More Goat Stuff

Today we clipped a lot of goat hooves and when I say we I mean someone else did it while I played with and took pictures of little kids.
Here are some boys and of course what picture is not complete without some sort of gang signs. I'm pretty certain these kids don't mean anything by it except for that the pictures that they see from the States include rappers who are usually doing something similar and that's the image that these kids have of cool.
This one is a little young for gang signs but he insisted on wearing his hat backwards.

While my friends were clipping the hooves all the little boys wanted to help so they got to hold the goats down. When the girls saw that things were calm they wanted to get in on the action too, but what do you get when little girls jump into the picture?

Here they are braiding the goats fur...
...and here they are dancing around, getting the goats all excited and making it basically impossible to trim their hooves.

Who Needs Subtitles?

She's got a lot of things to carry. Me, I struggle trying to carry 4 bags on each arm until the blood stops circulating to my hands and I have to put things down for a minute. Ladies here just stack it on their head, tie their baby to their back (this lady doesn't have a baby, but just about everyone else I know does), then picks up a bag in one hand and grabs another kid's hand in her other and heads off down the road.

Some friends and I have started watching Season 6 of 24 but we have a little bit of a problem. The bad guys speak a lot of Arabic, which would normally be translated into English at the bottom of the screen except that since my friends bought the season in Jordan where they already speak Arabic they didn't translate the Arabic into English subtitles!!

You would think that would be no problem, seeing as how I've been studying Arabic for 2 years now, but somehow it still is. Maybe because I speak a certain dialect of Arabic that is not the dialect the bad guys are speaking or maybe because the bad guys are talking in code...or maybe I'm just making excuses for my pitiful attempts at Arabic!

So when the bad guys say something we have to pause and have a small discussion to try to determine what was actually said. It usually goes something like this: 'hmmm...I understood 5. There are 5 something's. I think that means visits...or visitors or something to do with a visit. (another) In Jordan that means cars...I think. (me) But it also kind of sounds like this other word that doesn't mean visitors but I don't remember what it does mean, I should know this, I just learned that word...'

We don't usually come to a consensus and have to wait an hour or two before what was said in Arabic actually gets said in English on the show. Then we feel stupid for not having figured it out in the first place.

And it's that time of year again...You can't really see the guys on the soccer field who, apparently, didn't get the notice that a dust storm was coming. You also can't see the plane that was landing at the airport in the middle of the storm, don't think he got the notice either. This one wasn't that bad but there are more coming, there always are.

Zilzal

I learned the Arabic word for earthquake this week, mainly because I've been asked several times now how my family is doing after the earthquake. The first time I was asked I was a little confused and had to ask what a zilzal was. They demonstrated (gotta love charades) and I was still confused until finally someone said 'you're not Chinese?' So for all of you who are wondering I am not Chinese, although I was very impressed by the women's knowledge of world events.

Also, just for future reference, I am not Indonesian, Mexican, Indian, Philipino, Russian, Swedish, French, South African, Swiss, Jordanian, Lebanese, or Syrian although, according to some, I could be!

Another New Friend

Today this kid was my best friend. Some of the other kids were scared to death and if I even looked at them they would cry but this one was perfectly content in my lap with a pencil to play with.

In other news, the plug for my iron melted in the wall this morning. I accidentally barely brushed the plug with my finger as I was trying to pull it out of the wall without getting electrocuted and got a blister. Even though it is small it hurt pretty bad and for the next hour I kept it on ice. Then I went to the camp and this 10 yr old girl mixed the hot, smoking charcoal with her fingers....no matter how tough I think I might be for a white girl I am nothing compared to these African women. They are seriously tough!!

$250 Million???

So you just never know when changing your currency 3 times in a relatively short period of time will catch up with you. Here in the Sandbox they said they would pay 250 million pounds for information regarding the rebel leader's hideout. Little did they know that the western media would hear that number, apply the current exchange rate based on the current currency (somehow makes perfect sense), and spread the word that they are paying $125 million dollars!! That's a crazy large amount for one guy, surely he can't be worth that much.

Then today they doubled the amount and now they're going to pay 500 million. Those of us who have been around for a while know that they were actually talking in the old, old currency and that 500 million means $250,000 but they didn't clear that up in the first place and now the world thinks that they are shelling out the big bucks to find this rebel leader. I just feel bad for the guy who thinks he's getting $250 million for finding him and then gets handed a check for $250,000. It's a tricky game, this whole figuring out how much the currency is really worth thing.

On a different note, scope out this musical instrument. Sometimes I go to this place on Sunday mornings that is made up mainly of people from the South who came to K-town to get away from the war...the old war, not the current war. They do everything in Arabic but then they translate into a tribal dialect which conveniently gives me time to figure out what they said in Arabic (or more realistically, to write it down so I can ask my language tutor later) so it works.

