New 'Friends'

Here in the Sandbox I've managed to make a few new friends...if you want to call them that. First, there's the lizard that lives in my room. At first I didn't really like him all that much...it kind of freaks me out when I wake up and he's right there on the wall by my face, but I rationalized that lizards eat bugs and so it might be best to keep him around. This line of thought worked for about a week before I realized that this particular lizard is one of the noisy kinds AND that the cricket in the kitchen that has been there since the day we moved in is still there...therefore the lizard isn't doing his job and in my mind he has to go. I've tried to scare him out of my room and into the living room, but he always comes back. My roommates have even helped me try to catch him on the wall with a plastic cup but he's just too quick. I'm sure that the construction guys across the street who watch us through our windows got a good laugh that day.

Then there's the dogs. In third world countries, no one really has pets, there's just ratty, malnourished animals all over the streets. We are lucky enough to have several of these dogs that live just outside of our apartment. They sleep all day...inside our building on the stairs so that we have to step over them to leave...but then they're awake all night long just barking up a storm. Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! (for all my Brian Regan friends) Needless to say, we're pretty tempted to go down to the 'security guard' down the street and offer him $20 for each dog that he gets with his rifle...(actually, I would like to just borrow the guys rifle to see if it's loaded or if he just carries it around to intimidate people, but that's a whole different subject)

Lastly, there's the donkey. Every night he is 'parked' on the corner but not tied up...I'm amazed that he doesn't run away. But yup, he's on the corner making noise all night. (what is the noise that donkeys make called? breaying?) Anyways, believe it or not, I can sleep through the dogs barking all night, the cricket in the kitchen, I can even get over the lizard sitting on the ceiling above my face, but this stupid donkey on the corner keeps me awake.

We've tried to come up with some creative solutions that will help us sleep through all of these things, but so far none of them have worked. So if any of you have some suggestions we'd be glad to hear them!

Traffic Lights

I mentioned in a previous post that I would post a picture of a rickshaw, well here it is, the most convenient (and safe...lol) mode of transportation. What I wish that I could take a picture of our new traffic lights because they are a sight to be seen. They’ve been in the process of being put up since before I arrived. Actually they’ve been put up and then taken down 3 times in the past month but each time, they’re either facing the wrong direction or in the wrong place or something like that. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t, but this morning they were back up and working, so I got a good laugh. Let me preface this…there aren't a whole lot of traffic lights here, I've only seen one other. And people here don’t really know how to follow rules, especially not driving rules, so even though the lights are up, they generally make no difference in the flow of traffic, everyone just keeps on like normal (and by normal I mean mass chaos)

So this morning, there were 8 traffic police at this intersection and they were explaining to people how the lights work. My driver didn’t understand it, almost rear-ended the guy who was stopped at the red light, and then started honking incessantly for him to go. The guy in the car next to us yelled something in Arabic and then pointed to the light…my driver looked at the light very confused and proceeded to ask the guy some questions. Then the policeman showed up at his window and began to explain that when the light is red, we go and when the light is green, we stop behind the crosswalks so that the people have room to walk (yes, we have crosswalks, buttons and all!!) There were also police guys giving directions to pedestrians at the crosswalks. It was like one big drivers ed class on how to use an intersection. It was great!...or at least I got a big kick out of it. For the record, these instructions weren’t lost in my translation, red really does mean go and they really just do things backwards here, go figure!! And for the record, this is just one stoplight in a city of about 8 million people, give or take a few. But hey….I guess this is what progress looks like!

Ummm...Guys?

Pretty much how it works when one of us sees these things coming. is someone says 'Ummm...guys...maybe we should' and then just fill in the blank, go inside quickly, head home soon, etc. It's really one of the coolest things to see one of these rolling through. When I was in college out in West Texas, one of my favorite things was to drive out to some random, obscure dirt road in the middle of nowhere and watch big thunderstorms roll in. We don't have the big thunderstorms here, but I love watching these things come in...even though it means that everything you own in life will soon be covered in a thick layer of dust (including your teeth!!)

Now I have to admit that I didn't take this picture. One of the girls on my team took it from the roof of her building last month. It's illegal to take pictures here without a photo permit and I just haven't gotten the chance to get a photo permit. I tried my hand at taking discreet ones, like keeping my camera in my purse and pretending that I was looking for something and snapping one real quick, but they all turned out lopsided and sometimes there wasn't even anything in the picture....and I dont know what would happen if I got caught, so I figure that at least for a little while I'll use other people's pictures. Hope ya'll don't mind!

