Oddity #25

If a girl serves tea to a guy and makes it extra extra sweet it means that she loves him.

October #24

If you get two spoons (by accident) in your piala (tea glass) then you will have two spouses, probably not at the same time, but it doesn't bode well for spouse number one. Thankfully, I haven't been cursed by this.

Good Life and Good Love

"Be persuaded, timid soul," writes Archbishop Fenelon, in his SPIRITUAL LETTERS TO WOMEN, "that He has loved you too much to cease loving you."

--taken from a daily mailing by Elizabeth Elliot

Oddity #23 (I think....)

They have thought of a wonderful way to bring air freshener into rooms here. The facial tissues are all strongly scented. Unfortunately they didn't think about the fact that you hold these perfumed papers up to your nose. It is a little overwhelming. *cough, choke...*

Odd... just really odd... a funny odd though...

This is odd, beyond odd, and really has nothing to do with being in the Middle East.

http://www.filmcow.com/charlietheunicorn...

Many thanks to Rachel... who first plagued me with Charlie the Unicorn...


P.S. A funeral was held yesterday for the rabbit. It is doubted that eating the wall was the cause of death, as it was discovered that he has been doing that for some time. I wish I had the eloquence to write an obituary, but alas, I do not.

Oddity #22

My oddity of the day doesn't really have anything to do with being in Iraq.

The rabbit here is eating the plaster of the wall near where he likes to sit. We don't know why. Do you?

Oddity #21

At first I wondered why there were so many tractors in the city. Then I saw some of the roads... now I know. SMILE!

Oddity #20

We changed for daylight savings on October 1st. So now it is only 10 hours difference between me and my family instead of 11.

Oddity #19

Wierd things are going on all the time... really... just after a while they all become normal. Like the fact that women can buy a headscarf to match their underwear in the bazaar. Other wierd things come from turning over a product and finding that it wasn't made in China or the U.S.A. It was made in Iran, Turkey, Syria, Saudi Arabia, or the United Arab Emirates. Some things like people going on vacation to Turkey is wierd. Oddities come when you find that this language doesn't have a word for something you want to say or that you are laughed at even when you manage to say something correctly. But lest you get the idea that life here is only strange and not also sweet, perhaps I will begin posting some of the things that make life here sooo sweet.

Oddity #18

There is an electrical outlet in my shower. Need I say more?

What I write when I don't know what to write...

I have lots and lots of random thoughts. Unfortunately I can't think of anything right now. I went shopping today. There was a sign that said "A lucky for your baby" on the wall. That is fairly par for the course. There were some wallets with wierd words on them. Yeah, there you go. Sorry.

Refining, Molding, Pruning

But Thou art making me, I thank Thee, sire.
What Thou hast done and doest Thou knows't well.
And I will help Thee; gently in Thy fire
I will lie burning; on Thy potter's wheel
I will whirl patient, though my brain should reel.
Thy grace shall be enough the grief to quell,
And growing strength perfect through weakness dire.
--George MacDonald

Oddity #17

Imagine buying your pant size to not only accomodate your own waistline but also your handgun.

Elizabeth Elliot

Lord, break the chains that hold me to myself; free me to be your happy slave--that is, to be the happy foot-washer of anyone today who needs his feet washed, his supper cooked, his faults overlooked, his work commended, his failure forgiven, his griefs consoled, or his button sewed on. Let me not imagine that my love for You is very great if I am unwilling to do for a human being something very small.

Author: Elisabeth Elliot
Source: A Lamp For My Feet

Oddity #16

Oddity #15

You know how kids in the States will say jinx when people say something at the same time and then the kid who didn't say it first has to be quiet until someone says his name. Well, here, girls cut way past all that sort of mundane life and just get to the important parts of life. Instead of saying jinx, they tug the hair near the face and whoever tugs first will have a more handsome husband. Yeah, talk about serious from the start! At this rate however, my husband, if I ever have one, is doomed to be ugly unless I can catch on and start tugging whenever I get the opportunity.

Oddity #14

The average lunch is Pringles and Fanta.

Things that I suddenly understand better.

Do you know how in the Bible it talks about people putting up little stacks of rocks to be a memorial? Well, strangely enough, little stacks of rocks really do make you ask "What are those there for?" Those passages in Isaiah where it talks about desert and dust... they are really real. Shepherds live in huts out in the middle of nowhere... kind of like Abraham and all that.

Oddity #13

Get your very own! They are all the rave!

Burqa Barbie Backpack!!!

Oddity #12

Sometimes it is not worth trying to come up with explanations for things, but other things call out for a reason to have existed. The only thing I can think might have happened here is some guy who wanted to make ketchup bought a honey factory and instead of changing the machine from making honey bears to making ketchup bottles he just filled the machine with red plastic and filled the red plastic bears with ketchup. Thus resulting in ketchup being sold on the shelves in bottles that look strangely like honey bear bottles. How else could you explain? What do bears and ketchup have to do with each other?