So, during the month of ramadan they fast all day (including liquids) and at sundown they feast. The feast, or the "breaking of the fast" aka breakfast, is call fatuur.
Earlier this week I went to my neighbors' house for fatuur. I was so excited that they had invited me. So I get there with one of my other girl friends and it was very awkward. One of the reasons is because I am still learning the language so communication is tough, though some of them know a little English. I am learning to embrace awkwardness.
After a while they took us downstairs and outside to eat (after they prayed). The food was delicious! Even better were the fresh fruit juices. I have learned though that you must eat slow because they keep pushing food toward you the entire time. After we ate we had tea, of course, and sat and tried to talk for a while.
This is the fun part. They invited us back inside and we went upstairs into a room with the tv. Their favorite program was on- a singing show. One of the songs came on and they said it was a traditional dance song. So naturally I asked them to show me the dance. They resisted at first but after some arm twisting I got them to show me. Then some of the older women came in dancing and we all joined in. It was fun! We were all laughing hysterically and dancing. That definitely broke the awkwardness :-)
Over the next few days I have many more fatuurs to go to and I am pretty excited. That's all for now :-)
Thursday, September 27, 2007
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Not too much has happened since my last post. Language school is well underway. Although I don't realize it, I am learning a lot. Two of my four roomies have birthdays this week- so we had a drive in themed party last night. We borrowed the projector from school and made burgers and homemade fries and had ice cream. It was definitely a treat! :-)
The teacher for the class I have been working with comes in this week, woohoo! That will help the class be a lot more organized and we can get into the swing of things.
We are well into raamadan now. I still do not understand how these people can fast everything including liquids all day long and then feast and stay up all night. I have fasted one day (with liquids) and that was hard. It is so incredibly hot here that it seems like you could not go without liquids. I can see the toll it takes on the children here at school. They come in exhausted each day and some of them fast, others don't. We encourage them to drink water anyways because they play so hard.
I got a package from my mom last week! I was super excited. It had tons of great little foods for me and my roomies :-)
That's all for now. I will have more to write after I have been to a few fatuurs (the big meals they have in the evenings of raamadan to "break the fast")
Until then...
The teacher for the class I have been working with comes in this week, woohoo! That will help the class be a lot more organized and we can get into the swing of things.
We are well into raamadan now. I still do not understand how these people can fast everything including liquids all day long and then feast and stay up all night. I have fasted one day (with liquids) and that was hard. It is so incredibly hot here that it seems like you could not go without liquids. I can see the toll it takes on the children here at school. They come in exhausted each day and some of them fast, others don't. We encourage them to drink water anyways because they play so hard.
I got a package from my mom last week! I was super excited. It had tons of great little foods for me and my roomies :-)
That's all for now. I will have more to write after I have been to a few fatuurs (the big meals they have in the evenings of raamadan to "break the fast")
Until then...
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Pyramids and Camels
So, it's been a while since my last post because I have been busy and had no internet. Since my last post I have:
gone camping in the desert
ridden a camel
seen some pyramids
started language school
gone to my neighbor's engagement party
and there should probably be more to this list
We'll start with the camping trip. It was fun but we rode in the back of this prison looking truck. It was sort caged in so the air would flow through (which was nice) but it really did look like we were prisoners, ha. On the way we stopped on the side of the road because we saw these ball looking things. They are called desert pumpkins but are dried up, very lightweight, and easy to throw. So we had a "snowball fight" in the middle of the desert with these things.
Our first stop was the pyramids where we were greated by the men on camels and 2 bus loads of native children cheering as the white people drove up. It was pretty hilarious. So we get out of the truck and some of us (not me) proceeded to step in camel poo (camels really smell bad by the way). Then we decided to all roll down the sand dunes together. I enjoyed this except for the sand EVERYWHERE!!! :-) I think I still have sand in my ears. After this excitement we saw the pyramids and climbed on some of them. It was cool because most of them had hyroglyphics carved inside them. When were done with the pyramids we rode the camels back to the entrance. Definitely an interesting experience :-)
The next stop was the Royal City. So I am imaging this great eleborate city-no- it's the RUINS of this city. It was still pretty cool though. There was this mosaic tile floor from way back, still intact in the middle of the desert! We got to rinse of some of the sand off in the Nile and headed back to the truck. We stopped on the side of the road for lunch (in the shade).
On our way to the "campsite" we stopped where we were going to stay. Unfortunately there was family already there cooking their dinner- a salughtered goat, nice and ripe.... They gave us some "7 up" and we thanked them and left real fast before they offered us something else....
We finally got to our camp site and met up with some of our other people. There was this like mini-mountain thing of rocks so we climbed to the top, very proud of myself :-) We ate and slept under the stars.
Next on the list- langauge school. I started yesterday and now know the arabic alphabet. That's going well.
The neighbor's engagment party was interesting and I don't have time to write about it now, but will later.
Last but not least I wanted to leave a shout out to the Access Youth group (I hope I spelled the new name correctly...) I miss you guys tons! Keep in touch with me and let me know what is going on in your life (comments on here, facebook, email, etc) Hope to hear from you guys soon ;-)
gone camping in the desert
ridden a camel
seen some pyramids
started language school
gone to my neighbor's engagement party
and there should probably be more to this list
We'll start with the camping trip. It was fun but we rode in the back of this prison looking truck. It was sort caged in so the air would flow through (which was nice) but it really did look like we were prisoners, ha. On the way we stopped on the side of the road because we saw these ball looking things. They are called desert pumpkins but are dried up, very lightweight, and easy to throw. So we had a "snowball fight" in the middle of the desert with these things.
Our first stop was the pyramids where we were greated by the men on camels and 2 bus loads of native children cheering as the white people drove up. It was pretty hilarious. So we get out of the truck and some of us (not me) proceeded to step in camel poo (camels really smell bad by the way). Then we decided to all roll down the sand dunes together. I enjoyed this except for the sand EVERYWHERE!!! :-) I think I still have sand in my ears. After this excitement we saw the pyramids and climbed on some of them. It was cool because most of them had hyroglyphics carved inside them. When were done with the pyramids we rode the camels back to the entrance. Definitely an interesting experience :-)
The next stop was the Royal City. So I am imaging this great eleborate city-no- it's the RUINS of this city. It was still pretty cool though. There was this mosaic tile floor from way back, still intact in the middle of the desert! We got to rinse of some of the sand off in the Nile and headed back to the truck. We stopped on the side of the road for lunch (in the shade).
On our way to the "campsite" we stopped where we were going to stay. Unfortunately there was family already there cooking their dinner- a salughtered goat, nice and ripe.... They gave us some "7 up" and we thanked them and left real fast before they offered us something else....
We finally got to our camp site and met up with some of our other people. There was this like mini-mountain thing of rocks so we climbed to the top, very proud of myself :-) We ate and slept under the stars.
Next on the list- langauge school. I started yesterday and now know the arabic alphabet. That's going well.
The neighbor's engagment party was interesting and I don't have time to write about it now, but will later.
Last but not least I wanted to leave a shout out to the Access Youth group (I hope I spelled the new name correctly...) I miss you guys tons! Keep in touch with me and let me know what is going on in your life (comments on here, facebook, email, etc) Hope to hear from you guys soon ;-)
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