Hard to Think

I’ve found that it’s really hard to think in this heat. I’ve often wondered why everything here is so illogical but I really think that the heat can get to you and kind of mess you up. Lately I’ve been having some trouble talking, doing things, etc. Not real trouble, but sometimes I’ll say something in English and it will be totally wrong grammatically or not even make any sense. And then sometimes, I just make a fool out of myself.

Last night we were playing the game ‘I’ve Never’. It’s a good team building kind of get to know each other game and since we’re all pretty new, we figured we’d play. Plus, we live in the middle of the desert, and it’s not like there’s anything else to do here! The rules of the game are easy, one person stands up and says something that they’ve never done (it has to be true). Everyone who HAS done that thing has to stand up and change seats, the person left in the middle has to say something they’ve never done and the game just goes on. It’s really a dumb game, but it’s amazing the things that you can learn about people. Anyways, so at this point in the game we’ve been playing for over an hour and we’ve gone through stuff like ‘I’ve never been to New York’ or ‘I’ve never seen a Broadway play’, both of which I’ve done. Eventually, I got stuck in the middle and came up with ‘I’ve never been North of Oklahoma’. (Let me explain my thought process, I’ve never been to Kansas, so I said I’ve never been north of OK) Everyone gets up and switches chairs, I get a seat, the game continues, until about 5 minutes later when someone realizes that I have been North of Oklahoma…..numerous times. For some reason, at that particular moment, I didn’t think that Virginia, or New York, or Russia were North of Oklahoma. So I made a complete fool of myself, but what’s interesting is that no one else caught on either!!!! At least not until a few minutes later. It’s gotta be the heat…If not then I might should dye my hair blonde!

Breathe At Your Own Risk

Well, we’ve had one big consistent sandstorm for 7 days now. Sometimes the wind gusts at about 40 mph and you’re literally getting sandblasted, but sometimes the wind stops and you just are in a dust bowl while the sand starts to kind of settle, at least until the next big gust of wind comes. Ie normally try to stay inside for the dust storms, but I couldn’t just pause life for an entire week, so I’ve been out everyday in this stuff. I pretty much just wear my biggest pair of sunglasses, even though you don’t need sunglasses b/c the sun is blocked out by the dirt, but sunglasses keep it from blowing into your eyes as you’re walking. I figure it’s a tradeoff really; I can either look like a complete idiot wearing sunglasses when they’re not needed, or look like an idiot stumbling down the street b/c I can’t see. Either way, I lose!

After about 3 days I was shocked at how long and how bad this has been, but then I thought about it a little more and came up with a theory...It doesn’t storm here, at least not rain storms, so the thunderstorms that I am used to have been replaced with sand storms (which are accompanied by lightning, by the way). And I guess in TX it wouldn’t be so abnormal to have a week where it is just rainy weather, maybe not actually raining all the time, but just drizzly and icky. So, in theory, this is the same thing but without the rain. I would like to see it be rainy weather for a week though. The people here wouldn’t know what to do with it; they’d think it was the end of the world. I’d also like to see this whole sand storm thing for a week in TX. I think it would be mass chaos.

Jammin' in the Sandbox

You just never know what you’re gonna get when you ride public transportation in this place. The majority of people don’t speak English but you can’t count on the fact that your driver doesn’t understand you. One day, we got in a rickshaw (the little riding lawn mowers, the same things that they have in India…I’ll try to get a picture) and one girls says ‘I hate when they have these flap things, they only make the dust worse.’ And then another girls says ‘Oww…I just sat on the thing and hurt my butt muscle’. And then the driver, without even turning around, replies ‘I’m really sorry about that’. You can just imagine the shock and embarrassment that we felt knowing that he knew that we’d just insulted his ride and referred to inappropriate things in mixed company.

