Life's hectic at the moment

The house is finally getting painted. The work started a few days ago and is going smoothly. I'm too busy with that and a million other things to post anything at the moment. You'll have to be patient and wait for me to have time to tell you about my latest adventures. 

An emotionally charged day

I'm deeply saddened by the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi that resulted in the death of the American ambassador, and other staff members as well as ten Libyans. My condolances to all their family members and friends. All of Libya is grieving. Dismay just isn't a strong enough word to describe how I felt upon hearing the news.

We spent the day watching the news, keeping up with twitter and facebook, and listening to the sound of drones overhead. In the evening my husband and I took a long walk around the farm, about five kilometres. Drones buzzed above us while in the distance we could hear gunfire from time to time - possibly a wedding?

When we came inside we watched the vote count for the new prime minister. At one point they stopped because someone had put two names on the ballot instead of one. After an argument they started the count over. Exciting to watch, it was a close count! Mustafa Abushagour, Libya's first democratically elected prime minister won by only two votes.

What a day! It was a day full of emotions; dismay, anger, sadness, disbelief, followed by hope for a better future.

Finally,
we went to bed,
only to toss and turn,
the sound of drones continued
all night long.

Adjusting

I'm still going through re-entry depression. I'd tell you about it, but I'd just end up making you feel depressed or probably angry because I don't have anything nice to say about Libya.  So I won't fill you in on the details... doesn't that make you happy?

I've got a list a mile long of things that need to be done and I'm checking things off the list as I can manage to do things. As usual everything takes a lot more time than I had hoped.

I'm making some progress with my garden and planted lots and lots of flower seeds that I brought back with me from home. Now I just have to be patient while they decide to germinate and grow. I also brought home magnolia seeds... I've never had any luck with them in the past and so I'm trying once again. I spoke to a horticulturist when I was home that told me that magnolias are extremely difficult to grow from seed and I should just buy a tree... unfortunately, I couldn't find one that would fit in a suitcase (I really tried!).  A dream of mine is to have a magnolia tree in my garden - maybe my dream will come true. At any rate, gardening has been helping me with the re-entry depression... gardening = solace.

There is some hope that my house will finally be painted. We want what Libyans call graffit, which is kind of a texturized stucco. We've taken a sample of the colours we want to the painters and so far they haven't managed to match the colours... apparently no one has ever asked for the colours we want (no surprise!) and they are finding it difficult to mix the right hue. If and when they do, the painting will get underway.

School is supposed to start soon... some say it will begin on the fifteenth. The shops are bringing out school uniforms and school supplies. Summer will really be over soon! And life will fall into a routine... I hope.