Poisonous

If you are wandering about the countryside in Libya and come across this plant... stay away from it. It will cause you to itch and scratch like mad.

Been there, done that...

Getting back to a regular routine

Eid is over and we're back to a regular schedule today. I've been trying to straighten up the house and get everything organized again. All the pots and pans and other kitchen things we dragged to the farm have been washed and put back in their places.

What is killing me is the laundry... piles and piles of it! Eight people create lots of laundry. I've been doing it for the last two days. The poor washing machine is ready to surrender. My plan has been to buy a new one when we move. But of course I thought we would have moved ages and ages ago (like at least a year ago or more) .

This morning I took hubby over to the washing machine and pointed out to him that it wasn't going to hold out much longer. Get yourself ready to shell out for a new one soon was my hint for the day. He wanted to know exactly what the problem was... I think he is thinking about hunting down parts for it. The machine has been part of our family for about 12 years. It's surprising that I haven't given it a name.

Back to the laundry.....

Survived :)

We got to the farm to see the last of the frost on some of the plants. We found a piece of cardboard that had been laying on the grass that was still completely covered in frost, glittering in the morning sunlight. After a while the weather warmed up and Eid went smoothly.

This is a first for us - The first Eid by ourselves (in 19 years). We've always done Eid with the entire family. Every year the family seems to get bigger, and noisier, and with that Eid becomes an unpleasant experience. This year we decided it was time to go it alone and it was wonderful. No crabby sister-in-laws or screaming babies, and best of all no brother-in-laws hanging about, so the girls and I could wear what we liked and leave our hair uncovered. Yeah!!!!

Hubby and the boys slaughtered the lamb and then we got to work. Nora cleaned out the intestines and stomach and we sent it off to my mother-in-law's house so they could make usban (Libyan sausage). I chopped up meat for the freezer, made igliyah (Libyan fried meat), and sliced up meat and hung it up for drying (gadeed). We stuffed ourselves with grilled meat and we ate macrona umbakbaka too. After we were finished with the meat and everything was cleaned up we took showers and then went to give Eid greetings to my in-laws.

I think this is the best first day of Eid we've ever had in Libya. I hope the rest of Eid is just as nice too.

Eid Mubarak!

It's cold this morning in Tripoli.... 2 degrees Celsius (36F). I didn't sleep well because one of my stupid neighbours left their water pump running all night long. Most likely they forgot to turn it off before leaving for the holiday. It's made a high pitched whining sound all night long. Now because of lack of sleep I have a nasty headache and I feel awful.

I hope the mirror over my dresser is lying to me... 'The bags under my eyes aren't real, are they?' I asked my daughter Nora. Why did she just start laughing? Sigh...

Have a great day. Eid Mubarak to all who celebrate!

More on my virtual world

Since my last post I've been busy figuring out Second Life and the virtual Hajj. I had to cover my exposed navel or risk getting possibly thrown out. A nice 'sister' pointed me in the direction of some green duffel bags that had all the gear in them you needed for a virtual Hajj. I had to get rid of the sword that I was walking around with too. I donned my hijab and went in to see what it was all about.

It's actually pretty interesting. All along the way there are information booths that tell you what you are supposed to be doing and you can interact with all the people there. Many are new and have never been to Hajj and others have been many times and are helpful. One 'sister' there said she had done 22 virtual umrahs... lol...

The virtual Hajj is virtually empty! No crowds like in the real one.

My virtual world

I went out shopping the other evening, leaving Nora in charge of her father and the house. I'd left the computer on so she could chat with her friends on the net. When I came home I found poor Nora near to tears. Apparently her father had been watching Aljazeera and learnt about a virtual Hajj on Second Life. He made her spend her whole Internet time trying to figure it all out. - Imagine that! My husband actually wanting to do something on the Internet! Is this progress?

Nora isn't too Internet savvy so she couldn't figure out how Second Life worked. So I sat down and had a go at it. You've got to join and download a program onto your computer so that you can enter the virtual world of Second Life. After doing this I created my persona.

'How come you didn't choose an Islamic name?' asks hubby. 'Why do I need to have an Islamic name?' was my reply. 'I don't think I need to have a name that associates me with any religion. There is probably discrimination even in a virtual world.' Hubby was also unhappy with my appearance. 'Your navel's showing.' he pointed out. 'That's my business - this is my persona. And guess what. I've decided not to have a husband in my second life.' .... Heheheh... Hubby also wanted to know why everything seemed to move so slowly. 'Ask LTT. It's their fault that the Internet connection is so slow.' was my response. I got busy trying to figure out how to drive a car and fly around and how to make my hair longer. I was taking my time poking about the virtual world. Hubby got bored after a while and decided to go out.

A virtual world is an interesting concept. It could be a useful tool for education if used in the right ways. It also has it's dark side.. but then so does the real world. You can't just walk in and have a virtual Hajj either. There's a time schedule with lectures to attend. Life, either virtual or real, is complicated.

The farm, the house

We went to the house/farm yesterday to see how things were progressing. It was cold and rainy for the most part, but the kids and I took a walk around in between rain showers. Mustafa has recently plowed up all the fields and everything looks clean and neat.

The leaves have fallen off of most of the trees but there are a few that have still got green turning to gold leaves on them.

The hoses that are used for the drip irrigation system have been rolled up to enable the plows to go through. They'll stay rolled up as long as the rainy weather holds out.

The loquat trees are blooming. Their flowers are pretty uninteresting and don't have much aroma. I'm not a huge fan of loquats but as they are easy to grow and their fruit comes out at a time when there isn't much local fruit available. The majority of Libyan farms seem to have at least a few loquat trees. They are pretty much low maintenance as far as trees go - not spectacular, kind of ho hum.

On to the house which is progressing very slowly. The fixtures are being installed in the bathrooms.

Two of the bathrooms have these god-awful Italian fixtures in them. Mustafa got them from a relative who had come back to Libya from abroad and was going to put them in his flat and then decided to go back abroad. He was all excited to get a good price for them. This is the sink and the bidet - the toilet looks pretty much the same. I think it's weird to relieve yourself in something that looks fancier than the dishes we eat off of. Oh well... I guess we can officially call the toilet 'The Throne' from now on.

The rest of the bathrooms have normal fixtures in them... ones that I chose. Plain, easy to clean, and hey... they are functional!

This is the growing rubbish pile. It is even visible on Google Earth. I suppose it will grow larger before the building is finished.

I took this picture yesterday of Jenna and Ibrahim... as usual Ibrahim has a snotty nose... but I love him anyway.