Photo Permit

I am now an officially licensed photographer in the Sandbox...not professional or anything. Every person who wants to take pictures here has to apply for a photo permit. It's free, which is unusual around here, but it sure is a hassle to do it.

First, we went to the ministry of tourism (that was the place with the floor mix-up) and the lady there told us to go downtown. Her directions went something like this 'look for the german center, then keep going, then go west, there's a hotel, well it used to be a hotel but now it's in ruins but you will see the sign, then turn and you will see the big sign that says the ministry of tourism. It is very easy to find if you know where the german center is.' Well, we knew where the german center was and we drove around for over an hour trying to find it. Later, my friend went back and just walked around and he did finally find it. But here's what her directions should have said. 'Go to the German center, turn left on the road that looks like it's paved but is really only paved for about 15 ft, then turns to dirt. Go a few blocks and then you might see the hotel in ruins, good luck finding the sign. Turn right which is also the wrong way on a one way road that looks more like an alley than an actual road and you will see an obscure, small black sign that is written only in Arabic. Go through the gate and into the first doorway and you will see a room that has 4 desks, 4 chairs, a stamp and nothing else. This is where you want to be.'

Seriously, the room had a few posters, 4 desks, 4 chairs and the stamp that we needed to make our photo permits official. You have to attach a passport photo, a copy of your passport and a copy of your visa. What's funny is that we had to make copies of the original ones and then they keep the copies and we keep the original, but you can't copy a picture so they have pictures of us that they can't even see.

My philosophy on this process is this: some high up guy in the govt has a 2nd cousin's brother-in-law who was in need of work. So they set up a 2nd tourism office and pay this guy to sit there and be the 'keeper of the stamp'. IF anyone can find it, then his job is to make sure that he makes it as difficult as possible for them to get their permit, causing them to make at least 2 trips to the office, if not more. The people in the office were very friendly and helpful, they told us exactly what we would need to obtain our permits the first time my friend went to ask. Usually, they will tell you only half of what you need, then when you go back they look at you like you're crazy and tell you something else you need so that you have to go home and come back again. You can go through that process several times before you have everything that you might need.

But, I can now legally take pictures of some things...there are still some pretty strict rules on what I can and can not photograph. The rule pretty much says that I can't take pictures of anything that might make the govt look bad or the country look poor. That really kind of limits how many pictures you can take, but still, now I don't have to worry about getting arrested!

John Mayer

After 3 months of patient waiting, I finally have the newest John Mayer CD in my posession. I pre-ordered it in August, then it came out in Sept. but I had to wait for someone to come this way from the states until I could get it. But I can now enjoy what the rest of the world has known for a while...and it will be good!

7-11

Today I walked past a guy in the street wearing a bright red 7-11 shirt and the nametag said 'Mohammed'. I wondered if it was actually his shirt or not, but then I figured it doesn't matter. There's still a 50% chance that his name actually is Mohammed, whether the shirt was his or not.

It's the surprising little things that remind you of home...and make you just a little jealous of the people who get to actually drink a slurpee on a hot day.

Chinese

Some friends of mine went to the 'mall' tonight and asked if we wanted anything, so we requested some chinese food from one of the 2 chinese places in town. This is the text message that we got from them.

'The chinese palace closed down...and the oriental corner is serving sandwiches...'

Anyone know how to make your own chinese food???

Where's the first floor?!?!?

Today I had the lovely opportunity to go to a government office...actually 3 and all in search of the same thing. But that's not the point of this story.

In every office there is a guy sitting behind a desk at the front door. He holds the power, or at least he decides if you get to go in and if you're extra nice he might tell you where to go. We asked the guy behind the desk about the forms we needed and he said 'go upstairs to the first floor'. (Around here, they call what we could call the 2nd floor, the 1st floor and that's ok, I've gotten used to it) We go upstairs to the '1st floor' and there's a gate blocking us from going in, but there are people in the hallway behind the gate. Thinking that, maybe it's just closed and we have to open it, my friend kind of shakes it and it doesn't open. We looked at each other just a little confused as to how we're supposed to get to the 1st floor when it's locked. Just then, the desk guy pops his head in and says 'not here, go up to the 1st floor' with this look on his face like we were stupid. Of course...b/c that's how things work around here. If you close the door to the 1st floor, the 2nd one automatically becomes the 1st. So...we went up to the 3rd/1st floor and didn't get the form we needed. Apparently they keep those forms in a different building now. Oh well, maybe they got too confused and decided to put the forms in a 1 story building!!!

