January Wrap Up

I began to sleep like a normal human being again. Learned to ‘keep it light enough to travel’.

One of our staff members died. It was of natural causes but he was so young – late 20’s. He left behind 2 adorable little ones and it was quite a tragedy. Rest in peace my dear.

Spent 2 Aden trips at the beach with small children. Splashing around with little Noor and her siblings was quite entertaining and somewhat relaxing. 

Ethiopian coffee ceremony meets Arabian shisha session

Tried shisha with some of my staff... I've never wanted to try it and always refused to go to hooka bars in the States but here, any chance to do something out of the ordinary and 'fit in' is taken gladly. Good thing there are no heavy drugs commonly used here, haha!

Spent an hour trying to download episodes from Season 4 Glee. Sighhh… got nowhere. Op! Update, I found a way! Takes bumping across 3 web sites and waiting 3 minutes, then downloading episodes for 2 hours each, but it worked!

It was peaceful with songs and speeches

Walked alongside rebel demonstrations – southern Yemen wants to break away from the north and sometimes holds massive protests in the streets – this one commemorated January 13, 1986 when a civil war broke out and killed thousands of southern Yemenis. I was told to stay inside for the day but I needed food. They were peaceful and included a lot of flags waving, men chewing khat, holding their guns and chanting/clapping. Once I returned to the house I watched the events happening outside my window on the television.

Danced in the kitchen with the women – felt so nice to move and laugh and feel free.

Henna’ed my hands in the simple way that many Lahj’ii women do: the tips of the fingers dipped completely with a stenciled print in the palm of the hand.

Holding my birthday present

Discovered another core food to add to my lifelong list of Food-I-Can’t-Live-Without – dates! I wasn’t too excited about them at first but the more I ate them, the more I loved them. They are mostly grown in Saudi Arabia and although they have a high calorie count, they are very nutritious, with

Dates come after honey, lemon, red wine, green tea, olive oil, raw dark chocolate bars and raw almonds. Essentials.

Turned another year older. This seems to come about every year, and I hope I never stop looking forward to it. I wasn’t successful in pulling off a beach trip, but the guys made me cake a flower lei and celebrated with me which was sweet.

Me and 10 guys drinking soda and eating cake for my 27th, aww

Favorite words learned this month:

Arabic: aish fee?  Local slang for ‘what’s wrong’ or ‘what is it’, or ‘you okay?’ Literally translates to what is in?

Somali: dip, meaning challenge diplo atahay means “You are a challenge”

Funny moment: The social unit manager stopping the home gardeners from doing their work.

“Why were they pulling out all the greenery? We need green to make the place look beautiful!”

“Uh, Mo, the area needs to be a seed production garden, so they’re pulling weeds”

“No, they need to stay, we need as much green as possible to keep the place beautiful”

“Sighhh, the weeds are not there for beauty, carry on…”