Thursday, March 20, 2008

He wouldn’t say, but I can!

Tom has gotten some pretty wonderful feedback this week. A parent strolled into the principal's office at ACS and wrote out a check for $10,000, praising the gains made by his child as a result of the efforts of the Academic Support Team (read Tom--one of his students!). (Can you imagine that in public school in the U.S.?!). And then another parent let him know that her child had refused all after school activities for two years, until Tom offered Board Games this session.
What a guy!

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We went to the farmer’s market a couple of weeks back. I spotted a heart shaped potato. I asked for a kilo of potatoes, and said I wanted that one for sure. The farmer gave me the heat-shaped one as a gift. :-) The total was 2,250 lira. I had 2,000 and a 10,000 note. He indicated the 2,000, refusing the 10,000 though I could see he had change. Then I admired a lady's stuffed grape leaves and she insisted on giving me one. Then, at another stall I chose a few small tomatoes, and that seller refused payment for such a small quantity. Lebanon!

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The sidewalk and street on a nearby corner were being torn up and we wondered why. To my astonishment, a stoplight is being erected--the only one for miles, on a relatively quiet intersection, in a land where the power is out at least 5 hours a day and the other stoplight is completely ignored. Weird!

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There are a lot of small shops--five I can think of in a three block radius--that sell exclusively "faux bijoux" = paste jewelry of an elaborate nature, and purses, the flashier the better. One with fur pompoms caught my eye...

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We get Thursday off for the Prophet's Birthday and Monday off for Easter (oddly, not Good Friday--rumor has it the person representing the Christians when holidays were set for the week fell asleep and missed it). We are going to Tyre (the Arabic name is Sur) tomorrow--that's south, on the beach! Tom says he's Tyred of talking about it. I ask if he's Sur?

I will stop now.



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