The seemly side

Sitting round a low table of sticky rice and hunks of fish piled high with friends.


Running into local people in the street you vaguely know and being invited back for tea (a good two hour affair)

Coffee out


Home-made, squishy flat bread with friends who are delighted to see you again.


Trying out Arabic and being both understood and laughed at!

Blue skies.


A town that comes alive after dark and the temperature is manageable, heaving with markets, shops spilling into the streets and scores of little street sellers with their wares laid out on the ground.


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The unseemly side

A pile of fish heads & a severed goat's trotter in the street.

Children throwing stones at us.

Being stared at, shouted at, honked at and leered over.



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Nothing unusual about that!

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What?

Today's funniest moment that is hard to translate but I will try anyway;...
H and I are going through some basic Arabic, testing each other and she asks me; 'what's taul' or so it sounded to me. So I think well it must begin with ط because of the somewhat swallowed vowel that sounds somewhere between a T and a D. It must be followed by و which is like a W sound and probably finishes with ل, an L sound. طول. I have no idea what this word is. I give up.
Then I see what she's looking at.
A towel.
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Classic Joy

Walking down the street this evening with a couple of local friends and I jokingly wolf whistle at the girl and ask if that's the same here as in England. Suddenly everyone is laughing. I'm like 'wha..?' There's a guy just off the pavement in some waste ground kneeling down. He's not praying. It's what they do here when they relieve themselves in public. Yup. And I just wolf whistled him!
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Oh yeah, I remember...

* the early call to prayer
* walking in the road more than the pavement because of the stuff everywhere
* the dryness desiccating your feet in minutes
* the 'koba' lorry making a right racket coming round with water
* 'draa' shops (traditional male dress)
* being stared at
* 'American? French?'
* chicken necks


New since last time;

* a bus service
* lots more building work
* a fountain on the roundabout by Las Dunas


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24 unusual hours.

15:15

Was I really in Birmingham this time yesterday?! I've smiled and laughed and cried and come to some peace in that time. Know what? All this is good.


I described my blog to someone the other day as a catalogue of scrapes I'd gotten myself into. Not to disappoint my fan base, I've already been told I can't get on a flight. Don't worry. I'm under favour so I refreshed THAT status and got them to change the name on my ticket and let me through without a charge. The only two blessings I requested!

Boom! That just happened!

Landed safely and with friend, chilling out with the fan on...

More soon

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