Pictures

Blogger is still not letting me post any pictures. Sorry!

I Passed My Class!

Sunday means time to update my blog! My Arabic Head Start class finished up this past Friday. I really enjoyed the class- the instructor was awesome and I learned a lot, so I’m kind of sad it is over. I know how to read numbers in Arabic which is pretty cool. I also know how to say a few phrases and how to conjugate verbs, but other than that I am pretty Arabic illiterate. Here are some more interesting things I learned in the class: · There is no “P” sound in the Arabic language · The creator of Tom & Jerry is from Lebanon · Kuwait means “The castle on the water” · Pearl Diving is what brought people here (comparable to the CA gold rush I suppose), oil wasn’t discovered until later. · Only 15% of Kuwait is inhabited · A gallon of gas here costs about $1.00 · Always enter a house with your right foot. This means that I want to bless your house and I have no intention of cursing it. · Shoes are taken off and left at the door so you can pray on a clean rug. · An orange is called an Burtugal since the first orange came from Portugal · The most important thing to do in a dust or sand storm is to cover your ears. Your nose has hairs that will keep a lot of the sand out, but your ears have nothing. So, if your ears are left unprotected the sand can cause a lot of infection and swelling to occur in your throat or jaw area. · The dress here is perfect for surviving in the desert. The light fabric helps keep you cool in the heat of the summer and the head piece can be used to help breathe and to protect the ears in a sand storm. · The people are so family oriented that they never leave their community. Even when they are married they still live within their family’s protection. · Most people get paid for 13-15 months worth of work. The extra few months of pay is then used for traveling money. I think my instructor’s concluding speech was the most telling to me… he said (and I paraphrase), “I was scared to teach this class the first time. I am teaching a culture class to a culture I am not so familiar with. I was scared and not sure how the class would be liked. If you are scared of us, we are just as scared of you and your culture. We feel that you are laughing at us and our ways. We are normal people. We like to have fun, to socialize, and be with our family.” It really was a good class and to hear that they think we are laughing at them was so sad to me. Just because they have different customs that we don’t understand does not make it okay to laugh or think we are better than anyone, yet I often think that is our mentality. Even after taking the class I don’t completely understand their culture, nor do I think I ever will. I do know, however, that the Arab people are good people who value many of the same things I do. Last night I went to Hard Rock Café. It is right on the coast, so it has a pretty view. I got some pictures but blogger is not cooperating. I'll try to post them tomorrow. I purchased a hat and a Hard Rock Café pin- got to love Hard Rock Souvenirs. Now I’ve almost been to as many Hard Rock Café’s outside the country (England and Kuwait) as I have been to in the U.S.(Denver, Las Vegas, Nashville)- pretty funny!

Weekly Update

Happy Sunday Everyone! I really do enjoy Sundays and now that Sunday is typically my only day off (except for holidays) I really, really love Sundays! This week was a good week. I am taking a class after work and I definitely go home with a headache on the days we study the language! It is a lot of memorization which I never have enjoyed. I always want to know something and not have to go through the process of learning it. Perhaps when my year is up I will know how to say more than just the common greeting. I really enjoy the days we learn about the culture though- we switch off every other day between culture and language. So, here are a few things I learned this week: · Pork is forbidden simply because a lot of people were getting really sick or dying because it wasn’t cooked properly. · 99.9% of Arab men have a mustache… to them an Arab without a mustache is like a cat without a tail! · Tradition still holds to light a fire on a hill after dinner so anyone lost in the desert can find their way back. · Hospitality is very important here… if you knock on their door needing food, drink, or rest you must stay for 3 days and 2 nights and they will treat you like very special. They will not feed you from the same animal they are eating from, no, another animal will be slaughtered just for you. Extremely generous! · The singing that can be heard across the country 5 times a day, every day, is simply a summons reminding people to pray. · I found it interesting to learn that the first Sheat Mosk was built in New York. · The language is similar to Spanish in the sense that it is gender specific and you conjugate verbs in the Past, Present, and Future and put a different prefix or suffix on the word depending on whether you are talking to or about “I”, “You”, “He”, “She”, “We”, “They”, etc. The word “Bil Isin” in Arabic is used the same way as “Permiso” in Chile (Sorry Jess and Marcela, I don’t know if my Spanish spelling is correct). It basically means “Excuse me” in the sense of “I’m sorry” or “Move”, or “forgive me for what I am about to do”. On Monday this week my co-workers had a water drinking contest. I participated, but wasn’t really a contender for the title of Water Drinking Champ. My 5 bottles of water was nothing compared to the 24 bottles of water that the winner drank and the 21 bottles the person in second place person put away. So, in a 3 hour period the winner drank over 3 gallons of water! That’s a lot of water!!! This week I also met a Senior Executive Service (SES) person who is a 2 or 3 star equivalent. Even as cool as that is I am much more excited to meet Elder Holland when he comes in February(hopefully)! That will be awesome! Okay, that is my fun for the week. Take care!

