Learning...

Hey!

Here’s update number two from our Pre-Service Training. Things are moving right along…we started learning Arabic script yesterday. It’s complicated, there are approximately 28 letters (depending on how you count), but letters have different forms for when they stand alone, when they are the initial letter, middle letter, or end letter in a word… here’s a little sample of some flashcards to see what it looks like.




Here are some pictures of the countryside during our drive the other day to our current location…





Loading them is a little slow, so I'm sorry there isn't more!

We also did our first load of laundry by hand. The women that are our fabulous, fabulous chefs for training were doing their laundry when we arrived. We were obviously newcomers to the whole affair, so they taught us, through demonstration rather than words because we don’t have too many words in common yet… They were VERY kind. They showed us how to use our soap and how much water to use, and then how to squish the clothes around and finally scrub them all up on the washboard. Here’s some pictures of Michael in action first rinsing and then presenting his newly clean clothes.





One last picture. This is the view of the mountains near us from one of the hills in town.




Two more days until we find out the language we’ll be learning and speaking for our service. We’re excited to get started with that. Then Friday or Saturday we take off for our “field trip” to visit a current health volunteer and see what life is like! All this to say we may have a little gap in blogging, but hopefully we’ll have lots to say when we get back!