Life of a Language Learner

Beach Time

2009-06-26T23:33:00.012+04:00

Ina is a language school student who arrived in February from Switzerland to do one term of Arabic language studies. I wanted to show her some of my favorite spots around this land I love. As we travelled I discovered again that it's the people you meet along the way that make life enjoyable!!

There is a seaside village about 1 hour from where we live, on the Gulf of Oman. It's an easy place to access for a quick weekend away and the beach is wonderful for swimming and walking. I booked us a place to stay but then I got rather insecure about the booking and worried "what if she doesn't like it". As we arrived and parked the car and walked through to the swimming pool and beach area, she stood there with arms wide open and proclaimed "my kind of place!" and I thought "yup, I've got a friend!"

One of the few places we can have bare arms and not worry about it too much is on the beaches, especially beaches frequented mostly by foreigners. There are also many beaches that have locals and I'd be less inclined to walk around wearing just a swimsuit.
We also took time to see the sights of the village.

Music Night

2009-06-26T08:09:00.010+04:00

For the past couple of years I have lived near the UAE border town of Al Ain, UAE which is in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. You might have heard of The Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage who have plans to open up a branch of The Louve and various other world class venues. One night in April they sponsored a music concert in Al Ain featuring a Korean Drumming Band and various others. It took place within the walls of Jahili Fort in the centre of Al Ain... and it was a great evening of entertainment!

loved the lighting effects

Camping with friends

2009-06-26T07:38:00.006+04:00

Full time language learning mixed with cultural adjustments and a new way of life can be very intense and stressful at times. Any opportunity to get away and enjoy the landscape was a welcomed occasion. No computers, speak English (but have the liberty to ask Arabic language questions), chats around the campfire... amazing what one night out with nature can do to restore a tired brain!

The last chance for us to experience the outdoors without the heat was back in April. We did some wilderness camping about a 45 minute drive from where I live. I learned a new camping trick of how to set a tent up in the wind... tie a rock-filled plastic bag to each of the four corners of the tent while you assemble the pole structure. Held it all down like a charm! Some of my expat friends have lived here a number of years and have a wealth of experience in wildnerss camping in the wadi's.

The pictures fail to capture the breathtaking views and stunning beauty of the landscape here.

Wadi Hike

2009-06-26T00:06:00.007+04:00

It's going to look like I actually get out hiking lots... let me tell you, I don't!! But this winter I made a concerted effort to get out there (twice!!). So here's a wadi (dry river bed) that my roommate and I walked up for about 3 miles. Hot day and lots of flies.. that's one of the annoying things here - when the weather here is cool enough to go outdoors and do something, you're joined by swarms of flies... AACCKK!! This wadi is about a 1-1/2 hour drive from where I live, is very isolated and a beautiful place to go for a walk. We saw no people for the six miles we walked... the locals think us expats are crazy for going hiking in the sunshine!one of the few times when I can go sleeveless! You can see tire tracks because although they don't go walking, everyone has a 4 x4 for wadi driving. Once or twice a year it rains hard enough that these wadis fill up with water.

hitch-hikers!the view of the wadi from above

Fossil Valley

2009-06-25T23:21:00.007+04:00

This is about 30 minutes from home - an area called Fossil Valley where we go for picnics and evening fires (during the cooler time of the year - these pictures were taken in January). All the rocks up in this area have fossils of sea shells in them.

The kids climbing the rocks.

Enjoying the Outdoors

2009-06-25T22:24:00.014+04:00

The landscape in this country is so beautiful and diverse (mountains, desert dunes, seaside beaches). But it's hard to enjoy the terrain during the intense heat most of the year. When the temps dropped a little between December and March we took advantage of it and enjoyed the outdoors. I miss walking and hiking ... it just doesn't happen very much here. Unless of course it's in an air-conditioned mall!! If these pics are familiar to you... you've been on Facebook!!

January Journey

2009-06-25T20:04:00.031+04:00

During our semester break at the end of January I had an opportunity to visit a friend in Yemen. Language learners always look for language opportunities!

I flew into the port city of Aden in the south.As the shared cab I hailed in Aden (me, my girlfriend, about 7 others and the driver... now that was a "shared cab"!) arrived in the interior city I was amazed how much it looked like the cities I'd visited during my time in West Africa with the
Mercy Ship m/v Anastasis.The colorful street markets reminded
me of Freetown, Sierra Leone. We took a bus up one of the mountains for lunch and enjoyed an amazing view of the city of 500,000 while sipping our sweet tea. We walked back down the mountain to visit
friends in a village overlooking the city. Their Yemeni Arabic dialect is different from my Gulf Arabic dialect and as we visited, one of the ladies said (in Arabic of course!) "oh listen to her, she speaks Gulfee!! talk to us in Gulfee!!" with the same kind of glee that we might say when we hear someone speaking English to us in a deep Irish brogue! It was easier for them to understand me than it was for me to understand them.

And when the shared cab is full? no problem... just hop on top!

And Carolyn got her Camel Sightings!

2009-04-11T19:35:00.005+04:00

On Rick and Carolyn's last day in town, we headed out to my favorite spot again. I can't begin to tell you how much I love the desert. The heat, the sand, the unending vista of dunes. It's one of my favorite places to be (but not in the middle of summer!). We picked up some iced lattes in town and headed out for our final day of camel sightings!

Carolyn and I sat on the dunes for awhile chatting, but the wind was blowing the sand into our eyes, mouths, and drinks... so we didn't last too long.Check it out - riding a camel while talking on a mobile phone.
Just seems like two worlds coming together! And we got to see a mommy and her one month old baby
... so cute and fluffy!

And a camel and rider passing behind the "camel crossing" sign! You can see the glare of the early evening sun on the left of the picture.

One fellow taking his camel for a walk - note - he's also on his mobile phone!

Al Hamra, Oman and Surrounding Area

2009-04-11T17:02:00.030+04:00

A 450 year old door carved with Qur'anic verses.This was my first time into the Al Hamra area of the interior of Oman. It's very close to Nizwa. The houses here are very old - some dating back three or four centuries. We found one old house converted into a museum - done as a traditional Omani village house of long. Our Omani guide estimated the house was about 450 years old (that's 300 years older than my home country Canada!). Plenty of opportunity to learn my new language here! My brother said afterwards "if it weren't for you and your language learning, we wouldn't have learned a thing here!".

The houses are constructed out of sand-block - the kind that dissolves in the rains if they are not cement. Some of the houses were uninhabitable, but some were being used to this day and were wired with electricity.

One woman took time out from her cooking responsibilities to grind some sandalwood, mix it with olive oil, and paint our faces to make us smell pretty and look (more) beautiful.The women were cooking over open fires. Roasting coffee beans and making traditional Omani coffee. It looks blurry, but that's because the cooking area was filling up with smoke.

At the end of the tour we were invited into the Majilis for traditional coffee and dates.

Washing up!You can see our car was just the right size for these old narrow streets!A short walk through the local date palm plantation. We found a little shop that sold local halwa, a traditional Omani sweet (that is to die for!). I don't know the recipe because it's a big Omani secret!!Bartering for woven baskets made with camel hide.Finish our time watching the sunset over Al Hamra. This overlooks the old houses in the village pictured above.

Into the Interior, Nizwa and Surrounding Area.

2009-04-11T15:25:00.024+04:00

Dinner or Pet?The route we traveled, Dubai, Muscat, Nizwa, Buraimi and Dubai is a circle tour that is easily doable in a week to 10 days. After seeing the coastal area and the capital city Muscat, Rick and Carolyn and I headed into the interior (the Dakhiliah) to see Nizwa and the surrounding area. This country has stunning beauty and an amazing history. We visited forts (museums), souq's, castles, and wadi's along the way. We had perfect weather, not too hot, not too cold. And we actually did get to see some "random camels" along the roadways! All while catching up on the last nine years of our lives. And somewhere in there, I even managed to get a little language study and practice.My favorite part of the Nizwa trip is always the Friday Morning Market... The craft souq The fort/museum with views overlooking the Nizwa region. Inside the fort is a museum where there was a display about the women's masks. Each region has its own version of what the woman's face covering should look like. Enjoying the shade while having a snack. This is the city we spent a quiet Christmas in. An evening snack of chocolate covered dates and coffee in our Christmas mugs. You can find more details on Carolyn's website and scroll down to December 25th.

Off to See the Battinah Region of Oman

2009-04-11T14:33:00.014+04:00

After our days in Dubai and dune bashing, we headed into Oman. We followed the Gulf of Oman coastline down the Batinah region to the capital city of Muscat. The beaches along this coastline are beautiful and we stopped to see a few along the way. Picnic lunch on the beach in Sohar and dipping into the Gulf of Oman for the first time.Al Sawadi Beach with its cluster of islands off shore
(famous scuba diving location).

Then made our way to the old Muttrah souq in the older section of Muscat, stopping at the fish market along the way. This kitty was so fixated on the fish, nothing would make it move. Another man was throwing cut pieces of fish at the cat and it never flinched. And Carolyn tried on some local attire. While Rick and I browsed the silver shops. Then off to see the Sultan's (winter) palace.

I love the arches. Such a natural frame for this picture. Muscat at night the fort on the mountain overlooking Muttrah was built during the Portuguese occupation

Dune Bashing in the Desert

2009-04-11T13:36:00.010+04:00

Before they came to visit, Carolyn told me that it was imperative they see camels. Pernell had told them that when he came to visit, we saw lots of random camels along the roads! Talk about pressure! I said "well, we see them often but I can't guarantee". But Carolyn then told me that when they have guests to their boat (they live on a boat in the Caribbean), she feels very obligated to make dolphins appear for the enjoyment of her guests, and thus, she didn't feel it was too much to ask for camels. I immediately booked us a dune bashing tour with Arabian Adventures... then the pressure would be on the tour company, not on me!! We weren't disappointed. The tour is a full afternoon & evening. We go with the tour operator out to the desert (in SUV's, not on camels) where we meet the other dune bashers (and camels). The drivers let the air out of their tires and off we head to bash the dunes. It's somewhat like a roller coaster ride. As we headed out he said "so, go gentle?" (I think because there was a lot of grey hair in the car) and I said "no no, go the full thing, don't worry about our ages!!" We managed to get stuck at one point and another car had to come and pull us out. When we stopped half way through for our sunset viewing, Rick and I confided in each other that we were feeling quite car sick and the thought of getting back into the car wasn't an appealing thought! We finish the dune bashing evening with some camel riding and a meal in the desert. Good Arabian Adventure!! (I do recommend them as a tour company - this was my second foray into the desert with them - you wont' be disappointed).It was fun to share my desert and my camels with them!

My Brother & His Wife Came for Christmas Visit

2009-04-11T09:03:00.025+04:00

My brother Rick and his wife Carolyn came to visit for two weeks over the Christmas break. We hadn't seen each other for 9 years! They arrived in Dubai and we did the Dubai thing for a few days (it's all about Malls, as you've probably heard!), then headed out to the desert for some dune bashing, and then into Oman. It was fun to share a portion of my life here with them. They'd never been into the Arabian world before so it was all new for them. I won't write too much but Carolyn did a daily journal (click the link) that is posted on their website and scroll down to about December 18th.

We did the Dubai thing including the Dubai Museum, the abras across the creek to the souqs, checked out the price of gold and confirmed that I still couldn't afford it!! (actually, I think they bought some things). And we cooled off in air conditioned bus stop shelters! and saw the famous buildings of Dubai,

and enjoyed the scenery along the way. Dubai really does have its beautiful spots!

Madinat at Jumeriah is a shopping centre set up like an old fashioned souq.

Along with enjoying the souq atmosphere, it's surrounded by waterways you can take a little boat tour and see the famous Burj al Arab (from a distance... you can't get close unless you have a reservation).

Visited Mall of the Emirates, famous for its indoor ski slope. We didn't try it out that day - but enjoyed watching those who did. (Is that an early look of oh-hum on his face?) And Ibn Battuta Mall, famous for its themed sections and Museum exhibits on the history of the Arabian Explorer Ibn Battuta (we studied about him in our Arabic classes). Including the snow covered sailing vessel in the China Court. and Fancy Starbuck's in the Persian Court

And larger than life elephant in the Indian Court.

and even found Christmas decorations - not the norm' for this part of the world!!

and of course, what's a tour of Arabia without
baskets of camels!

But, eventually you tire of the malls, and it's time to go see the rest of the Gulf world!

Busy Schedule - no time to post - sorry!!

2009-01-07T14:19:00.018+04:00

December '08 and January '09 agenda:

December week one

classes and study a lot in prep for visitors later this month

look forward to next week's holiday so I can get caught up with all the blog postings, emails, apartment and travel preparations before visitors arrive the following week

December week two

holiday week - no classes
spend entire 7 days sick in bed when what I really wanted to do was all the thank you's, emails, blog updates, apartment preparations for visitors coming next week

December week three

Sunday - Wednesday classes - still feeling under the weather

Wednesday visitors from Canada arrive (my brother & his wife)

Thurs one week holiday begins and we start to travel (no Internet a good portion of the time) and still feeling under the weather and exhausted

December week four

share my country with visitors from Canada

whirlwind tour

take them to visit neighbors on the last three days

last day of month visitors head home and I ponder what a year it's been!

despite exhaustion - head to friend's to spend New Year's eve playing Wii !!

January week one

recover from visitors from Canada

classes

desperately try to catch up with missed school work

January week two

feel guilty about not:

studying enough last month

responding to the 100 emails of Christmas and New Year greetings that all served to make me feel loved and cared for!!

responding to the other 100 emails saying "are you alive" and "we're worried" all of which made me feel more loved and cared for!!

doing enough to prep for final language assessment for this semester which will take place in third week of January

sending Christmas Greetings (and wondering if anyone noticed)

wishing everyone a Happy New Year - on New Year's

posting anything on this blog since November

wonder if anyone has seen the pictures I posted on Facebook

Happy New Year everyone!! Next week we will have final language assessments for this semester. On January 22ND I finish the third of four semesters and after that will have a two week break. I'll be travelling a portion of that break. It will be somewhat of a "check it out" trip to another Arabic speaking country where I'm hoping to work after completing language school. As well during that break, I hope to have some time to update the blog and catch up with all of you. I so appreciate all the warm emails and Facebook notes of seasonal greetings and New Year's wishes!! You've made me feel very loved and cared for!!

Our first get together in nine years!

Picnics & Sand Storms

2008-11-23T21:18:00.029+04:00

A couple of weeks ago a group of us expats decided we wanted to go for a picnic and bonfire in the desert. Usually the sky here is always blue and clear. Today there was a bit of cloud hanging around in the distance. As we drive into the site of the gathering you can see from the multiple tire tracks this is a fairly popular place but this particular evening we had it to ourselves. Way off in the distance is the group... too far away to see them

This place is about seven minutes from my front door, just on the outskirts of our town. Once we joined the group I took this picture looking back towards the town, so it gives you an idea of how close we really are to home.

And they were getting set up for the annual bonfire in the desert.

The wind was just a breeze but was beginning to pick up a little speed. And then as we looked back towards the town again, we could see it was coming.

The mountains that were visible earlier were no longer visible but were covered with a fast moving brown cloud. It looks just like a bank of brown fog rolling in.

and the kids loved every minute of it!! Despite the sand and grit in the eyes and mouth.

you can imagine the havoc this wreaked on my camera!!

and eventually the wind died down enough and the sand went away so we could light the sparklers

and the glow sticks for the kids

in the picture below, on the right, they're trying to create a wind break to keep the bbq's going

enjoying the heat of the fire and the camaraderie of good friends.

Ah yes, another visa run

2008-11-14T00:16:00.018+04:00

Every 60 days I have to renew my visa and usually it goes pretty smoothly. I live in a border town so that helps a lot because the border posts are not too far away. Sometimes it goes smoothly, sometimes not quite. The latest visa story.

Arriving at the border post, the guard says to me "you have to go back to that other building with the white door to get a customs paper for the car before I can stamp you out". I park the car and go back to building with the white door to get the customs paper and the girl says

"No, you don't need a paper from us, go to the building next door, they'll give you the paper for your car".

I go to the building next door and no one is present at any desk. I wander around looking for someone - nothing. Empty building. I wait for 5 minutes at reception and no one shows. I return to the building with the white door and tell them there isn't anybody in the building next door. She says

"Go to the building after the building next door."

I walk to the third building "no, we don't give you a customs paper. You have to go to that building over there" and points in the general direction.

I walk to fourth building "no, not this building, the one across the way" and again points the way.

I walk to the fifth building (starting to feel quite thankful that it's sunny out and there aren't 15 buildings on this site). "No, we don't give you customs paper for your car but we can stamp out your passport". They stamp me out, charge me three times what I've paid every three months for the past year and tell me charges increased this month, pointing to an official looking poster on the wall (to find out that week at school that no one else had their charges increased). I inquire again about the customs paper required for my car:

"Go to that other building with white door to get the customs paper for your car".

"Been there, they said no not them". He kindly walks me to the door and points to the building and I say "but I've been there and they said I can't get the paper from them."

