Return to summer

An 80-something friend at Brumanna Friends Meeting had told me summer would be back, and she was right. We’re having days up to 80 degrees in the afternoon a low of 65 at night. Bright blue sky, shirt sleeves, in mid-November--I love it.

Arabic class continues. I’m in a one on one tutorial now with a Palestinian teacher. She’s very good, but I wonder if anything is sinking in or not. A well-meaning neighborhood shopkeeper who knows I am studying invited me into his shop and labeled the fruits and vegetables I had just purchased. He has offered to help me learn but as he has no real patience and fluent English, it’s not likely to help much. What I need is Talk Time like we used to hold for the refugees at Tacoma Community House. I try to string sentences together but every fourth word comes out in Thai…



Tom had a great hike on Sunday up to Bcharre in the north. 13 kilometers, but not much up and down so very relaxing.


Other news: the American Community School in Damascus was closed by the Syrian government following a US attack on “insurgents” inside Syria on the border with Iraq. ACS in Beirut is getting around 30 students from the closed school, so Tom and others have been busy preparing for them,