Easter

Easter this year was different than any other Easter we have had before.  This Easter we spent half-way across the world among a people who do not celebrate Easter.  We made the best of it though, and enjoyed ourselves none the less.  We celebrated Easter on Saturday evening rather than Sunday.  Here, our weekend is on Friday and Saturday not Saturday and Sunday.  While we did take off language on Sunday, we still celebrated Easter on Saturday.

We and another American couple, friends of ours, planned to celebrate with some local friends.  It was a good opportunity for us to show them how we celebrate in the States and what it is that we are even celebrating.  Our other American friends hosted the dinner.  They bought and cooked a leg of lamb (while it's not necessarily what we always eat for Easter in the States we thought it was definitely fitting).  Combined, we prepared lots of American sides (aka macaroni and cheese) and a couple of deserts. The meal was completely Gluten-Free as well!

The food turned out very delicious.  I think our friends were disappointed that the biscuits were not sweet.  Here, they call cookies biscuits, so they were a little let down even though we warned them they were not sweet cookies.  After our meal as tradition holds, we read the Easter story.  We all had a good time and I believe it was a good, successful first Easter overseas.

SCUBA

We have not gotten the chance to go SCUBA diving again (hopefully soon we will), but we were just able to get ahold of some pictures that Andrew took the last time we went SCUBA diving.  Andrew was using a friend's underwater camera, and we just got the photos from him.  Warning: Most of the pictures are of me, Andrew was behind the camera.

So, I don't always trust my mouth to keep the air thingy in, so I hold it a lot to make sure I'm not going to loose it.

Swimming around by a shipwreck.  This was pretty crazy.

Yay, finally one with Andrew!  Although he's almost out of it.

I'm not entirely sure what I am doing with my hands here.

To get SCUBA certified you have to take off your mask and put it back on several times throughout the training.  This was the most difficult thing for me...I've got my eyes closed real tight.  Also please note that due to my height, my wetsuit is not nearly long enough for me, so the shirt I am wearing underneath is showing quite a bit over my wrists.

It was fun.  Quite scary at times, but I am looking forward to going again sometime soon!

Dating

We live in a very interesting part of the world.  It is a place where traditional and conservative views are confronted daily with modern and western thinking.  I would say that for the most part in our country, people have arranged marriages.  This does not mean that the two getting married have no say in the matter, but simply that it is their families who arrange it.

I know of a girl here who is married to her first cousin.  A bit crazy for our thinking, but not unheard of here, and she was actually the one who suggested it.  Her cousin came to her father asking if he knew of any girls who might be good to marry.  Her father asked her if she had any friends who wanted to get married, and she suggested herself.  In this part of the world, you call any older woman your Aunt.  So when she talks about going to visit her mother-in-law, her Aunt, it always makes me chuckle a little because it really is her Aunt.

I have heard of other arranged marriages where the families arranged the couple, but before they were engaged, they got to meet together several times (under supervision) and have the final say of whether they wanted to marry or not.

I have another friend here, and have heard of others, who secretly dated before they got married.  He saw her working in a store and found out her family.  He was allowed to go on a few "dates" with her, but her brothers came along.   As she tells you her story, at this point she would lower her voice to tell you that she also would meet him a coffee shop sometimes without her brothers knowing.   Within the first five minutes of talking with my friend, she will tell you she married for love and would like to know if you too love your husband.

Andrew and I have a favorite restaurant here.  It is nicer than some, but still a lot of locals eat there (along with some tourists).  While there, I have seen what I believe to be two dates.  The girl arrives with two other girls (maybe sisters, maybe close friends),  usually the guy shows up a little bit later than the girls.  On the first date I saw, the girls waited till the guy got there, then moved to a table inside to give them some alone but supervised time.  On the second date, the girls all sat at the same table, but the two would occasionally take brief bathroom breaks together, to give them a moment alone.

How much different would the States be if we still held to a more conservative courtship?  I can't imagine only seeing the man I would marry only a couple of times before our wedding.  But at the same time, I see the value of protecting virtues and honor.

Hats & Steaks

We have officially been overseas for six months now!  The time has flown by.  It has been great and challenging at times.  We have finally found a new language tutor that we still start with tomorrow!  I am excited about finding a new tutor, but we still really need to find a separate tutor for Andrew to work with.