The Panda Man

Here in this crazy place I call the Sandbox people like to decorate their cars in weird ways. My personal favorite is the animal head seat covers, well, they don't actually cover the whole seat, just the headrest. You can find them in just about any animal, tigers, lions, kangaroos, dogs, the one pictured is panda bears.

A very close friend of mine really likes the pandas. She is teaching English in a busy place where amjad drivers wait outside just in case students need a ride. Luckily, she's found the amjad driver of her dreams. He waits outside the school for her and, according to her, he is 'everything you could want...in an amjad driver'. We really kind of make fun of her about this, just because she gets so excited when she gets to have him drive her. He, like the picture, has panda-head seat covers and so, we have affectionately nicknamed him 'panda-man'....he is officially the #2 man in her life at the moment, #1 will be here for a visit shortly, at which time we'll determine if panda-man gets to be the new #1.

Picnic!

It's been a long week. I've been a little sick with some 24 hour thing but, since it's the Eid, everything has pretty much been closed and I haven't had language to worry about. Most of my local friends have all headed out of town for the holiday and so I've stayed close to home...I've definitely watched one too many movies in the past few days. Today we decided to plan an activity, so I went out with some friends down to the biggest river in the world (which, by the way, flows from South to North, not what I expected!) and we had a picnic. It really worked out great because there were tons of people out. Apparently picnicking is the way to go when you want to meet new people, especially on a holiday.
First we had to decide where we wanted to go. None of us have ever really been to picnic by the river so we drove around for a while, even crossed the bridge into a completely different part of town. It was there that we saw this...an Arab man scarecrow. No straw hat or overalls, just a stark white jalabiyya protecting someone's garden!! Actually, the last time I was at the river which was about a month ago, it was higher than it's been in 20 years (or so 'they' say) and everything that you see that is green was totally underwater. It's amazing to see the change in the water level...guess the rainy season really is over!

We continued to drive and ended up back on our own side of the river just in front of the palace, kind of like if we'd just gone to hang out on the lawn of the whitehouse or something!

Anyways, we sat and ate lunch and actually had a man who we suspected to be homeless came up and sat fairly close to us. My friends have a 2 yr old daughter who has never met a stranger and she immediately took to him. We sent over a plate of food and he was extremely grateful. My friend's husband talked to him for a very long while and tried to share some important things with him. When the 2 yr old got tired of that, she went and made friends with an Arab family that had just arrived. Before they had even arranged their blankets on the ground she had already sat down right in the middle and was playing with their kids and eating their food. It was pretty funny to just watch her make herself completely comfortable with this family we'd never seen before. But, it gave her mom a great opportunity to go and meet this family.

Imagine going to a picnic dressed like this woman. She was one of the ladies in the family. It might be starting to cool off, but it is by no means cool outside. I was still sweating while sitting. I sure don't understand how the women here can dress like the do. Not everyone dresses like this (we call it 'ninja') but the majority of them do cover their heads.

As people drove by our picnic, they were constantly yelling out their windows 'khawaja, khawaja' which basically means 'white guy, white guy'. I always want to say something smart like 'thanks for the reminder', but I'm not so much advanced in the Arabic, so I just pretend like I have no idea that they're yelling at me and they usually will eventually stop. It's not like there aren't other white people around here because, with all of the aid organizations, there are quite a few. I guess we just stand out a little since, even though we are dressed in a culturally appropriate manner, we're still not dressed like this lady.

The A9ed (eed)

Yep, that’s the number 9 in there. It has something to do with the pronunciation; Arabic is so easy…ummm, I wish. The word actually means feast and that’s what we’re having around here.