"Go again" he says politely holding the door for me, "they will give it to you".

I walk back to the first building with the white door and she sweetly tells me again "no no, you don't need a paper from us, just drive the car through."

Hop into my car and drive past one check point and show my stamped-out passport at the second checkpoint and he waves me through. I've now left country number one. I get to the border post for country number two just a 1/2 mile down the road:

"Sorry, we can't let you in. You must have customs paper for car."

"No one will give me a customs paper for my car, I tried."

"But we cannot let you in without it, go back and ask again."

“I cannot go back there, I'm stamped out of that country and they won't let me in without a stamp from your country."

"We cannot give you a stamp into our country until we see the customs paper for your car from that country. Park your car over there and walk back and ask for the customs paper for your car".

I park the car between the two border posts (no man's land between two countries) and walk back while pondering in my mind on this unexpected opportunity I have been presented to practice my new language!! I go to window of the first building "please can someone give me a customs paper for my car".

A border official comes out of the building and takes my car registration papers and upon reading them says:

"Who owns car."

"It's registered to my girlfriend's husband because I don't have residency but he has written a letter of permission for me to drive it."

Politely he informs me "This letter is no good without a government stamp on it."

"But I've used this letter for 14 months now and never had a problem."

"Someone should have told you, come with me".

We walk back to the building with the white door where it all began and I follow him in with my car registration papers in his hands and as he walks past the girls who've already told me three times "not here" he tells me "wait here" and the girl (who was very sweet and sympathetic) gives me a knowing look and whispers "he is new, doesn't know what he's doing".

Eventually he returns and I get my customs paper and once again another five minute exercise has taken 50 minutes of walking around in circles from one building to another. Eventually I have my new visa in my passport which was the whole object of the exercise. (Hmmm, less than 60 days and we do it again!) But I'm thankful for the opportunity to meet some wonderful people along way and practice my new language.

You see, that’s the thing about life here – nothing goes smoothly compared to western ways … but I’m so used to it now that even though it takes ten times longer to get things accomplished, in my new world I now can say “well, that went rather smoothly today, didn’t it! and another unexpected opportunity to use my new language!”.

Gecko Tales!

2008-11-10T23:33:00.010+04:00

Several months ago we discovered we had a pet in our apartment. The first time we met him, we may have yelped a little at the surprise of seeing him scurrying around! But he was pretty elusive at the best of times and when he saw us, he usually scrambled out of our way. Susie Q and I were gone for the summer and we thought he probably didn't make it through the heat in the apartment. But when we returned, to our surprise, we discovered a "baby" one scurrying by one day ... which told us that we must have been seeing more than "one" pet ... but they all look a like so who would have known.

Well, tonight we found our little friend (or, one of our little friends, we're never too sure anymore) met his demise. Susie Q & I were studying in our rooms when new roommate Mel came through carrying him on the spatula (you're already laughing I bet)... We're not sure how or why, but his tail was sticking out from under a closed door, and upon opening the door Mel discovered his little torso so she grabbed her handy dandy spatula that she happened to have close by... and scooped him up to bring us the sad news.I thought now might be the opportune time to get a few pictures - he was so cute and perky whenever we saw him, but he was always too fast for me to get a picture. So i took a few shots but it just wasn't the same little "cute" guy... he was looking pretty lifeless... (you must be thinking we have nothing better to do with our time these days!!)... so I said "maybe if you could turn him over, I could get a shot of him from the other side showing his eyes or something"... and at this point I had a hysterically funny video to show you, but I can't upload it to the site for some reason... too bad... the story kind of loses something without the video! ah well... such is life. I think I'll post the story anyway!! He really was a cute little guy in his day.

Blogger's sometimes get desperate for something to write about... you think?

The Sheba & His Asca

2008-10-17T16:14:00.018+04:00

can you see what he's holding in his hands?
this is a Sheba leaning on his asca

Older men here are called Sheba's and when they are out walking they always have their camel sticks (asca) with them. It's very cultural - you see it all the time. It's a throwback from the days when they were bedu in the desert herding camels. But even though there isn't a desert in our town, and rarely do we see a camel in the neighborhood (we did hear one behind a big wall one day and looked through the hole and saw his legs, but he ended up on someone's dinner table), still all the old Sheba's walk around with their asca's. It's very cute!! Except of course if you're on the receiving end of the asca in a disciplinary matter - like the little boy who stole our friend's bikes and when our friends discovered which house was responsible and knocked on the door, and explained the situation to the little boy's father - that father went into the house, found the little boy and bike, and herded them out of the house by angrily swiping the asca across the little boy's back. I'm quite sure a few hides have been tanned by asca's through the ages!

Here where I live we use propane gas in cylinders, hooked to our stoves and ovens in order to cook. To get the propane gas is not always an easy task. It's readily available, just not at the exact time we need it. This is true for everyone, not just us.

here's a previous posting about our propane cylinder

http://marilynreichert.blogspot.com/2008/01/misspelled-words-lead-to-wrong-messages.html

The problem is this. The gas cylinders are distributed by orange trucks driving up and down the streets honking their horns. In our area, the horn honking is usually very early in the morning, 7 am or thereabouts. Thus, if we need gas we must run out the door (after putting on appropriate long clothing that covers all skin - which never goes quickly) and flag the driver down as he passes by honking his horn. We've never made it yet!! The last time we tried to get gas, after a week of trying we finally we went to our landlord across the street and bought one from him. They happened to have an extra one available.

a man at the Friday Market with his asca in hand.

One day a few months ago a friend called to ask "where are you getting your gas, we can't seem to find a truck and we've been out of it for almost a week". I replied "there's an orange truck parked next to a house in our neighborhood. How about we drive over there and if the orange truck is there, we will knock on their door and say "our friend needs gas, please follow us" (because you remember, there are no addresses here, we cannot say 'go to this address'... that never works).

Suzy Q and I hopped into my car and drove over to where I'd seen the orange truck. Sure enough it was still there. But also parked out front of the same house, just between us and the orange truck, was a big green car that was idling. For us to get to the orange truck or through that passageway would mean the big green car would have to move ahead so we could pass through. But in actual fact, we didn't want to pass through. We just wanted to call the girlfriend and say "we found the truck - you want us to knock?". However, the big green car thought we wanted through so he moved ahead about 20 feet. We moved closer to the orange truck to get the phone number and Suzy Q called our friend.

another Sheba and his asca at Friday Market

While I'm sitting in the driver seat waiting, Suzy Q is on the phone with friend saying "we found the orange truck, do you want us to knock?" and at that point out from the house comes an old Sheba with his asca. He walks around the front of my car and I watch and sure enough, he begins to open the door on Suzy Q's side of the car - she screams (into the phone unfortunately) and quickly grabs the door and slams it shut and locks it. At which point the Sheba starts yelling, and then tries the back door of the car. But it was locked. Then out comes the asca and as my car is being thrashed by this asca... I'm beginning to realize that this Sheba is probably blind and perhaps thinks we are a taxi. But I didn't want to get out of the car to help him, or to clarify the point, because the asca was looking too dangerous!! He came around to my side of the car, banging all the way with his asca, and as he got to my door and tried to pull it open, asca swinging - I opened the window just a crack and yelled "mafi taxi, mafi tax" (not a taxi, not a taxi) which didn't seem to have an affect. So I yelled "ana ejnabi, ana ejnabi" (I'm a foreigner, I'm a foreigner) at which point he stops thrashing, leans down and peers in and says "shoe?" (what?) and I repeated "ana ejnabi" and he stops, and smiles and greets me and begins to chat when out of the green car that's pulled ahead I see a young man heading our direction with a very big grin on his face. The Sheba says "oh, hatha walidee" (oh there's my son) and as his son chuckles and takes his aging blind father's arm, the Sheba waves good-bye with his asca, proudly yelling back at us "hatha walidee, hatha walidee" (this is my son! this is my son). I would have given a million dollars to have my video camera up on my dashboard that day!! And every time I see a Sheba and his asca, I can't help but chuckle!

O Canada!

2008-10-17T15:57:00.004+04:00

This week I learned more about my own country while living in another country! Funny how that works. I have expat friends here (Dick and Jane) who home school their daughters. This year they are studying about other countries (they are Americans) and Jane asked if I'd come and teach the girls about my country, Canada! It was fun putting the power point together for them, complete with a fine rendition of singing O Canada!! At the end of the day, Dick asked his daughters "how was your day" and the youngest responded

'it was great, we learned about Canada!!'

So - do you know some famous Canadian inventions?
I bet you'd be surprised!!

Happy Thanksgiving Canada!

2008-10-15T22:42:00.003+04:00

Nothing special on my side of the world - but I know it was a special day for your side of the world! Sorry this is a late greeting - for some reason I couldn't get into my blog to update it before the holiday!! Hope you didn't eat too much turkey!!

The EID Holiday

2008-10-05T16:10:00.017+04:00

After The Holy Month of Ramadan finishes, our friends celebrate Eid Al Fitr.

Much like our western Christmas holiday, schools close for a week, everyone purchases new clothes, they give each other gifts, the older generation complains that it's become too commercialized and materialistic (which it has!) and the true meaning is being overlooked. On the actual day of Eid which is the day following the last day of fasting, they arise early in the morning, dress in their new clothes, prepare a lot of food (in some cases they'll have sacrificed a goat and buried it in a special bag in the ground with hot coals to cook - but that is more a requirement at the second important Eid Al Adha in December) then open their door to a day of visitors - neighbors and family. The second day of Eid, if they haven't travelled already, they'll all hit the roads and return to their villages of origin to be with their bigger family.

Note: up until Wednesday, for about a week we heard a lot of bleating goats in the neighborhood! It's amazingly quiet these days!

Eid Al Fitr is a different day for different countries because it's determined by the phase of the moon as seen from that country. Thus the country next door to us celebrated the day before our country (I'm not so sure the moon was in a different phase, but they think it was!). It tends to cause a bit of consternation for us who live in border towns. A lot of time is spent texting back and forth with friends "so is it today for you guys? we're not sure if it's tomorrow for us or not" and you're not sure if the stores are open or closed or if you can now eat & drink in public. But that seems to be ok with everyone!! Unlike us in the west who know that every year, despite moon phases
Christmas is December 25th.

my new Eid dress

Wednesday past was the actual day of Eid and my roommates and I planned a full day of visiting. Our first visit was 9 am and our last was 10:45 pm at night. In between the visits, we came home to freshen up before heading back out again. At each home we visited (no expat neighbors, just locals) there was plenty of coffee & food - cakes, cookies, fruit, roasted goat on rice. (They serve the desert first here! My kinda people!). The visits aren’t long but by the end of the day - I was exhausted!!

ready for our day of visiting

Our neighbors wanted to know if we got new Eid clothes. It's SUCH a big deal for them!! Knowing the day was coming, I purchased a dress during the summer when I was down in one of the cities inside the country (as opposed to here at the border where we blend into the country next door).It was so comfortable and everyone loved it that I dressed in their country's style!

The next day we were invited again to some neighbors and we arrived just as they were serving the freshly roasted goat. We didn't see them bring it out of the ground (perhaps we'll see that at Eid Al Adha), but I can assure you we ate TONS of goat on rice. It was probably one of the best meals I've ever experienced!!

A cultural challenge at times like this? A custom when serving coffee: only three small cups will be in the room at any given time. If there are 10 women in the room? No big deal. Just three little cups and everyone shares. The finjan holds about three sips of coffee (it's not strong like Turkish coffee - it's light coffee often flavored with saffron). Between use the finjan is rinsed in a bowl of cool water that's always present at visits for finger washing, fruit washing, or anything else that needs washing in that room at that point (spills on rugs, toys [if child present - little kids LOVE playing in the water bowl!]).

our coffee dulla and the finjans

The challenge? On one of our visits, the lady using the finjan before me had a terrible cold & headache and had shared that every bone in her body is aching. And I know I'm next on the finjan!
I pray a lot during visits!!

It was a busy week of visiting but I did manage to get in a lot of studying as well. Today it was back to school.

The Holy Month of Ramadan

2008-09-27T10:26:00.021+04:00

I returned from Europe to the desert the second last week of August. I wanted to get back to the desert heat! and I returned with joy and great expectations of another new season of adventure & learning. Although I had not been in the language too much over the summer this early return gave great opportunities to catch up again with my neighbors and the language. The neighbors we visit speak little or no English. It's Arabic or nothing!! I was pleasantly surprised how quickly the language came back to me. And it was great to be back with them again, enjoying their hospitality and hearing of their summer activities. May of them travel during the summer, heading down to Salalah - a favorite destination on the south coast because of the greenery, rain and cool temps.

Because the Holy Month of Ramadan had begun, our visiting took place at night after the daily fast was broken. So for two weeks I became the ultimate night owl! Visiting late, drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of sweet creme carmel. Just before school started (two weeks ago) I had to readjust my sleeping patterns to get ready for the new year.

Every evening just before sunset our landlord arranges for the Iftar dinner for our street to be held out front of our building and each evening we move our cars (when we remember, and if we forget we have a knock on the door) and out come the carpets and cushions, plates of dates (dates break the fast) and pans of rice and chicken and/or lamb. All the local men come to eat out front (the women eat in the privacy of their homes).

Pictures from my front window - setting up for the Iftar meal

more have come to join the festivities

the time has come to break the fast (as soon as the sun sets)

We've learned lots about Ramadan from our friends, and the important role it plays in their lives. Some back home have asked "does it affect your daily life?". In some ways yes. But nothing I can't live with! Although we do not share the same faith as the locals, it is a punishable offence to eat or drink in public during the Holy month. All the restaurants and food courts are closed during the daylight hours. I have to always remember to hydrate before leaving the apartment. I have been known to pull the car over under the guard of a big tree and grab a little sip of juice, careful not to be seen! After the Iftar meal all the malls and streets are alive with people as soon as the Iftar dinner has been devoured! It's not a good time to go shopping!!

One evening I forgot to move the car before they set up. They knocked on my door, but I was downstairs having dinner with my girlfriends in the unit below. Soon there was a knock on that door and as I looked out the peephole, I knew what the problem was. I quickly opened the door and said I would be there in a minute to move the car. As I walked out to do so, I saw that they were sitting right next to my driver side door (just a tad embarrassing) and as I opened the car door to get in (while they all shuffled) and sat on the seat I realized the side seam of the long dress i was wearing to cover the legs (must NEVER SHOW SKIN) had split and the dress opened up all the way to my thigh and as i quickly pulled my bare leg into the drivers seat with me, every eye was on it. Oh man... I couldn't close that door fast enough! Grace is a wonderful thing and I'm so thankful God has a lot of it!

Quoted From The Gulf News:

Ramadan: A month to reflect on Islam
Ramadan is a month to be near to the Creator and renew the commitment to fully abide by his teachings. Ramadan is sacred among all the months in Islam as it was during this month that Allah revealed the Holy Qua'ran to mankind. The essence of Ramadan is not just alone in fasting and prayers but lays in its simplicity and purity. It is this spirit of Ramadan that unites Muslims all over the world in brotherhood and community feeling. Muslims all over get an opportunity to reflect into themselves and self-restraint and discipline. Fasting in the holiest month is to assist one to help develop their moral discipline, and serves as a reminder to the plight of those who live in constant hunger and deprivation. But first it is quite important to have an intention to undertake fasting. One need not be loud about it but humble in his or her intentions. The commitment to fast should come from within, and be followed.

A Time For Coming Together:
It is a sight to behold in front of mosques across the country where hundreds of Muslims sit in rows, shoulder to shoulder having Iftar at sunset, while at homes family members all gather together to break the fast. Those who can afford, throw their gates open for one and all at the time of Iftar. After Isha and Taraweeh prayers, visits to friends, and relatives and social activities at various Ramadan tents gets underway and continues late into the night.

" It is impossible to understand the subtle nuances and deep meanings of another culture without knowing its language well."
(Dr. Dennis O'Neil Behavioral Sciences Department, Palomar College, San Marcos, California)

Childhood Friends

2008-09-27T06:49:00.040+04:00

As I set the camera up on a wall to take this picture with time exposure, Madeleine said to me "I wondered how you got so many pictures of yourself and thought maybe you had asked an awful lot of people to take your picture wherever you went!" My secret was out!

About three years ago I received a message from a webmaster whose site contained a story about my life. Over the years I had googled for Madeleine but to no avail. The last we had seen each other was 30 years ago when I was married and raising children and she was single and pursuing education. The web master's message was for me a moment of delight in our wired world! Since then Madeleine and I have kept in touch - chatting long distance on faith, family and where the journey of life has taken us. She's married now and lives in France with her husband and daughters. We've known each other since the age of 4. As I planned my summer journey I believed this would be a good time to visit.

Leading up to our visit I experienced countless feelings of inadequacy - she's well educated and a knowledge seeker and I worried she had accomplished more than I over the years (ps - I'm over it!!); her marriage was still intact (and wonderfully happy) after 25 years; she's a published author, and so on went my thoughts. My gripping moments of insecurities soon faded after the first few awkward moments and we relaxed into hours of talking mixed with miles of walking and biking.

