and gangs. All funding came from Alameda County. But last year, the money started drying up because of the bad economy and rising demand on city budgets. Now he only gets money from the county for services he provides to elderly refugees, accounting for $6,000-7,000 per year, “barely enough to cover rent,” he said.

He said he is lucky that his landlord, who runs an insurance company from offices next door, gives him a discount rent rate and free utilities. The phone number listed for the agency is Aurang’s personal cell phone number. He draws no salary for his work. Asked how he survives, Aurang said his wife has a good job and his kids are both graduates of UC Berkeley.

But he knows the situation is worse for others. Midway through our interview, he stops to take a call. It is from a colleague and friend in Oakland who, until recently, ran the East Bay Vietnamese Association. “He shut down in May, after 32 years in the business,” Aurang said.

Representatives of all of Fremont’s major faiths — with one notable exception — gathered at St Joseph’s Parish on Monday for a Thanksgiving service celebrating the religious diversity in the Tri-City area.

Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Thai Buddhists, Baha’is and Ohlone Indians dressed in colorful traditional costumes read prayers and performed songs and dances during the 90-minute program at the church in Mission San Jose, the 46th of its kind organized by the Tri-City Interfaith Council, said its president Reverend Chris Schriner.

However, representatives of one of the largest religions in Fremont, Hinduism, were conspicuous in their absence. Hinduism is the native religion of India and some 35,000 Indians live in Fremont, according to the 2006 American Community Survey of the US Census.

Fremont Vice Mayor Anu Naturajan, a frequenter of the city’s prominent Hindu temple, attended as a city representative. She said she was impressed by the unifying theme of the event, but surprised that there were no Hindu representatives. “I’m gonna make sure they attend next year,” she said.

Reverend Chris Schriner, president of the Tri-City Interfaith Council, said he had tried to reach out to the Hindu temple to get representatives at the event. Language problems might have hindered their communication, he said.

He said the Thanksgiving service was a unique opportunity for the religious groups in Fremont to interact because of its  tremendous diversity. “The talking and chance to mingle that we have after is as important as the service itself,” he said as guests tucked into refreshment following the program.

Ayaz Yousaf, director of the Islamic Educational and Cultural Research Center in Union City, said the Thanksgiving service gave Muslims a chance to show other people what Islam was about, rather than have them learn it first hand. “It also gave me some exposure. For example, it was the first time I saw the Baha’is,” he said.

The organizers collected canned goods and money for the Tri-City League of Volunteers at the event.

PART I: CLICK TO LISTEN – The Big Day: Black Friday Mania at a Fremont Target[audio:http://rosebud.journalism.berkeley.edu/~j200/510report/blackfriday.mp3]

A line of about 300 shoppers snakes around the Fremont Target on Black Friday.

By Tyler Sipe  –  

Lured by retailers, the shopping faithful waited in long lines on Thanksgiving and Black Friday in order to get their hand on heavily discounted hot ticket items.  At the Target in Fremont, consumers were plentiful, but spendthrift, making officials cautiously optimistic about the holiday shopping season.

PART II: CLICK TO LISTEN – Recapping the Weekend: Hopeful Sales Kick-Off Holiday Shopping Season[audio:http://rosebud.journalism.berkeley.edu/~j200/510report/black_friday.mp3]

After a flurry of shopping this weekend, retail stores return to normal.

By Karen Weise –

With low expectations given the shaky economy, retailers were pleased with this weekend’s sales.  Early analyst reports said retail sales for Thanksgiving weekend were better than last year, largely driven by deep discounts and promotions. Now they’re crossing their fingers in hope that the discounts didn’t gobble up all of their profits.

Jennifer and Jay Cruz were the first in line at Target, arriving at 2:30 am.

Electronics were the most popular items for Target customers on Black Friday.