If I had to pick one pet peeve of my dad's I think it would definitely be writing on your body. I remember when I was a kid he absolutely hated it when I would write on myself. It didn't matter if I jotted a note on my hand or drew a picture on my arm with a pen that would wash off, he really didn't like it. He didn't even like it when we wrote on the driveway in sidewalk chalk and that was really easy to wash away. Now that I think of it, his pet peeve just might be that he doesn't like to see writing or drawings on anything but paper. Anyways, he would always tell us not to write on ourselves and we didn't really see the logic behind that and, honestly, didn't always obey. Sorry Dad. So that being said....
I've posted before about how people in my culture get henna, which is basically a type of hair dye, painted on their body in decorative designs. I even put some pictures up from one of the times that I got it. It's supposed to stay around for about 4 weeks and will eventually fade. About a month ago I was visiting a friend and, in the middle of a conversation, she just stood up and said 'we want to go and make henna. Do you want to come?'. What do I care, it fades away in a month, right? So I'm just like 'sure, ok, let's go make henna'. We get to the place and they pick out a design for me and the lady starts drawing it on my leg and I realize that I'm the only one getting henna. So I ask my friends 'what design are y'all going to have done?' and they say 'oh, we're not getting henna, we just wanted you to get it.' Now these girls speak perfect English so it's not like there was a miscommunication here, they just wanted to see the white girl have a cultural experience. Haha.
It's not uncommon for your skin to burn a little after you get henna. After all, they just painted a design on your body with a hard core chemical used for hair dye. But this time mine burned for 3 days. I thought it was odd, but what could I do? I mean, this permanent dye had already been painted on and then washed off so there really wasn't anything I could do about it. After about 3 weeks it started to fade a little, just enough so that I could see the huge red weird looking after effects of the henna. I asked my doctor friend and, apparently, I now have a chemical burn where the henna was painted. So much of a chemical burn that it's actually now looking like it will be a permanent scar up the side of my leg in a flowery/leafy kind of shape.
I really would have never chosen to go and get a permanent tatoo but it looks like I might be stuck with one. To look on the bright side, at least it's not green. So Dad, sorry I didn't heed your warning about not drawing on myself.You can say 'I told you so'. If I had just learned my lesson when I was a kid...Although I guess now it won't be necessary to go and get henna ever again. I can just trace the red marks up my leg with a marker and no one will know the difference!
30 January 2007
23 January 2007
Swimmin'
Sunday afternoon several of us went out of town to our language teacher's house and then down to the Nile to play some volleyball. Our net was 2 bamboo sticks that they just cut down out of a field and a handmade net that was actually very impressive for handmade. We went down to the beach and they dug holes as deep as they could and then we just put the poles in and filled in the holes. Surprisingly, that worked and we played for several hours.
In the middle of playing we took a break and went swimming in the river, it was my first time. Well, I actually didn't get all the way in but I did hike up my pants and get in up to mid-calf...scandalous. Although I have noticed a bit of a double standard. For instance, how is it ok for some guys to strip down completely naked and take a bath 100 meters from where I'm standing but inappropriate for me to show my ankles? I don't understand but maybe next time I'll get in up to my knees and really give 'em a show!
In the middle of playing we took a break and went swimming in the river, it was my first time. Well, I actually didn't get all the way in but I did hike up my pants and get in up to mid-calf...scandalous. Although I have noticed a bit of a double standard. For instance, how is it ok for some guys to strip down completely naked and take a bath 100 meters from where I'm standing but inappropriate for me to show my ankles? I don't understand but maybe next time I'll get in up to my knees and really give 'em a show!
19 January 2007
Queen of Sheba
I was sitting at lunch today with some good friends who traveled last week to see some of their Nubian friends. As they were visiting, their friends mentioned that the Queen of Sheba came last summer. Of course my friends were a little skeptical about how a queen from biblical times came to visit last summer but the people were adamant that the Queen of Sheba came to visit. They talked about the Queen and her entourage and about how she is actually the queen of the Nubian people but is called the queen of sheba. They thought she was wonderful and they truly believed that they had encountered royalty. When they came home my friends did a little research on this 'Queen' and found the following.