Daily walking of the pooches was a must!!

Madeleine remembers much more from our childhoods than I could ever hope to remember. I'm not sure why - but my life has a lot of blank moments. It's not bothered me too much over the years - the kids and I have adjusted to the fact "mom doesn't remember" and we've found ways to work around it and dropped the expectations that I "should have remembered". (You can see one of the reasons that language learning can be a challenge for me!). My visit with Madeleine filled in some of the blanks. She has an uncanny ability to remember teachers names, friends of long ago - what they looked like, things they said...

We spent our days walking or biking through the fields near her home - I can't do either here where I live so it was a special treat for me to be out roaming the hills, enjoying the scenery while sharing our journeys.

Fields of seed sorghum

In our week of getting to re-know one another we covered all the topics - faith, parenting, marriages, careers, health... She and Karel were great hosts and my time with them was poignant, relaxing and refreshing. As I was leaving, Madeleine told me that she had been dreading the visit (mostly because we have different views on faith) and was pleasantly surprised at how well it went!!

For me - it was one of the highlights of my year!

Our lives are like a candle in the wind.
Carl Sandburg

Wherever we went, the puppies were with us!
They're a big part of her family!!

Besides sharing her home, her family and her heart - Madeleine took me to see some of the French history. We visited the Alsace Eco Museum which is a reconstitution of a real Alsatian village, with 73 houses which were dismantled and rebuilt in this location. Some houses dated back to the 1600's.

*The traditional habitat of the Alsacian lowland consists of houses constructed with walls in half-timbering and cob and roofing in flat tiles. This type of construction can be seen in other areas of France, but their particular abundance in Alsace is owed to several reasons:

Wood was used more than stone because it resisted earthquakes better, due to its greater flexibility.

The proximity to the Vosges where the wood can be found

During periods of war and bubonic plague, villages were often burned down, so to prevent the collapse of the upper floors, ground floors were built of stone and upper floors built in half-timberings to prevent the spread of fire.

During most of the part of its history, a great part of Alsace was flooded by the Rhine every year. Half-timbered houses were easy to knock down and to move around during those times (a day was necessary to move it and a day to rebuild it in another place).

(*Wikipedia)

house framework

filled in with mud/dung

covered with wattle, dung & straw then painted

The stork is a main feature of Alsace and was the subject of many legends told to children ( that IS where babies come from, isn't it? ). The bird practically disappeared around 1970, but re-population efforts are continuing. They are mostly found on roofs of houses, churches and other public buildings in Alsace.

beautiful gardens

Thanks for being a part of my journey of life Madeleine!

The feeling remains that God is on the journey, too.
Saint Teresa of Avila

Childhood is a short season.
Helen Hayes

A narrow house in Blotzheim, Alsace

A man of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Proverbs 18:24

Reconnecting

2008-09-26T17:07:00.008+04:00

The one week conference was a time of reconnecting with friends I hadn't seen for awhile. During our free time, between plenary sessions, workshops and IT appointments, we had opporunity to bike ride and enjoy the countryside.

Mary Beth, Mel, Liz, Francis & I headed to our favorite spot every day!Can't get enough of those bakeries!!

One day a large group of us did a circle tour. The inevitable fork in the road decision that always happens when's there a big group!!

I have to say though in the midst of the rain and the cold winds, I was missing my desert heat!! Just after this picture was taken, the wind blew all the bikes over!

Bike Rides of August

2008-09-26T15:16:00.021+04:00

When you live in the deserts of Arabia there are some things you cannot do. It's culturally not acceptable here for women to ride bikes, and it's too darn hot!!

So I had a summer plan!!

In August I attended a conference in Europe and decided to visit my friend Maria whom I'd worked with on the Mercy Ship m/v Anastasis a few years ago. Before I arrived I'd mentioned that I would love to do some bike riding with her. I know that Maria rides a lot. After landing in Amsterdam, I followed her instructions and boarded my train to meet her in the north.

As my train pulled into my final station I hesitated and thought "oh, it's not the right station" but then I realized it was, but I couldn't figure out how to open the train doors (my friend Ron used to say "are you sure you weren't blonde in your formal life - kind of makes sense now, doesn't it!). As the train pulled out of the station, I saw Maria on the platform, on her cell calling me ... well, you get the picture. I got to the next station and waited there for Maria to arrive by bus! A good start to my European vacation! But Maria's pretty gracious so we worked it all through (although I'm sure she was having some second thoughts)!!

The second day of my visit we headed out for a "little" bike ride.

The scenes along the way, through parks, past canals, greenery everywhere - it was so beautiful and we had a bright sunny day. I was excited!! I'd always had a dream to bike through the Netherlands. This was my dream come true day!!

After the first 16km I was beginning to question the health condition of my heart - but we were on a deadline and there was a ferry to catch. And besides, this was a dream come true (I kept trying to convince myself) - I should be thrilled!

We made it to the ferry - not without a little sweat and pain on my part!!

on the ferry with Maria and her granddaughters

After the ferry to Texel Island (off the north coast of the Netherlands) we disembarked and headed to the Ecomare - a marine aquarium museum centre - but we had a deadline to meet for the feeding of the seals. Maria's granddaughters would miss the feeding if we didn't hurry!

And again, the landscape was stunning.

farm fields

fields of heather

villages

forests

As we sat and lunched at Ecomare while the kids enjoyed the seals and scenes,
all I could think of was that dreaded return trip!!
As the day went along, pretty soon the thought of actually sitting on that bike was excruciating. So of course I was always looking for that next coffee break!!

But it inevitably ended and we had to set out again.
Maria - such a trooper. Same age as me, she rode her bike effortlessly with her granddaughter on the back of it! At one point, because of the concern we would miss the return ferry, Maria was riding her bike, granddaughter on the back of it, and her right arm extended out perpendicular to the ground and her hand in the middle of my back pushing me!!

In the end, Maria and the girls went on ahead and I began to walk my bike. I just couldn't do the riding anymore!! After a couple of kilometers, Maria's son-in-law (my hero!) arrived with his car to pick me up and take me home but here wasn't room in the car for my bike. When he dropped me off, he returned to the bike location with Maria and she rode that one home too!

It had been a dream of mine to bike ride in the Netherlands.
Thanks Maria - you made my dream came true!!

Walk to the North Sea

2008-09-26T15:10:00.000+04:00

Maria lives walking distance to the beautiful beaches on the shores of the North Sea. I loved being with her and enjoying the beauty of her country! It was a great time of renewing a friendship while relaxing my brain from language learning!

An August note.

2008-08-13T11:41:00.012+04:00

My summer highlight?
Pernell's visit!!

The summer has been a busy go go go time. Just wanted to put a quick note on here that I'm still in transit and will update the blog once I "land" somewhere and have some time. Up to this point, I finished my volunteer assignment (see previous post) when my son Pernell arrived on July 22. We traveled throughout my new country for 10 days, walking beaches and desert dunes (in 50+C temps!), watching large green sea turtles nesting, touring forts and castles, picking fresh dates in the palm orchards, snorkeling on some of the beautiful coral reefs, and enjoying one another's company. While we were driving (a lot!) we didn't have any radio or music - but I was delighted to see that Pernell still loves to talk talk talk and I heard about 10 years worth of stories ! It was WONDERFUL!

hiking the dunes - it was so hot this day that the sand burned my feet as it came through the holes in my crocs!! we only lasted about 15 minutes!

outside the gates of the palace of the Sultan of Oman

walking along the cornice in Muscat on the Sea of Oman

meeting my favorites along the way! we saw lots of camels in our journeys.

When Pernell first heard me speaking Arabic with a local he said "Whoa Mom... I had no idea! you just had a full on conversation! I thought maybe you could say 'hello, how are you'... ". It was fun to see his surprise! He also noted that every single person (local) that I spoke to in Arabic were delighted to see that I was learning their language and wanted to know where I was learning and took a genuine interest.

touring one of the forts/museums

tracks left by a giant green sea turtle after it laid its eggs in the nest and headed back out to sea. We only saw the turtles at night and no flash photography was allowed. Baby turtles were hatching all around us and Pernell had the opportunity to carry a couple of baby turtles down to the sea to send them off to the world!!

On Aug 4th Pernell and I flew out together to London, UK and from there he headed back to Canada and I headed to the Netherlands. I spent the first four days here visiting with my friend Maria whom I worked with on the ship. We had a wonderful visit (including a 50 km bike ride to Texel Island - I was not able to complete the last 10 k... I mostly walked [crawled?]!! But it was an excellent time.

This week I am at my company's international conference in the Netherlands. A time of coming together with about 400+ from all over the world. My roommates are the same roommates I had at my training last year in the US. Fun reunion time with them and catching up on "what's life like for you in the Arabic speaking world". It's been an excellent time of networking and reunions.

The only downside has been the computer issues... I had an update done on my computer and all my data was lost and data bases wiped out etc. Fortunately I had backed up a good portion to the external hard drive - however, for some reason not my Microsoft Outlook data base. So the last copy I had of that was from November 2007. And in January '08 I had done a major overhaul of my address book and contacts information. Just a tad discouraging. I'm reminded (again!) that I should not hold onto things too tightly in this world!! And do backups regularly!!

On Friday I will leave here and head to France to visit a girlfriend I've known for about 53 years! I'm looking forward to our time together. Following that I head back to my desert home to catch up with all my neighbors and prepare for another year of language studies.

I hope your summer is going well and I look forward to catching up with you when my travels are over. If you're on Facebook - you'll find me there and some of the summer pictures.

Back to the seminars now!

July's Assignment

2008-07-24T15:50:00.015+04:00

After I wrote my final Classical Arabic language assessment (and recovered from the tooth trauma!) at the end of June I headed directly to my July assignment. I have been volunteering in a large villa owned by a girlfriend and her husband and run as a B & B for the past number of years.

The villa has capacity for 35 visitors a night and most nights the place was a full house. The guests are provided with a private bedroom and bathroom facilities and breakfast and dinner each day. There's a swimming pool & gardens for their pleasure. The establishment's goal is to afford a relaxing and inexpensive place where foreign field workers can go to rest and get restored for the next leg of the journey. Because I was available to help out for the month of July my friend and her husband who own the villa could take a long overdue holiday.

These little girls kept an eye on me from the kitchen door! They were here with their families for a rest before heading back to a difficult area of the world.When I worked on the ship in West Africa for 2-1/2 years I learned there is great value in foreign field workers having a place to go that is restful, peaceful, not expensive and easy to get to. A place for "time out" from the stresses of being a foreign field worker.

I was assigned to the kitchen duties for the month and did most of the cooking for the guests. B & M who've been working there for awhile helped me out with the details. (But I still managed to cook too much and failed to overcome my fears of "not enough food for the guests", even though they kept saying "honestly, that's enough!!". We won't talk about how much spaghetti was left over!!) As most of you know, for years I had resigned from cooking and kitchen duties (since Jonathan left the coop!) but I thoroughly enjoyed being back in the apron again!

"what was that number for dinner?"

The dining room

The sitting room where guests could network and relax
There were six of us that worked here including B and her husband from Canadaand Marie from the Seychelles (she gets the "patience" award!!)I loved volunteering here and met many foreign workers who were either having a vacation/rest or were in transition between home & field. It was also an opportunity to learn more about my future country and the work possibilities once I've completed language school. Although I didn't have a lot of opportunity to use my new language during this assignment, it was still an invaluable experience in preparation for future endeavours. There is a possibility I will run a similar business in my next country and now I've learned from the best!!

Marie harvesting the dates that had ripened.

My roommate M and I became good friends (she was transitioning to this city from working in Sudan). I was telling her that in this city, you can get a ticket for having a dirty car!

iced lattes and car washes helped us to deal with the 50+ temps!!And now Pernell has arrived (July 22ND) and my assignment has come to an end.
Pernell and I are off to tour Dubai for a day before we head into Oman for two weeks of holiday travel.

What a mess! But holidays are coming!

2008-06-30T12:20:00.000+04:00

Unfortunately I spent all last week sick in bed with tremendous pain from tooth issues which eventually required a root canal. The infection and swelling was so bad the dentist could not touch it for three or four days. Finally she managed to do the root canal yesterday - three root canals on one tooth. Again today just a tad painful - but nothing compared with last week's nightmare.

I remember when I worked on the Mercy Ship m/v Anastasis in West Africa, our dentists would share stories of West Africans with horrendous teeth issues. One story was of a man standing in the lineup hoping for treatment. When the nurses got to him, he was holding something in his hand. His face was an open sore and he opened his hand to show that his teeth had been so infected, they came out the side of his face, through his cheek. I cannot imagine how they coped with the pain without having any medical facilities or dentists and doctors.

I also thought about a story I was told whereby many years ago if a person went to be a foreign worker in Africa (we're talking 100 years ago perhaps?), they went to Africa knowing they would probably not be returning home again (in those days you went by ship and it took months and you went for life). There would be no medical facility available and thus the last thing they did before leaving home in the western world and travelling to the continent of Africa was to have all their teeth pulled - because if they got a tooth infection in Africa, they would die. Last week I was ready to pull them myself!!

So now I'm trying to catch up on lost time. I missed my final written assessment for Classical Arabic and I've been studying the past two days to prepare for it. I'll write it tomorrow. Today I thought I would soak my feet (they get very dry and sore here in this heat & sun) while studying at my desk. One of my study techniques is to review past exams and make "quizzes" out of them. So I had the pile of previous exams on my lap while I was writing quizzes, and they slid off my lap and into my basin of foot soak! ARGGGHHHHH!!!

They're now drying out on my bedroom floor! What a mess!!

Tomorrow I will write the exam and the following day I will report for work (volunteer position) in Dubai. I'll work there for three weeks until my son arrives from Canada. Then we will travel throughout my new country for two weeks. I can't wait to see him!! I wonder what he'll think when he hears his momma speaking Arabic!!

The Expat Church

2008-06-30T11:47:00.007+04:00

Every week I attend a church in the bigger city over the border (remember, I'm in a border town here). It's an expat church affiliated with the expat hospital in that city and there's regularly about 350 in attendance. Before arriving to this land I really had no idea that such a church existed. It is a very multi-national group.

It reminds me of this verse that John wrote in Revelation:

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb."
Revelation 7:9-10

In July things will change because the government on the other side is securing the border between our town and that city and going back and forth, which I have done 1 or 2 times a week or more since arriving here, will cease to happen on a regular basis. I'm sure I'll adjust!

The Western Bridal Shower

2008-06-30T10:30:00.001+04:00

This time of year there are a lot of weddings happening around me. Every weekend I hear the sounds of music and laughter coming from one of the houses in my neighborhood. Although I've been to two weddings at hotels, most weddings here happen in the home of the bride, which is more traditional. As the local school year ends for the season many of the young girls who are graduating will now get married.

A couple of weeks ago, we language school students held a "western bridal shower" for one of our language teachers that will get married in July. This is a very 'western' thing. The teachers in my school are all local people, but they're greatly influenced by us expats and our ways! (I'm not saying that that is a good thing!).

We played the "toilet paper bride" game and our groups bride won! the hostess (who is the sister of the real bride) wanted her picture taken too!

The bride opening her gifts and enjoying the Western flavored evening.

Truck Contents

2008-06-15T22:00:00.004+04:00

Driving along the street one day, we saw a small pickup in the distance with something in the back... hmmm.... wonder what that is up there! So we pulled up along side and sure enough, the herd's on the move again! We've seen so many scenes like this. Goats in the back seat of some one's car, camels in the pack up Toyota pickups. We saw one truck with multi layers of little goats! The challenge is taking the pictures - the drivers here are crazy and we take our life in our hands every time we go out on the roads. So add "taking a picture while driving" to that mix, not good! Thus the pictures only get taken if I have a passenger with me (and I can keep up to the speeding vehicle!).

I need a secretary!!

2008-06-15T21:57:00.002+04:00

You know, I have a TON of stories to tell about life here on the Arabian peninsula. And I also have a ton of emails that need responses. A long overdue newsletter should be going out. And this week a ton of tests and exams which require a ton of studying.

What I don't have is a TON of is TIME!!!

ARGGGGHHHHHH!!!!

It's getting hot here!!

2008-06-13T08:15:00.010+04:00

Summer has quickly come upon us in this region of the world. The locals feel it's come early this year. Personally I love it - I love the sun, the heat (as long as I'm not out in it for extended periods of time), the no rain (the locals are horrified when I say that). I noticed in my home city of Vancouver, BC that they've had little sunshine since December. The long weekend in May was the first sign of sunshine sine December last year. That would sooooo depress me. The temps lately have risen as high as 50C / 122F.

