Fun Weekend!

We had a great weekend. Friday night we took the kids to my favorite (Arabic) restaurant, Al Sham, referred to by the kids as "the belly dancing restaurant." Sidenote: I never expected to use the words "belly dancing" so many times in one summer!
The food was great (falafels, hummus, etc.) and the kids loved watching the two dancers. As we were getting ready to leave, Zack jumps up from his seat, pulls up his shirt to show off his tummy, then begins to sing and wave his little bottom in the air. We and the wait staff all burst out laughing. Wonderful!

Saturday morning we baby-sat for our friends' kids while they had their final sale of belongings. How do you entertain 5 kids in 100 degree weather? Thank goodness for the water balloons I'd thrown in our luggage last minute. We filled them all up and the kids had a hoot tossing them to each other. We also gave each child a big water bottle to either pour on themselves or spray at each other. [[the water bottles came from our basement---this week a large moving truck and 4 embassy workmen arrived to remove 2000? bottles of expired drinking water that had been stored in case of emergency. We asked that 5 boxes be left behind with which to either play or wash our whites. the bottles expired in 1997.]] For lunch our friends Sean and Bethany took us to a local restaurant with a ball pit. The kids played and we enjoyed some grown-up conversation and a local version of pizza. Zack, being the mischievous 4-year old that he is, threw Erika's and Julia's sandals into the ball pit. Before we left, adults were seen wading through the pit searching for shoes. Success!

Saturday evening we tried our hand at "Taj Bowling." To our surprise the facilities were amazing. Literally all of it must have been imported from the west. There were even kiddie lanes...

Sunday we visited a house church which was lovely and then in the afternoon ventured to the ruins of an 18th century castle, madrassa and mausoleum in the town of Hissor, about 35 kilometers away. We feared an afternoon of kids complaining about the extreme heat, but we were overjoyed that the kids LOVED it. Taking frozen bottles of water along proved to be the key. We toured the madrassa museum and climbed the mini-mountain overlooking the castle. Beautiful views. More stunning photographs that I can't yet find the time to post. That night Blake and I went out on a date. We tried a local Indian restaurant and to this food-person's delight, the food was delicious. We hopped over to an Ecuadorian restaurant for a scoop of ice cream (we didn't want to get home before the sitters had the kids in bed!) and ran into a bunch of American college students all here studying Persian. One of the women was a fellow William and Mary alumna. Small world we live in. The students told me that several folks from their team had to leave due to medical emergencies, including gout, dysentery, amoeba and other parasites. Not good!

Today my driver picked us up to go pick up our dresses at the dressmakers, but then told us the seamstress called minutes before to say that they were not ready. Something about the local militsia (corrupt police) harrassing them about their paperwork...Maybe tomorrow. Speaking of the police, in just the few weeks we've been here our driver has been pulled over three times. The police are lined up along the main thoroughfare approximately every 100 yards. They spend their day pulling cars over and requiring bribes/fines from them. Our driver was told the second time that if he did not pay 20 somoni fine then he would be carted off and made to pay 150 somoni (1 dollar = 3.45 somoni). It was sad to see how deflated he was by this blatant and pervasive injustice.

So here we are. 6 days left in country. I've got Natasha at my house right now making homemade Russian "pelmeni" for dinner. (Tortellinis filled with ground beef, spices and onion.) Tomorrow the kids want to go pick up the dresses and then visit the local Museum of Musical Instruments.

More to come!