Month: October 2011

sook shopping

For Carter’s birthday we promised him a knife. It sounds a little strange, but there’s a traditional Omani knife with a curved blade called a khanjar that he has been wanting since we arrived and we told him when he turned 10 we would take him shopping for one.

This is an example of an antique one. They have leather sheaths that are covered by silver that has been handwoven. The more intricate the design, the more expensive they are. 

So we headed to the sook which is right on the harbor. It’s so beautiful there. A hot sunny day, a breeze blowing off the water . . . the kids didn’t complain too much about our hike in the heat.

We went to a bunch of different shops in the sook and Carter checked out all the different knives. A lot of them are really expensive, as in 100s of dollars, but we found some that he liked in our price range.

A happy kid with a knife. Isn’t that what birthdays are all about? 

After completing the purchase (and sharing a drink with the shop owner) we stopped by my favorite silver shop to order something special for my sisters. The shop is the size of a closet so the kids played outside while I told Mohammed what I wanted him to make for me. 

By this time everyone was hot and sweaty and it was time to head home. We left the jewelry section . . .

made our way through the clothing district 

and found our way out through the maze of shops. Tomorrow Mohammed should be finished with my special order so I get to make another trip to the sook to pick it up.

I should have put $20 down on “4 days” because that’s how long the dishwasher “repair” worked. As much as I tried the repair man’s super special technique of slam-the-door-as-hard-as-you-can-and-lean-into-it-with-all-your-might, the door keeps popping open. Now I have to submit another work order.

Then I feel like a big baby for being annoyed about my dishwasher being broken because I’m reading this book, Kisses From Katie, about a girl who left the US and moved to Uganda after she graduated from high school who has adopted 14 little girls and started a school sponsorship and feeding program and loves on hundreds of needy kids every day and she doesn’t have a dishwasher. Or a car. Or electricity much of the time. But she’s not complaining.

I started reading her blog, http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/, about a year ago and she quickly became my hero, a modern day Mother Teresa. I pre-ordered her book back in June and had a happy surprise when it showed up on my kindle yesterday. Her book is wonderful, but it makes me feel like a lazy, ungrateful cow.

Poor me, my dishwasher is broken on a day when I don’t have my full time maid at my beck and call, I have too many clothes to pick up off the floor, there’s nothing I feel like eating, even though there is plenty of food in the cupboard . . . meanwhile, she’s taking in kids with scabies and HIV, eating beans every day, doing mountains of laundry for her 14 children and her many extra houseguests. Oh, and did I mention she’s only 22?

Off to work on an attitude adjustment . . . and finish the book.

MAP

This week at school Carter has been doing MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) testing. It’s a computerized assessment that is done in schools in the US to see how students measure up in the areas of reading, writing and math. The thing that is special about the test is it is tailored to the individual student’s performance. If a student is answering the questions correctly, they move into harder areas of the test, but incorrect answers guide the student toward easier questions. Sort of a Choose Your Own Adventure for the testing world.

When Carter came home and said, “I got 186 percent on my MAP test,” I knew that was a bad sign. When Josh pointed out that 186 percent isn’t possible he said, “Oh yeah, I got 186 points . . . I think. Other people got like 200, but I don’t care.” Not caring about school stuff? Shocking.

Carter: “It was OK. Mostly boring though. I just read the top part and guessed at the answers. I had to go fast because they said if you didn’t finish you could come back and finish in the afternoon and I didn’t want to go back.”

Me: “Were you even trying?”

Carter: “Eh, it didn’t matter if I got them wrong because my teacher told me if you get them wrong, then the questions get easier. We did the writing test today and we have the reading test on Saturday.”

Me: “How do you do a writing test on the computer?”

Carter: “I don’t know.”  

Me: sigh

I went and looked up information on the MAP test — it looks like there is no writing test, just reading, science and math. I can’t wait to see these test results . . .

One of the best parts about Josh’s course is that class starts at 7am so he often gets home by 2 in the afternoon. Not so great for him to have to get up early, but fun for us to be able to go do things as a threesome before the boys come home from school. 
One thing we like to do is go sit at Starbucks. We could drink coffee at home, and at $4.50 for a grande cap it’s not cheap, but it’s one of the few places where the employees speak Arabic and they all know Josh by now and chat with him as they make our drinks.


We decided Camille is finally old enough to get her own drink. We started her on the steamed milk — we’ll save the harder stuff for when she turns 2.

I love that the mall is modern and has places like Chili’s and Cinnabon, but the people walking by in dishdashas and abayas show that we’re clearly in the Middle East.

She’s mad because she wants to hold the cup herself, but she keeps trying to turn it upside down or take the straw out so Josh is trying to “help” her. I’ve always told people that she has no problem telling us exactly how she feels . . .

close call

You know how the dishwasher wasn’t working? Well, a guy came out to fix it two days ago. His version of fixing it is he fiddled with the latch a little bit so now when I try and close it it pops open, but if I hip check it using all my body weight then it should stay closed. I can only guess how long that “repair” is going to last, but that’s how you do things here.

Well after the dishwasher fix, suddenly the breaker that controls the dishwasher/washer/dryer started tripping. If we weren’t running the dishwasher and the dryer at the same time it was OK, but I decided to have Josh put a work order in anyway. I went to a brief at the embassy last week and they said if we ever have any electrical issues to let them know because the embassy will send out their own people to check them. So this morning the electrician arrived, walked into the kitchen and immediately said, “That is the wrong plug on the washing machine.” He felt it and it was HOT, burn your fingers scorching hot, and when he unplugged it from the wall we saw this:

You don’t get the whole effect without the smoke and smell of burning plastic, but you get the picture.

They cut the plug off the washing machine (of course it was running and the machine is full of water and clothes so hopefully they’ll be back before we have moldy soup in the washer) and are going to see if they can locate a heavy duty plug to replace it. They also figured out that the voltage of the appliances is too much for the circut breaker so they have to get approval from the landlord to switch it out for a higher rated one. Or something like that. Between the dude’s accent, my less than stellar hearing, and my limited knowledge of electrical work, that’s what I got out of the conversation. I’m just glad I didn’t have a kitchen fire to blog about.