Some photos

The ceiling tiles removed to reveal the air conditioning pipes.











Matthew posting off mail at the ONLY PO in town.





























This is a burial mound. The carvings above the opening are very old. If you look through the opening, you can just make out the mound inside.










This burial mound is protedted by a large fence all the way around. There were some diggings in the compound but couldn't get a good photo.












Beautiful huge fountain at the front of the park. Does it remind anyone of a fountain in any movies?


















A photo of the most delicious dates EVER. I placed my mobile phone beside the basket to show the size of the dates. Oh, they are simply the BEST. Really sweet. Just YUMMY!!! I think they would be way too expensive in Australia. But if you ever see some, buy a couple and try them. Matthew's Admin Assistant brought them in for us off her own tree. How kind is that. She had heard me say the day before how much I loved them.



Friday 2 October 2009
Firstly with prayers answered we were kept safe on the roads again. On a 3 lane roundabout the car on the inside lane cut right in front of Matthew to exit. I don't know if there are road rules here. If there are, there's an awful lot of people that don't know them or at least don't observe them.
Matthew bought a TV got it home and tried for a few hours to set it up. Difficult task when everything is written in Chinese. Oh wish Samuel had been here that night. Nothing is ever simple, so a return trip to Carefour and instructed to bring the whole thing back tomorrow night after 9.30 when a fellow would be here that could reconfigure the settings. After a bit of a to-do at the entry with the security guard, a worker came collected the tv and it was all over and fixed in 10mins
Matthew’s college, well it’s not Matthew’s really but that is where he works, has a charity it supports every year for Ramadan. This year they were collecting money for the Rehabilitation Cent. I offered to take a tin. I collected 300dhs. I only did our street and up at the shops. There are some people that don’t get out of the car to go into the grocery shop, they sit in the car and toot the car horn. Someone comes out – gets the order and brings it out. So when someone tooted I would go to the car window and greet them with a ‘Salam’ and extend the can to them. I met some lovely people in the neighbourhood. One house I walked into there was a young boy that had a pet cockatoo. The wealthiest person on the street gave nothing and the poorest gave all she had in the kitchen 8dhs (less than $3).
I had my blood test, chest x-ray and eye test this week. In conversation I asked the lady drawing the blood, what they test for, HIV, STDs, and hepatitis. Do you ever find some, “Yes, 2 every week with HIV, some with STDs, and hepatitis is the most common.” “What happens to these people?” “They get sent back to their country of origin.”
Oh I must have forgotten to tell everyone that I recently had to do a border run. I needed to go over the Oman border to have my passport stamped for another 30 day visitor visa. Matthew had forgotten to bring his passport because we hadn’t planned to do that on this day. So we pulled up at the border, I think I mentioned the NZ angels that had me go with them in their car across and back. It was at the border with the NZ couple that I had to pay for the Visa. Now the problem was that they don’t accept cash. So I had to take Matthew’s card and sign his signature. Now I know my kids had forged mine a few times in their school life but I have never forged anyones. So I was scared out of my brain. I signed and they never even looked.
Matthew now has a wonderful young Admin Assistant. Thursday – Yesterday, she brought in a basket of yellow dates. The best dates EVER. OH, so delicious. Date season is almost over so now have to wait another 8mths.
The speed limit here is 120. No we don’t do that or at least I don’t let Matthew when I’m in the car. But some cars fly past. Apparently cars here have a speed alarm so if you are going over the speed limit, it sounds. So the people in the cars that go scooting past must be deaf, stupid or they pulled the wiring out.
We had a lovely dinner with our neighbours from the complex last night. We really are blessed to have good neighbours. God Bless until we meet again. Love RG, Mum, Aunty Rhonda etc, etc