The cherry trees in our yard are full of ripe cherries.At least twice each day Ethan climbs the trees with his buddy Bakhtavar and picks cherries for everyone to enjoy.We’ve come up with some great ways of catching/carrying the berries.
Here we used a recently inherited backpack from a little boy returning to England.We lined it with a plastic bag and Ethan filled it with the berries he picked.
Elli has learned to wait under the trees for the berries that drop while brother works hard to pick them.I don’t know if you can see it in the picture, but she has mastered the art of eating around the pit.When she’s done, she’ll pull the pit out with the stem still attached.
The plan is to make jelly next week when the berries are really ripe.
A circle of women gathered in our kitchen to discuss the demise of using “pampers;” what they call disposable diapers. A cousin to our home stay family had contracted an awful infection and was not urinating as he should be. In hopes to remedy the problem, the Dr. circumcised him. And the deduction was it was all the fault of using the disposable diapers. So instead of having a huge celebration between the ages of 5-7 celebrating the boy’s circumcision, we were invited to a small family gathering to do the same.
We were greeted on our arrival by the little boy, without his pants; to prove he had indeed been circumcised. I felt sorry for the little boy who was really going to lose out on a big celebration later.
Halfway through the feasting we were encouraged to stretch our legs and climb the hill on the backside of the house. “It’s an easy climb” but was actually straight up a shale cliff. But it did provide a beautiful view of our town.
These are the women of the family who were at the celebration.
The grandfather of the family is paralyzed and stays in bed. At their request I took some pictures of him with his wife and some of his grandchildren.
The house hunt has begun and we are excited. Homes with any form of plumbing are rare to non-existent. So that means we are anticipating building a kitchen and bathroom into our home. We have found a place that we both really like. There is no doubt a lot of work that will have to go into it, but we are hopeful. The yard is a selling point as well as each section is very heatable for cold winters. We have yet to talk cost with the owner (trying to play down our interest) so the cost of rent and remodeling may exceed our budget and then drop the house from the list. But I wanted you to see what we are looking at.
Almost all homes here are build around the yard/courtyard. So the house is actually the walls of the yard. The first picture is of the door to a small entryway and then the 2 bedrooms. The second picture is of the current shower room which we will gut and make into a bathroom. In the middle is the courtyard. There is a terrace with grapevines that will quickly grow over and give it shade. The "cot" along the bathroom wall will probably come with the house. After a coat of paint and a little carpet, we can enjoy countless summer evenings/mornings eating and sitting outside.
This is the kitchen. It is in a cluster of 4 small rooms on the left side of the courtyard; so directly across the courtyard from the bathroom. Amazingly it's already plumped for cold water. We'll do some work on the floor, put in cabinets and a new sink. It is yet to be determined if we'll buy a hot water heater for the kitchen. That is all budget permitting. I'm so excited about the windows. An improvement on lighting from my last kitchen and one window faces the courtyard and the other faces the yard, so great Mommy watching potential!
This is the current shower room. It looks WAY bigger than it actually is. Pretty much the family would go in with buckets to shower; so it's a small closet size room with no actual shower or toilet. The small window is at the ceiling line, so it's very short. We both have to stoop to enter the room. Austin has great ideas of actually moving the door to another wall, gutting and building the toilet room, bath and washing machine space. What a blessing to have a hubby who has taken a college class on building a septic tank. Looks like that will be my 30th birthday and 7th anniversary present!
This is a shot of the yard from the edge of the courtyard. Nate, I apologize for the tree in the middle of the picture. In attempts to quickly/discreetly take pictures my framing abilities were apparently lost. There are apple, mulberry, apricot and cherry trees in the yard. There are several rose bushes in bloom. And then an entire yard of wheat. As no one has lived here for years, they planted wheat to feed the family cow. To the left of the roses is the squatty that we'll use until our toilet is built as well as a very clean stable. The vote is still out on if we'll get a sheep, team steer, or chickens.
On May 9th, the 3rd born son in our home stay, had his first child; a son. Mother and baby were in the hospital for 5 days. Once they arrived home, Grandma went accompanied by the 3 year old of our family to help out with the baby. It turns out while she was there "helping out" she sewed new dresses for all her daughters/daughter-in-laws on the new mother's sewing machine. She even made me a dress.
We've been waiting for the baby's umbilical stub to fall off. Once it had the baby could be bound to the cradle. And of course that is a reason to celebrate. I received last minute news of the celebration and had other things planned for the day, so I didn't get to stay the entire day. But here are the pictures from the parts I did see.
A walnut is beat against the bed with a stone. Both the mother's grandmother and sister took their turns at whacking the nut. The banging is supposed to accustom the baby to noise so they won't be easily scared.
Both of the baby's grandmother's took turns at offering a prayer of blessing. It feels kind of awkward to take pictures while they are praying, but Grandma ordered me to do it. They're really into the pictures!
Then there was the donning of various things to keep away the evil eye.The new mother was rubbed with a burnt onion by her grandmother; the baby’s great grandmother.And then the baby was dotted with flour on his forehead.
It was all a quick flurry of activity and then it was over.After which we all sat and enjoyed some kebab and chips.The full 3 course meal followed late into the afternoon, but I wasn’t able to stay for that part.A monumental day, the baby has been bound.
As I'm sure you've guessed by the sudden influx of blog entries, we have our internet set up and it's working. Along with the city post office, we are the only 2 wireless users, working off of a cell tower signal. It's a little slower than our friend's internet, but we are grateful to have it!
A confession . . . while we were waiting in Sharjah we purchased season passes to NCIS and LOST on itunes. These are our areas of weakness/addiction. So in our lapse in internet we have 10 episodes to download. The question is how long it's going to take to do so. I'll let you know when we get it all downloaded.
We returned from our family get-away to find Grandpa busy working on cutting and drying alfalfa that had been brought in from the family land outside of town. It didn't take long and Austin was busy at work helping cut the alfalfa, much to Grandpa's appreciation.
This is the machine they use to cut it. It continues to sit in our yard, which keeps me on higher alert for curious fingers that may find their way to it.
For 2 days the alfalfa filled the yard as it dried. Austin and Grandpa then worked to collect it into sacks and store it in the attic to feed the sheep for a while. Unfortunately, I think all the fresh alfalfa is also to blame for the rampant flea bites plaguing our whole family!
This is one thing I love about and am challenged by my husband. He is such a servant and loves people by working alongside them. I think he has won his way into the heart of Grandpa by his faithful service.
It's been several days without rain and the temperatures are rising. Young children, boys and girls alike, get their hair buzzed for the summer months. The reasoning "to keep them cool and allow their heads to get good sun." So while the clippers were out for Merona's (3 year old girl) haircut, Austin gave Ethan a quick haircut. We didn't buzz it down quite as short as they all wanted it to be.
Grandpa woke up from his nap to the buzz of the clippers. And came out to join us. He wanted to be next in Barber Arif's chair (Austin's local name). Austin was a little nervous buzzing Grandpa's hair.
But all clients proved satisfied with their new cuts.