To celebrate our 6 months overseas we went out to a fancy new steak restaurant that opened up in a new hotel in town.  In reality, we were just going out for a date night and wanted to try out the new restaurant.  While we were there, Andrew remembered it was our six months overseas anniversary, so we decided it was a perfect reason to splurge.  I believe we were the first customers they have ever had.  We were the only ones there (apparently they had a media group coming in right after we left) and they were very attentive to our needs.  Which is why I think we were their first customers ever.  While we were there, it was almost had to believe we were still overseas.  The place was so fancy, and I probably only one or two of the staff even spoke Arabic.

Andrew waiting patiently for his steak, enjoying his freshly baked bread and complementary soup.

Sarah waiting patiently, not enjoying freshly baked bread, but enjoying complementary soup

It was so good, we forgot to take a picture before we began eating

If you read here, then you will know about the hat I ordered off of etsy a couple of weeks ago.  Well, it finally came in!  I think it turned out super cute.  I haven't worn it out yet, but I am excited about it's debut.

SCUBA

Last week, since we have been out of a language tutor, we had a little extra time on our hands.  I have been wanting to get SCUBA certified.  Andrew is SCUBA certified and has been the main one wanting me to get my certification.  I finally had the time to do it.  The course usually takes 3 days of intense lessons, but I was able to complete the course in just two days.  Andrew got to come out with me the second day since I had already finished learning all my techniques and a majority of day two was open water dives.  It was a lot of fun.  Very scary though since I struggle with claustrophobia.  I was definitely having to fight panic attacks the whole time, but I think since I had to overcome my fears as well as learn to SCUBA, it was even more rewarding.  I can't wait to get back into the sea and really start feeling comfortable down there and getting to experience literally a whole new world.

Flower

Today at the local Friday handicrafts souq I bought this little flower that is perfect for my new nook case.  I think it's super cute and I get to help support local handicrafts.  What do you think?

I still need to find some velcro for the flap, but I think the flower is perfect :)

Sometimes You Just Need a Win

Today has been what I would consider a bad day.  A couple of weeks ago our language tutor called to say that she would not be able to keep tutoring us.  She and her husband have been trying for years to get pregnant and have a baby.  They have gotten pregnant many times, but have never been able to have a healthy baby.  She recently found out she is pregnant again, but the doctors have her on bed rest, indefinitely.  She was sweet enough to find a replacement for herself, her cousin.  Unfortunately, her cousin has another job as well as a busy, stressful life right now.  We only got to meet with her two times last week and this morning she informed us that she would not be able to come the rest of this week!  That was the first disappointment of the day.

Lately I have been using a system called ProVoc to help me study Arabic.  It is a really neat system.  You type in all your vocab words in English and Arabic and it comes up with Tests for you and all sorts of other neat stuff.  The first week our language tutor wasn't with us, I spent entering all 2,187 Arabic words we have.  I discovered a really cool thing this program does.  You can record audio too, which is great because I can read and recognize a word, but hearing it is a totally different ball game.  We took a little time last week at the end of our language lessons to record our new tutor saying some vocab words.  When I found out she would not be coming the rest of the week, we decided to take a little more time at the end of class to get a lot more words to help in studying.  Well, that time came and I pulled up my ProVoc program.  We recorded several words then all of a sudden the program freaked out!  We tried Andrew's and his did the same thing!  I was so discouraged because now we will spend another week without language lessons and I won't be able to study the way I was hoping.

After language today I just felt like I really needed a win.  I had seen a friend of mine's case for her Kindle.  I had been thinking to myself how to make one for my Nook.  So, the second our new language tutor walked out the door, I pulled out my sewing machine and fabric pieces.  It was not an easy to task.  I just kept in mind what my Mom always says, "That which you sew you shall also rip."  It made my ripping not seem so much like a loss, but rather just part of the process.  I still need a button and maybe some Velcro to keep the flap down, but I think regardless it still turned out as a win.

So here I sit at Gloria Jean's Coffee Shop.  I was greeted by name upon entering (I think that's a win).  I guess they could tell I was having a more difficult day because I got three hearts on top of my Latte rather than a tree or just one heart.  Blogger quit working about half-way through this blog, but I was quick enough to copy and paste before I lost my blog, so I will also consider that a win :)  Oh yea, I won't even go into the fact that I didn't have the money to pay for my Latte so I've got to wait for Andrew to come pick me up for him to pay for it.

I hope your day is going well!