My March 28th posting talked a little about weather & summer's coming. http://marilynreichert.blogspot.com/2008/03/weather-summers-coming.html

So this week I was thinking of writing about the things not to do when summer arrives. Either I or someone I know has experienced these "tips":

Do Not:

leave the butter sitting on the counter. It will turn into a greasy pool that is ridiculous to clean up.

leave the banana's (or any other fruit or vegetable) out of the fridge, even if they're green. They'll be over-ripe and brown by the end of the day. When we have bananas, we buy them green then put them in the fridge. The peels turn brown, but the banana stays firm.

forget to water the house plants (they need a little almost every day and I don't know what I'm going to do with them when I'm away this summer. Will have to find a plant sitter.

forget to close the blinds to stop the sun from burning the house plants.

leave CD's and cassettes in the car (one of our teachers left his favorite CD in his favorite CD player in his favorite car - when he returned to the car a few hours later, he couldn't get the CD to play or to come out of the player - he went to the repair shop and they discovered the CD had melted into the CD player and both were trashed)

forget to take the small cooler when going grocery shopping (sitting at an unexpected border lineup with $100's of frozen food in the car is a disaster)

worry about leaving a hot latte in the car for 15 minutes while running into the mall to pick something up. It'll still be hot when you return!

leave iced lattes in the car and expect a cold drink when you come back out.

expect to go for any walks during the day - just in the late evening after the sun goes down when it's quite nice out or early morning to the palm plantations

complain to the neighbors (locals) and teachers when it gets cloudy and looks like it could rain. (They quickly say "HARAM", which is the equivalent of you saying "YOU SINNER!!!". Because of course they've lived with desert all their lives and the LOVE the rain, which they rarely see.

forget to put on the sunblock. My first burn this year (back in March) was so bad that my legs were still blistering two weeks later.

expect to go to the swimming pool to get "refreshed" in the cool water. The other day it was so hot while I was there so I jumped in and it was just like pea soup!

I love webcams!!

2008-04-20T21:14:00.004+04:00

My son http://www.pernell.ca/index2.html is running in the Vancouver Sun Run this year (along with 53,000+ others)... and here I am on the other side of the world (sob sob). I found the route map on the Sun Run website, then I found some web cams along the way...

and tonight I had a little taste of home!!

There's No Addresses!

2008-04-19T10:42:00.013+04:00

One of the unique things in this part of the world is the fact there are rarely any street addresses. Before I arrived here a girlfriend in France wanted to mail me a book and I mentioned that she should wait til I arrive in my new country so I don't have to carry it with me. Upon arrival our one-line emails went something like this:

she: you've been there a week now, what's your address so I can mail you the book

me: I don't have an address, no one does, that I can see

she: that's ridiculous, go outside and look at your building

me: I can assure you there is no number on our building, just on our door, #4

she: ridiculous, how does anyone get around

me: I tell them "I live in the tall white building next to the white house with the blue circles on the fence, near the nadee (sports club)"

she: that's ridiculous, how does anyone get around and find places

me: a lot of directions! my roommate was going to visit someone one time and she and the taxi driver got lost for 45 minutes trying to find the house which is a 10 minute drive from here, and most of that 45 min she was on the cell with the house owner trying to get instructions, left here, right here, go to roundabout (r/a), go straight, left here right here.... no street names, just directions of when to turn and when to go straight

she: that's ridiculous

me: I agree, but somehow, it just seems ok!

About three months later I was to purchase a used treadmill (I miss my daily walking!!) and found one available through a friend of a friend who teaches at the university in the city next door. Now - yes - you guessed it.. the big question "how to find the house with the treadmill". Our main form of communication being text messages on mobiles, and email... I texted

me: can you send me your address (every hopeful that there really is an address)

he: I'll send you an email with the information (note, he didn't say "address)

Email arrives... here's the "instructions"... Google earth pictures of our locale with little arrows showing landmarks and directing me from my city to his house.
if you look on the left side of the picture below you see a little green house icon and the words "my house no. 17".

About 3 weeks ago, roommate Susie Q and I along with another girlfriend Mary went to the Big City for the day about 1.5 hours from home. We were to drop Susie Q off at a meeting in someone's house. Who knows why, but the email messages from the house to us would not open and give us directions to the house. We decided "we'll do it by phone when we get closer". As we're driving into the Big City through laughter we share stories of nightmare trips trying to find addresses and how people who actually live in the Big City, when they give directions to visitors, the directions include things like: "turn at the Red Sign that says Arabian Sands" only to find that things have changed again and there's no red sign (or maybe I'm just going crazy) that says Arabian Sands. But the city dweller doesn't know that and thus thinks we're inept. Hence the following dialogue:

visitor: there's no red sign (sigh)

dweller: really, it was there last week, are you sure (you idiot)?

visitor: I've been up and down this road twice now, and there's no red sign (sigh)

dweller: ok, describe to me what's around you, and I'll give you different instructions

As you can well imagine, we all have stories to tell on how we "got there". And this trip of ours into the Big City was no exception. We arrived at the east/west highway and called in.

us: we're at the turn off you mentioned

dweller: did you take the turn off? or just pull over before it?

us: we took the turn off you mentioned

dweller: oh, that will be a problem, you need to get back onto that highway

us: no problem, I can do that (now add another 30 minutes to the trip). Tell me the rest of the instructions (I say with paper and pencil in hand)

dweller:

look for Arabian Ranches sign on left

at next round about (r/a) turn R

at next r/a go straight

at 2nd light turn L

at street 316 go to 2nd light & turn L

first R

3rd R

1st R

1st L

1st R

third house on left

Now that can seem "easy enough".... but, what if there's no sign on the L that says Arabian Sands.... sure enough, no sign on L that says Arabian Sands. Of course, we have no idea how far we've gone or where we are right now. Next call:

us: we didn't see the Arabian Sands sign on L (sigh)

dweller: are you sure (oh brother)? it was there a couple of weeks ago

us: no - we are sure, we tried twice now

dweller: where are you?

us: not sure - the big white building is on our R, desert on our L. Oh, hang on, there's a r/a and it says we are at Highway 44

dweller: highway 44? never heard of it... (oh brother) hang on I go find a map

us: we're going to turn R at Highway 44 r/a... I'm sure that's heading the direction you want us to be - you're between the sea and this Highway 311 that we're on, right?

dweller: sure, you turn R and I go find a map and try figure out where you are....

We called her again and she directed us by phone... but we could hardly stop laughing because we knew we had another story to tell! yeah - things are different here in this part of the world.

Because I'm not a resident, I can't have my own PO Box, so I, along with all the other students, use the school's PO Box for mailing purposes. (hint hint hint)! Enjoy your address if you have one! It definitely makes life easier!!

Ok – so I think I’m having a meltdown...

2008-04-13T18:34:00.009+04:00

The downside of writing a blog, for me anyway, is that I have this thinking that says “it has to be only good or funny or ... (fill in with your own positive word here)” not the “bad (pain in the neck, annoying, frustrating, fill in with your own negative word here) stuff” ... my mind says “just write about the negative aspect when you can make it look and sound like fun”.

... but I have come to the place now where I can’t make the negative sound so appealing and light hearted anymore. Actually - I think I’m having a meltdown!

I feel ensnared in a world that used to have an optimistic tone to it. My mind used to say...

· I’m getting better at this language
· I’ll be able to talk faster soon
· I’ll understand more what they’re saying soon
· Isn’t this fun....
· I’m loving this...
· Oh I love these clothes...
· Ewe... another new day of learning!!!

My mind is now saying:

· I can’t believe I still can’t remember that friggin’ word
· Why can’t I understand what she’s saying for crying out loud
· I’m so sick of these skirts... I hate these clothes...
· Why do I bother visiting, I’ve run out of things to talk about because I don’t know any of the words for the things I want to talk about
· Why is it that I used that stupid word every day last week without a problem and this week I can’t remember what that word is
· When am I ever going to remember these blasted pronouns and who’s a he and who’s a she
· Oh no, another gruelling day of this....

I have a girlfriend Marion back home in Canada whom I had met in the early years after she’d immigrated to Canada from Germany. I remember when I met her that I thought her English was great, considering she’d not been in Canada very long. Marion told me years ago that when we first met and she heard me speaking - her mind told her “I will never understand that woman” because I spoke so fast.

Last week I was thinking about Marion (and all the other ESL {English Second Language} people I’ve known over the years) and about how I must have terrorized them with my English. I was thinking about how I didn’t have ANY empathy for them. I was thinking about how I thought they were doing excellent, but they thought they were doing terrible so I brushed off their frustrations. Minimized their pain.

All of those memories flooded in last week. I wish I’d paid more attention to my ESL friend’s struggles. I wish I’d been kinder. I wish I had spoken slowly for them. I wish I had been patient with them. There’ve been so many besides Marion. Orla from Germany. Lois from Korea. Ricky & Sejin from Korea. Helen from China. Verceles from the Philippines. Agnes from Indonesia ... I mean there have been a lot of ESL people in my life over the years. WHAT WAS I THINKING?? Why didn’t I learn from them about this process.... this painful process...

When I was working on the ship in West Africa a few years ago, I read an article about foreign workers. I can’t remember the title but it was an article asking the question: “do foreign workers lie?” It talked about how we have been primed to write exciting newsletters (and blogs HA!). How to tell of the wonderful adventure we’re on. How to make it all sound awesome, exciting, thrilling, educational and enticing.

Basically, the article talked about how we are programmed to not talk or write about the negative side, the difficult things, the crying-myself-to-sleep moments. Somewhere we learned that we should never write that we’re sick, we’re tired, we’re having a meltdown, we miss the family and friends back home, we miss being in a place where we’re known but loved anyway.

Now then, I’m not saying that anyone specifically taught me that to write on the negative side is BAD ... it’s just something I seemed to have picked up along the way. Maybe it’s part of my “see the world through rose colored glasses” personality? But the article had a good question ... are we being honest if we don’t mention the negative side?

I’ve been reading this paper on Culture and Language Shock.... here’s a good excerpt... and if you’re wondering how I’m REALLY DOING (as my real friends really ask me!!)... here’s the real me these days...

Culture shock is like the measles; it takes awhile to incubate. During the first weeks and months, one goes through a honeymoon stage. The people are so friendly, so helpful. The scenery is so breath-taking. The differences that are noticed are usually of a very superficial level and tend only to make things more exotic and exciting. Then the new wears off. People get tired of carting you around. They get tired of intervening for you and shielding you. It begins to dawn on you just how different things really are and that you are on your own. The language turns out to be more difficult than you had expected. You are gently introduced to some of the blunders you have already made and you feel like someone just let all the air out of all four of your tires. Suddenly the honeymoon is over and the world of reality comes crashing down around you.

I pulled up behind this truck at the border
and noticed they even spelled my name wrong!!!

Yeah - I think I'm having a meltdown!

Time to go run on the treadmill for awhile!

i'll be able to read this some day!!

2008-04-13T17:00:00.000+04:00

Another Year!!

2008-04-05T00:23:00.005+04:00

As you can see there were an appropriate number of candles!! If they'd put the real number, the fire department would have joined the celebration I'm sure!!

Lunch with some of my friends!

These women totally pay attention to my life!! I was amazed that all my gifts were exactly the things I love!!
And I think I had a birthday greeting from almost every nation around the world!! Feeling like the Queen today.
(but also missing my family)

The Weather - Summer's Coming!!

2008-03-28T17:04:00.011+04:00

I get lots of inquiries about the weather here... some people think that perhaps it's hot hot hot desert all the time... some wonder if I experience seasons here... some say "I could never be there, I can't take the heat".... and so forth and so on. So I thought I would tell you a bit about what it's been like since I arrived 8 months ago...

Last year, I arrived in August - the temperature here the day I arrived was between: (day/night)

113 °F / 45 °C and 89 °F / 32 °C

and that was hot enough that I had to keep the air conditioning on whenever I was at home, including during the night while sleeping, I couldn't go walking during the day unless it was at the palm grove in the shade, people picnic'd at night, not during the day (when the parks were empty), and malls were the place to be if you had to go out.

By November, the season had changed and we no longer needed air conditioning, we could walk to school in the mornings and it was cool, almost cool enough for a sweater, at night I could sleep with the window open and feel a cool breeze.

On Christmas day it was between (day/night):

76 °F / 24 °C and 53 °F / 12 °C

which meant we were cold.

Of course compared to those of you under tons of snow (STILL), it wasn't that bad here (but I thought that picture was cute!!). But it was colder than I had expected. I had to buy some warmer clothes. There was snow within two hours of our place (in the mountains). Our apartment (and all other residences here) does not have central heating. If you wanted to be warm, you had to purchase an electric heater. I chose not to do that. When it got unbearable, I turned my gas oven on, opened the door, and stood in front until I was warm. One night I put some blankets into the oven to warm up before going to bed!! The groups of people (men) that sit out ever evening around a community coffee pot (that is VERY common here!) had disappeared or were sitting around fires to keep warm. The local children went to and fro with heavy winter clothing on.

And more currently it's been spring like for the past four weeks. Not cold, but not hot enough for air conditioning. Easy to walk outside in the day time without breaking a sweat, the evenings a little cool, but refreshing and nice. The groups of men sitting around the community coffee pot had returned to the roadsides. On March 1st it was between (day/night):

80 °F / 27 °C and 59 °F / 15 °C

About two weeks ago I started putting the ceiling fan on to keep a breeze going. I had to keep the windows closed to keep the apartment cooler. As I drove around town in the evening, I saw that all the familiar groups of people were out, walking, sitting around the community coffee pot... all the signs of summer weather on its way. On March 15th it was getting to the point where we couldn't walk outside for long during the day without breaking into a sweat.
The temps were between (day/night):

93 °F / 34 °C and 69 °F / 21 °C

and today the temps are between:

96 °F / 36 °C and 71 °F / 22 °C

and I put the air conditioning on in the apartment this morning as I was getting ready to leave for church and then again when I got back home. So summer's almost here!! It was pretty hot yesterday walking in the sun and I said to my girlfriend "remind me that I was complaining about the cold a couple months ago and that I was longing for this!!" I was hoping to buy a thermometer to put outside my window and photograph for you to see the changes, but haven't found one yet.

But Sunday is Coming

2008-03-23T09:48:00.006+04:00

يسوع قام - حقا قام
He is not here, He has risen...
Luke 24:6

He has risen, He has risen indeed!

It's Friday

2008-03-21T10:11:00.001+04:00

The captain of the guard and those with him, when they saw the earthquake
and everything else that was happening, were scared to death.
They said, "This has to be the Son of God!"
Matthew 27:54 (The Message)

Our Neighbor Got Married

2008-03-13T19:24:00.029+04:00

Our friend/neighbor was married last month. This is someone we visit on a regular basis and thus, during our regular almost-weekly visits we got to hear the latest news about the wedding preparations - how many people, what food, what traditions. It was such a great experience.

Roomie Susie Q and I were honored to be asked to help with some of the pre-wedding preparations (especially where a car was required). For example, one night we took the bride to the tailors. In this culture people do activities in groups, not independently and thus my little car was filled to the top! Remember - I have a small car.... in the front was Glenna, my friend visiting from Canada, and me the driver. In the back was the bride, the bride's mother, the bride's sister, and Susie Q. Cozy!! (sorry, but taking pictures of these kinds of things isn't culturally appropriate. Many women do not like to have their pictures taken.) But here's a picture of the car (taken when Glenna & I were heading out on a road trip) to remind you how small it is.

It was a fun night of going from tailor to tailor to tailor as the bride & sister gave instructions to the tailor then backed away whilst mother-of-the-bride negotiated the price. As we were driving from one store to the next, Glenna says "this is so fun" and the bride's sister (who understood Glenna's English, but does not speak English herself) says in Arabic "oh fun? you should try sitting back here then"... there was lots of laughter that evening. Our final stop was at a large store to get a "few supplies" (remember... think SMALL CAR). They came out awhile later with three suitcases, two large boxes and various other items. It all fit in!!

On another day, the bride's mother asked if we would take them to another city to get the wedding dress. We felt so honored! So off we went - about a 2 hour drive, and along the way they told us more about the country and their heritage because we passed the area where mother had grown up and family still lived. Once in the other city, we visited five bridal shops - and the bride would take pictures of the different dresses with her cell phone, send them to her sister, then they would chat to see "what do you think". And two of the brothers came along to help with the decision making. It was kind of amazing to see it all come together. No stress, no arguing between the family members on which dress was better... just a total group decision process.

When someone gets married here (the big cities are different) the first part of the wedding festivities take place at the home of the bride's family then continues on to the family home of the groom because the bride will now go to live with his family. Many of the locals that are my friends and neighbors have a bedu background... they come from a 1,000+ year history of dwelling in tents in the desert. And although they've "moved to the city" they are still bedu at heart and tents are still a big part of their customs and traditions.

The day before the wedding a truck arrived early to set up the tent. In this culture men & women do things separately. Thus, the tent was being set up for the women who would be attending. We would all go into the tent to "party"... here's a few pics of it being set up... hopefully you'll get an idea of just how big it was!!

On the wedding day another truck pulled up to set up the area in front of our building as the men's majilis (sitting area). During the festivities of the evening, the men will sit out here and sing and dance and the women will be in the tent. (Never have to worry about rain on wedding day here!)

