When the Desert Rains

Tonight was the first rain in Dubai.

It is said that when the first rain comes to Dubai... all of the workers go out into the streets and off of the buildings that they are building and shower.
However, it was night when this rain came, and I had just showered… so I did not go try to join them. :)

Rain was the last thing on my mind when I lglanced at my window because I saw flashes of light outside, thinking that it was only a spastic street light I decided to leave it alone. However, it continued. I opened the window and the rushing sound of rain welcomed my ears.

I love rain…but rain in the desert now that is a magnificent thing. You know that the streets are going to be flooded tomorrow because they don’t have a drainage system here, and that if you were to go out into the desert it would be covered with little white flowers and green fuzz because of the short-lived growth and nourishment that the rain would bring. Dubai as a city will save tons of water tomorrow because they will not be watering their endless supply of man-sustained grass.

I just got back from a visit to Bahrain, a surrounding country. It was so wonderful. The hospitality we received made me wish that we lived there, and the people that we met were so encouraging. We (the team and I) lived with one girl who was a little older than us and worked there as a teacher. Hanging out with her and her friends from church was just great! They treated us like they had known us forever… which was exactly what we needed! and although we didn’t really see any ‘sights’ of Bahrain… I feel like I know Bahrain pretty well!

Blessings to all of you!

ktb*

Love is in the air...

Hey guys!

Sorry, it's been a while since I wrote! :)

Love was in the air on Valentines day! Heather, Jenna and I went to the Dubai Tennis Open! (haha! I love cory puns like that.) It was a completely wonderful day. When we got tickets the only ones available were for the first day of the woman's section, so we took them. We found out later that they must have been holding some back b/c now the semi-finals are on sale... I think. It was really just wonderful though. We got there around 11:30 and shopped in the Duty Free store there... and then watched tennis for about two hours, got sufficiently burnt, and then sat outside on big red bean bags by a man-made fountain. Blissful. We ended the time by eating at Costa (a coffee-shop chain, much like Starbucks) and then heading back home.

Something that I have realized is that most of my stress in the Middle East has been from traveling. Anywhere I go I have to allow almost an hour to get there. I'm not sure if that is just because I've never lived in a city before or if it is just Dubai.. but it seems like any activity has to be at least two hours long then to make up for the travel time.

This week has been very relaxing. I'm working from home this week which means that I have a lot of time on my hands, a ton of stuff to do, and no motivation. Always a great combination! :) I go through periods of frantic work because I don't think that I'll get done in time, mixed with very lazy activities where I feel like I have all the time in the world. It's strange, I'm usually a very motivated person, however, when it is warm all sense of reason goes out of my head.
I feel like I'm programmed to play and not work when it is warm... and it's always warm here! :)

well... that's a little window into my life!

Salaam,
ktb*

Red Currents

Hello All!

So.. this is my second type of new fruit I have tried... this one is interesting...

Name: Red Currents

From: Holland

Description: Smooth, small, red berries that grow in a 'cluster' ( kind of like grapes.)

Size: small blueberry-size...

Taste: tart. kinda musty

Texture: Small seed that you can eat. Take a blueberry and put rasberry seeds in it, and you have the texture of the red current!

Preperation: eaten raw= not that great. kinda nasty. On the web it has a lot of recepies for jams, tarts, and pies. sooo... I'm not sure what I'll do with them, maybe put them into a smoothy!

Overall opinion: won't be buying these again unless I have a recepie for them...

hope you enjoyed!

blessings,

Ktb*

p.s. after this I made some great lemon-rosemary chicken w/ olive oil! Turned out really good! I was pleased.

Life in the UAE...

(This is the mosque outside of my house! pretty right?!?!)

Hey guys!

So...life here is pretty good! I went out with a friend yesterday for lunch and then later coffee and carrot cake! It was amazing cake. It had that wonderful frosting (mom- like the one you make) I think that it is just a normal cream-cheese frosting.. but still SO great.

Been kinda homesick recently b/c I've been fighting off a cold... so going out with a friend helped a lot!

With work... I'm doing a lot of little jobs and paper work. They already had people who are 'assistants' to the trainers, and so really I'm Allison's (the boss) assistant. Which is great! She is wonderful. Likes input, and dosen't expect unreasonable amounts of work from me! I also get to use the machines as part of my internship, which means that I am working out a lot here!

Went to Bible study today with a group of other college students here. We are studying the first half of Romans, and it's been really interesting. It was wonderful the first time that we met together we read the whole passage straight through with all of the different accents.. wow it was just such a cool experience!

well... I think that that is all for now!

Hope all of you are doing well! Thanks for looking into my life for a little bit!