Tonight is the last night of Ramadan—we think! We can’t know, though, until the imans see with their very own eyes that tiny sliver of new moon and the announcement comes out on the radio, and through the loudspeakers mounted on every neighbourhood mosque. Regardless, the kids have the day off school tomorrow.
Elliot just got back from a Boy Scout camping trip to Atar. Their leader this year is a Marine colonel. The advantage of this is that he has a sat phone with him, which gives me peace of mind. However his car breaks down just like everybody else’s, we learn when they are 3 hours late getting back.
The purpose of this trip was educational—they toured a gold mine and got to see (from a distance) a blast. They are tremendously excited about this, and describe it to me repeatedly in great detail. They also did a 6-mile hike—complete with backpacks. Sounds a bit military to me but I suppose some discipline won’t hurt the boy—he certainly won’t get it from me. From me, he has learned to always have a second cup of coffee, that homemade cookies are best, and the art of saying, “Ok, just let me finish this chapter first.”
Ilsa gave me quite the shock the other day when she came home begging to be able to go on a village trip. This is the child who has hated village trips ever since our 3-week trip up north one July, when there were nonstop sandstorms and we thought it was cool when it got down to 95 degrees and the whole family had giardia. I don’t know why this affected her so much!
I suspect the attraction this time was Matthew, of CTA fame. His family had been invited for the feast (end of Ramadan) and he invited Ilsa to join them. For some reason, this sounded wonderfully exotic to her. I’m not taking it personally. She thinks her life is boring and longs for adventure. I’ve tried to explain that many people would think locust plagues, drinking fresh camel’s milk out of a wooden bowl, or sleeping under the desert stars were adventures, but she is not convinced. I personally blame Hollywood, although I must admit our special effects are not that impressive. Also the soundtrack to our lives isn’t very good. Maybe we need a better agent.
I told her it might be a poor village and she would have to eat whatever was put in front of her, no matter WHAT part of the animal it once had been. I brought up the sensitive subject of dates.
“Actually I don’t hate dates,” she said. “I never have. I just don’t like how they feel in my mouth.”
I choked. My mind flashed back to all those times we had made her eat just ONE date, amid protestations and dramatic choking and gagging effects.
Maybe if they ate dates in Spy Kids, she would have liked them all along.
Planet Nomad 
7 comments
October 23, 2006 at 6:03 am
Michelle
My son was looking at his school calendar and wanted to know if he got Ramadan off for school. When I said no, he wanted to know if Rosh Hoshannah was a freebie either. No luck. He was quite disapointed.
October 23, 2006 at 7:53 am
meredith
Ilsa is making me laugh 🙂 My eight year old would think Ilsa’s life quite exotic, and there probably is a child in Nebraska or somewhere that thinks my girl’s life is exotic, and so on…
October 23, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Mad Hatter
“no matter WHAT part of the animal it once had been”–ooo the images this conjures for this vegetarian reader. I think I might see your daughter’s point in all this. Can someone please pass the dates?
October 23, 2006 at 5:57 pm
planetnomad
Meredith, I suppose by definition, exotic is something out of the ordinary for you. So they think going to American school and carving pumpkins or having a snowball fight is just wild, whereas growing up in the Sahara, or experiencing life in a French village, is just normal for our kids.
MH: Life as a vegetarian would be very difficult here. But I will say that weird animal parts are much harder for me than for my children.
October 28, 2006 at 6:26 pm
Kit
Learning the art of saying “Ok, just let me finish this chapter first” – I love it – our family have degrees in that too!
October 28, 2006 at 9:05 pm
Michelle in MX
I enjoyed this post through and through . . . from the ” always have a second cup of coffee” to the “Maybe we need a better agent.”
I’d like to get a cool sound track for our life too . . . could make haging up laundry a whole exotic experience . . . I can picture it now . . .
cool latin beat music done by an ochistra (OK, so I can’t spell, go phonetic)
Wind blowing through my hair
Make-up and lip gloss perfect
its at an upward angle that shows the glaring white sun in the upper left-hand corner, my linens are white and beautiful, the scean is in sharp yellows, grays, whites, and oranges. There are NO children fighting around my ankles. . . .
Everything moves in slow motion making it look graceful, lovely and strangly restful . . . .
*sigh*
October 31, 2006 at 3:44 am
Pieces
Wow, to think that daughters of international travelers like you and Meredith long for adventure. My kids would die to see a camel or be around people that can actually speak French!