And evening brought the people. Here's a few pictures from inside the tent, but really, it's not appropriate to take pictures so I just did it of our little group, but you get an idea of the size of the tent. Everyone sits on the floor... and the music is loud and everyone's visiting and the children are all playing...

Susie Q my roommate and to her right our friend K from downstairs, another language student (this one gives you an idea of how crowded it was).

My girlfriend R and I in our abaya's and sheila's (weddings are about the only time it is culturally appropriate for us to wear them).

Then the food came out. It began with large trays of fruit followed by large trays of rice with lamb and/or beef. Note - no tables, chairs...

and there isn't any such thing as a fork or spoon... you just dig in with the hand... it takes getting used to, but I'm into it!!

After dinner, in true Arabian style, the incense is passed around (I think I wrote a posting about this process... often when we visit people, before we leave they fill the incense burner and getting it going and then we hold it under our dresses and scarves to fragrance them.)After everyone has eaten the bride arrives and walks in slowly so all the women can see her - she was so beautiful (sorry no pics) and she goes up onto a platform stage area. Then the groom comes in and they sit on a couch up on the platform and people are welcome to go up and congratulate them.

As this part of the wedding comes to an end the groom and his family now take his new bride to the continued wedding feast at his family's home (which is where she will go to live). We returned to our apartment and watched as they all prepared to leave. The street was full of cars as they all lined up to leave together. It isn't appropriate for other men to see the bride thus a curtain is put up in front of the tent (you can see in the pic below) and the bride's car is brought in behind the curtain and she's escorted by her husband from the tent into the car and then the car comes out from behind the curtain and the entourage leave honking their horns as the go... off to the bride's new home with her husband's family.

We're going to miss having her across the street but her new home is not far away and we'll be able to visit her there. She's been a big part of our language learning process.

Language Shock

2008-03-13T18:27:00.006+04:00

There's a well known proverb that says ...

pride comes before the fall.

Up to this point, I was sure I was going to be the one in a million (my stat) who would whizz through this adventure without having to experience "language shock" ... because, after all

I've been 'called' to do this
I have a passion to do this
this is a "choice" thing, not a forced thing
I'm smart enough for this

And a whole list more of reasons to say to myself surely language shock will bypass me..... NOT!!!

The peculiar thing is that language shock isn't really something you can put your finger on! It's just that, in the past month I've been "experiencing" something that I thought was just 'normal frustration'. But this week (because I spent a considerable amount of time with tears in my eyes ready to roll down the cheeks) I decided to read this paper about language shock that I rec'd from a friend awhile ago and I'm having this 'ah hah' moment of recognition:

According to this paper I've been reading... here are a few of the language shock symptoms that I can relate to...

Language Shock is...

not knowing how to ask where the bathroom is (when the bladder is about to burst)
being given an answer about the bathroom and not understanding the answer
being corrected in what you say, by an eight year old
being laughed at when you've said something, and you're not sure whether you said something funny, stupid, rude, inappropriate
the continual frustration of not being able to express yourself (and for those of you who know me well.... I can see the grins now!!)
the continual frustration of not understanding what is said to you
not knowing for sure whether to answer yes, or no (until you find that one word in the new language that means something like "reeeaaallllyyyy!!!"
it's telling your local friend that your friend was over last night - only to find out that you said "your boyfriend" was over last night
not being able to express your own humor nor being able to understand theirs
not knowing what to say when meeting people
not knowing when to say thanks
trying to make a joke and then having people look at me with a blank stare
knowing that you are humorous and funny - but no one knows it
the nagging fear that you'll never be able to learn the language - one day you think you are really making progress and the next you seem to be unable to say anything
the embarrassment you feel when something you said or did offends someone and you have no words and no way to correct your mistake
the humiliation of having no way to express your intellectual level. No one knows how smart you really are (grin)
thinking people will get the idea you're dumb
the constant mental and emotional strain of thinking how to express yourself
the continual groping and grasping for a verb form or the right word.
the weakness that overwhelms you because you're always wrong. You just get sick and tired of saying and doing so many things incorrectly. It is discouraging to realize that you take yourself so seriously.
is knowing that there's no escape -- only time and diligent study can make things better

But - one of the funniest things was - I received an email the other day from a very dear long-time friend in Canada - Noni and I have known each other since ... let's just say for a long time.... And she doesn't write too often because her life is so hectic. But she sent this email - kind of out of the blue - that said NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER GIVE UP, NEVER NEVER NEVER, DO NOT QUIT - it's like she could read inside my head!!!

The paper is very good... doesn't leave me "hanging", but it doesn't give a list of tips and ideas either. It's all a part of the process of learning a language.

A Day in Dubai

2008-03-13T17:00:00.000+04:00

During the semester break (seems so long ago!) when Glenna was out we spent a day in Dubai in the old district. These days, Dubai is all about the big super malls with the indoor ski slopes. It's billed as the "shopping capital of the world". But we did the old district and wandered through

the gold souk,

the spice souk

the narrow lanes that led to the waterfront on the creek. Took an abras (like a water taxi) across the creek - everyone here talks about the traffic jams in Dubai - I was amazed how busy the water ways were! It was a fun day of new sights. This is the time of year for these things because when the heat of summer comes it's too hot to be out there!

A Day at the Sea

2008-03-12T18:00:00.000+04:00

Some pictures from when Glenna visited last month and we travelled to the sea. This is a beautiful country - best of both worlds - the desert on one side, the sea on the other! These are taken about 4 hours from where I live.

The water was warm enough for swimming, but we didn't bring the suits.

lots of starfish
and shells as far as the eye could see!

A Day at the Village Market

2008-03-11T18:15:00.011+04:00

A lady and her sheep!

During my roadtrip with Glenna we got up early one morning (5:30 ish) and drove two hours to get to this Friday Market in one of the villages. As much as I love these pictures, you just cannot grasp the full impact of the day without the sounds and smells... it was one of those "national geographic moments"!!

You gotta love these bathroom door signs!!

Language Learning Exercise

2008-03-04T17:41:00.009+04:00

Sorry about the long delay in posting! Truly - language learners do not have a life outside of language learning! After Glenna headed back to Canada, school started and the workload instensified 10 fold!! Yikes!! Then I got sick for one week and that was disastrous. But - I'm feeling better and back on top and hoping to update this a little more regularly. I can hardly believe it's been a full month since I wrote!!

Recently I wrote a little article about one of my language learning activities... so I thought I would copy it to here to at least get things started again!

Language Learning takes on many aspects – reading, writing, listening, speaking. I thought I would share one way I use my new language, which has helped me to read and write as well as assimilate into my new culture. In this world most communication with locals & expats is done through text messaging on mobile phones. Rarely does the phone ring and people chat - but everyone text messages. These people LOVE their mobile phones. I have two (cheap ones, no blue tooth or internet access like everyone else) because I live in one country but travel frequently just over the border to another country. Learning to type messages in Arabic on a mobile phone key pad is an interesting process. Perhaps you don’t know that Arabic is written and read from right to left, the opposite of English - thus, on the phone keypad the Arabic letters begin on the right side of the number keys and go from right to left. But I can also type English on my mobile, and those letters go from left to right. Every time I need to send a message (a couple times a day) I begin by deciding which language, then determine ‘which direction do my eyes go to find that letter’…. Do you know how teeny weenie those little squiggly lines are on a phone key pad? When I’m waiting unexpectedly in a lineup – like the other day when I waited for about an hour at the phone company whilst they looked for our missing paperwork – I just pull out my mobile, flip it to Arabic, and write messages to my local friends. Then when I visit them they give me any grammar and spelling corrections. That’s just one of the ways I’m getting into language learning and the culture!

Camel Jockey

2008-01-29T17:19:00.000+04:00

I had heard they used to have small children jockeying the camels but that changed and now they use "robots". I've cropped this part of the picture so you can see what they look like. This isn't a camel race but these young camels have tiny little robot riders.

My Canadian visitor experiences the desert

2008-01-29T15:43:00.000+04:00

My girlfriend Glenna arrived from Vancouver for a visit this past Sunday. She hasn't been to this area of the world before so I've been trying to put together an agenda for us where she can "experience" it all in a short time period (she'll be here for 10 days).

Today we decided to go to the desert, with roommate Susie Q, and our new abaya's & shaila's to take desert pictures. Susie Q and I had been talking about doing this for months but we never found the time while school was in session. Now that we have 2 weeks off we have time! We head out on our expedition to find pristine desert dunes that don't have 4 x 4 tire markings everywhere. If you google "dune bashing" you will see why it's hard to find pristine dunes in this area of the world!!

About 20 minutes from where we live, we drove down a road I hadn't been on before but had been recommended to us for the beauty of the dunes. Pretty soon we were into the dunes and of course, it was beautiful. Sunny with blue sky (it's been overcast for the past week and rained a couple of days, so the sunshine today was an added bonus).

A perfect day for dune picture taking.

I love the desert!

Soon we came to the camel race track which I forgot that my friend had said we would encounter. When I saw the track, it never occurred to me we'd actually see any camels! We drove a little further and soon we found the camel jockeys out training their camels. Such a bonus day for Glenna! To this point, she'd only seen camels in my myriad of pictures. We hopped out and began picture taking like crazy! (You're not surprised, right?). Then we were off again to find the perfect dune for our picture taking and as we came around another corner we started to see more and more camels and riders. It was all so amazing, we loved it!

Eventually we found our spot. Beside our car on the side of the road we donned our abaya's and shaila's (Glenna's first experience at this) and the wind didn't make it easy on us. I set up my little tri-pod in the sand in order to take timed group shots. While battling the wind trying to blow our shaila's off we managed to get some group shots. Throughout this whole time, we thought we'd have the place to ourself. We were a fair distance off the road and presumed we wouldn't attract any attention. But the cutest thing was all the cars and 4 x 4's that stopped to honk and watch us. I'm sure they imagined there were three cute young things under those abaya's & shailas and would have had no idea it was Susie Q (the one cute young thing)
and two grannies!!

After all that giggling and fun we were about to head back to the car but decided to climb up one of the dunes for one last look... and lo and behold... a herd of camels was heading our direction... Glenna counted 50 in the herd, followed by a fellow on an atv. It was all so amazing - we were like giggling school girls! Susie Q said "this is the best experience I've had since I arrived here!" (one year ago)... Glenna's only been here two days and already she's seen the best of the best!

There they go, past my little car parked off in the distance.

Another excellent day in the life of a language learner!! I LOVE this place!!

Funny email from someone who knows me well!

2008-01-25T00:09:00.000+04:00

From: (Name)
Sent: January-22-08 8:22 PM
To: Marilyn Reichert
Subject: it's exam time.

Hi Marilyn. I think you have discovered that there really is a purgatory: you being trapped in a place where you have to verbally express yourself in an unfamiliar language.
Blessings, (name)

Exams are over - end of semester one

2008-01-22T23:17:00.001+04:00

I can't begin to tell you what a challenging week this has been on many fronts. But - alas - the exams are over. I passed them and it's onto semester two. Two more days of school then a two week semester break. My girlfriend arrives from Canada on Sunday and we're off to traipse around this new homeland of mine... I know it's not really my homeland... but for now it is!

I am hoping the weather improves just a tad. It's very cold here and today one of the teachers was telling us that these temps are the coldest it has been in 10 years! Today the inside of our apartment was colder than outside so I opened the oven, lit the gas element, turned on all the burners, and stood there hovering over it until the chills left. Hard to believe that just a few months ago it was so screaming hot out there it was hard to breathe!!

Last night I picked up my new-to-me treadmill. It is now established in our majilis, looking out the window and there are a few new miles on it already! Great stress reliever. I've been able to load my language vocab and dialogues onto my mp3 player - another new way to study and hopefully get into shape. I've missed being able to go for long walks. There's various reasons why I can't just go walking here - safety is not one of them! The heat of the desert is a big one! That's why I feel just a tad guilty complaining about the cold. Just a tad!!

A final cup of tea before heading to bed. Thanks for the tea Deborah - it's wonderful!

After exams... a walk in the park

2008-01-20T13:26:00.000+04:00

Susie Q (my roommate) and I decided to go catch some sunshine in one of the local parks after school today. We took our books with us because the plan was to study. However, the flies are so bad this time of year, that after sitting there for 10 minutes swishing all the flies off our books, arms and heads... we decided, the flies win!! And we left

There was rain last week and in one of the nearby cities, quite a bit of flooding. Today - although the sun is shining, it's still a tad nippy out there. I know that when I hear from you over on the other side of the pond, who are knee deep in snowdrifts and rain puddles, you are thinking that I am in the HOT desert. But the desert does have seasons too. For the past month - it's been quite chilly and we had more rain last week than they've been known to have in a full year!

Here are today's pictures... followed by pictures of what the land looks like when there isn't irrigation and followed by some flooding scenes from last week's rain.

The picture below is directly across the street from the park and this is what the landscape is like when there is no irrigation.

And here's a small picture of the irrigation hoses. This particular city is called "The Garden City". Most of the public areas are irrigated and the whole city looks lush, like the picture in the park.

Here's some scenes of the flooding (taken from a news site).
This is about 1.5 hr from where I live. In the second picture where you see all the trees in the background, that is an indication there is a lot of irrigation in this city.

egads - it's exam time!!

2008-01-20T13:11:00.000+04:00

Hello to my western hemisphere friends!!

When I logged onto blogspot today - it all came up in Arabic!! yikes... the pressure is on!!

As you headed to bed your Saturday night, I was walking into my end-of-semester (local dialect) oral examination this (Sunday) morning. It was much shorter than I expected (whewf!!). About 15 - 20 minutes and although I was very nervous, I think I did ok. But I now know my greatest weakness is in reading.

Tomorrow, my Monday morning and your Sunday evening/night about 8 am for me (8 pm for Vancouver, BC) - I will have a more difficult written exam in the other (classical) dialect. Which I do not get to speak very often. The vocab is difficult & the grammar & sentence structure is difficult to grasp.

I quickly learned how to say “I don’t know” لا أعرف or “I don’t remember” لا أتذكر in this dialect! ... those lines have held me in good stead but they only last for so long!!

Off to the books to study for tomorrow!

Tell me he’s not smiling! Camels always smile!!

we need heat!!

2008-01-11T19:31:00.000+04:00

He sent back a text message... and guess what, I could read it!

“He was busy when I called earlier

but he’s available now and

will be over shortly to take the gas”

Yeah!!

Oh man I love this language learning!!
Besides, there’s no central heating,

we’re freezing here,

and that little stove is going to be our source of heat tonight!!

Misspelled Words lead to wrong messages!

2008-01-11T17:26:00.000+04:00

Another language moment!

Here in our apartment we cook by gas from a gas cylinder. We knew we were on "borrowed time" and that it wasn't a "bottomless canister". The other night in the midst of baking apple crisp the gas ran out. I guess it was time for me to learn something new (a-g-a-i-n!)

Today we needed to face the issue of getting it filled because you can only last so long cooking out of a kettle and microwave! About 30 min ago I text messaged to the landlord daughter's cell (that is the main form of communication over here, hours are spent typing on teeny weeny keyboards), in Arabic of course…

“Hello, peace upon you. This is Marilyn in Apartment 4. I want to get gas, can you tell me where to buy it?"

The landlord's daughter texts back, in Arabic

“you can buy it at Abrahim Market or at any of the stores in (name of city)".

Now then, keep in mind I am typing and then reading all in Arabic on a teeny weeny little mobile phone face.

That returned message wasn’t what I expected because I cannot carry this gas tank down the two (somewhat short) flights of stairs, lift into the car, lift out of the car, carry into store... repeat in reverse order with full tank. Not possible. Way too big. Man’s work. So I’m thinking, hmmmmmm, why did she tell me that.

I look up in the dictionary “gas” and discover that I actually wrote:

“Hello, peace upon you. This is Marilyn in Apartment 4. I want to get rice, can you tell me where to buy it?”….

Now her answer made sense. Did not solve my problem, but made sense. So, I had to do it all again and say

“oh – sorry – in actual fact I really wanted to buy gas to cook the rice!” (blush blush)

And just now she text back the message of who to call and who will come to the apartment and give me a full tank of gas….

(I’m quite sure I could hear her chuckling, because she always does when she hears me speak!)

All of this has taken about 20 minutes. Not bad really. A month ago, it would have taken much longer, but now my vocab is building to where I don’t need to look up so many words! But, as you can see, I should have at least looked up that one word which was critical to the solution to my problem!

Christmas & New Years

2008-01-01T12:58:00.000+04:00

School finished for the holiday about one week before Christmas. The locals were also having a very important festival and vacation time. So theirs and ours were combined for the school break and we had about 10 days off school. I was looking forward to doing so many things - visiting all the neighbors - getting caught up on emails and blog posts.

First roomie & I went out and bought a Christmas tree... can you believe it? I bought a Christmas tree! We wanted to keep that part of Christmas pretty "low key" because the locals think that's what we celebrate at Christmas! They refer to it as our "Tree Festival". So we're often correcting their misinformation about what it is we celebrate and when we went out to buy the tree, I had this sense of "betrayal" and felt like we were carrying "contraband" to the car.