Then today, I got in an Amjad which is sort of like a minivan I guess. It can hold 7 foreigners (about 15 nationals when they squash in there) and they can go ‘long distances’ meaning that they can cross the rivers. Anyways, my driver only spoke Arabic and I’ve gotten pretty proficient in getting where I need to go in Arabic, so I told him where I wanted to go and he said that he knew it. We start driving along and we’re going a different way than normal, but I keep thinking to myself ‘well I guess we can get there from this way’ plus we were jamming to some old school Michael Jackson and some Bryan Adams, so at this point, I was still enjoying the ride. We kept going and kept going until we came out on the road I needed but a mile past where we needed to be. He asked which direction I wanted and I told him left, so he turned right and kept on going. He asked if I wanted to turn around and I told him yes, but he just kept going straight. I kept telling him, ‘I need to turn around’ or ‘turn left here’ but he just kept going. He said some things in Arabic that I didn’t understand, however I know that my Arabic directions were correct but he just kept acting like since I was white he couldn’t understand my Arabic. Eventually I called my language tutor (I was on my way to language and thanks to this guy, already late) and had my tutor give directions. Even then, my driver still didn’t know where we were going, but at least he turned around AND, all the sudden, he could understand my Arabic. He kept trying to turn onto random and obscure roads, but eventually we did make it to my lesson. I hate it when the driver tells you that he knows where you want to go, but really doesn’t and just starts going. Usually they follow your directions if you give them, but this guy….

At least he turned on some clean English music for my extensive ride around town. Usually you get ghetto gangster rap accompanied by a flashing neon light on the inside of the vehicle. I actually think that Eminem and Puff Daddy might be more popular here than in America. And of course it’s unedited, they can’t even understand the words anyways so like they care, and that means that we end up riding up to church with ghetto rap and cuss words blaring. Makes for some interesting pre-sermon conversations.

Does Anyone Know A Competent Repairman???

This picture is for the benefit of my uncle who is a home builder. I think that if he were here, he would absolutely refuse to let me live in this building. This would be the wall between my room and my bathroom. On the other side of this wall would be the leaking water heater. Notice the rust accumulating inside the wall behind the electrical outlet and light switches. Myself and my roommates are in agreement that this just can’t be good, but we’ve had 3 different Sandbox plumbers out, they look at the water heater and the wall and say ‘maafi mushkula’ or ‘no problem’ and then they say that we just need to repaint the wall. (you can't see that the paint if bubbling off and then falling off of the wall along with small pieces of the actual wall underneath) I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not an expert plumber, but I just don’t think that repainting the wall that has water leaking inside of it is going to fix anything.

So I try to avoid those electrical things on the wall, just for my own personal health concerns (meaning I would rather not be electrocuted) but something interesting happened last night. My roommate and I were going in to look at something in my room. I avoided the wet switches and turned on the ones that are on a different wall. As I pushed the switch things started popping and glass was breaking, the lights flashed on and off and on and off and then, the power was off. Being the experienced repairmen that we are, we turned off the light switch, flipped the breaker box, and then tried again. It did the same thing again, only this time the lights flashed brighter and the popping noises inside the walls were louder. It might not have been so traumatic had it not been for the smoke and the smell of fire that continued for a good 10 minutes afterwards. But there was nothing we could do. We would need a ladder to reach the lights on the ceiling to even see what had happened, so we just stood underneath it and watched until the smoke went away and then figured it was ok. But now I have to choose which set of light switches I want to use, the wet ones, or the ones that explode.

Tea With Milk

Last week I had forgotten my keys at home and was hoping that one of my roommates would be home to let me in that evening. Sadly, they were not, but our landlord has an extra key and so I headed down to borrow the spare. It had been a long day, it was already 8 pm, but my landlord’s wife insisted on ‘chatting’ over tea and I couldn’t say no, so I sat down. When she brought out the tea she asked if I wanted milk. Since I really don’t care if my tea has milk or not, I told her I would take mine just like she takes hers and so she put 1/3 tea, 2/3 milk.

Over an hour later, we were finally at a lull in the conversation, so I took the opportunity to compliment her tea in hopes of wrapping things up and getting home. When I told her that the tea was wonderful she replied ‘It’s the milk’. I knew that I shouldn’t ask, but I just had to and so I said ‘the milk?’ And then…She said ‘yes, we get it fresh from the milkman everyday and then we don’t put it in the refrigerator. That takes away the nutrition.’ In this case, the milkman would be the guy who gets up at 4 am, milks his goats, puts it in an unsealed, uncovered metal container, throws it on the donkey and heads into town, knocking on doors all the way to ask if you want milk. And if this wasn’t bad enough, it was 125 that day, so it’s not like in the states where if you left the milk out on the counter on accident, it would still stay relatively cool. (and even then, we would probably throw it away after an hour or so!) I haven’t been sick in the two months that I’ve been in the Sandbox, but after this tea I’m pretty sure it’s coming soon!

Am I Safe?