They have some songs in Arabic and then the women stand up and lead several songs in their tribal language and they use these homemade instruments. They are basically two powdered milk cans pressed out flat and then pounded together with small holes in them and rice inside. It's really cool when they all pull out their...I don't even know the name...I guess their instruments, and get to singing. It can get pretty wild and it's always loud and I love it!

I don't understand a word of what they're singing so I just clap and dance along because it's not difficult to understand what's coming from their hearts and to know that they are singing passionately for the same reason that I am and it doesn't matter what tribe, tongue or nation we are from, we are all here for the same glorifying purpose.

Seriously, it's an amazing thing and sometimes I sit there a little overwhelmed by just the thought that I have been allowed to witness and particpate in such powerful, heartfelt expression. I foresee that when I am back in the States I will have some serious culture shock every Sunday morning.

Snow Day!

Today ended up being an unexpected day off. Since there was fighting in the capitol yesterday the government imposed a curfew and then extended it and then extended it again. It's still not lifted for the entire city but it finished in the area of town where I live. It was sort of like a snow day only more like a war day.

Thanks for everyone's concern and thoughts. We are all fine. I had to spend the night at my boss's house and we ended up spending today too, just napping and playing guitar hero. Nothing fancy.

Here we are last night when the bombing started. We pulled some lawn chairs up to the roof to get a better view and found that we were not alone, pretty much everyone was out on their balconies and roofs and everyone was on their cell phones which totally overloaded the network and made communication a little difficult. Even though we were up on the roof all the real action was hidden behind a tall building so we could really just see the smoke blowing and the military helicopters flying overhead but we could definitely hear plenty of explosions.

It was a little difficult to capture the blowing smoke in pictures so here is my best attempt. This is the neighbor out on his roof watching the smoke.

The curfew is still in place in parts of town and there are still reports of gunfire but my neighborhood is quiet and it seems like life will go on like normal tomorrow unless something changes. Please keep us in your thoughts and especiallly all our local friends who are on the other side of town and are still feeling unsafe.

Warming Up

So I know I've mentioned that things around here have been warming up but I just had this moment last week where I was standing there listening to people talk about the benefits of keeping your computer in the refrigerator...apparently you have to keep it in a ziploc bag to control the condensation but, otherwise, it can be beneficial? Who knew?!? Only in the Sandbox!

Cool Toys

This week I was back at Mary's house. We talked about this kid named Sam and she was really interested to hear that she was not the first to be in a situation like hers. She recognized immediately the similarities in their situations and is now convinced that the reason that she can't sleep is because someone is trying to talk to her!

Here is one of her sons with a friend. They're playing with this really interesting toy. I don't see how it's all that entertaining but all the kids around town have one and they seem to love them.

Basically it's a homemade car with the top half of a plastic coke bottle attached to a long wooden stick, then lids from other plastic bottles nailed together to be wheels. And then it never fails that they attach fake plastic flowers to each of the wheels, only one of his fell off. They just run around pushing these things for hours at a time...I won't tell you how many sharp nails are just sticking out for any little kid to step on or stab himself in the finger!

Then here is her youngest. You can't see too well but he has 2 empty tomato paste metal cans. He can sit for hours just scooping up dirt into one and then pouring it into the other. The thing is that he is 1 and 1/2 years old and these cans were opened with a knife, not even a can opener, so the lids were peeled back just enough to get the tomato paste out and now they're just hanging there with sharp edges all over the place. I hate watching him play with these but I've never seen him cut himself.
Here is her daughter. She's not so big into toys but she loves to fill plastic bottles with water and shake them and throw them, etc. But she's also so excited about her new shirt and her new dresses. She loves my camera and how it's just like a TV but she doesn't understand how she can never see herself on the TV unless I mess with it (ie, take a picture of her!!). They know I always have my camera with me and shen I came she ran to put on her new clothes because she wanted to see herself on the TV in her cute clothes. She is so cute and they are so grateful for the clothes that they were given a few weeks ago. Thanks SG!!!

I guess lately I've just found myself questioning some American cultural things. These kids play with nails and metal cans with sharp edges for toys, suck on batteries and money, and run around barefoot with glass and razor blades just laying around and yet they all seem to be just fine.

I don't really know what my point is here. I don't really think that we should all start letting our kids suck on batteries and play with nails, but why do our kids need 10 barbie dolls at a time, or an X-box with 25 different games, or a ton of movies to watch on their own TV for entertainment? Why don't we just give them a tire and a stick and let them chase it for hours? Why don't we give them a few plastic bottles and see what happens?