But, I'm still glad we did it - just kind of kept it a little secret. We offset the whole scenario buy also purchasing a nativity set! About the same size as the tree actually! Doesn't take too long to decorate a 80 cm Christmas tree! Perhaps you'll be surprised that these things are available here - but there is a lot of western product available here because of the expat population who've come to work in this area. So think of it this way - if it's available at home in Canada - chances are it's available here too.

The first two days of the holiday I drove to Dubai to visit friends. It's about 1.5 hour drive. Wonderful time! I'd been there before, for my driver's licence and to buy a car, but I hadn't been a "tourist" there - and the times I went, it was very stressful. This time - very relaxing and an opportunity to enjoy the city.

We went on a desert safari for one afternoon which included "dune bashing" - here's a pic of the vehicle we were in and the object of the exercise is to race up the dune and slide down, to the left, or the right, without rolling the car. Crazy - but fun!! I wish I could upload the video I took looking out the front window of the car.

And then a visit to the camel farm and you know me and my camels... still love 'em. and even had opportunity to ride one for a few minutes! Not too bad, but the getting up and down was pretty scary!

Afterwards we all went to a bedu desert village (set up for the occasion to replicate times past).

Another beautiful sunset over the desert.

Then to a couple of the shopping malls. There are several large malls in Dubai - and they're fun to putter around in - lots of stuff - and all decorated out for Christmas, which again I think may surprise you, maybe not. One of the malls has an indoor ski slope and winter playground!!

Perhaps you've heard that Dubai is now billed as the "shopping destination" of the world. The development of the city is quite amazing. One of my goals was to drive around Dubai because the traffic patterns there are quite horrendous due to the ever expanding development. Everyone talks of driving in Dubai as a "horror show". But I quite enjoyed it. Of course, no one was working because it was a national holiday - thus the roads were bare. That made a big difference. It was a great two days and a great way to begin the holiday. I just needed some down time, without books and without pressure of language learning.

I returned home, and immediately got sick with cold and flu. Really sick. My roommate went away with friends for a few days and I was too sick to go anywhere. I missed out on the Christmas eve bonfire in the desert with the other expats, no Christmas day turkey dinner with my Brit friends (for which I bought a nice Christmas outfit to wear), just bed, just staring at the four walls of my room.

About day six I was feeling a little better and roomie was back from her trip - so we went to visit our two local families and had a wonderful time with them. I was surprised how much my language capabilities had improved over the weeks. On the way home I said "you know, I think I'm getting sick again!" and sure enough, hit with another bout.

My plans to study each day, catch up on blog, emails, all those things. All cancelled. I returned to school on Sunday December 30Th, even though I still had a pretty bad cold. But I don't want to miss classes.

So that's a brief recap of the season. My visions of writing wonderfully descriptive blogs of cultural experiences, language faux pas....of sending out Christmas cards and remembering you all by dropping you all a line - all those wonderful things - all on hold once again.

I can hardly believe first semester is almost finished. At the end of January we have a two week semester break which I'm looking forward to. One of my girlfriends from Canada will be arriving to spend 10 days with me and my plan is to go off and see a little more of my new country. I don't have much opportunity to travel around here because language learning is an intensive all consuming way of life. But - it's worth it all!!

Happy New Year to everyone!

We spent our evening watching Anne of Green Gables!

just as a side note - I wrote this blog post, I uploaded all the pictures, I had it ready to "post" and lost my Internet connection. You gotta love dial up!!

Question - Who are you making friends with?

2007-11-25T16:13:00.000+04:00

Awhile ago, I sent out a group email and said "ask me questions". I got tons of questions back in response to that email - so I will do a series of blog postings with the answers. Thank you for the suggestions!! Here's todays question/answer:

Who are you making friends with?

When I arrived here in this country, one month before language school started, I met and became friends with expats who'd been here for awhile. Some as long as 12 years or more. They work here in various capacities. As well, I've met fellow language learners from other lands (eg UK, Korea & Singapore).

My roommate (Susie Q), an American young lady, has lived in this land since last February '07 (she's also a full time language student) but when I arrived in August, she wasn't here. She was visiting family back home. She arrived here one week before school started (back in September). Since she arrived here last February, she had met the neighbors in one way or another.

One day, she simply went "door knocking" and said "I'm a language student, can we visit?" and thus met one of the neighbors and they are still very good friends.

This is a typical door here. They are actually gates into the house compound.

Another day, she was out walking from home to store to home and passed a house at the other end of the street. The two teenage girls were peeking out the fence watching her, and asked her to come and visit them. We still visit that family, the two girls and their mother once a week. They speak little or no English and thus we get a lot of language practice with them.

There is another lady that Susie Q had also met through other language learners, and we visit with that lady once a week. And for the past two-three weeks, we have also been going over to her house once a week to help her young teen son with conversational English because he wants to attend school in North America next year, but in order to qualify, his conversation English needs to improve. While helping him, we get to visit with his mom too. And we get to learn more about their culture and traditions (like incense burners, see story below!).

Another family we visit regularly is the landlord's family across the street. They are such a delight that I will do a separate blog posting on that scenario. Well, actually, all the visiting is delightful.

The bonus for me has been the fact that I didn't have to go "find someone" to visit. Susie Q had already broken trail for me, and this made it very easy for me.

Now then, Susie Q is about thirty years younger than I and she has about thiry years more energy than I!! Thus, I spend two evenings a week visiting - and one additional evening a week helping the young teen with his conversational English. Whereas Susie Q goes out visiting almost every day. I simply do not have the energy for that, plus the four / five hours of study time also required each day.

For some of the other lanaguage learners, they've gone door knocking and found people to visit. Some have not found anyone to visit yet. Sometimes it can be "easy" to break into the neighborhood, sometimes it is not. We are very fortunate where we are. Our neighbors have been warm and friendly and the fact our landlord's family is just across the street and we have to go over to pay the rent once a month (which requires a visit, no just dropping of checks - culturally not acceptable, which again, I found out the hard way!).

I'm pretty thankful for Susie Q and all her contacts. It's made my time here easier. Thanks to her, I've made some local friends.

Incense Burners

2007-11-25T15:48:00.000+04:00

Our incense burner in my room - I love this picture!!

Here where I live, frankincense is my favorite and a popular with the locals. In this culture incense burners and incense are a part of every day life for the local people. When we visit our neighbors, often you can smell the incense in the house, or, there will be some fragrant fumes wafting from one in the corner of the majilis. There are stores that sell just incense - or perhaps perfume and incense. It is a big part of their culture. And I LOVE it.

One of the very unique cultural experiences here is to be "incensed" at the end of a visit. It hasn't happened to me yet, but I've read about it, and my roommate Susie Q has had it happen to her. The hostess lights the incense (which indicates "visit is over, time to go") and passes it around to people in the room, and all the ladies put it under their long skirts and hold it there for a minute... then pass it to the next person. Another one is to be "perfumed". When the hostess brings out the bottle of perfume and it gets passed around to the visitors, (another sign that it's "time to go"). Isn't that just so sweet.

Well now I love incense burners مدخن and incense بخور so I went out and bought us one. And now our home smells like an Arabic home. It's so wonderful!!

Do Language Learners have a life?

2007-11-24T13:28:00.000+04:00

It’s been four weeks since I posted to the blog. And I’m very sad about that! Because I love blogging. So thought I would do a brief post here to list my excuses. In thinking about it, I came up with a DO and DON’T list.... for this language learner. Not for all language learners, but for this one.

Language Learners DO have to:

· Study long hours in order to progress
· Realize that for every hour of class time, there’s about two hours of out-of-class time required
· Learn to write & read & type as well as speak the new language
· Have fun learning the language
· Learn to laugh at themselves a lot
· Do a lot of listening (listening is the most foundational of all skills)*
· Visit with locals on a regular basis in order to use the language
· Learn the culture along with the language
· Read a lot about the history & culture in order to get more out of the language
· Stay up late at night
· Get up early in the morning
· Drink a lot of strong coffee
· Receive lots of emails from friends and family
· Love making new friends in their new land
· Remember that making new friends doesn’t mean she doesn’t love and miss her friends and family back home
· Drop the expectations of having a clean house
· Get used to not blogging so often
· Purpose to have some fun (like picnics in the desert - see picture below)
· Find joy in small things (like little sand dunes building in the corners of an uncleaned bedroom)
· Remember that language learning is “life long” process
· Rely on a lot of other people to make it happen

Language Learners DO NOT:

· Have time for blogging, television, knitting, and piano (although, if push came to shove, we could make time for it), exercise, walk, wash & iron clothes, cook
· Have time to wash their car (that’s substantial in a dry and dusty land where having a dirty car is a big NO NO)
· Have time to shop for groceries and must consider it an adventure before venturing out
· Learn the language without using it regularly
· Need to focus or panic about “tests” in class because if you’re using the language, you’ll have already figured out what word to use in which situation
· Forget that learning a language means learning the grammar along with vocab
· Retain all that they learn in class
· Have time to read about language shock & culture shock in order to realize they are experiencing language shock & culture shock
· Have long enough weekends
· Have to experience culture shock (yeah!!)
· Have time to reply to all the wonderful emails she receives
· Have time to hang out on Facebook
· Have to panic that it hasn’t all “come together” yet!!

Language Learners SHOULD NOT have to:

· Learn Windows Vista AND a new language all at the same time
· Transfer data from a broken computer to a new computer, while trying to learn a new language
· Wash & iron clothes, cars & floors AND cook their own meals – but they do it anyway
· Deal with expiring visa’s that need renewal at inconvenient times
· Deal with kitchen taps that drip incessantly
· Live with dial-up in this day and age
· Deal with broken pipes and taps that bring forth uncontrollable waterfalls onto kitchen counters & floors

*Learning Language Strategies: by TP & BB, Vs 2.2

and what's a blog post without a picture... a couple of weeks ago, a group of us expats went for a picnic in the desert and I took along my "weddings only" outfit to have some fun with the camera. This is a traditional outfit that I purchased that I wear to weddings (I've been to two). I wouldn't wear this outfit in this city on a regular basis. They do not like expats to dress like them, except for weddings. Some friends back home have commented "isn't it hot wearing that?"... but it's not hot - it's very light material - I have my regular street clothes underneath.

These dunes are about 30 minutes from my house. Have I told you "I LOVE THE DESERT".... my homepage on the internet is the date/time/weather for Vancouver and I see they are experiencing a lot of rain - it's that time of year. So each day as I awake to a blue sky, no clouds and plenty of sunshine.... i burst out into a great song of thankfulness!!

Pants or Underpants… actually they're Pantaloons!

2007-10-20T08:19:00.000+04:00

The other night my roommate and I went to visit our neighbors. It’s all part of the language learning experience – visit the people who speak the language. And it always comes with a culture lesson.

When we visit the neighbors, we ONLY visit the women. For such purposes, all Gulf homes, apartments, etc have a majilis, the women’s visiting room. The majilis (here's ours)

is a self contained room that has a separate entrance from the outside, along with another door into the other regions of the house. As well, it has its own bathroom facilities so that any visiting woman will not have to enter any other regions of the home (where there might be men). The majilis plays a large role in the life of Gulf people. It is probably the most important room in the house – because that’s where you have visitors and having visitors is the most important part of their lives. We learned that the majilis is so important that when people here have a new home they are furnishing, the majilis will be furnished before any other room. Because having visitors is high on their list of important things to do.

In our two bedroom apartment my roommate and I have a majilis and it looks like this (I had my classmates over for lunch Arabian style one day – although we didn’t eat Arabian because I haven’t learned to cook Arabian yet. We had chili) – but this is what a majilis looks like and this is how it’s used. It’s back breaking at first, but eventually you get used to it.

Ok – so we go to visit the neighbors and they welcome us into their majilis. I’ve learned to sit next to the big hard cushions, it’s a little easier on the back. And down we go, sitting on the floor. I notice that the local women who are my age and older do not struggle to get up and down from the floor the way I struggle. Perhaps with time it will get easier and the knees will stop creaking and crackling. And I also notice that unlike me, they do not step on their dress as they are standing up. Me? I first have to get into position to stand up, then have to do a foot shuffle to get off the clothing so that when I pull my body up straight, the skirt/dress doesn’t stay down at the floor. Elastic waistlines could be a dangerous thing in this process.

Back to the visit. As we’re sitting on the floor visiting, I notice the “pants” of my hostess’ older daughter – they’re peaking out from under her new kandura (dress) and they’re beautiful (just like the kandura. So I mention, in my limited local language, “beautiful pants”…. And our friend sort of disregards the comment and pulls her kandura further over to cover the beautiful pants. Pretty soon she stands up to leave the room to get our coffee. At that point while we’re alone in the majilis, my roommate tells me in clear English “that’s the equivalent of her underwear, it’s not pants, it’s like underpants”. Another learning curve.
See how they just kind of peek out?

Our Hostess returns with the coffee and after a few more minutes in comes more family (only the women of course) and pretty soon there’s mom, daughter one, daughter four, daughter three, and daughter-in-law (there are 12 children all together). Pretty soon, in the midst of a few giggles, it comes out that I’ve commented on the beautiful pants. Mother leaves the room and comes back with a stack of beautiful pants and wants to know if I would like to buy some.

In the meantime, one of the younger brother’s (I don’t know what the cut off age is for the status of young boys allowed to be in same room as women) had come in to see my roommate for some help with homework. So, as mother is showing me these beautiful pants, daughter one, daughter four, daughter three, daughter-in-law and roommate are all occupied helping Saif with his homework. I chose a pair of the pants and mother says in Arabic you have to try them on, they come in different sizes. Of course, I didn’t catch all that – but as she said it I got the gist of it from the hand gestures and roommate filled in the gaps. I carefully pull up my long skirt to try on the beautiful pants… just up to the knees… I already had leggings on which I wear under my long skirts, so there was no skin showing – and I only had to try on the size for ankle fitting – so really, its was an easy process in a crowded room. All this time, I found out later, the girls were all giggling in behind me while watching their embarrassed younger brother try to ignore the fact that the crazy grey haired ingleezee from across the street is trying on underpants to the delight of his mother.
They’re called pantaloons…. Aren’t they beautiful?

Such a shame that we have to hide them under the skirts. The national dress of the women includes these pantaloons. The dresses come to below the knee & above the ankle, and these adorned pantaloons peak out the bottom. Another delightful evening of learning language & culture.

The detailed embroidery is amazing... they wear it on the cuffs of their abayas and the neckline and cuffs of their kandura's as well.

Here is a picture taken at a wedding I attended the other day (another story to be told!) and if you look closely (had to shrink the pic, everything is loading too slow) at the women's dresses, you'll see their pantaloons... all so colorful!

Life is better when you've been nuzzled by a camel!!

2007-10-06T14:04:00.001+04:00

Went to the camel market this morning with a classmate. Great experience!

Until our guide started offering to buy my classmate for 100 camels. Of course he was joking - but he was still persistent! My mind (and ego) noted he didn't offer any camels for me!

awww the safety of aging and grey hair!

I know you can't see much in this picture but - all these guys are standing behind one truck that has a couple of camels in it.

"how many people does it take to get a camel off a truck?" A lot!!

(no they don't smell... someone was asking).

oh how i wish i could have pets!!

What day is it anyway?

2007-10-06T13:46:00.001+04:00

This week one of our language goals was to learn the days of the week. What’s so difficult about that? Well let me tell you …

Our language classes are most often all in Arabic. This particular day, the teacher only spoke Arabic during class (which is good by the way – I like that!). But there are times when I find it a little more stressful than others. This was one of those days.

Because of her hand and arm gestures, I gathered we were going to learn about the days of the week. Pointing forward = tomorrow. Pointing backwards = yesterday. Pointing down = today. No problem. Got it. Then came the days Monday, Tuesday… etc. And that’s where the problems began for me.

I could not, for the life of me, figure out which day was which. Do they begin their calendar week with Sunday or Monday? Throughout the entire class, I sat in a fog just knowing “tomorrow”, “yesterday”, and “today” but never grasping the names of the actual days. After 15 minutes of the teacher explaining to the class and most of them grasping it… I kept thinking “what is my problem?” Then out came the game cards. I love playing language learning games. But this time I was feeling more stressed than enthusiastic.

The class was split into two groups and each group was given 10 little cards with Arabic writing on them. Each card had either a day of the week, or ‘today’, ‘yesterday’, ‘tomorrow’. Each team was to put the cards in the correct order and place the appropriate today, yesterday, tomorrow over top. I was lost lost lost. At the end of it all, I was trying to assess why I was more lost than usual through this lesson. Sure enough – the problem? I didn’t know what day of the week we were on – even in English. What is the day today? That was my question – that’s what I needed to ask – what day is it today?

So now, I’ll tell you a little of why I am having trouble figuring out what day is it anyway? The days run differently here in my section of Arabia. I live and go to school in B. In my city B the weekend is Thursday / Friday. But in A, the city just the other side of the border, where I go shopping and to church and visit friends the weekend is Friday / Saturday. But, my school, which is in B, uses the weekly schedule of A, not B. Thus, my school weekend is Friday / Saturday even though my city’s weekend is Thursday / Friday. I won’t go into the details why – it just gets too complicated (too late – right?).