My mom is interested to know if I am safe here, especially when I go places alone. The simple fact is that I go to a lot of places alone, sometimes there's just no other option. Wierd thing is, I can go anywhere I want alone, but heaven forbid that I would be seen (even in public) with one guy. What’s fun is when you have to take your own bag to the bank b/c the exchange rate is 220SD/$$ and so when you withdraw large amounts, you end up with a e stack of money that you have to carry yourself. But I don’t worry about my safety and you shouldn't either. You know how you hear about those ‘inhumane’ laws in 3rd world countries where they cut off people’s fingers and hands when they steal…well these laws actually work in keeping crime to a minimum. And plus, me being a white girl walking down the street makes me the center of attention so (in connection with the cutting off the hand law) no one would ever try to steal anything from me, lest they lose a hand!

There are, however, no laws against yelling or gesturing so I do get that a lot as I'm walking down the street. But since I can't even understand what they're saying, I just ignore it and pretend that I don't know that they're talking to me.

I went shopping by myself yesterday at the souk. A souk would be the Sandbox version of a mall meaning that there are thousands of 'shops' selling anything and everything in the middle of a dirt/mud field covered in tarps with no electricity and no running water. This is where you buy clothes, furniture, silverware, goats & sheep, really you can get anything at the souk. Anyways, so I went to the souk and by now I've really gotten used to the marriage proposals or the American visa requests, but yesterday a guy surprised me. He made me a visa proposal! He said 'I am not asking you for an American visa, I do not need these things. I want to give you a Sandbox visa'. Usually I try to remain composed and decline politely, but with this guy I couldn't help but laugh out loud and I told him that 'I already have my visa thank you very much. I'm finished shopping here, goodbye!' You just never know what you're gonna find for sale in the souk!!!!

Sandbox Plumbing

I've now been living in my apartment for 10 days now. (Actually only 9 nights b/c one night we didn't have power so we stayed with some friends.) But anyways, we managed to make it through an entire week with no major plumbing issues...until Friday. It was pretty late and I was getting ready for bed when I noticed water streaming from underneath the toilet. Since it was Friday evening and no one works on Fridays, I just figured that there's a drain in the corner, if it floods, it floods. Well, thankfully, it did not flood, sometime in the night it stopped but I called my landlord the next morning anyways, who called the plumber who just happens to live upstairs.

Sidenote.....We actually have a history with this plumber, some would call it a friendship, I would call it a history. Before we moved in, he was in our apartment all day, every day for 8 days straight 'fixing' things. Since we've lived there, he's been back a few times to fix stuff, plus he's come down to borrow our iron (?!?) and he bought my roommate a coke down at the store on the corner, all of this while he speaks only Arabic and we speak only English.

Back to the story, after I called my landlord I went to 'get decent' but before I could even get dressed into a skirt and long sleeves the plumber was knocking on the door. (I guess sometimes it can be a good thing that the plumber lives upstairs). He goes into my bathroom, leaves to get tools, comes back and in 10 minutes tells me that he's finished and it's fixed. I didn't see any water running so I assumed that it was fixed and sent him on his way. The landlord called to make sure everything was fine and informed me that the plumber was leaving that afternoon and would be traveling for a few weeks so to be sure we had everything fixed before he left.

Once things were cleared up with the leak, I left for work and didn't come home that night until late...only to find that the water was turned off in my bathroom. That's right, the leak is fixed b/c he turned off the water!!! Who in their right mind would think that this was an adequate solution for a problem? I don't know. But since he's traveling for a while, I'm stuck with no water in my bathroom. Sometimes I just wonder how people can live with absolutely no logic?!?!?

John Deere Green

I have some great friends here in the Sandbox who have us over for dinner quite often, I'll call them 'the B's'. She's a wonderful cook and a great hostess, but there are 2 things that really set the B's apart from our other friends here...dance dance revolution and karaoke. It doesn't matter why we've come to their house, every visit turns into karaoke night. Last night, our yrp meeting ended with flashdance. In the midst of all of these entertaining evenings, I've learned that in my southern upbringing of country music, I really missed out on a lot of good 80's music. I've never even heard half of the songs that people sing and the most of the rest don't really know. Needless to say, I'm a karaoke dud. It has been interesting though, to notice the change in my personality since coming to the Sandbox. Maybe it's the heat, I don't know. But in the states, I was pretty shy, I didn't even sing very loud in ch just in case the person next to me heard. Fastforward to last night when I put on an exhilarating performance of Joe Diffie's 'John Deere Green' in front of about 15 people...with no shame.