Things I see (Vol 12)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, 

Volume 9, Volume 10, Volume 11

A car with "this" on the back windshield was parked in front of our house one night, and I just thought, "You can't get any more wrong than this."

After 60 years of research, they are still "staring" instead of "starting."

Yes, you are seeing correctly.  This woman is watering astroturf.

We use one gas bottle for a long time on our stove/oven.

These are the weekly exchanges of gas bottles outside of a naan (bread) shop.

That's a lot of bread, folks.

Bread is a serious business here.  

People line up at 6am for their morning bread, 11ish for their afternoon meal, and 7pm for their evening meal.  

You just lay your money under a piece of long rope, and the man at the window takes the bills closest to the window and asks whose money it is and how much bread they want.  Then the next bills get asked about and so on.  It's quite a system.

The shop above was being charged rent that was too high, so they started construction 3 plots down on their own shop.

You can see that the size if very unassuming, but it is still the heart of the neighborhood.

Reminders of all of God's promises are a happy thing here in the Middle East, because sometimes the darkness feels heavy, and knowing He's near is a beautiful thing.

I still don't understand the Christmas and Easter decorations in this country.  The people really don't understand the meanings of any of them, but they adopt what they see from the West.

After I heard that some people think we worship the Christmas tree at Christmas, I can't imagine what they think about celebrating Easter with eggs for.

Life at the French school.  This is what happens when you say jé instead of jai.

She didn't seem to mind, and apparently, she wasn't the only student that got drawn on.

This reminded me of how big of a splash "Covfefe" made in May of 2017.

Things I See (Vol 11)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9, Volume 10

See anything?

This one building of MANY in the city where people line up daily trying to get visas to get out of the country. It might be for work, a trip, or for permanence, but it just causes me to be thankful for my passport country.

I know you can't see it, but the SAM Office Furniture building is NOT on the street.
(It's over by the green plastic playground equipment)

Twins!

I love that she tried.

At the salon where I get my hair cut, younger boys are hired to hold the hairdryer for the hairdressers, they also hold the foil for the hairdressers on ladies' heads who are getting their hair colored.

I thought this was unique, but maybe this same thing happens in America???  You'll have to let me know.  I'm not that familiar with salons in America.  I can count on one hand how the number of salons I've been to in my life.

This is in our old neighborhood.  

Your eyes are NOT deceiving you.

Yes, that is three lanes of traffic PARKED on our street, and our gate is down on the right where you can see a dark blob of people sitting. 

March 19, 2019

Our side-of-the-road grazers look a little different than they do in South Texas.

"Chevy Runs Deep," but what does SHEVY do?

Ahhh!  Breathe in that beautiful air!

Speaking of air...

It's pretty common for houses here not to be built to code. (*smile)

Doug put rubber on the bottom of all our doors when we moved in because there was at least a half-inch space for dirt and air to come through (and the elements are still successful sometimes).

This is our front door area.  You can see to the right of the door how it's not flush with the wall.

Here it is zoomed in.

March 28, 2019

You wanna know why these small things don't bother me?

The back door to my kitchen in Africa had a ONE INCH space down the right side of the door.

You could literally put your hand through the hole, so Doug filled it with classy trashbags ;)

I've searched and searched for the picture of it, but after going through three years of Africa pictures twice, I still couldn't find it, so you'll have to take my word for it.

Things I See (Vol 9)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8

These boys wanted to play soccer in the middle of the city, so the median seemed to work just fine.

Flour from the government.  Each neighborhood has a small building where the flour is stocked, and by showing identification, each family can come and pick theirs up.

Men playing backgammon at a local tea shop.

There is even a park specifically for retired men where they can pay a small fee, enter in, and meet each other during the day.

This looks safe.

Three wedding photography sessions going on at the same time.

(The third bride can't be seen)

Just another fun menu.

A young adult visiting our house one night said he wanted to teach my kids some survival skills, so he duct taped their wrists together to see if they could escape.

Just another normal night in the Middle East.

Attics in America = Roofs in this country

Well...maybe not ;)

The entry way for a Kindergarten.

It's hard for my kids to do online school when the entire country shuts down the internet.

This happens every year at the end of school when there are big tests, and the government tries to control the cheating.

Chips and Salsa were on the menu, so Doug and I got a little curious.  We were a little hopeful, but we knew to lower our expectations.

If you can't tell, we got a plate of Lay's potato chips, and dipping "sauces" of ketchup and garlic mayonnaise.

In case you're wondering...we didn't touch any of it.

Is it because "ham" isn't allowed in this country??

It's like "something" without the "e"

Things I See (Vol 7)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6

I've mentioned the "Garage Sale on Steriods" before.

Random HIGH heel

All these shoes (and everything) were burned in a fire last fall when the "giant garage sale" burned down. Thankfully, I've heard that parts of it are now re-opened, so I look forward to going back to see how they have bounced back. 

The misspellings on clothes here crack me up.

Why go to Neiman Marcus, when you could just come here and find all the matching purses and shoes you ever dreamed of for a fraction of the cost :)

This is the chicken shop beside our old house.  I looked over the wall, and I saw something on his table out front and I got a little curious.

So I pretended to go for a walk, and come at it from a different view point.

I haven't actually seen what is inside these goat/sheep skins, but I think it's cheese.

Yes, "special."  That's the word I'm thinking of.

Wedding parties here drive through the city honking and yelling out windows, much like we used to see in Africa.  Here is one I barely caught, driving through our neighborhood.

I caught Keira one day watching TV while proclaiming her secret identity :)

Packages are always such a blessing.

More fun writing advertised in a coffee shop.

"Merry Christma."

When Keira was in Kindergarten, she was given some copy work for the letter "w."

It is supposed to look like the two loops at the top of this page, but it made me smile when Keira wrote two "e's." It made me wonder if she were in America, would she have written her "e's" backward.