My Arabian Thursday afternoon feels like my Canadian Friday afternoon – end of the school week. But church is Friday morning over the border in city A, which is their first day of the weekend (unlike Canada where traditionally church is the second day of the weekend). So, my Arabian Thursday night feels like my Canadian Saturday night. Then the school week begins again for me on Sunday morning, so my Arabian Saturday night feels like my Canadian Sunday night. And in my city, where Sunday isn’t the first day of the work/school week, except for my school we are actually starting our school week on the second day of my city’s school week.

What impact does all this have? You mean, other than stress?

One of the challenges is when visiting neighbors here in my city B – we are always working with their weekend schedule and our weekend schedule being different, and having to explain to them that our weekend is not their weekend, even though we live next door to them. So when we say “see you next weekend” then we have to clarify “your weekend or my weekend?” and when we say “can’t come that night, school early the next morning” they say “what school, it’s the weekend” and then it starts again “your weekend and my weekend are different”. The last 15 minutes of our visit to neighbors is spent working out the schedule for the next visit. (in Arabic! - thank goodness I have a roommate with more Arabic than I!!)

Anyway – perhaps you get a glimpse of why I walk around in a fog saying what day is it anyway? And that doesn’t even touch on the “hours of business” issue. Trying to figure out the hours that a business is open around here? Well, I’ve stopped trying to figure it out. I just drive there “oh, closed?” oh well, try another time.

The ever expanding vocabulary wall beside my study desk

Am I stressed or what!!!

2007-10-06T13:32:00.000+04:00

One of the reasons I feel just a little stressed these days is that I haven’t had time to update my blog – I’m too busy learning the language – classes, study, visit neighbors to practice listening and speaking, study more, more classes…… arrrrgggghhhhhh!!

This week there was an incident – and I recognized right away “oh, I’m stressed”.

I awoke the usual 6 am to get ready for school. Because I was ready first, I went downstairs to get the car started and air con on while roommie finished up getting ready. I opened the building door to see that the workmen, who had been responsible for the huge trench out front of our place these past two months (they're taking the houses off septic and onto sewer) are all right next to my new car. As I come around the car, with my dark sunglasses on so they can’t see my eyes, and being careful not to make eye contact with them (head down woman, that’s the culture here) I see they’ve torn up the cobblestone parking lot within one foot of my pristine new car (which, by the way, isn't so pristine any more thanks to the scratches due to that low hanging tree out there). As they all (three or four of them) stop work to watch me, racing through my mind is:

Don’t look at them, that would offend
Don’t speak to them, that would be more offending
Did they scratch my car?
How do I get into the car without being so obvious as to look for dents in the door
How to appear polite when I can’t look at them
Don’t smile at them - gives the wrong message
Just keep head down woman
But did they hit the car, are there any dents
Oh don’t look for dents in front of them, that would offend
Head down
Be nice

When all of a sudden, one of them speaks to me in Arabic… and I froze – half in car, half out of car, my body freezes and my mind races... and even them I'm like is my ankle showing, pull that skirt down further....

Oh no, what did he say
Did I do something wrong?
What was that he said
Oh I wish I knew what he said

What do I do now?

So I chose to continue getting into the car. Perhaps they will just think I didn’t hear them. As I got in and began to fasten the seat belt I realized what they had said to me.

They said to me the one Arabic phrase that I knew when I arrived here – the one, for sure I know how to say – THE phrase that is the standard greeting throughout all the Arabic speaking world…. How could I not have known that – how could I have missed that he was simply greeting me with عليڬم السام perhaps the most commonly used phrase in the Arabic speaking world! To which there is the simple response السام وعليڬم which I have said hundreds of times but at this moment in time, I cannot seem to recall what it is

Oh yeah, there’s stressful times as a language learner!

On my way to class.

The delight of the rains in their desert!

2007-09-22T14:39:00.001+04:00

The average rainfall in my new country is 76 to 102mm (3 to 4in) annually, according to stats I found on the internet (which vary a lot). Since I’ve been here it has sprinkled rain about four times that I remember. It can be raining at my place, but three blocks away, it’s not raining.

The first time it rained I truly had a laugh. Having been here two weeks, thrilled that I live in a desert, enjoying the sunshine and the birds singing outside my window every morning and reminding myself that I don’t have to deal with the never ending clouds & fall rains of Vancouver, I decided to wash the car I was borrowing. It was covered in dust from the oft present sandy winds. Cars here are bucket washed because hoses with never ending water supplies are not available. As well, no one drives around with dirty cars in this city, which is ok with me because over the years I’ve been teased by the fact I was obsessive about washing my vehicle.

That particular day, when the rains made me laugh, I arose early and went to bucket wash the car & when I finished it looked great – and I was proud! I came inside and about 15 minutes later a dust storm blew through town – the pristine car was now covered with a layer of gritty dust into which a passerby could easily scribe “wash me”! About 15 minutes later, to my utter amazement, that mysterious dark cloud above opened up and down came the rain – for about one minute. Just enough to make the car look like I’d never washed it! I couldn’t believe it – I live in a desert, I wash the car and it rains? Unbelievable!!

Last week, we had another amazing rainfall. It lasted for about 10 minutes and as I watched out my bedroom window I could see the children next door loving every second of it. The pictures aren’t great but I hope they give you a feel for the excitement experienced by these people when rain comes to their desert!

One little boy danced around holding his baby sister high so she could feel the rain on her face.

His little brother found a puddle forming in one section of the yard and started jumping up and down, up and down...

thrilled & amazed by the splashes he could make and delighting his sister with his antics.

And their sister – well – as hard as I tried – I couldn’t capture it all with the camera – it was so precious. She was dancing all around the compound, arms held high, relishing in the moisture. Then she stood there - absorbing every ounce of every drop

Then she sat and sat… until the rain ended.

Perhaps she was wondering if this will be her last rainfall until next year! It was so beautiful to watch their delight of the rains that came to their desert!

He bestows rain on the earth; He sends water upon the countryside.
Job 5:9-11

School has started and with that comes homework

2007-09-19T06:58:00.000+04:00

Well – the camel story seems to have been a big hit! about 400+ hits and tons of comments in less than three weeks! It will be a hard act to follow!! But I heard it was loading slow so I removed some of the pictures. Just a tad obsessive of me to load 10 pictures of a camel... but heh - it was exciting!! I can assure you the pictures will be less exciting for awhile!

This week language school started. If you don’t see too many updates on here in the next little while, you’ll know what I'm doing!!

-in my classroom-

Our school week begins on Sunday (our weekend is Friday & Saturday). The school is a short drive (we’ll walk when it’s not so hot out probably) – about 10 minutes. It would be less if there wasn’t a median running down the middle of the main road which we cannot cross – thus we go up to the round-a-bout and back down to almost equal distance … so basically, the school is almost across the street from our place, two blocks in. Classes begin at 8:10 am and we have three classes, with 15 minute breaks in between. Then finish at about 12:30 pm.

-homework in the afternoon-Before school started I thought “ohhhh, only morning classes?” and was disappointed … and now after three days of morning classes, I’m more likely to say “oh man, thank goodness there aren’t afternoon classes – I’m exhausted after those three”!!!

-and another few hours at night- There are about 40 - 45 people at the school, nine people in my class. I’m not sure how many classes there are in total. Our class represents four countries. So the international flavor of life continues!

We are to expect about five hours of homework each day, including:

ReadingWriting Listening & Speaking

Isn't this notebook cover priceless!
(of course, maybe you don't see what I see because you're not aware of women's attire here in the Gulf!!)

It's from a cartoon series here in the Gulf region. I haven't watched the series yet - but it will be a great language learning exercise. This is a picture of Um (mother) Allawi.

Included in the homework can be visiting the neighbors – because of course that’s when we get to use what we’ve learned!! I've had opportunity to visit (with my roommate) a few of the neighbors and experience their hospitality. It's wonderful! And, they are graciously patient with language learners. As much as I want to learn their language, they all want to learn my language as well.

I’ll write more about these things later… just wanted to put a few notes on here to update you and to let you know “the vacation is over” and serious language study has begun.

Things you see when out for a drive!

2007-09-04T20:49:00.000+04:00

Now that I have a vehicle, I have to address the issue of a new driver’s license. I am limited when driving with only my Canadian license. In order to get ready to have a drivers license for my new country, I needed to leave my country, go into the one next door, get an exit & entry stamp in my passport, drive another few km’s to the next border post, get another exit & entry stamp, purchase a visa, then return to my country. A bit of an ordeal. But a necessary one.

Off I go with my expat friend Jill and we journeyed out of my city on a route I hadn’t been before. The roads were excellent (as they all are here), and the day was beautiful.

Aside from the heat, the scenery reminded me of the Cariboo region in BC, Canada. And the rocky arid region of Southern Namibia (which Lyn and I visited in '05). And in some parts, the Mt. Tiede area of Tenerife in the Canary Islands (that Jacqui, Bridgette & I visited in '04)
We stopped to take a picture of this sign… don't you just love it!!
"Camel Crossing"And from then on I kept saying “boy, I hope we see a camel today” and Jill kept saying “well, Marilyn, that doesn’t happen too often here”. But I was not about to give up! And as we came around each turn, I said “oh, but it would be so cool to be driving down the road and see a camel”… and Jill, not wanting to discourage, but wanting to be realistic, mentioned a few more times “well, I would be very surprised if we were driving along and saw a camel”…

Last week we had driven to another city in a different direction and throughout the sand dunes, I saw herds of camels (fenced in – privately owned – as though in Canada when driving along and you see a herd of dairy cows in some farmer’s field). So – that was cool enough, but, it wasn’t like they were “right there”. But rather, they were off in the distance and pretty well blended in with the sand dunes… here’s an example… do you see any camels in these pictures?

Last weeks drive

Today’s drive

you can see the landscape is very different today from last week. In both cases, we're headed east but the two roads are about ...?... km apart

But today – I just really wanted to see a camel, right by the road. After all, doesn’t that sign mean “Camel Crossing” ?

We drove along for a few hours, passing a craft market (first one I’ve seen since arriving here!!) and of course we pulled over. And of course I had to have some… the two on the right are the shape of this country’s traditional coffee pots and are designed for tea candles, the one on the left is a water jug.

And then in and out of the vehicle at border posts to get the passport stamped for leaving and arriving.

Up and down mountain highways

Enjoying the beautiful scenery of the country, and all along, me hoping (and of course praying... I mean, really, He likes to delight us you know!!) beyond hope that we would see a camel walking down the road.

And lo!! As Jill was attentively driving, eyes on the road – me scouring the horizons…. Guess what we found!! I was so excited – I’m afraid I may have shattered poor Jill’s nerves a little when I yelled
“A CAMEL – BY THE ROAD!!!!”

Jill quickly pulled over and we quickly hopped out to watch him drink (a real oasis - palm trees, water flowing) …

even when he saw us coming he wasn't in a hurry to leave,
unlike any sheep or cows that I've tried to get close to...

then we followed him through the field…

and as he headed towards the road - I started to worry that we'd be looking at road kill, especially as it was just after a blind corner. And sure enough, a truck came along - but the driver stopped in time, and then he started to honk his horn and "herd" the camel off the road, weaving back and forth and chasing him. The camel/truck ballet?But my camel made it to the other side and had a quick glance back to see if we were still paying attention! Then we got back into the car as he walked back out onto the road, and there he was, as we headed out, just walking down the road, checking us out

as we checked him out! (can you see he's smiling? he's so happy to see us!)

then it was time to say good bye. And all the way home poor Jill had to listen to me saying

"I got to see my camel today!!"

Some things you just need!!

2007-09-04T20:44:00.001+04:00

When I arrived here, I had in mind that I would be able to get around without the added expense of a car. However, I’m living in a city that doesn’t have any public transit system. Although there are taxis, and it is culturally acceptable for a single woman to get into a taxi (back seat) with a male driver, we are coming up to a cultural season here when taxis will be very limited. And even outside that cultural season, when school finishes at the end of the day, not many taxis are available.

Walking could be an option, but it’s 45+C most days, and most often, women do not walk alone but rather in groups. It’s safe to walk alone (this is a very safe place!), but it’s not culturally acceptable for women to be walking alone. As well, there are no substantial stores that are within walking distance and the school is about a 20-30 minute walk from where I live. I have to rely on others a lot for transportation.

Last week in discussion with the group, we talked about the issues of single women and transportation. They encouraged me to consider buying some wheels (one girlfriend said “wings”!). So last weekend one of the team leaders & I, along with another expat couple that arrived in August, headed to the next largest city to browse the auto mart. And here’s what I came home with.

Can you believe it costs less than $20 to fill the tank!

Today is only Tuesday – but already I’ve been out and about every day!! I’m loving it.

Experiencing the Language

2007-08-27T23:30:00.001+04:00

Every day I practice my Arabic. I have some language learning software, along with the CD and course content from the school director. He recommended I try to do about two hours a day until school begins (which will be September 15th).

The other day, the hot water tap in my kitchen fell off in my hand (there seems to be a pattern here! This is the second one). So I didn't do anything about it at first, except turn off the hot water. No big deal because when I turn the cold water tap on, it comes out screaming hot anyway! Then after a few days I decided it was time to do something about it. To be really honest, I was avoiding having to speak to someone who doesn't know English.

I live across the street from the landlord and his family (see story in Notes from Day Three) and each night he sits out front, on the ground, with his friends and they visit. This is normal here. Everyone comes out at night after the heat of the day passes. So - I looked out and saw he was there. I went online and to find the words for "kitchen", "tomorrow", "please" and I carefully wrote them out (in Arabic script) and off I went to see him, kitchen tap in hand. He saw me coming and stood up to greet me ... which I can do in Arabic ... and I handed him the note and the hardware. He took the note and looked at it, then walked to a young man sitting in the circle - while, at the same time, another man asked in clear English "where are you from?"... after I replied, the other young man jumped up, my note in his hand, came up to me and said in English "your kitchen tap broke?" and I'm thinking 'oh brother, i want to learn this language'... and we sort out the details, in English. I said to him "is the note correct, did I write it correctly?" "oh yes, it's good" and as he was saying that, another man in the circle says in very clear Arabic "how are you?" and that's one of the phrases I've learned how to say and how to respond. As soon as I heard him, I was so excited that I understood what he said. So I turned and replied in Arabic "fine, by God's mercies" and they all got this look of surprise on their faces. My girlfriend was telling me the next day that they always get surprised to see a white person speaking their language. Anyway, for me, it was a great moment of "ah hah, I understood something and could respond". And the next day my tap was fixed!

This is the front door to my apartment building. I live on the third floor & it's a walkup.

Fort Visit

2007-08-27T22:51:00.000+04:00

Today I decided to ignore the heat (45C+)and go do some sightseeing. This is one of the castle/forts in our city. It was restored by the government in 1994 - but while going through it, there were no signs telling any details or history. I've been trying to find some history on it and as yet haven't found the original date for it. But, regardless, it was fascinating. People here don't "sight see" in the middle of the day - it's too hot. So I had the whole place to myself. It's surrounded by a dry moat. I went into the inner court, walked all along the walls, and climbed up one of the towers. I didn't go to the very top of the tower, because that required a ladder and I didn't want to chance it with my long skirt (which I tend to trip over just doing stairs!). When I started to go into one of the towers, there was a big ruckus inside and it rather startled me because I thought I was the lone person in the whole place. Pretty soon birds started flying out the door at me! Gave me quite a start. I wished I'd had the camera ready. The architecture fascinates me. This is a typical fort/castle architecture for this country. The towers remind me of the sandcastles at the beach made by turning the bucket of sand upside down! this is the ladder leading up to the top of the towers... i look a tad wilted from the heat!

Display at the Mall

2007-08-25T14:42:00.000+04:00

On Fridays us expats have a routine. It’s our Sabbath, so we go to church. Then afterwards, everyone goes to the mall for lunch and the weekly shopping. This is in the city just over the border from me – bigger city – we have population of 9,000 people they have 421,000 people – everyone shops there because there are more stores.

Yesterday when we arrived a group of ladies was setting up up a display. I asked what it was far (none of the signs were English) and one of the ladies (who spoke English) said “it’s a welcome back to school party for the kids”... and here are some pictures. The thing to look for is the balloon people and you’ll see they are dressed in the colors of the local people… the men wear all white, the women wear all black. Look close at the backdrop and you’ll see the little cartoon drawings of people in the local attire, then you’ll see the locals, who are setting up, then the big balloon sculptured people - all are dressed alike.Shrinking the pictures to upload them loses some of the effect – actually maybe just poor picture taking loses some of the effect - but maybe you can get the idea of it, even with small pictures… it just seemed like such a cultural moment!!

