While shopping for school supplies. The perfect notebook . . . if your name is Jean.
I don’t know who or what “6 ILSI” is, but the designer of this little girl’s shirt isn’t very happy with them. But at least they’re saying it with style!
The past few days I’ve been running around almost non-stop. Thus, the gap with no new posts. Friday afternoon we went out to lunch after church and then after the baby’s nap, Camille and I drove Calvin out to play paintball with friends from school. It’s about 30 minutes away from our house and no one had been there before and we didn’t have an address to put in the GPS. So my wonderful, directionally gifted husband looked on Google Earth and found the general area where it was supposed to be, zoomed in close and took his best guess at which patch of land might be a paintball place and put those coordinates in the GPS for me. He didn’t take Calvin himself because he works with the youth group on Friday nights (he’s been even busier than I’ve been lately).
So the 3 of us bravely set out into the great unknown to find this paintball place. I was a little nervous about finding it — positive I would be driving around in circles. As we approached the end of our route the voice said, “In .2 miles turn left into destination” and we started looking around for signs of paintball. And then we spotted it: Hallelujah! As we turned into the parking lot, we were escorted by these words, “arriving at your destination.” No joke. He had mapped the exact coordinates — even down to the correct driveway.
From there I was supposed to go to the mall and kill time with Camille for a few hours. Easy, right? Somehow I managed to pick the wrong shopping center from the list in the GPS so it took me way the heck out somewhere that I had never been before and eventually I knew I wasn’t going the right way, but by that time I decided to just go with it. Then I pulled up and it looked sort of like the middle eastern version of Eastmont mall and all the guys on the street were staring at the white girl (see? totally Eastmont!) so I decided to pick a new destination. Lesson learned: GPSs aren’t idiot-proof.
Yesterday was another day of running around. In the morning was the fabric store and the grocery store. Then I had to race off to have lunch with the boys at school. They invited me to eat with them and it sounds all nice and sweet until you understand that Saturdays are Dairy Queen days, but the Elementary School students can’t buy ice cream. It’s only for the MS/HS students/teachers/staff/parents . . . ah ha! Yep, they just use me for ice cream.
Then home to work on sewing some costumes for the Fall Festival on Wednesday (big Halloween party). Carter is dressing up as Dread Pirate Roberts (Princess Bride). He wanted to be a “bandit,” but what he described as a bandit “black fabric over my face” sounded like a Ninja to me. He kept insisting “it’s a pirate, but on land” so we found a compromise with Dread Pirate Roberts.
Caleb is going to be a Tae Kwon Do black belt, which means I only had to sew the belt. However he came home from school wanting to be a werewolf or a vampire even though I had already finished his belt. He wasn’t happy when I told him that he couldn’t change his costume and while I was cleaning the kitchen he found the black fabric that I purchased for DPR and decided he could make himself a vampire costume. With my scissors.
In between lunch and Project Runway: Halloween Episode, Josh and I headed back to school to watch the Elementary School talent show. None of the boys were in it, but they wanted us to come watch it with them. Of course they didn’t sit with us, or hardly talk to us, but Josh and I drank cappuccinos and watched the show so it was almost like a date. Except for the squirming toddler on our laps.
Today is easy until after school. Then we have a parent conference with one of Calvin’s teachers, the boys have after-school activities of watercolor (Carter) and gardening (Caleb) and then we have to run Caleb to a birthday party. Which reminds me that I have to run out and buy a birthday present now, because the stores all close between 1 and 4 or 5 around here. Not for anything special — it’s just a daily “siesta.” Open in the morning, open late at night, closed all afternoon. It’s already 11 so I need to hurry before they close!
Omani traditional dress for men is the dishdasha (the white robe) and the kuma (the hat). If you’re an Omani man, that’s what you wear. Everywhere. To dress it up (suit and tie equivalent) there is a scarf that is wrapped around the head and worn over the kuma. To dress it up even further (tuxedo equivalent) there is an overcoat type layer that is worn over the robe. They are sharp looking and perfect for the climate here.
