Can you Hokey Pokey?

This week has been a busy one. It's been go, go, go at full speed ahead all week.

My sister in law had a baby boy. Actually she had the baby about two weeks ago but I wasn't able to visit her in the hospital as the visiting hours happened to be during my work hours. I sent a message saying I would wait for her to get home. The family is used to me doing that so it wasn't a big scandal.

My sister in law lives clear on the other side of town and with traffic it takes a while to get there but I put it on my schedule and off we went only to arrive and find her gone. Apparently she'd gone to the doctor for a check up so I was stuck having to shuffle things around and add her into my schedule for another day. It took two trips but finally I got to see her, and the baby is adorable. She named him Ennis (or maybe it's spelled Anis.)

The rest of the week has been spent trying to get the kids to study for their upcoming exams. Finals begin on Saturday. Some of the kids will be finished in a week and some in two weeks. I can't believe it's already the end of the school year. They've decided to have the exams a little early this year so that they will be finished before the World Cup begins - got to get their priorities right I guess.

The last time the World Cup was held I spent the entire month in Tunisia having a nice holiday. My sister Kristen and my mother came for a few weeks too. It was wonderful - but I'll be here while the matches are in progress this time. I hate football (soccer)!

This week I've also been busy getting ready for my friend Alea's annual 21st birthday party. We have the party every year at our school and it's a big event. Last year we had a band and hope to have it again this year too. We also have games of course, and lot's of songs. We get all the students to bring food. It takes alot of effort to plan it all because we want to make it fun, memorable, and most of all, organized!

To get the students ready for the party I've been teaching every class how to do the Hokey Pokey so we can all Hokey Pokey at the party. You remember the song, don't you?

'You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out, you put your right foot in and you shake it all about. . . . '

I've Hokeyed and Pokeyed so much this week that I now sport an hour-glass figure! - hahaha! I wish!

Is there bird flu in Libya?

I love to walk. I can walk for miles and miles and never get tired. I find it a way to blow off steam and give myself time to think. Most people in Libya don't walk and usually if they do it's only a means to get from one place to another - not for fun.

While I walk I notice all kinds of things. It seems every time I go out I have a new adventure. Lately while walking I've noticed dead wild birds on the roadside. I don't think I've ever noticed dead birds along the way before, maybe the bird flu panic has me just watching out for such things, especially since bird flu has been reported in Egypt - there might always have been birds from time to time and I never paid any attention.

I was visiting with my mother-in-law and we were talking about her chickens - she's one of these typical old Libyan ladies that has an affection for chickens and always has some running around on the farm. She said her chickens were all fine. I mentioned the dead birds I had seen and she said how funny that was because she's seen dead birds on her way to the mosque.

All this got me thinking I should investigate the possibility that something is up. So I contacted the person who is in charge of such things and he asked me to pick up the birds for him. He sent me a few pairs of latex gloves and I went off to hunt down the dead birds I had seen.

The neighbours all think I'm a bit weird I suppose and now I imagine they think I'm even weirder - off running around the neighbourhood wearing latex gloves and searching the sidewalks for dead birds! The bird I had seen on the corner of my street was gone, but nearby was another bird - different species but it was certainly dead. Two of the neighbour boys helped me collect it and I got it home and called to ask that it be picked up and taken for analysis. - I didn't take my camera along as just running around collecting dead birds was enough to keep the neighbourhood's tongues wagging.

Someone also had told me that they had seen quite a few dead pigeons recently in the medina and I asked about this and was informed that the pigeon population in Libya is suffering from a epidemic of Newcastle Disease, otherwise known as NDV and not bird flu.

After a few days I hadn't heard any news about the bird I had bagged so I called up to inquire and was informed that the sample was too old to test and so they just threw it away. Oh well... I did my best. So still we should consider ourselves free of bird flu.

I'll still keep watching out, as usual.

A peaceful Friday

We had a nice peaceful day. It began with Mustafa out in our garden trimming the trees. The neighbour behind me has a huge overgrown and sickly apricot tree that touches my clothesline and he trimmed that back - the neighbour wasn't very pleased about it, but since it's hanging into our garden she could do nothing about it. I wish they would get rid of the tree - the fruit is useless and the tree puts out this awful sap that sticks and stains anything that it touches. It only seems to offer shade which is why they refuse to remove it.

Mustafa trimmed the tree (above) in the front of our house that I grew from a seed from the tree in my mother's garden back in Florida.


In the afternoon we went to the farm. It's nice now that we have two cars and I am driving. Mustafa left in the truck and I took my time getting ready and followed later in my car.

My house these days is full of roses from our farm - above is a weird varigated rose - I think it's ugly! No need to cut it and bring it home.


Almonds coming soon :)


Pomegranite blossom and buds.


Jenna and I cut wild grasses to use in dried flower arrangements.


Grasses.


We picked white mulberries - they were so sweet.


We spent time watching the bees pollinating the cactus growing alongside the road.


And we watched the spiders in the webs that filled the spaces between the cacti.


The neighbours field always has vegetables of one kind or another growing in it.


These are Yusef's dogs. They were happy to see Yusef, he played with them all afternoon.


We've got some onions planted near the well. I always like the way the flowers look - you would never believe that onions would have such an interesting looking flower.


It was a nice restful day - I hope your day was nice too!

