Henna (by Mira)

 

Henna is a plant. It is a thick green paste that women wear to keep themselves cool in the summer.

Women can get it on their feet too.  You put on the green paste and let it dry for 1 hour until it is all light green and then you wash it off and it will be orange. the next day it will be a brownish redish color.

 Henna depends on the heat of your body. you know how the palm of your hand is always sweaty? well it will be brighter on your palm than any where else.

 written by Mira age 9

new henna that our nehbiors did for Camilla and me.

Sorry about the blog hiatus

A few reasons:
--Having fingernail problems due to a HUGE mistake of getting fake nails put on in the USA...this makes typing not a whole lot of fun. (never again...)
--I have been trying to think of something interesting to blog about.  I want to write about things that my readers want to read.  I hate being mundane or redundant so I have been brain storming. I can see why photo blogs are much easier for daily updates.  Too bad I am not a stellar photographer.
--I have been living life.  Trying to stay away from the computer more.  It is such a time sucker for me.  I need to learn moderation. 
--It is Eid holiday & Rob is off work for the week ( & I am giving the girls a break from school as well) so we have been enjoying more family time.

I will try to write something substantial soon but until then...while you are enjoying your many flavors of delicious ice cream, know that THIS ain't no Blue Bell!!!!

it is hard living in 3 countries at the same time

Last night my little sister Camilla was crying because she missed her kindergarten friends (in new zealand) and i was sad too because i missed my friend Olivia. I like seeing new places but i also miss my friends. We get to go places other kids don't get to go but it is hard because we have friends in Oman, the USA and New Zealand.

We wish everybody could be in  the same country.

Written by Mira age 9. 

Better audio of the call to prayer

It is a lovely, yet haunting sound.

How I awoke today

By SWEATING.
Lovely.
The power had gone out.  Not sure when & no reason why.  It heats up pretty quick around here & having no A/C is not much fun at all.
Fortunately it came back on within a couple hours just when I was about to lose my mind.
And it wasn't like we could take cold showers to cool off (see a post a few weeks ago re the hot tap water).
Current temp in Nizwa is 34 C or 93 F & it is not quite noon yet.
Gonna be another hot one!

Goats up to no good

The call to prayer

 

Not the loudest.  I will have to try again but maybe you can hear something...

Yes! I can sleep tonight (the conclusion to the spider story...)

Robert Simms, you're my hero!

I sure would like to see some more fat lizards right about now

Our washing machine is located outside in a little shed-like thingy. Which makes it handy for line drying.  And line drying rules, especially here...it takes about 5 seconds to dry a load of clothes!

I just went out to check on the load going & as I went to lift the handle up to open it, the BIGGEST and I do mean passport-sized (that is the closest thing in front of me to compare it to) spider crawled out.  I almost touched it!!!!   It was on top of the machine.  I jumped back & he was gooone.  Nimble & quick.  Aren't they supposed to be clumsy the bigger they are?!

So now, he is gone.  Where to?  Trying to find a way into our house?  Into my bed???

I told Rob via gmail chat & his response:
  i imagine he is probably emailing the same thing to his wife right now "you should have seen this human, she was huge, it freaked me out man! i'm not going back to the laundry machine, no friggin' way. Those humans are scary"

I wish I had gotten a photo. That was my 2nd thought. The 1st one being "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

No, that is not the ice cream truck

A small orange truck goes through our village almost daily.
The back is filled with cylinders of gas (for cooking).
A guy drives through honking his horn and if you need gas, you flag him down & he will deliver it to you.
We ran out of gas last week for the 1st time in almost 10 months & Rob actually found a number to ring for delivery.  But, as usual, he had to ring a different number & yet again 1 more.  Things always seem to happen after 3 tries.
When he spoke to the 3rd person, they were like "how did you get this number???"

:-)