Well, my little dudes wanted dishdashas of their own, so we had them measured for them on our most recent trip to the sook. They put them on right away and had people smiling at them right and left on our way out.
We even had someone stop us and ask to take a picture of the blonde boys in dishdashas.
They find them so comfortable that they even wore them to play handball outside and then didn’t want to take them off before going to bed. Now they want to know when I’m going to get an abaya . . .
One of the afternoons in Urgup/Cappadocia, Josh took the boys to the underground city. I didn’t go because 1) it was time for the baby to nap and we had been hiking all morning 2) supposedly the underground city is made up of all these connecting tunnels, some that you have to kneel and crawl through and I didn’t see how that would be feasible with a baby on my back (and that part sounded a little claustrophobia inducing) 3) it looked to be almost an hour away according to the map, which did not sound like a fun drive with a tired, yelly baby.
It turns out that except for the necessary nap for Camille, all the other obstacles weren’t an issue. It was only about 1/2 an hour away and the boys didn’t want to go down any of the really narrow tunnels because they were small and pitch dark, so I wouldn’t have had to worry about squeezing through tunnels with baby. Either way, I enjoyed my quiet afternoon in my cave while the boys went and explored this cave.
From what I remember reading in the guidebook, thousands and thousands of people lived in these underground cities to hide from enemies/religious persecution. I should probably google that to make sure it’s accurate, but I don’t feel like doing that right now. Josh said the craziest thing was that everything was underground, including areas where they would grow food. He couldn’t figure out how you could grow food without sunlight. Maybe they just stored food for the times they were in hiding?
I can’t say a lot of interesting things about these photos, because I didn’t take them and I wasn’t there, but I do know the story behind this one. These underground cities (there are over 100 of them, but 2 or 3 main ones open to the public) are huge with tour groups and while Josh and the boys were there, they heard a tour guide talking about this well and how it provided water for all the thousands of people that used to live underground. He then took out a small pebble or rock and told the group to listen as he reverently dropped it into the well. It fell down, down, down and the group all oohed and ahhed and nodded when they heard the “splash.”
After the tour group left, Josh took the boys over to the well, because he didn’t hear a splash and he tossed a coin in and it clattered and banged all the way down until they heard a “thunk” as it hit the dry bottom. As the boys were telling me this story, they were laughing so hard that they had tears in their eyes at the idea that the tour guide made a big production about hearing water in the well when it was so clearly dry.
Some of those areas are looking pretty narrow to me . . . maybe it was a good thing I didn’t go along.
If you want to read more about Kaymakli from someone who has more information than I do, I found this link that describes what is on each of the 4 levels that are open to the public: http://www.anadol.com/kaymakli.htm or there’s always my friend, wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaymakl%C4%B1_Underground_City
The main passages had some light (you can see the wiring running in this picture, but I guess a lot of the passages are completely dark. Josh said the boys started out with the idea of exploring all the side tunnels, but decided it was too dark. In all they saw stables, a church, living areas, kitchens, granaries, wineries, ventilation shafts, everything required to maintain a city, all underground.
Another old post that I “found” today. This is from summer when we went to the sook and bought our chess table from the Syrian wood guy. You can see Carter was eyeing the knives months ago in anticipation of his birthday . . . the kids that don’t belong to us are our next door neighbors.
Recently we went to the sook because we wanted to get something interesting for our house. We keep going to this shop that carries items imported from Syria because it’s fun to browse and look at all the beautiful boxes, trays, and chess sets while Josh speaks Arabic to the shop owner.
This most recent time the boys had friends come along to keep them occupied while mom and dad shopped. These two were fascinated by these curved knives.
The boys have been wanting a chess board and I thought that instead of buying a chess board that I would have to find a place to store, that we should get a small chess table that would be useful/decorative when not being used to play chess. This is the one we decided on.
backgammon, chess, checkers, and cards — both beautiful and functional
A few seconds of Josh chatting in Arabic