Nothin' Better Than A Finished Project

Not a whole lot to write about this week other then the fact I think my washing machine is possessed. I went to change the clothes from the washer to the dryer to find that the door to the laundry room wouldn’t open. What? I was in there just a couple hours earlier and the door opened and closed just fine. Well, it turns out that the washing machine itself was blocking the door- how did it move a good 3 inches you ask? That is what I don’t know- interesting, huh? I did hear a loud bang and I’m wondering if that had something to do with it, but again I am at a loss to how it could move so far in such a short amount of time. Oh, and earlier this week I went to change a load to the dryer to find a puddle of water on the floor in front of the washing machine… hmmm, what’s going on here? So, I got the bright idea to pick up the owner’s manual since that was just sitting there. Well, that would have been a great idea if I could read Arabic! The entire manual is in Arabic and the pictures didn’t seem to help much. Nice! So, I asked my co-worker who has the same model, and he said not to worry about it. Apparently the quality of the machine is such that the drawer where you put the detergent just blows open and water comes out from there. I feel like I am constantly doing laundry because the machines can only hold about 3 pairs of pants and it takes a good hour to wash the load (sometimes you have to put the load on an extra spin cycle to get the soap off which increases the time to 1-1/2 hours) and then the dryer takes a good 2 hours or more to dry. I’m just glad I have the convenience of having a washer and dryer in my apartment! I forgot to tell you that I got to play tennis last Saturday. Yeah, I think we picked the coldest day of the year to play! It was a high of only 55 degrees and it was a little windy. Sad when UT is warmer then we are here! Well, my week was long, but it was good. My workload pretty much doubled this week, so now I’m really busy which is the way I prefer it. I now feel like all the overtime I work is actually justified. I was able to finish up my coin holder this week. It turned out really nice and it was fun to make.

Here are some other tidbits about this country which I don’t think I’ve already shared:

- There is no Wal-Mart here. Shocking, but it is true. Kind of wish there was a Wal-Mart.

- You cannot find raisinetts here. I found a candy store which had chocolate covered pretzels, chocolate covered almonds, but no chocolate covered raisins.

- The freeway is very well lit with lanes clearly marked. There are many locations on the surface streets where no lanes have been painted. Oh, and I’ve never seen lanes in a traffic circle.

- I need to correct a previous blog where I spoke about the wide range of speed on the freeway. I said you will find people driving anywhere between 80KPH to 160KPH (50 MPH to 100MPH). Well, I came across someone the other day who was only going 55KPH (35MPH) and then someone flew past me so they must have been going a good 185KPH (115MPH). So, the wide range of speed is an understatement and I’ve no doubt that is a contributing factor to the amount of wrecks they have here.

- There are unmarked exits here. For example, there will be an exit number 500, then 501, then an unmarked exit and then 502 will be a mile up the road. Weird huh?

- There are U-turns on the freeway. In fact, I have to do a U-turn every time I am heading home from work. Luckily I’ve never encountered really heavy traffic by the time I am leaving work. Otherwise it would be a pain to get heading the right direction!