So Ramadan is over and the a9ed is upon us. Basically, the it’s like Christmas only 4 days long (throw in the day before and the day after where no one does anything b/c it’s almost the a9ed and it can be long!) Everything shuts down and tons of people travel to see their families. Actually, interesting, the roads outside of the capitol are so dangerous and crowded that they have police out and make people travel in convoys. Apparently at the edge of the city they make people line up into groups of 100 cars and then they are escorted at 40km/h (about 20 mph). My landlord’s family is taking a trip that would normally take them 3 hours but it will take 6. But, they didn’t leave early to avoid traffic like I would think…nope, they just sat around the house, slowly packing their stuff until they felt like leaving. My dad would have had us in the car at 2am if it meant avoiding a long drive like that!

At the end of Ramadan there is also a night of power. I’m not exactly sure what it entails but I know that the boys were out in full force beating real drums in rhythm (as opposed to the usual sporadic beating of pots and pans) all night and there were firecrackers going off constantly, plus several extra calls to prayer. It’s basically just one big celebration.

This sounds gross but tonight the smell of blood is in the air. People are out slaughtering goats and sheep for their celebrations. They just do it in the street; the men go out and buy a goat and then bring it home and just take it out in the street and cut it up for the women to cook. It’s a pretty gross smell and then there's the fact that blood is all over the dirt streets, making mud, and then I can actually hear it happening from my apartment which is pretty gross too. Good thing I was already sick today so I didn’t go out, otherwise I probably would have witnessed it and I don’t know that my stomach could have taken it at the moment!

There’s more to the a9ed than this, these are just my observations of the start. Tomorrow is the first day and I’m sure it will be interesting.

Coke

This is just one of our special Ramadan coke labels. It's in Arabic...I don't know what it says except that it's about Ramadan.


I'm interested to see if we have Santa Claus labels...I probably won't get my hopes up!

6 Months

I've been here 6 months exactly...it's hard to believe. Alot has happened and time is flying by. Even though it's been a big adjustment, I'm finding that I'm getting used to life in the Sandbox. Here are just a few things that have now become normal.

1) I thoroughly inspect my food before I eat it. When I buy bread from the shop across the street I have to pick the grass out of it before I eat it....and I don't really think that's weird.

2) Things in/on cars like: 'da bom' or 'da pom', 'BOB' (marley), 'Osama', pictures of mashetes, huge teddy bears that are holding hearts that say 'I love you', curtain fringe hanging from the roof, really anything tacky that you can think of, don't even make me laugh anymore.

3) Yesterday I got angry at my amjad driver for driving carefully...I actually found myself mad when he didn't pull out recklessly, swerve all over the road and basically endanger my life with every move he made. He made me late.

4) As I walk down the street men yell things but I don't even have the urge to yell back anymore, I just ignore them. Except for when they say 'masha'allah' which means 'praise the lord'. Can't help but laugh at that one!

5) I look forward to the winter, only because it entails double-digit temperatures!

6) I've found that anything can be amusing...even watching little kids chase goats from the balcony

7) It's not a real meal unless it is accompanied by some form of cucmber/tomato salad

8) The smell of rain makes my day

9) I'll eat anything that tastes bad as long as it's not weird...a horribly tasting mixture of flour and water with some sauce that tastes like vomit on top is ok, but sheep brain or goat intestines is out of the question.

10) sometimes the trip to the butcher isn't all that convenient and I find myself thinking about the guy within walking distance who has whole animals hanging from the window...surely raw meat doesn't need to be refrigerated, right? No, I haven't gone quite that far yet!

11) It doesn't seem all that strange anymore when I see people watering down their 'driveways'. Of course we don't have driveways here, just dirt, but people will take a water hose and water down the dirt so it 'doesn't blow'. I still don't see the logic, but I've just gotten used to walking out of my way so that I'm out of the range of the water hose

12) When someone asks me if I'm from a country (any country, russia, china, bangladesh, seriously, they've asked me!), instead of admitting that I'm American I just say that I have a friend from the country they suggested. It tends to confuse them enough that they don't ask again

13) I feel naked in a tank top, even if I'm just around other Americans

14) My grocery store is smaller than a gas station and it's one of the big ones

15) I find it perfectly acceptable to go into the house of a total stranger and drink tea

16) It doesn't really bother me that I need the Sandbox president's permission to leave the country or to travel more than 10 miles from my own house

17) As long as the dirt in my water settles to the bottom of the cup, it's ok to drink what's on top. And I still haven't gotten sick...amazing!

These are just a few of the things that have become normal to me...