That's life

Life sometimes seems crazy busy. I am having alsorts of problems trying to upload photos so I will have another shot later. For now here is a brief of the last 2 weeks.

Quote of the week, I heard this from a young man who works 7days a week here trying to save money to go home and marry his sweetheart. "Our prayers are always answered sometimes." Well I know He does answer prayers and sometimes I get what I want, when I want it and sometimes I don't. Yesterday (Thursday), I had 3 exams to complete phase 1 of my Arabic Sign Language course. We walked into the classroom where we had been sitting at round tables, and the room had been transformed into an exam setting with single desks. We still got to sit in the comfy chairs. :) [photo to come]

The first exam was a written test, true/false questions, questions about Deaf History that had been covered in class and 3 questions about Deaf Culture. Test papers were handed out, it was all written in Arabic. Matthew had given me a lovley blessing on the Wednesday night so I ht

thought to myself, "don't panic". I had 2 different people come and explain the questions to me and I went about answering them the best I thought. At the completion I felt I wanted to cry, but I know I had prepared myself and prayed for extra help so I did the best I could.

The second test, we watched a video presentation and had to interpret and write it down. Tricky with some signs I still don't know. ;) This part of the exam was done in a room like a lecture theatre. Not worth crying as I had recently written to my children about being prepared, I had tried to do that with this exam. So I know I did the best I could with what I felt as a calming influence.

The third and final test was a story to be interpreted in ArSL. THis also had been written in Arabic so a lady was called in and wrote another story for me in English. Once again, even though I thought I had prepared enough, it always comes down to my memory.

We have a couple of weeks off now, so I hope to concentrate on my TAFE course to get that out of the way. The driving to and from Abu Dhabi everyday is tiresome. I don't know how Timothy does it to and from Dubai everyday. He is the driver at least I am a passenger.

To celebrate the end of phase 1, I invited some of the ladies where I volunteer to my place. Timothy was out of the country and Matthew had to leave for a couple of hours. The ladies are fun and I love to hear them laugh and talk. 99.9% of the time I have no idea what they are talking about but I enjoy their company. I cooked kangaroo tail soup, (they wondered where I found kangaroo tail here- I substitued lamb), pavlova, and french onion dip (I bought over a packet from Australia-it's Timothy's favourite). These ladies are very kind to me especially after I had been missing my family etc and had a bit of a meltdown. One reply was, 'Now you are our family'. Because there were no men in the house the Abyahs came off and everyone was very relaxed. As they were preparing to leave they brought out a HUGE gift bag and presented me with tokens of their friendship. [photo to come of the gifts not of the ladies]

I was at work in the lunch room oneday when a lady came in and shook my hand which is a greeting here and done in a particular style. I then realised she was deaf. She sat on the lounge opposite me and we signed to each other. I pulled out some family photos and we chatted about our families. I understood about 90% of what she said and I think by her responses she had understood me as well. This was a tender mercy as I had been wondering if anything was sinking into the grey matter that sometimes seems full.

With natural disasters happening around the world, I have felt a need to get some supplies together for just in case. I hope to get into that in the next week. I sent a message to my children quoting: "If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear." Goes for me as well in lots of areas of our lives.

Note to self: When walking to hail a taxi at midday, carry an umbrella, it is already getting up to 37 of a day time. Nights and early mornings are still pleasant with cool desert breezes. I have had to buy moisturiser because the dry air just sucks any moisture from my already dehydrated body.

I figured out how to text my children internationally. I was so excited and then when Eliza and Samuel messaged back - it made my day. I bought some phone credit and got to talk to my mum. It was good to hear her reassuring voice. I guess it proves - it doesn't matter how old one is, we need our mums, at least I do.