Sunday, September 30, 2007

Hello Beautiful People

S'good to talk to you again.

Lots of nothing has been happening here. Oh well, let's start off with Gi'rgian (hope I spelled that right). It's a holiday similar to Halloween, in which children dress up and go door to door asking for candy. There are no bad spirits or Day of the Dead tied in though- it falls midway through Ramadan.

My students are fresh out of Elementary School, so they like to pretend they're past Gi'rgian but they light up like candles when someone's mother shows up with little bags of candy. For myself, I've received a paper coffee pot filled with sweets, several bags of candy and get this: my OWN, GEN U WINE MODEL CAMEL. Complete with rider. And a basket of sweets and nuts.

Lots and lots of people had camel envy. Will post the picture. It's a prominent decoration in my living room right now.

The school had a bit of a carnival, complete with a sound stage, magician, booths, etc. The teachers were required to do Extra Duty. I was supposed to supervise the Magician's Show, but the magician didn't bother to show up until it was time for the Teacher's Bus to leave.

There was a tent set up, the whole Bedouin thing with guys serving coffee and tea. I was actually feeling very low, until a co-worker I talked with from time to time sat down and started talking about Sartre. So now, we have running conversations about the proper translation from the French of Satre and Camus. It is beautiful, truly. Makes me feel less lonely.

Another Co-Worker and I were bored on Saturday, so we went to Iraq. (Ducks) Aw c'mon people, you knew it was coming. We're only 150 KM from Basra. (Ooops, did I let that slip?) We didn't get into Iraq, we got to the immgration gate at Abdaly. Which is a gate about the size and condition of a run-down Condo complex. We have some pictures, but nothing that says 'Welcome to Iraq!' The weirdest thing was that the closer you got, the shorter the mile makers got.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good words.