This 'Queen of Sheba' is actually from Trinidad but she lives in Holland and married the king of the Nubians. Most people wouldn't know this, but there is NO ROYAL FAMILY in the Nubian culture so there's actually no way she could be the Queen of the Nubians. When she came to my country last summer they let her travel all over the country, she ran up a $25,000 bill at the Hilton and they actually signed trade agreements with this woman. What's crazy is that the Nubian people actually live here and they actually don't have a royal family but they actually, 100% believed this woman when she showed up with a wig and an entourage. After over a month of royal treatment they figured out that she was a fake (shocking!) and she left the country, leaving behind an unpaid Hilton bill. But there are still people here who swear that this woman was legit. Anyways, here's a link to an article about her. If you're really bored or think this might be at all funny, go ahead and read it.
http://www.trinicenter.com/more/Trininubian.htm
Some article excerpts and my comments:
'The Nubian dynasty is not limited to borders. There are Nubians in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Egypt. It's beyond borders." The dynasty is not about politics either, said Kasambura. Rather, it's about helping the more than 60 million Nubian people scattered throughout the world to understand their ancestry'
Really? 60 million? I'm shocked at how much this 'queen' knows about her newly found people because, according to real numbers, there are less than 3 million and they're pretty centrally located.
"People don't know where they're from. Nubians are always Nubian in terms of race."If you saw a Nubian," she said, "you'd see yourself."I see Nubians quite often and never once have I seen myself...although now that I know what to expect I won't panic when it actually happens!!
"More than 90 per cent of slave descendants in the West, said Her Majesty Queen Sheba, come from that area which was the formerly wealthy kingdom of Nubia-south of Egypt and north of Sudan."
Maybe what I learned in history classes wasn't true but I'm fairly certain that the slaves came from all over this continent and not just a very small people group on the other side of Africa, the Queen of Sheba came from the Arabian Peninsula, and, last time I checked, there was nothing south of Egypt and north of Sudan...they border each other!
"We're your people!" she said.Every woman is a queen, she said, and each Trinidadian and Tobagonian has a responsibility to the world.'A responsibility to do what? Pretend like you're a queen and go around scamming people?
So last summer this lady from Trinidad put on a wig, showed up in my country and claimed to be the Queen of a people group who has never had a royal family, was wined and dined by every civic official she met including leaders of those very people who don't have a royal family, ran up an extravagant tab at the Hilton and no one asked any questions, just believed her! I find this rather hilarious. Maybe I've been in Africa too long but we laughed for over an hour about this...and then it was referenced quite a few more times and, I'm not gonna lie, we laughed to the point of tears each time. I know this story sounds just ludicrous and is really quite unbelievable...I probably wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't live here in this absurd place.
Right now they won't give us permission to travel outside of the capitol, but maybe if we got a cool wig and a tiara I could pose as the princess of an Asian island country...then they'd let us go for sure!
This 'Queen of Sheba' is actually from Trinidad but she lives in Holland and married the king of the Nubians. Most people wouldn't know this, but there is NO ROYAL FAMILY in the Nubian culture so there's actually no way she could be the Queen of the Nubians. When she came to my country last summer they let her travel all over the country, she ran up a $25,000 bill at the Hilton and they actually signed trade agreements with this woman. What's crazy is that the Nubian people actually live here and they actually don't have a royal family but they actually, 100% believed this woman when she showed up with a wig and an entourage. After over a month of royal treatment they figured out that she was a fake (shocking!) and she left the country, leaving behind an unpaid Hilton bill. But there are still people here who swear that this woman was legit. Anyways, here's a link to an article about her. If you're really bored or think this might be at all funny, go ahead and read it.
http://www.trinicenter.com/more/Trininubian.htm
Some article excerpts and my comments:
'The Nubian dynasty is not limited to borders. There are Nubians in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, and Egypt. It's beyond borders." The dynasty is not about politics either, said Kasambura. Rather, it's about helping the more than 60 million Nubian people scattered throughout the world to understand their ancestry'
Really? 60 million? I'm shocked at how much this 'queen' knows about her newly found people because, according to real numbers, there are less than 3 million and they're pretty centrally located.
"People don't know where they're from. Nubians are always Nubian in terms of race."If you saw a Nubian," she said, "you'd see yourself."I see Nubians quite often and never once have I seen myself...although now that I know what to expect I won't panic when it actually happens!!
"More than 90 per cent of slave descendants in the West, said Her Majesty Queen Sheba, come from that area which was the formerly wealthy kingdom of Nubia-south of Egypt and north of Sudan."
Maybe what I learned in history classes wasn't true but I'm fairly certain that the slaves came from all over this continent and not just a very small people group on the other side of Africa, the Queen of Sheba came from the Arabian Peninsula, and, last time I checked, there was nothing south of Egypt and north of Sudan...they border each other!
"We're your people!" she said.Every woman is a queen, she said, and each Trinidadian and Tobagonian has a responsibility to the world.'A responsibility to do what? Pretend like you're a queen and go around scamming people?
