Bountiful Festivities

Wowee! Friday was such a great day filled with so many fun times!!! After going to church in the morning, we headed out to the beach for some fun times with a group of men that several of our teammates have been working with in the camps. (You can see some of the crowd in the reflection of these pretty awesome sunglasses I found in one of the old souks* a couple of weeks ago!)

We spent several hours on the beach looking for shells, crabs, and whatever other fun things we could find (several of the pictures below are of us trying to re-locate and catch a crab...but it eluded us...lucky crab!). Some of the guys went swimming, many of them learned how to throw an American football...and a few even got to experience flying a kite for the first time (SO FUN!!!!)! Our festivities included a picnic lunch of chicken biryani (yum!) and some home-made chocolate chip cookies (yum, yum! Thanks, Leslie!) It was such a great time of fellowship and fun! 

I suppose some of you may be wondering about our odd beach attire...the men from the camps come from a culture where women should have their rear ends covered by their shirts (hence, the kurtas we are wearing...the long Indian blouses), wear long pants (I was told not to wear capris, or "short pants", or they would "talk about me"...whatever that means :/ ...still, I didn't hear anyone "talking about me" with my pants rolled up like this...), and cover their heads whenever someone prays (hence, the scarves...well...mine is called a pashmina, Jerri K's is called a dupatta...her's came with her kurta and was MUCH lighter weight than mine).
After a bit of down time in the afternoon (our friend Vivek re-strung Jerri K's guitar and then serenaded us on Jonathan's guitar for a while...it was lovely), we went with Brooke and the girls to the International Food Festival at the girls' school. I know, I know...again with the food...but it was pretty fun! There were booths set up from over 20 (probably over 30) countries and they were serving foods from their respective countries. Unfortunately, I was still a bit full from the biryani at lunch and wasn't feeling particularly adventurous, so aside from sampling sweets from many of the countries and a few other things that I was already kind of familiar with, I didn't eat much. I did get pretty excited when we got to the United States and the Mexico booths...I totally recognized hot dogs and tacos!!! :) I even recognized several dishes from the Lebanon (shawarmas) and India booths (samosa: kind of like triangular egg rolls, but stuffed with potatoes and peas and various other things). Canada had an interesting treat that I sampled several times...maple syrup poured over ice (you should try it sometime...just don't get too much syrup)!
There was also a platform set up towards the center of the area where the various countries were show-casing some traditional dances of their countries! Ethiopia's dance was amazing...I don't know how in the world God could make both people who can move like that (enchanting) and people who move like me (painful). The UAE dance was a bit more my speed, but it was only men doing it...they lined up and just kinda bobbed their heads in rhythm with the music and they had these sticks that they would wave around in unison (still rhythmically)...there were one or two guys in front of the line of other dancers who would spin around periodically and looked like they were a little more into it. It was a tremendously fun time!!! The India booth had a lady there doing henna "tattoos" for free, so I got one on the palm of my hand (see below). We'll see how long it lasts; shouldn't be much more than a week or two, and then we've met a friend at church who loves to do henna designs and is desperate for more hands to practice on (her mom has designs covering more designs on her hands!) so I think Jerri K and I are going to offer our limbs as blank canvases soon! 

So now you know some of the fun things we do on our "days off" (this is the first time we've ever done this sort of thing...but hopefully it won't be the last!).

*A "souk" (also spelled souq) is a market within the city--there are several souks within Dubai, but I haven't been to many of them...in fact, I think I've only been to this one...but I still have some time left! :) Fortunately (for most people...unfortunately for me), this is one of the places where you can talk the merchants down on the prices...which means you can get good deals...I'm just really horrible at it...so I usually get whatever friend is with me to talk them down for me...sigh....