Finding my way

2007-08-19T22:54:00.000+04:00

Today’s adventure: how to find my way, driving myself from my apartment to dinner at my friends. This was the first time out in a car by myself (belong’s to a friend of a friend who’s on vacation and said I could use it) and there is no one to lead the way. Now – you have to keep in mind that not all houses are on paved roads… some just seem to be in the middle of a field. There are no addresses, no street names, and no house numbers. And all the houses look the same. So the way to find your way around in my city is to know the identifiers. Which, today, I only knew some… it’s not good to know just some… you have to know them all!

(misc pictures of places along the way - so you get the gist of it ... do they all look the same to you!!)

I knew to go R from my place, L at the little shops, R at the main road (can’t go L anyway), down to the roundabout (traffic circle) and take the last exit, basically heading back down the road from whence I came (there are meridians in the middle of the main roads, so you can’t make left turns – you have to go to the roundabouts and go roundabout). Take the first paved road right … and that’s where it started to go wrong.

I took the first paved road right and thought I would know my way from there, after all, it’s only a couple of blocks. I went down to the t-intersection – turned R … got into a bunch of streets with identical houses and pretty soon didn’t know how to get out again, just kept going up and down, back and forth. “Didn’t I pass that coffee shop twice already?” All the while, trying to call my hostess from my cell, but there’s no signal. Then I see my cell is about to run out of juice. I knew I should have charged it last night. Only recourse at this point, after 15 – 20 minutes of driving everywhere and getting nowhere (except to pass the same coffee shop two or three times from different directions), is to return to my place and call from my land line. It took another 10 – 15 minutes to find my way back to the road with the roundabouts. Headed back to my place and just before turning towards my road, the cell rang. Even though, when I wanted to call out, there was no signal.

Hostess: “Are you lost?”
Me: “yes”
Hostess: “pull over and wait and John & I will take the two cars and come searching for you”
Me: “wait, I think that’s the veterinary clinic there, I’m in front of the veterinary clinic”
Hostess: “where are you?”
Me: “near the veterinary clinic”
Hostess: “there isn’t a veterinary around here!”
Me: “oh wait, that says medical clinic, not veterinary”
Hostess: “ok, just go straight to the next roundabout”
Me: “my cell is about to die. I did the roundabout, the first paved road right… and from there it became a blurr”
Hostess: “did you remember to look for the double electrical pole?”
Me: “the what?”
Hostess: “remember, the double electrical pole, you have to take the first paved road R after the double electrical pole”
Me: “oh, that’s right, I forgot about the double electrical pole”
Hostess: “are you at that road yet?”
Me: “can’t get the car to switch from second to third gear, while holding cell, which is about to die, and trying to see double electrical pole at the same time”
Hostess: “we figured you were lost – it should only take 10 min max to get here, you’ve been driving for about 30 minutes now based on your call as you were leaving”
Me: “ok I’m at the double electrical pole”
Hostess: “ok turn R on the first paved road & watch for the row of seven trees on the left and when you see that, take the first paved road L after that”
Me: “ok – trees, paved road… got it”
Hostess: “now just after that house, take the first dirt field on the left”
Me: “oh, there’s the garbage bin in the middle of the field - that looks familiar… Oh there’s John out front waving like crazy”

Things I’m thankful for today: no traffic at 5 in the afternoon, a great Mexican dinner, friends to share a great Mexican dinner with, cell phone signals when I needed them, unexpected adventures, getting home without getting lost. Friends who care enough to call and say "are you lost?"

Tomorrow I’m going driving again. Hope I can get back home! It’s just down from the sports stadium (thank goodness those light poles are so high I can see them from a long way off), just after the little shops, next to the house with the blue trim and the bulls eyes targets painted on the fence. Should find it. I hope.

I saw a camel sitting in the back of a truck the other day – priceless!

Notes from Day Three

2007-08-15T22:07:00.000+04:00

The flight in on Monday was 8 hours from London & it went quickly (and was showing the movie Jane Austen which I love!). My luggage arrived in tact (everyone was surprised at the small amt of luggage and yet I still thought I was bringing too much!). My host family were there waiting and the drive home was about a one hour (100 Km). As it was night time all I could see during the drive were the rows of date palms that line both sides of the highway. And sand along the curbs.

Since arriving, I've been staying with my host family (John & Mary & two young daughters) until my place is ready. It's been great getting to know them (they are also expats) and they have been very attentive and helpful in getting me settled in. I've been spending the mornings with Mary out driving around and in shops & malls, afternoon is nap time, then play with the girls (today in their wading pool out front), & after dinner Mary & I head back out for an evening of shopping. Reminds me of when we were in Spain for the summer of '03. All the shops close down (except for the air-conditioned mall) about 1 pm, then open again sometime after 4 pm. The afternoon heat is too intense.

(as i'm writing this, i'm trying to upload pictures to the blog, but they take forever!! the joys of dialup! and somewhere in my emails someone has sent a big file so my emails are blocked from loading until this big file comes through, which is trickling in)

Note the pictures on the bathroom doors at the mall! And, just so's you know, it took about 40 minutes for these two pictures to upload!!

It's been a great shopping spree!The first day, cell phone, bed, wardrobe & fridge. (The prices here are a lot less than in Canada eg. full size fridge=368USD ). Today study desk (I'm dreading having to assemble it!), bedding & misc household items. I will be sharing a two bedroom apartment with another language student, Robin (& possibly a third student, not sure yet), but Robin is home on vacation at the moment and will not be back until end of August. I'm staying with my host family until my bedroom furniture is delivered (supposed to be Thurs evening - but I've been reminded several times that everyone here doesn't operate on the same time as what I may be used to! on the ship we called it Africa time).

Last night Mary & I went over to my place to check it out because Robin has been away for awhile, and we saw that a few things needed tending to (no water running), so we wandered across the street to the landlord's & Mary fluently told him what needed addressing before I could move in Thursday. Just hearing them conversing gives me a great desire to get on with language learning!! After the business discussion ended, he said "you must have coffee with my wife" and off we went to their house next to his office. It didn't seem to matter that it was already after 10 at night! My first "cultural" moment!

As his wife greeted us, he left & we were taken into the guest room & seated on the floor (men & women would not have coffee together) (hmmm, getting up & down isn't so easy at my age - but they make it look so easy!) his young-adult daughter came in to visit while momma made the coffee. Momma soon came in carrying a tray with coffee, a large bowl of water (to wash fruit, fingers, cups) a large bowl of dates freshly picked from the date palm out front, and a plate of tiny bananas. The coffee was excellent, served in little cups - it wasn't as strong as I had expected (Arabic coffee is served much weaker than Turkish coffee), and it was flavored with cardamon. And the fruit was so nice & sweet! Mary & the other women spoke Arabic, whilst I listened. And every once in awhile I could pick up a word here and there.

We were over to my place again today to check on the water (the first few minutes I watched the silt pouring out!) and to see that the new fridge is working. We spoke again to the landlord about replacing the toilet which has a cracked tank - which we saw as we turned the water on. He came over, checked it out, turned the water tap off to the toilet and the whole unit fell off in his hand, water spurting everywhere and all I could think was "thank goodness it didn't do that to me!" Here's a pic of him as he works on getting the hot water turned on in the kitchen.Mary & the landlord chattered on pleasantly about repairs and he assured her that everything would be fixed tomorrow evening and that I should plan to move in. As with all the people I've met at the shops, he's very pleasant, warm & friendly.

The weather is very hot & today it clouded over for the afternoon. They are desperate for rain here, but today, just clouds, no rain. It gets very windy in the afternoon and while I was outside in the wading pool with the girls today (the house has a high wall around it, I can "sneak out" in my bathing suit), my eyes felt the grit carried by the wind. The girls kept saying "you haven't felt anything yet! Wait 'til there's a real sand storm!" And as we waded around in their pool, I had a language lesson on all the plastic animals that were floating around the pool!

Everything is very modern here. The cars are sleek and fast, the roads are paved and have a lot of round-abouts, the women wear abaya's, shaila's (long black robes & head coverings over their clothing) & veils and the men wear the traditional long white kandoora's with head scarf's (see picture of landlord above) (and they all wear fashionable shades). If the people are not wearing these garments - they are probably not locals, but rather expats.

The streets are not busy during the day time (the heat) but crowded with vehicles in the evenings and as we come home from shopping after dark, we see a lot of families out walking and in the local parks. I am thinking you truly could fry an egg on these roads in the daytime. And will give it a try later this week!!

I'm excited to get out and explore. My hosts have already looked into the possibility of me borrowing the car of another language student who's off for the summer months. Tonight we discussed the possibility that I may even rent a car and go down to another inland city (about 3 hours from here) and stay a couple of nights (hotel) to have a look around and enjoy the market etc. It's very safe here and they are encouraging me that a trip like that, on my own, would not be a problem at all.

It's taking forever to upload pictures and download mail. I'll have to figure something else out. My laptop, which I'm working on at the moment, is going to be replaced by Dell. They've conceded it's unfixable and although I can get onto it, I can't operate it for long periods of time, and it must be plugged in at all times. I'm over the frustrations of it and learning to flex more!!

And - on a final note - everything, including my apartment, is air-conditioned!

Arrived Safely

2007-08-14T22:43:00.000+04:00

Just a quick note to let everyone know I've arrived safely at my new destination. The internet access where I am temporarily staying is dialup thus blogging updates will be limited for the first while. I will move into my own place in two days. Excited to be here! Peaked out the window this morning (it was dark when I arrived)... and feel like I'm in a movie set!! Hope to update with pics & stories soon. Love, Marilyn

Off to my language destination

2007-08-13T01:24:00.000+04:00

This will be my last posting for a few days. Tomorrow morning early I fly out to my new destination. Not sure what my Internet connections will be at that end, but hopefully I'll be up and running pretty quick. Still dealing with the issues of a dysfunctional laptop - but it's working somewhat (until it decides to shut down without warning!). The manufacturer has agreed to replace it - but that can't happen until I'm settled over there.

Thanks for joining the journey!

Visit to Newcastle

2007-08-13T00:17:00.000+04:00

Spent a couple of days up in Newcastle visiting a few that I worked with on the m/v Anastasis.

Greenfield and I headed down to the beach at Southshields - beautiful sunny day and a great time to catch up on the years gone by. While on the ship, he worked on deck and now he's in Newcastle attending Maritime School and will graduate soon as an officer! proud of him!!After our long walk, he cooked me a genuine Ghanian meal (and it was FANTASTIC!!) - for the last year I'd said to my friends "wish I could find someone who could cook me a Ghanaian meal, especially the fried plantains". .

Steven worked with me in HR and he always had the office laughing... I was reminded of that as we spent the day together - i look at the pictures and I'm laughing in all of them!!

We walked along Hadrian's Wall and toured the fort. I would give him the camera to take a pic of me, then stand there waiting, and then realize he'd already taken about 10 and there are all these pictures of me walking towards him, trying to take the camera out of his hand. Yeah - great visit!

This one's a classic

Steven's standing on a 2,000 year old wall

and sending text messages!

Old world meets new! It was great to spend time with them again.

After two nights in Newcastle, I headed back to London to pack.

Afternoon at Covent Garden with Elizabeth

2007-08-09T01:51:00.001+04:00

After waiting around here for the last two days at Adi & Catherine's for the delivery of a new power cord for my PDA, (I did tell you this trip has turned into a technological nightmare?) today Adi was home to sign for it so I got to go out and enjoy the trains/underground and Covent Garden. I have been able to find my way around very quickly and I'm loving this place!! And I'm loving being with these people!!

So first I have to board a train...

to London Waterloo station where I come off the train platform and look for the Underground
and then after negotiating my way through the various tunnels, stairs, escalators, and go a long way through many passages, I find my platform for the Northern Line of the Underground
and arrive at Covent Garden Market
to meet my friend Elizabeth (she taught the W. African traditional birth attendants about mid-wifery when we worked together on the ship) and we chatted for hours about where we've been, where we're going and Who's leading the way in our journeyand these were the crowds outside Covent Garden... it's all about street entertainment in this city! and inside - more entertainment - that lady standing on the stairwell in the black dress is an opera singer - and it was beautiful!
while the cab's brought more to Covent Garden, and took some away and then Elizabeth's daughter came, and they were off in their rickshaw to go find their Underground station
and I went and joined the crowds again to watch some of the entertainment

and to stroll the market one last time

and then went walking to find my Underground station then boarded my train to head back home

and once at my final station in Woking, walked through the town centre to the canal and off to Adi & Catherine's...

because tomorrow's another day and there's another train to catch - this time to Newcastle. And because I don't have a laptop, who knows when the next posting will be! I'll be back on Saturday evening to prepare for my flight out of London on Monday morning.

A Day in London with Paula

2007-08-07T16:40:00.000+04:00

Arrived at Catherine & Adi's place Friday evening. We spent a good portion of Saturday relaxing and then headed off for a walk along the canal, into the local shops and an evening at the movies to laugh our way through Hairspray with John Travolta (who does a fabulous job!). Part of the exercise was to show me how to get into town to the train station and home again. It's been good to spend time with them again. Haven't seen them since the ship was in Capetown.

Sunday I arose early and headed for the train station to meet Paula at London Waterloo station. Again, I remembered being here in 1993 and was surprised what I remembered of the station. Catherine and I had passed through here on Friday evening on our way to their place, but I was consumed with negotiating stairs etc with overweight luggage. Today I could relax and enjoy the crowds!

Because my PDA has been disabled due to a blown power cord (I'm sitting home again today waiting for the new one to arrive), this is how I keep notes these days!! I'm feeling the tyranny of the electronics on this trip!!

It was great to see Paula coming up through the crowds. Just like it was yesterday we'd said "see you again soon" on January 18/06 as I was leaving the ship. We'd already determined that we were going to spend the day sipping lattes and teas and visiting. The heat and the incredible crowds only served to confirm that that was the plan (as opposed to trying to see all the sites of downtown London). We came out of London Waterloo and saw there was a Thames river cruise happening close by, without a big lineup. So that was our first adventure for the day. I think I was born to travel - everything I see just seems to excite me and make me want to learn more! So we hoped onto the 1-1/2 river cruise and took some pics along the way.

The dome of St Paul's Cathedral in the backgroundLooking down the Thames towards London BridgeLooking up the Thames towards the Horse Guards palace with the Hungerford bridge in the foregroundLondon BridgePaula and I at London BridgePassing by The Tower of LondonWalking back along The Thames heading to The County Hall for high tea. All along the walkway were these "live" statutes - incredible costumes and unbelievable stamina in the heat of the sun. Each had a hat to put coins in and when coins were deposited they moved like robots. I could have watched them for hours!!

Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament in the distance

And our destination - the Library at Country Hall
where Paula and I spent the rest of the afternoon avoiding the scorching sun and thick crowds, catching up on the past year and a half, where we'd been, where we're going, and lessons we'd learned along the way. All while enjoying a delightful high tea.

The company of a good friend, tea, sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and strawberry preserves, fancy pastries...
all within view of The Thames & Big Ben...

Elements of a great day!!

and on to the suburbs of London

2007-08-07T14:30:00.000+04:00

One of the things I love about England and Europe is the opportunity to travel by train. They're clean, relaxing and always seem to be reliably on schedule. I walked to the Worthing station with Esther and between the two of us, we negotiated my luggage easily onto the train, said our goodbyes and "see you next year" (she's off to North Africa and we'll meet again in August '08 in the Netherlands during an international conference we plan to attend). as you can see, the train wasn't busy, which surprised me as I thought perhaps a Friday afternoon train to London would be crowded (isn't everyone as excited as me to GO to London?) But of course, it's the trains going the other direction that would be crowded with commuters going home.
and the plan was to meet Catherine at the London Victoria station. As I came off the train I realized how ridiculous it is to be traveling with all this heavy luggage and reminded myself that next time, one bag limit. But - as I came down the platform and into the station and saw the crowds, my heart began to race as I realized I'm really in London! The last time I was here in Victoria station was in 1993, with Jonathan & Sara and I was surprised how much I remembered of the station. The plan was to meet Catherine at the Starbucks - she thought there was just one, so I found the closet one and sat to wait for her. As it turned out, there were three - but she eventually found me after checking out the others. While waiting for her, I had the best seat in town I'm sure! I loved the cosmopolitan flavor of the crowds passing by and the busyness of the traffic, taxis and people... it makes me long to live here! (Pernell said that if I lived here, I would long to live elsewhere!)
Catherine arrived and we were off to the underground and trains back to Woking where she and Adi live. As we negotiated our way through three stations, multiple stairs and escalators, I couldn't believe the weight of my one bag. A lot of the stations only had stairs up and stairs down and I quickly discovered that Londoners are graciously helpful when they see a gray haired lady with an over sized bag at the bottom or top of stairs!

Beautiful Sunset

2007-08-07T13:00:00.000+04:00

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.

Psalm 19:1
As we strolled the sea side of Worthing - another beautiful sunset brings memories of past sunsets

on the Gold Coast of Australia while traveling with Jonathan & Sara
over Sierra Leone & Liberia (especially during the harmatan)
over Benin during my northern safari with Lyn, Neva & Henry
& South Africa while working aboard the m/v Anastasis
& from the dunes of the Namib desert while safariing with Lyn