So last summer this lady from Trinidad put on a wig, showed up in my country and claimed to be the Queen of a people group who has never had a royal family, was wined and dined by every civic official she met including leaders of those very people who don't have a royal family, ran up an extravagant tab at the Hilton and no one asked any questions, just believed her! I find this rather hilarious. Maybe I've been in Africa too long but we laughed for over an hour about this...and then it was referenced quite a few more times and, I'm not gonna lie, we laughed to the point of tears each time. I know this story sounds just ludicrous and is really quite unbelievable...I probably wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't live here in this absurd place.
Right now they won't give us permission to travel outside of the capitol, but maybe if we got a cool wig and a tiara I could pose as the princess of an Asian island country...then they'd let us go for sure!
18 January 2007
Speak Arabic!!!
On my way to language today I flagged an Amjad and then had some issues. I only speak in Arabic to drivers b/c the majority of them only speak Arabic and I don't want to seem like the 'typical American' who expects everyone to speak their language. The entire following conversation took place in Arabic.
I tell him where I want to go and he says 'speak Arabic'. So I repeated what I said and he says 'I don't know English' and I said 'But do you know Arabic? I know English but right now I'm speaking in Arabic to you'. And he looked at me and said 'That's not Arabic, you're speaking English'. So then, in English, I repeated everything that we had just said and threw in a few extra things just to throw him off, then looked at him and, in Arabic, said 'that was English. This is Arabic and I want to go to Riyadh'. I guess that was all it took b/c I made it to language!
I tell him where I want to go and he says 'speak Arabic'. So I repeated what I said and he says 'I don't know English' and I said 'But do you know Arabic? I know English but right now I'm speaking in Arabic to you'. And he looked at me and said 'That's not Arabic, you're speaking English'. So then, in English, I repeated everything that we had just said and threw in a few extra things just to throw him off, then looked at him and, in Arabic, said 'that was English. This is Arabic and I want to go to Riyadh'. I guess that was all it took b/c I made it to language!
The sheep
I went to visit a friend the other day. Her whole family speaks English so we hold the majority of our conversations in English b/c it's just easier that way. For lunch we had sheep neck. It was...tasty. After lunch we sat and talked for a while, then we played the Arabic game. It seems like everyone knows this game. It works like this: they point to random things in the room and then expect me to quickly reply with the word in Arabic. Not a single visit goes by without us playing some form of this game.
So they point to the fan, the table, the bed, etc. and I get them all correct. Then they ask 'say the kharouf' (kharouf is sheep in Arabic). So I say 'kharouf'. They looked a little confused and said 'no, say the kharouf' and so I say 'kharouf' and then the girl says 'no, the kharouf' and so I say 'baaaa?' and she says, 'no, the alphabet'. 'Ohhhh, karouf, not kharouf'. That little h makes a pretty big difference. Guess I was a little too focused on keeping that kharouf neck down that I didn't hear the little h and ended up making a fool out of myself. They got a pretty big laugh out of the white girl making farm animal noises and me, well, I have to laugh at myself, otherwise I'd go crazy.
So they point to the fan, the table, the bed, etc. and I get them all correct. Then they ask 'say the kharouf' (kharouf is sheep in Arabic). So I say 'kharouf'. They looked a little confused and said 'no, say the kharouf' and so I say 'kharouf' and then the girl says 'no, the kharouf' and so I say 'baaaa?' and she says, 'no, the alphabet'. 'Ohhhh, karouf, not kharouf'. That little h makes a pretty big difference. Guess I was a little too focused on keeping that kharouf neck down that I didn't hear the little h and ended up making a fool out of myself. They got a pretty big laugh out of the white girl making farm animal noises and me, well, I have to laugh at myself, otherwise I'd go crazy.
17 January 2007
It's Always Something
Here in the Sandbox it seems like life can never just flow smothly, it's always something.
This week our gas tank for our oven ran out Monday night in the middle of dinner and we couldn't get it refilled until the next day. Tuesday our neighbor helped us out by taking our gas tank to get it refilled, only to find out that we needed a new tube b/c ours was old. He went to the souq but didn't find any and so we rigged it the best we could. As we were hooking up the gas tank to the oven I felt something wet on my toes. I was wearing flip flops and, surprised to be feeling water gently lapping at my feet, I worriedly looked down to find water flowing up out of the floor through the drain. (here just about every room has a drain in the floor. That way to clean all they have to do is pour a bucket of water in the floor and then squeegie it through the drain...real clean huh?).
