The White Menace

Last Saturday, Doug and I went to a flea market of sorts to look for furniture and rugs with two young ladies who know the language pretty well.

We found some beautiful rugs from a country right next door, and it was quite the experience buying the rugs.

Each rug hung on these huge racks that the merchants would flip through and tell us about the number of threads per "something."  I didn't quite understand it all.  And how much each cost.

 

After we chose one, they folded it up, and flagged down a man outside with a big, rolling wooden cart, to follow us all the way back to our car.

This is the one we chose for the living room.  I love it!  It brings some life into our white, sterile room.

We decided against wall-to-wall carpet, because everyone's advice to us is that we will want as much tile visible as possible in the hot summer months, and we want to be able to roll up our carpet if we want to.

After buying two rugs, we went to eat at a restaurant that makes food from that same neighboring country from where we bought the rugs.

Then, we went couch shopping.

Most people buy seating for 10, and that suited us just fine, since we're already 6.  

We've had a hard time finding couches that weren't white, gaudy, uncomfortable, or ugly :)

We thought we hit the jackpot when we found a store with couches we like (they turn into beds for guests), AND they had this dandy little color swatch and told us we could choose from two colors they had available.  Light brown or blue.  We went with the light brown, and the guys said they could deliver it in 45 minutes.

Wow!!  This is too good to be true!

Yep!  It was too good to be true.

Two to three hours later, they showed up.

 

We had cleaned everything, and made it nice and ready.

 

They brought a chair into the living room and started putting it together, and they took a chair and a sofa upstairs, and started putting that chair together.

I was busy cooking dinner, but when I looked up, this is what I saw.

WHITE!

 

In a desert country!  In a house with four kids!  White!

I stopped the man, and I got Doug's attention.  We pulled out the dictionary to say the words "No white."  We then found the words for "brown" and asked "where?"

It wasn't working.  He was assuring us that this is what we had bought.

I called one of the young ladies who had shopped with us who explained to the man over the phone that we did not want these pieces.

He said he had to leave the two chairs and couch because they had already been un-packaged, and they couldn't ride back in the truck because they'd get dirty.

Yes.  And their white!

 The next day, the merchant and another gentleman arrived, unannounced, during our language time with the color swatch.  I was thankful we had a translator this time.

The man with the swatch said we could pick ANY color material and ANY color pillow, and he would get it to us in 10 days.

What?

While our translator was listening to the swatch man, the merchant was telling me proudly that he was a Christian.  ISIS had taken three homes he owned, his business, two of his three cars, and money, but he and his family fled in his last car to our city.  He is starting over, and I must say, he is very kind.

He asked if he could bring his wife and children to our house to meet me sometime, and of course, I said, "Yes."

We picked out a new color material and new color pillows, and we'll see if this will actually happen.

They eventually came back three days later for the furniture, but that is a story for another time.

And believe me.  It's a story!