Adjusting

The weather has been wonderful the last two days and is expected to stay about the same for a while – we even had some rain and most of the time I’ve had the ac turned off.

The kids have rigged up a simplistic kind of go-cart and have been riding it back and forth on the drive way area of the garden. By children I mean ALL of them, including the one that’s in university…. The wheels make a clack, clack, clacking noise and the girls are squealing and giggling. Being out here in the farm makes you forget that you have neighbours because they are so far away. I keep reminding the kids that the sound carries on the wind and the neighbours can in fact hear them quite clearly. But they don’t seem to care and from the noise we hear coming from the neighbours house it seems as though the kids there don’t care either. In a few weeks they will be back at school so I’m letting them have fun.

I’m adjusting to life in the countryside. There are lots of changes to make in one’s life when you move to the boonies. Firstly, there are no shops nearby – you need a car to get even simple things like a loaf of bread. So anytime we go anywhere we make sure to get what we need on the way. I’ll have to get a deep freezer for stocking up too. We have one cabinet in the kitchen designated as the guest cabinet where we have a supply of juice and cookies and other things in there in case someone drops by. When we lived in town I would just send one of the kids to the grocery shop, the pastry shop, the pizza place or another fast food shop – all right around the corner. In minutes we had something… sigh. I think this is one thing that will take some getting used to. So far the kids have been pretty good about not raiding the guest cabinet… but it’s Ramadan and they are stuffed and uninterested. We’ll see what happens after Ramadan. I might have to lock things up.

It’s quiet out here – or noisy in a different kind of way. In the area there are quite a few houses being built so in the daytime you hear building noises. And there are tractors and other farm noises which are expected. Everyone out here seems to have at least two dogs (we have four) so the sound of dogs barking can be heard most of the time. At night there are owls - not the hoo hoo hoo kind, the screech owl kind. And of course insects. Maybe the best sounds come from the mosques - you can hear the call to prayers in every direction. We didn’t hear the mosque very clearly when we lived in town because the sounds of the cars and traffic would drown it out. I’m enjoying this kind of quiet. I sleep better here (or maybe that’s because my bedroom is on the other side of the house from the kids).

Internet is a problem. Forget adsl because there are no landlines. We can get a wireless (reefee) telephone and use dialup… uuugh. The guy at the LTT shop nearest our apartment in town offered to let me try out a wimax modem – the biggest one they sell. It works intermittently – most of the time there is no signal or a very weak one. I bought it anyway. The other alternative is to get the new Libyana dongle but since our Libyana sim cards barely work here the internet would most likely be the same – and Libyana’s way overpriced anyway. So now I have wimax when it feels like kicking in and working. Hopefully their service will improve. After all, I’m only about 5 minutes from the university and 15 or 20 from the centre of the city. I can even see two of the towers in the distance from my front yard….sigh…

Soon we’ll have to figure out how to get the kids back and forth to school. No one can walk from here, even if we transferred them to the nearest schools. We’ll have to sort out taking them into town… and the main road out here into town leaves a lot to be desired.

Despite all this we like it out here. There are plenty of advantages, most notably is having enough space and room for the kids to play both inside and outside of the house and fresh air too.

On another note: We haven’t even begun Eid shopping and it’s almost the end of Ramadan. I suppose that will keep me running around for the next week. The weather is better and that will make it easier.