Tripoli Castle - Assarai Al Hamara

I had an invitation to the International Women's Group - Libyan Day which was held today at the Tripoli Castle. I brought along my camera and took some pictures. It was late in the day and the weather was cloudy, cold and very windy. I'm going to try to see if I can visit the castle again sometime in the future but in the morning when the lighting is nice. Part of the castle is used as a museum, but the section that the event was held at is usually closed to the public, so I was quite pleased to be allowed to visit. You can click on the pictures to see the original size.

Part of the castle has been restored but much work is needed to be done.

The gardens are really special.

Each courtyard had a different style of fountain in the middle.

Part of this area has been restored.

A doorway.

Archways and balconies.

Doorways.

A road in the castle.

A view of a courtyard.

Along the edge.

Looking down into a courtyard.

A door.

Along the roadway on the top front edge of the castle.

Another fountain. It's amazing to see these huge trees inside the castle courtyards.

A carved motif with words of welcome.

A cannonball, they have them all over the place!

All kinds of doors that made you want to just keep exploring. Unfortunately most of the doors were closed. Hopefully one day I will get another chance to see inside the castle. It was a wonderful opportunity today.  

I have made a decision...

Every time I ask the kids to do anything it's always a big fight. No one ever seems to listen to me and I get all upset, stressed out and excited.

The thing that really pisses me off is when I ask them to do something and their father happens to be around.

Me: Will you fold the clothes and put them away?

The kids look straight at their father to see if he is going to back up my order. Usually he isn't paying any attention what so ever because his eyes are glued to Aljazeera (but recently he's taken up watching that God awful Dr. Phil too). No response from dad means the kids can completely ignore me.

Obviously they think I have no authority in the house. So since this is the case I have decided to let them have their way and I informed Mustafa that he was now 'THE AUTHOURITY' in the house. I said, 'Honey, you are now holding the reigns. I will no longer ask any of the kids to do anything. It's not my job anymore.'

Now I feel much better. I can live a stress-free life!

Live and learn

No one's heard from me in a while and it's not because I have been too busy with work. . . it's the internet . . . the dreaded LTT again.

After my big headache of getting adsl hooked up (click here for that story) it seems I am back to more headaches.

The service is 50 dinars a month and you have to pay for it by purchasing a card from one of the many representive's shops around town and recharge your account by phone. Now do you think that they sell cards for 50 dinars? No of course not because that would make sense, woudn't it! The cards are 30 or 100 dinars in the shops around me. So I thought I was being smart by buying a 100 dinar card and have uninterupted service for two months.

What was I thinking??

After the first month was finished I tried to open the internet connection and got this:



What?!? I kept trying, thinking there was something wrong. Finally, I decided to call the phone number that you call to recharge your account, it said I had a balance of zero dinar, zero dirham! What! There's another 50 dinars on there! When I press number 4 for more information it tells me the monthly quota is finished but my account will be reactived April 22nd which is the next day. You get to download 5 gigabytes and I know I didn't get anywhere near that amount because I checked it a day before the month was going to be up and it said I had almost 3 gb left. OK, I will be patient, not that patience is one of the charecteristics of my personality, but simply because I have no choice.

The next day I try to connect and it's the same thing even though the recording says I will have internet on the 22nd - I still have no internet, it's the 22nd and their offices are closed so I will have to wait until they open and feel like answering the phones to take my complaint and try to get my service started up again.

I finally get through to someone from LTT on the phone. The service representative says the people that handle adsl won't be in until tomorrow. I go through my whole story with him anyway and he checks my account and it says zero. 'Why did you use a 100 dinar card?' he asks. I say, 'Because there isn't a 50 dinar card.' 'Oh, well we're going to come out with 50 dinar cards soon.' was his response. 'Does that mean my 50 dinars is unrecoverable? I've thrown 50 dinars in the garbage?' I ask. 'Oh I'm sure it can be straightened out, maybe tomorrow or some time this week.' he says, but his voice doesn't sound very confident, 'and besides,' he adds, 'the service is supposed to be getting cheaper soon.' - I told him 'I don't care if it's getting cheaper soon, your service stinks and no one has a choice do they?'

The poor guy doesn't know what to say to that. Being American I have not inherited the Libyan trait of 'balah waasa' and just sitting back and accepting things. I have little patience and the American habit of speaking my mind.

Later in the day as I'm out and about I pop into one of the LTT representatives that sell the cards to see what they have to say. He was quite amused by my story and we opened my account on the website to see it. Low and behold it said my account was zero and that not only had I used up 5 gigabytes it had somehow gone over that by 250 megabytes! Quite amazing really since less then 48 hours ago it said I had nearly 3 gb left! I've been robbed of 50 dinars! The guy asked me if I printed it out and of course I hadn't so there was no proof to my story.

His advice to me for the future was to buy two-30 dinar cards each month and NEVER let them have more then 10 dinars as they will 'eat it' and you can do nothing about it. Also he said print out the page with my account every few days so I have a record. Then if there is a question I can show them the print out. Also never add to your account before it expires. Let the expiration date pass and then add to your account as they will 'eat' your balance that way too.

And who do I complain to??? The customer service at that company stinks but as far as I know they are the only company that offers adsl so you are stuck with them. Why does no one seem to be bothered by this but me?? I need a vacation . . . . . uuuuuuuuuggggggggghhhhhhh!