I’m taking an “Arabic Headstart” class for the next couple weeks, so I’m sure I will have more interesting tidbits to share. I get to learn about the culture, the dos and don’ts here, and I’ll learn some common Arabic phrases. Should be a good class, I’m excited for it.Until next week. Take care!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year! Already to 2009, my how time flies when you’re having fun, right? So, I didn’t do anything too exciting this week. I did throw myself a New Year’s Eve Party…. just me, myself, and I! I put on “Pirates of the Caribbean” (the first one), popped some popcorn, and enjoyed my evening. Some people who live at my complex shot off fireworks, so I said HAPPY NEW YEAR and then fell asleep. I did get New Years Day off, so I got to sleep in. That day I got Christmas put away… only took about 10 minutes- it was great! I also finally got my stuff unpacked and put away, so that was nice. I ventured out and went shopping that afternoon to a store that is the closest thing I have found to a Wal-Mart. I bought a toaster that hopefully will not blow up on me like my toaster I brought from home. The toaster cost me $20 and it was the cheapest one they had. I also bought a hair dryer that will work with the electricity here. The one I brought from home works with the converter, but I don’t think it is going to last long, so I bought a new one. It was also a good $25 purchase. I had such high hopes that the ice cream I bought would taste like normal ice cream from home, but let’s just say it fell way short. Oh well- live and learn. The remainder of my day off was spent chatting with family, sanding my project while watching “Cars”, and doing laundry. It was a good day. Looking back on 2008 I realized that I had a lot of good times that I shared with family and friends. For some reason I feel that 2008 was the calm before the storm. I don’t know what is in store for me, but I do know that I enjoyed my year and I did a lot of fun things. It seems that I was constantly going somewhere, throwing parties, or doing something every night. I enjoyed 2008… here are some things I remember: - Mom and Jess coming to Denver for Cayden’s blessing - I flew home in February and surprised Mom since she didn’t know I was coming - Brent and Ashley coming to Denver for the Basketball Tournament and we went to Cave of the Winds and Garden of the Gods - Mom coming to Denver for Jared’s Graduation - Eli was born- what a cute little guy! -Going to Boise and having the entire family there for Meggy’s baptism - Played soccer on a coed outdoor team as well as an all-girl indoor team - Retreat in Breckenridge and Third Thursday in Vale - Got my Wisdom Teeth removed - Friends: Snowshoeing, rodeo, wii parties, birthday parties, Olympic parties, parties, parties, and more parties, rapids game, crush games, rapids games, Bolder Boulder 10K, Gift of Life and Breath 5K, Relay for Life, Wakeboarding, Midnight Bike Ride, tennis matches, working out, golfing, hot air balloon classic, weddings, etc, etc, etc. - Moved to a foreign country Good times in 2008 I tell you! Wishing you all the best in 2009!

Christmas Week Recap

Well, I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! Christmas was very different for me this year being away from family and in a country that doesn’t really celebrate Christmas. I had to keep reminding myself that it was actually Christmas! Oh, and the fact that it is about 70 degrees here and there is no snow also makes it feel like anything but Christmas. I’m not missing the snow or cold though- sorry all you who are having to deal with that! Okay, so here is my week. On Monday, I went shopping with my friend from church. He was on a hunt to find some groceries for Brother Meeks to make some Christmas goodies. Yes, I braved the crazy traffic and after about 30 minutes even found a parking spot! Here is a picture showing you how they like to park and block you in. It really is “fend for yourself” type attitude here.

Look, Its Snowing!

Okay, and the picture after I cleaned my lens off...

Anyway, we did a lot of walking around and then stopped in and ate at a nice Indian style restaurant. They had great tortillas which you wrap up the chicken and this sauce concoction, it was pretty tasty!

If this video works it is my "Christmas Lights"

Tuesday, Dec 23rd, I didn’t have to get up early since my shipment of household goods finally arrived. They packed up my stuff on November 13th, so I was very happy to get my stuff! The movers showed up around 9:30am and were gone within 40 minutes. Everything but a full length mirror and a clothes drying rack made it without breaking- pretty impressive! As soon as they left I headed into work so I have a lot of unpacking to do still.

