North Africa Update

So its been awhile since our last update, and we have definitely been busy. We came to AH on a Sunday evening and began work early the next morning. We worked on the foundation of a house and had press all around because the ambassador was coming to see the work that was being done. The next day was pretty busy, lots of people all over the work site. Wednesday was back to normal work. Brandon came that night and stayed until Saturday. There have been a few teams coming through -- one was an international team, with members from Australia, Canada, Korea, and some other places. That was a while ago so we forgot where those other guys were from. Then there were four people from England. Those people were pretty cool; it's too bad they're not here anymore. They taught us polite British phrases such as "taking a tommy" to use in light of the vulgar expressions we have in the States to refer to relieving oneself. We've Americanized that particular expression to "Blasting the Thomas".
Work is kind of like a normal job here. We changed the schedule a little bit from the first week we were here because its so hot in the middle of the day, so now we leave the house between 6:30 and 7, we all climb in the back of a pickup and ride about a half hour up to the site, a little after noon we all climb back in and come home for lunch and a little nap, we usually go back to work around 3:30 and come home 7:30. Also, sometimes we go pig hunting. One of the guys here shot a pig (twice!) with his 12-gauge, but didn't have the spotlight so it got away before it died and he couldn't find it. Curses! We found it the next day but the meat was already spoiled. Man, we would have had bacon for the rest of the trip!
Weekends we have some time to relax. We all have had the cultural experience of a public bath now. And we went to a wedding yesterday and today. Yesterday before the wedding we poured the roof on the house we began when we first arrived. In Derik's words, "We made a djinn whose name was Atchun, or Thirst. We mixed him up and slowly, bucket by bucket and wheelbarrow by wheelbarrow, he became the roof of the house. We got a couple pictures of it if anyone'd like to see". The girls had to dress up in these traditional outfits for the wedding. The guys and girls are in different houses. They tried to make all us girls dance, it was hard, but really fun. The bride sits in a different room and isn't supposed to be happy or smile or anything because she is leaving her father. The guys were in another house and ate and talked.

Salaam,
Sapphire and Derik