There wasn't anything we could do about the water, seeing as how it was flowing from an unknown source underneath the floor, so we just finished hooking up the oven and then stood and watched until the water eventually stopped flowing. Of course it was too late to call a plumber so we cleaned up the mess and then cooked dinner like everything was just normal. This morning our engineer friend came over with a plumber and they cleaned out our drain which was kind of gross but definitely not gross enough to be the problem. When they went downstairs and outside to check out the pipe leading to the sewer line they discovered the source of the problem...there was no pipe!! Sure, there's a pipe running down the wall and it goes into the ground giving the appearance that everything is as it should be but then it stops a good foot short of the sewer line...no wonder we've been having problems! That's the Sandbox for ya!
This is just a picture of my dinner, nothing really exciting except that we just got a new little store down the road and now they sell ta'mia. (smashed up chic peas fried, same thing as falofel). So this kid just sits outside in the street all day long with his metal bowl of grease on top of a fire just waiting for people to come and get ta'mia. He's fries it up, throws it on some bread, calls it a sandwich and then wraps it up in newspaper for takeaway. And all this for only the equivalent of 25 cents. The real bonus is that I get to catch up the news while I eat my sandwich. The most intellectually stimulating sandwich I've had in a while.
This week our gas tank for our oven ran out Monday night in the middle of dinner and we couldn't get it refilled until the next day. Tuesday our neighbor helped us out by taking our gas tank to get it refilled, only to find out that we needed a new tube b/c ours was old. He went to the souq but didn't find any and so we rigged it the best we could. As we were hooking up the gas tank to the oven I felt something wet on my toes. I was wearing flip flops and, surprised to be feeling water gently lapping at my feet, I worriedly looked down to find water flowing up out of the floor through the drain. (here just about every room has a drain in the floor. That way to clean all they have to do is pour a bucket of water in the floor and then squeegie it through the drain...real clean huh?).
There wasn't anything we could do about the water, seeing as how it was flowing from an unknown source underneath the floor, so we just finished hooking up the oven and then stood and watched until the water eventually stopped flowing. Of course it was too late to call a plumber so we cleaned up the mess and then cooked dinner like everything was just normal. This morning our engineer friend came over with a plumber and they cleaned out our drain which was kind of gross but definitely not gross enough to be the problem. When they went downstairs and outside to check out the pipe leading to the sewer line they discovered the source of the problem...there was no pipe!! Sure, there's a pipe running down the wall and it goes into the ground giving the appearance that everything is as it should be but then it stops a good foot short of the sewer line...no wonder we've been having problems! That's the Sandbox for ya!
This is just a picture of my dinner, nothing really exciting except that we just got a new little store down the road and now they sell ta'mia. (smashed up chic peas fried, same thing as falofel). So this kid just sits outside in the street all day long with his metal bowl of grease on top of a fire just waiting for people to come and get ta'mia. He's fries it up, throws it on some bread, calls it a sandwich and then wraps it up in newspaper for takeaway. And all this for only the equivalent of 25 cents. The real bonus is that I get to catch up the news while I eat my sandwich. The most intellectually stimulating sandwich I've had in a while.
11 January 2007
Seriously???
So today is another holiday. Apparently, according to the lunar calendar, today is New Year's Day. Rumor had it that today would be another govt holiday but I didn't have to go to any govt offices so I don't know if it was or not. Everything else seemed to be open and running like normal so I guess technically it didn't affect my life, but it's kind of the principle of the matter...and I thought there were a lot of govt holidays in the states.
08 January 2007
Never-Ending Holidays
Around here we're still in official holiday season mode, have been since Christmas. Things started shutting down around Dec 25th, then there was the A9ed that started on the 30th. It was supposed to last for 3 days but since it would have ended on a Monday they just decided to go ahead and officially extend it for the rest of the week. That would have meant that things should have been picking up again Saturday. But then Sunday the 7th was the Coptic Christmas and we couldn't miss celebrating that...even though something like 93% of the people in my country are Muslim. Then there wa's today which is the day after Christmas but things were still closed down and everything was just slow. Then there's tomorrow....
Yesterday, tomorrow wasn't a holiday. But today, for some reason, they declared that tomorrow is 'Peace Day'. It's not like it's an official holiday or anything. I've been here for 9 months and this is the 3rd peace day that I've seen and there's still no peace...shocking. So what will happen is that everyone will stay home tomorrow and think about how great it would be if there were some semblance of peace in this country. Then they will go back to work and do everything they possibly can to make sure that that doesn't happen. It's a vicious cycle.