My Simple Christmas Decorations

Christmas Eve was a normal work day other than our little work Christmas party in the middle of the day. Everyone had a sock made up for them which had an orange and candy in it. I want to say a group of school kids from the States sent over the goodies basket with all the socks made up for everyone-very nice. It was a fun little party. Well, I left work at 7pm and went and enjoyed a steak dinner at the dining facility with some co-workers. There were Generals sitting on both sides of me… I didn’t talk to either of them (since they were not in our group), but not too often does one get to say they dined with Generals on Christmas Eve!

Christmas day was a fun day. I got to sleep in until 7:30am which felt so nice, especially since I typically get up at 4am. I was going to go out and about with a coworker and a friend, but my coworker called saying she had a migraine and wasn’t feeling all that great. So, it ended up just being me and my friend from church. I picked him up around 9am and then we went and had a nice breakfast at Johnny Rockets. After breakfast we wandered around the area shopping and exploring. It was nice to see the town during the day… that was a first. We stopped by the Hilton to get information about any tours they offer. While we were there we walked outside and sat on the beach for a few minutes just soaking in the wonderful view. It was such a beautiful day! Enjoy some pictures of our day…

After walking around and shopping, we came back to my apartment and put on a movie. It was nice just to sit and do nothing for a couple hours. After the movie it was back to exploring. I was on a mission to find a converter that would work with my hair dryer… success! (Side note: I just plugged in my toaster oven and got a loud pop and a bright flash of light. I thought I was going to start a fire... it was kind of scary!)

Christmas evening I got to chat with my family… it really didn’t feel like Christmas until then. I am so grateful for technology that allows us to keep in touch. I got to join Jared, Katie, and Cayden while they opened presents- I love skype! Thanks guys for letting me join you for Christmas morning! I got to talk to everyone in my family, too. So, it was a good Christmas. I love you all and enjoyed chatting with everyone! Thanks for enjoying a cinnamon roll for me, too. I definitely missed Mom’s cinnamon rolls this year!

Friday was declared a federal holiday, so I had two days off in a row- NICE! I again got to sleep in and enjoyed the morning unpacking some of my stuff and doing laundry. I know that the 26th is Boxing day, but in my world it was Tennis day! I challenged some co-workers to a friendly tennis match and beat both of them…. 6-2, 6-3 and 6-2, 6-2. They were both good sports about getting beat by a girl! I am sore still from playing though… I must be getting old! It was great fun to play.

After playing tennis and grabbing some lunch I went to the woodshop to work on my project. I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned the woodshop before, but I get to do craft projects for free… all the wood, materials, and even the one-on-one help is provided- its awesome! I had the initial idea and sketched out what I wanted to build and my helper took it from there. He did an amazing job! I made a few cuts, but I really can’t take credit for making it. I’ll post a final picture after it has been stained, but for now this picture is after only 4 hours of work… not too shabby, huh? It is a coin holder made out of walnut wood. The rest of my Friday was spent unpacking.

Saturday was back to work… just a normal day. After work I watched the movie Mr. Kruger’s Christmas while I sanded my coin holder. What a classic Christmas movie with the delusional old man. Good times!

Well, that brings me to today. I got to talk to Mom this morning and now I’m updating my blog- I love Sundays! I’ll continue my unpacking/organizing and hopefully have that done soon. Then I’ll head to church in a few hours and we’ll call it a day!

Okay, so, I’ve been here for over a month and it wasn’t until this week that I saw a bug… two in fact. Don’t worry I captured them both. I don’t think the picture does the cockroach justice- the thing was huge! Pretty Good Sized Spider

Have a great week everybody! Make your New Year’s Resolution, because its coming quick!

