Six things

I found this on red enclave's blog and thought I would give it a shot.

Six weird facts, things or habits about yourself:

1. I love spiders. Most people find that pretty weird. If I find them in the house I leave them be. This means I've got spider webs hanging about here and there. Actually if the web looks deserted I remove it, but one's with a spider residing inside are left.

2. I don't particularly like children. Most people assume if you've got six of them then you must love kids. But this is not the case. I managed to stay kid- free for the first six years of my marriage. After arriving in Libya I ended up having a whole slew of kids because in the 90s there wasn't that many choices when it came to birth control in Libya and so here I am with six. I do love the children I have, but I probably wouldn't have had so many if I could have avoided it.

3. I say 'Elhamdulillah!' (Thank Allah!) a lot. I know this habit aggravates people and I used to feel self-conscious about this habit, but then I thought about it and realized that you get blessings every time you say it and since I can use all the blessings I can get people will just have to live with my habit. When the doctor woke me up from my surgery and asked me how I was. He said the first thing I said was 'Elhamdulillah!' He was so pleased.

4. I'm always on a quest for knowledge. When I was a kid I would read encyclopedias from cover to cover. If I don't learn something new everyday I feel like I've missed out somehow. I also like to learn about things that interest my friends. It gives me something to talk about and share with them. The result of this is that I have knowledge about things that I probably wouldn't have bothered to learn otherwise.

5. I'm punctual and I hate for people to be late. This is extremely frustrating to deal with in a country where hardly anyone gets anywhere on time (and sometimes they don't arrive at all).

6. I think I look at things differently than most people. I notice things that others somehow miss.

OK - go ahead and try your hand at 6 weird facts, things or habits about yourself. Just do me a favour and leave a comment so we can all have a look.

Is this a blog?

Here's an interesting blog I came across. Unfortunately there's no way to comment and the link for email has no link so I can't send an email. Also there's no RSS so I can't add it to my feedreader. Very frustrating! [click on the image to visit the blog]

I've survived!

I've survived and I'm home now recuperating. Got to keep my legs elevated until tomorrow and then after that I can start walking about.

The staff at Khadara Hospital took very good care of me during my stay. I had lots of nice visitors, friends, students and my kids and husband of course . . . . hmmm . . . no in-laws showed up, but I didn't expect they would anyway. I got some beautiful flowers from my students and a friend gave me a nightgown with a matching bathrobe that is made from the softest cotton. It's almost too pretty to wear!

Thanks to all for the messages and comments. I should be back to work on Sunday or Monday.

I'll Be Back Soon!

I'm going to be under construction for a while. Tomorrow I'm having ambulatory phlebectomy, stab avulsion and ligation of my superficial saphenous.

Googling all that should keep you busy until I get back!

Today's Nora's sweet sixteen. I had some birthday candles but one (or maybe more) of the kids decided they liked chewing on the soft wax and when I looked for them they were all gone. We settled for four regular candles which worked fine. Sixteen candles would have probably started a fire anyway! Pizza and cake for Nora - Happy Birthday Sweetheart! 

Mr Khaki at the hospital

We've been running around just about everyday for the past two weeks doing various medical stuff. Yesterday we had an appointment at Tripoli Medical Center to see a specialist to get another opinion about Adam's teeth.

TMC is a huge hospital. It's reportedly the largest hospital in North Africa. It has this fountain in front and is surrounded by lanscaped gardens. The main entrance hall reminds me of shopping malls in the US. Marble, stone, multilevel and high ceilings. It has the same acoustics - a kind of hollow echo with the sounds of voices, footsteps and water fountains. The main hall contains a public pharmacy, gift shop displays, a snack bar and the offices of the various out patient departments as well as the guarded entrances to the in patient parts of the hospital. We sat and people watched while we waited.

Off to one side is a small courtyard that had been turned into a cafe. There's a fountain in the center that's surrounded by bright blue Pepsi umbrella covered tables. It was nearly one o'clock in the afternoon by this time and the place was deserted. I was attracted to the colour and play of light and shadow and decided to take a picture.

Out of nowhere appeared a 'khaki man' Traditionally, the security all seem to wear khaki and I refer to them all as 'Mr. Khaki'. He was not pleased that I was taking a picture and said it wasn't allowed. I pointed out that I wasn't photographing any people, just the umbrellas and that the place was deserted. My husband came up to see what was going on and Mr Khaki blabbed on and on and on and on, about how he had seen me taking pictures of the fountain outside and allowed it, but that taking pictures of the hospital was not allowed. My husband said, 'She's not taking pictures of people, only the tables and umbrellas, and besides it's not like a public hospital is a military installation or something. There are no signs anywhere that say taking pictures is not allowed.' I said to Mustafa (in Arabic so Mr Khaki would be sure to understand), 'Oh never mind. It's always a negative story here.' and we walked away to wait near the door of the out patient department.

About two minutes later another 'Mr Khaki' came - he was wearing the same uniform but it was a grey one, and with him were two plain clothes guys. Mr Grey was appologizing profusely to my husband. He said he wanted us to know that they are not negative and didn't want to give a negative appearance or impression. If I wanted to take photographs I could take as many as I liked but I would have to report first to their office and get special permission.

I imagine these khaki men have their work cut out for them. Nearly everybody nowadays has a camera. While we were waiting we noticed two other people taking pictures with their cell phones. I really doubt that everyone who decides to take a picture will want to waste half the day explaining why they want to take a picture and what they want to photograph to the head hancho of the Mr Khaki brigade before they can take their picture. By then the picture would be long gone anyway.



By the time we left the hospital I was hot, tired, hungry and irritable. The fountains that had looked so colourful in the beginning just looked dirty now. hhmmm... Thanks Mr Khaki! You really made my day!

It's war!

Today was a long, hot and exhausting day. I had too many things to do and everything going wrong (or so it seemed). So this evening we decided to change our 'jhaow' and go to the toystore and buy waterguns!


Yes! The boys were all for it! Waterguns! We've got five of 'em! Ibrahim (left), cousin Mehdi (center), and Yusef (right) - had a great time! Nora and my sister in law are complaining of course - 'Who is going to clean up the stairway?' they want to know. 'Hmmmm. . . it's water, it'll dry!' I replied.