damn! i suppose it has been a while eh? well, lets see... what has happened that might be of interest. well, we had a -2c morning here (about 28 deg f) according to my counterpart. a lot of royalty in the region have died this month: the king of dubai, the king of kuwait, and the son of the prince of bahrain. not too big a reaction in my community. only noticable difference for me was that all my english speaking dubai stations got taken over by the koran for a week. i watched the dubai funeral at my center. king abdulla was right up front at the burial. but in a sea of white dish dashes (those long robes that men wear)he was wearing a suit. im not sure if there is any significance, but he certainly stood out. he did, however have the requisite red and white schmag (head scarf for men). during the prayer over the late king's body, a cell phone went off in the crowd. nokia ring. how innappropriate. i couldnt help thinking of the daily show bit about cell phones: (sung to the tune of the nokia ring) "youre annoying stupid douchebag, turn your phone off now" i think it applies.
the other big news i am sure you are all aware of is the ariel sharon situation. i was expecting a big reaction but so far there hasnt been one. i did hear one woman say "god willing... god is generous." im not really sure how to interperet that one though.
there was a big holiday recently that i may have previously mentioned. it is an islamic holiday called eide al adha (eve of the sacrifice). it basically commemorates abraham (i think that was the one...). if you will recall, god asked him to sacrifice his son. and abraham, like any good father and servant of god was happy to comply. he even told satan to bugger off after said prince of darkness tried to convince him otherwise. well, so touched was god that he sent a sheep to be sacrificed in lieu of abrahams son. praise be. so, during eide al adha, every family should kill a sheep. in the spirit of islam, a good portion of all that mean is given away to the poor, which i actually think is great. mmmm..... meat. so, i celebrated by going to petra (so as to avoid actually seeing the carnage). i was not entirely successful though. a friend in a neighboring village showed me video fo the camel that was sacrificed in his village. so, your standard sacrifice goes something like this: 3 or 4 men wrestle the sheep or goat to the ground, slit its throat and pull the head back so it will bleed out quickly (i hear the spray goes 8 or so feet!). so, a camel takes 10 men. and you cant really wrestle a camel. they puncture the windpipe at the base of the neck, wait till the camel gets weak and do the whole neck slitting thing. and all the while the camel is making a heartbreaking, grunty, help-me sort of rumbly noise. it actually made me cry to watch it on video. really gruesome and sad. but the animals who are eaten here have good lives up to that point, which is more than i can say for animals in the states. kind of more like wild game... and this camel yielded over 200 kilos of meat. for those of you who dont know your metric stuff, that is roughly 440 lbs. and all of it was given away. my friend made what he described as a not very tasty curry with his. i skipped the meat fest and had an icecream fest at the movenpick instead. so that was my eide al adha.
the other big news in my life is that i am catsitting for a friend who is visiting the states. this cat is, well, insane. his favorite 2 games are: pull andis drawers out and scatter the contents, and attack andi while she is asleep. with climbing up the curtains coming in a close third. last night he knocked down and broke my satellite receiver. he had a little time out in the bathroom while i cursed and taped it back together. i hold out very little hope for my beloved house plant. and that, my friends, is all the news thats fit to print (can you imagine the junk that isnt?). and with that i am off to sweat to the arabic tunes...