Humbled

Hello all! I’m afraid I don’t have anything really exciting to share with you this week, so you get my mirror flapping story… Okay, so when I had my SUV I was driving home from work one night and my mirrors starting going crazy. They were seriously flapping in the breeze! Well, I thought to myself, this is definitely a hazard not having any mirrors- especially in this country! So, when I got to work I marched into the car place to see what to do about this problem. I was told that the maintenance folks were in, so I was to take it to them to see if there is an easy fix before they will switch out the vehicle for a new one. Okay, so I head over to maintenance to find the 3 workers sitting there eating. It was only 10am! It must have been their break time, and they were not about to help me, so I sat in my car and got ignored for about 10 minutes! Okay, so they finally got around to helping me, and I finally understood what it was they wanted me to do (their English with a heavy accent is extremely difficult to understand). Well, it took them all of about 2 minutes to say, yep it needs to be sent downtown for repair. So, back I head to the car place. Before handing over the keys they send an inspector out to make sure the car is clean, fueled up, all the personal belongings are out, and you hand them the proper paperwork. So, the inspector walks out and the first thing he said (pointing to the mirror) was, “is this what is wrong with the vehicle?” I replied yes, and it needs to be sent downtown for repair. The inspector said, “hmm, no it doesn’t, let me show you.” He proceeds to show me a button that I must have hit accidently and if you hold that button down it will lock the mirror in place, so the flapping will not happen anymore! Neat! So, my vehicle did not need maintenance after all. What makes me the most nervous about this story is the maintenance people didn’t know the simple fix and they are the ones who are constantly working on the vehicles. Leave it up to an inspector to know more than the maintenance guys! Not so sure I feel really confident when my vehicle is in the shop! Well, I don’t have the SUV anymore. I was given a car, which has a lot more power than the SUV and it has a CD player and not a tape player. Yes, the SUV had a tape player- nice, huh? So, there are some benefits to having a car. Here is a picture of me and my car…

Well, I was humbled last Sunday and realized how extremely blessed I am. Church is good, there is a pretty good size group which I was surprised to see. About 25-30 people show up each week. I can hear myself sing though and I don’t like that!

Anyway, I met a guy at church and learned that he lives in the same area as me. Well, his normal ride was not there, so he asked if he could catch a ride from me. So, on the way home I learned his story. He is from India who has been here for the past 3 years. He works at the same location as me, but is not offered the same “luxuries” as I have. Specifically, he does not have a car, he does not have his own place, and he has to go through a lot more hassle to go to work and to leave work then I do, and I’m pretty sure he is earning next to nothing in pay. He walks a few blocks each morning and catches the bus at 4am. He gets to work and pretty much works from 6am to 6pm where he catches the bus home and does it all over again the next day. The only day he has off is Sunday and that day he still catches the bus, but then hangs out all day until church. Church meets from 4:30pm until 6:30pm. He has been getting a ride home from the group leader who has to get special permission each Sunday to leave the area, take him home and head right back. That is about an 1-1/2 hour round trip drive! So, here I was pretty sad that I don’t get to go shopping very often or get to do a whole lot of sightseeing since the only day I have off is Sunday as well. I at least get some holidays off and I’m not so sure my friend does, I have a car so I can go out if I choose, I have my own place so I can enjoy some peace and quiet and my friend shares a place that has one bathroom with 7 people. Oh, and I’m only here for a year. :^) So, I stopped being sad for myself and realized how extremely blessed I am- spoiled even!

My friend got baptized on Christmas Day 10 years ago and is a faithful member of the church. He does not celebrate that anniversary, he does not even celebrate his birthday. He really doesn’t have a great life and I asked him what was next for him. He doesn’t know… he said it is hard to get to a place where his quality of life will improve. Makes me sad.

The more I’m here the more I learn about some people in this country who really don’t have a great life, yet it is a better life than if they were in their own country. These people make probably about $150-$200 per month and some send money home to their families to help improve their life. Wow! It makes me wonder why I have been so richly blessed in my life! I got word that my shipment of household goods is here and ready for delivery. Yeah! That means I might see my stuff before Christmas! Also, since I will actually have a day off here this next week, I hope to have some pictures and good stories for you! Talk to you soon.

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!