Yesterday, tomorrow wasn't a holiday. But today, for some reason, they declared that tomorrow is 'Peace Day'. It's not like it's an official holiday or anything. I've been here for 9 months and this is the 3rd peace day that I've seen and there's still no peace...shocking. So what will happen is that everyone will stay home tomorrow and think about how great it would be if there were some semblance of peace in this country. Then they will go back to work and do everything they possibly can to make sure that that doesn't happen. It's a vicious cycle.
03 January 2007
Desert Camping
With all these holidays and not a whole lot to do we decided to go camping. Apparently that's what people do around here in the winter to keep entertained.
We did all the typical camping things and then went to sleep. My bed consisted of a plastic mat type thing and 2 wool blankets in the sand, sad thing is that it was more comfortable than my normal bed except that it was freezing all night long. 
It went kind of like this. We headed north out of town. There are 3 paved roads all the way out of my city. If you pick the wrong one it turns into dirt and then you have to drive across the field until you get to the paved road. Then we drove about 2 hours until we saw someplace cool we wanted to go, kicked it into 4WD and headed across the desert to get to the place we wanted. We probably went about 1 mile off of the road and were completely isolated in the middle of nowhere next to these really cool rock formations. We set up camp and then climbed around for a while. (She insisted she could do it all on her own...it took us a while)
We did all the typical camping things and then went to sleep. My bed consisted of a plastic mat type thing and 2 wool blankets in the sand, sad thing is that it was more comfortable than my normal bed except that it was freezing all night long. We got up and hung out for a while and then these 2 random nomad guys just kind of show up out of the middle of nowhere on their donkeys with their herd of goats. One of our friends went out to talk to them. Turns out, they knew exactly when we'd gotten there, which piles of rocks we'd climbed the day before, etc. Apparently that whole time that we thought we were isolated we were not exactly alone. It seems cool to imagine that there were angry Arab men spies with big machetes hiding all up in the rocks and just waiting for us to fall asleep until they could move in but more than likely they heard cars drive in and automatically knew there were white folk around, then saw the smoke from our fire and knew where we were. Anyways, if you look closely at the picture you'll notice that they're holding a football for the first time...try explaining that in Arabic! They wanted to know if we were building a house there. Too bad we didn't know the Arabic to tell them that the wise man builds his house on the rock and the foolish man builds his house on the sand...although how do you explain that when the entire country is sand?!?!
While D was talking to these guys his wife took me out and taught me how to drive a standard. When we came back to camp D said that those guys had seen 5 cars in their lives and still knew that I was learning to drive a stick. Then they asked if he would teach them to drive since it appeared that their car was for hire! Here's the 'road' that I learned to drive on.
01 January 2007
Happy Threefold Holiday
So today's holiday is threefold for us. It's New Year's Day, the last day of the A9ed and my country's Independence Day, although people have made it a point to say that they are NOT celebrating Independence Day b/c they are disgusted with the current regime and have nothing to celebrate.
Even though I live here, it's still hard to imagine living in a country where you don't even have any desire to celebrate your Independence Day. At least in the States, if you aren't happy with the current govt you can know that at least some people voted for them and you can look forward to the next election where changes will be made...oh the things that you don't even know you should be thankful for.
With so many unhappy people we deal with lots of rumors around here about govt things. Today's rumor, actually printed in the newspaper, was that the top 10 govt officials would be assassinated today. So we all stayed home just in case but we're figuring that since it's so quiet outside it probably didn't happen. What I'd like to know is who is the bright person who decided that they would publish, in the newspaper, their coup attempt? Does it really make any sense to announce to the entire country that you're going to attempt to overthrow the govt? Do they think that the current ruling party is just going to sit back and wait to be assassinated? I just don't get this logic.
So happy threefold holiday!
Even though I live here, it's still hard to imagine living in a country where you don't even have any desire to celebrate your Independence Day. At least in the States, if you aren't happy with the current govt you can know that at least some people voted for them and you can look forward to the next election where changes will be made...oh the things that you don't even know you should be thankful for.
With so many unhappy people we deal with lots of rumors around here about govt things. Today's rumor, actually printed in the newspaper, was that the top 10 govt officials would be assassinated today. So we all stayed home just in case but we're figuring that since it's so quiet outside it probably didn't happen. What I'd like to know is who is the bright person who decided that they would publish, in the newspaper, their coup attempt? Does it really make any sense to announce to the entire country that you're going to attempt to overthrow the govt? Do they think that the current ruling party is just going to sit back and wait to be assassinated? I just don't get this logic.
So happy threefold holiday!
