A gift from the American people?!

We were out grocery shopping the other day and we saw this being sold in the store:
Yup, we couldn't believe our eyes either! (The pic is a bit small, but basically it is food aid that the USA sends to 3rd world countries. And it was being SOLD in a gorcery store!)

Pasta really sucks here (not nearly as good as Iranian Tak Pasta!) and we were really tempted to buy it! But luckily our consciouses overruled!

Go away ants!

My kitchen is controlled by ants! They are everywhere. And I've tried everything! slices of lemon, cockroach spray, clove oil.... as soon as the swarm of ants goes from one part of the kitchen, I find them re-populate in another part! If anyone has any tips, please feel free to add them in the comments bit!

Want to buy a tacky doll?

The streets around the Sayyidda Zainab mosque are not only filled with shops, but also stalls and people who have laid out tables/mats on the floor and are trying to flog their wares. Normally it wouldn't be a bad thing - people coming to us to sell their wares. The problem is that they not only take up the sides of the streets, they also crowd the streets, making it hard to walk. And they actually shove their tacky jewellery/socks/dolls in your face. Needless to say, I've become very quick in dodging away from them!

Dirhams...

We're now learning the numbers in Arabic. Sounds easy? It's not!

Anyways, our teacher sometimes diverts and tells us interesting stories in Arabic to liven up the classes. Today's story was about a king who was trying to teach his son the value of money. One day, he asked his son to go out and work and bring home his wages. Instead of going out to work, the son asked his mother for a dirham (currency commonly used in the Middle East). When he got home, his father asked him for his wages and the son presented his dirham. The father threw the coin into the fountain and told him to go back to work the next day. The same thing happened the next day... the son took a dirham from his mother and gave it to his father and the father threw it in the fountain. The 3rd day, the son was a bit puzzled by his father's behaviour, but instead of asking his mother for money, he actually went out and worked. In the evening, he presented his father with the dirham that he'd earned and just as his father was about to throw the dirham into the fountain, the son grabbed his hand to stop him. (i.e. how can my father throw the dirham I've sweated to earn into the fountain!!)

Middle Eastern TV

We didn't have a TV in Iran, so we're fortunate to have a TV and a satellite dish in Damascus. We get all the Middle Eastern channels here (MBC, Dubai One, Fox, Iranian channels) and we also get Ahlul Bayt TV and all the other international ones too (CNN, BBCWorld etc).

Its weird watching Indian films dubbed in Arabic - it just souds sooo wrong (they don't dub the singing and dancing). Fox airs a whole host of 'straight-to-DVD' films and also all the crappy shows that never went past a second series. Oh and there's an episode of CSI on every other hour - there are only so many gruesome murders and rapes I can cope with in one day.

All the swear words and nudity scenes are blocked out. But the funny thing is that if the swear word is made up of 2 words (e.g. mother f@$%^&) then they don't bother to beep it! And even though nudity scenes are cut out, they still air shows where adultery is the main theme.
It's probably a good thing that the TV here is crap - it means we get more studying done!

Arabic Classes

We're now entering our 4th week of Arabic classes. We have an amazing teacher who has developed his own programme. Its really cool - we learn grammer rules without even knowing that we're learning them! We also study saying of the Prophet nd analyse the grammer and also a 3rd book which has reading comprehension passges. We have classes 5 days a week (Thurs and Fri are the weekend for us)

Our teacher keeps us on our toes. He has quick fire questioning sessions and god forbid if you are sleeping! you miss your turn! He has also figured out what our weaknesses are... for example, one of the students has issues in determining where the 'is' in the sentence goes, so the teacher ALWAYS asks him.

Our classes are in the afternoon - a little different to Qum (where all our classes were in the mornings). It just means rearranging the day so that homework, housework and cooking are done in the mornings, class in the afternoon, shrine of Sayyida Zainab for evening prayers and then home for dinner.