Week 8 Feb 15-22nd

Wow this was a busy week--Here are some highlights

Waiting for Meg's concert--we left at 2 for a 5:30 show:)  Lots of planning and coordinating.

Megan's concert  (above here is a picture with some of the kids in her class---what a treat--they had the kids dance, play instruments, sing.  The theme was "play" and had music from different countries and ended with "let's go fly a kite" from Mary Poppins as she fulfills her mission in teaching Mr. Banks to "play" with his kids.   I really liked one song that came from South Africa.  Megan's playing can be seen here:

Jordan got a "play" day at school this Thursday.  It was his schools' "w.o.w.' week (week without walls---a lot of kids go on trips with the school at this time each year)  and so they get a couple days off and then there are different activities going on at the school you can be a part of if you sign up in time:).  Jordan went on Tuesday to watch the Model United Nations and really enjoyed that and is looking forward to being a part of that.  Thursday, was the fun day with ultimate dodge ball, free krispy kreme donuts, quiddich--(where he became the "snitch" and was in a tackle/wrestling match.  How do you like his face?) and the Amazing Race, etc.

   We were invited to a cultural event this weekend and went to learn. We were divided, as their culture the men in one room, women in another.  They had children playing in another room.  When I saw them again -this is what I saw:

 Henna is really popular here--Haley did not know it was a temporary tattoo --it will be on for a week or two but it will come off.  It usually costs money and is something you see a lot so I just explained that today we were experiencing the "culture".  Their face painting was a mess the rest of the day as you'll see in the pictures;)  They taught us a little bit about volunteering in their culture and love/marriage and we watched a movie about a man named Ibn Battuta.  Have you heard of him?  He actually traveled more than 3 times the distance than Marco Polo.  I had not heard of him.  It was interesting.  It taught about why they do this walk to Makkah each year to worship.
The ladies were very kind and Dave and Jordan had a really neat conversation with the men in the question and answer session near the end of the event.

   Art made with Arabic words

   The Arabian Falcon--Ryan wasn't too keen when it moved : )

 The girls also got to dress up in some of the clothes:

 They also had a man doing calligraphy and he wrote our names in Arabic.  They had several different ways of saying "David".  Some of the ways you write the "sounds" of our alphabet is different ---like "ha" can be with a short a or long a sound so depending on that --it is written a specific way so it's not like a letter H is the letter H no matter what.  It's interesting.

 Later that evening I went over to the Expo right outside our compound and walked around and found a little dress for the girls.  It was like a big open warehouse with booths with clothes, incense (lots--and stinky:(), perfume, spices, honey from Yemen (which someone said was supposed to be really good but I guess I've been spoiled with real honey from my dad and grandpa's bees and so I thought it was gross to be honest, underwear--oh yes, that was interesting, and gold teapots, and henna, and much more.