Ramadan

When I woke up the kids to catch the plane to Paris, the first call to prayer for Ramadan was calling. 4:15 a.m. It was a lovely way to say au revoir to Muscat, with a good singer (for once!) wailing a haunting tune from the mosque tower across the street. I’m so thrilled to be missing Ramadan this year. It is a time for kindness, for patience, for generosity… so they say. My experience last year was that a summer Ramadan, when the days go on forever and are obscenely hot, being forced to fast during daylight hours does not make a person full of loving-kindness. It makes a person angry, emotional, and dangerous in a car. Not to mention dangerously dehydrated. I’m praying for all those who work outdoors…

We have otherwise had a nice summer, but the nice part ended August 1. To all my friends who celebrate Ramadan personally… my best wishes. Please take care in the heat. And just for you, here is the Grand Mosque of Paris, after dark, from the top of the Eiffel Tower:

It’s a little blurry because you can’t keep a camera still up there. Even if you have a tripod, the whole thing is swaying in the wind.

The flights were blessedly uneventful. The most exciting part was meeting the Bahrain professional soccer (football) team at the airport in Doha, Qatar. We especially liked the part where they crowded together and pushed an old lady in a wheelchair (and me and my children, though we aren’t as important) out of the way so that they could get into the elevator first. This was all so they could avoid one flight of stairs.

If they can’t manage a single flight of stairs, I have serious doubts about their athletic abilities on the field. Not to mention, I won’t ever cheer for them now, no matter who they are against. But I’m from Texas and have very different ideas about how women and the elderly are supposed to be treated.

Despite our exhaustion, I had mistakenly bought tickets for the Eiffel Tower for our first night. And what were we to do, skip it? No way! We walked until we realized the scale of our map (or the scale of our fatigue). At the first glimpse of That Thing we came to see, we stopped for a scenic little picture beside the Seine. The tower is trying to hide behind a tree. Can you spot the guitar player?

I learned that, while I’m not really afraid of heights so much, the methods for reaching the top of the Eiffel Tower don’t do anything for me. The tourists don’t do anything for me, either. Despite 30+ years of brainwashing that the French are rude, I have met scores of lovely Parisians so far. And one group of American tourists who were yelling “penis” (among other things) in the queue for the tower summit.

We got better pictures on the 2nd floor than we did at the top (though the view up there was great):

My favorite part was hanging around the base of it after dark. See how blue the sky still was at 10:15 p.m.? This means our days can go on LONG past our physical ability to care!

Living out of the USA for a bit has changed my ideas about friendliness. When I arrived straight from Texas to Muscat, I had a boy at McDonald’s hitting on me and a man at the grocery store follow me to my car – I guess he had plans to come home with me? The level of friendliness I’m used to at “home” is tantamount to open prostitution in parts of the world. I have spent the last year walking without a smile, not looking men in the eye, avoiding all but the most curt and professional conversation with everyone who isn’t female.

To walk down the street wearing whatever I want, smiling openly, speaking to anyone I want without fear they’ll think I’m inviting affection… well, it’s fantastic.

So what may seem like rudeness to some, seems like cautious good manners to me. I’ll say more about this on my next post.

By the time we got into bed, we had been up for 21 hours. The children were MAGNIFICENT. Unbelievably good. They are earning Euros each day, and their Euros depend on 1) helpfulness, 2) cheerfulness, and 3) behavior. They know how many they can earn by the end of the month and they are very motivated. Cowboy said, “I wasn’t acting like myself today. I was good instead”.

It takes 28 days to make a habit? Well, then! Hope springs eternal…

My apologies that not every picture is perfect. I’m on the dinky little computer, grateful to be able to blog at all, and the only thing I can do with these is shrink them. You get to see every picture in its naked glory.