Tuesday 22 January 2008

January 21, 2008

Went on a field trip to the Wadi Environmental Centre today, a very interesting place. There is a huge olive grove with olives still on the trees. They have date palms, Poinsettia plants, aloe Vera, beautiful flowering plants and trees with thorns as large or bigger than Hershey’s chocolate candy kisses all over the trunk The rocks/gravel there were mostly made of chert. It is a rock the natives in Canada made arrow heads out of. Today had higher than usual humidity and thick fog/smog. In the afternoon it started to rain, an unusual occurrence. It makes the roads slippery and there are more than usual accidents. This afternoon from the balcony I watched a car get out of an unusually tight parking space. He backed up till he was able to push the car behind him back then drove ahead and back again into the car behind and then got out. Every day on their way home we see little trucks transporting workers. They are little trucks, Mitsubishi, ( or some other small type) and the back is packed with fellows, some even hanging over the side. I am sure there were 15 -20 in the truck I saw today. Went downstairs to the basement of our apartment tonight. There will be a wedding there tomorrow and they are preparing for the feast. The have the walls covered with large wall hangings made of satin and velvet. They are preparing the feast. The site certainly wouldn’t pass a Health Canada food prep inspection. There are huge pots of meat, some of it is either sheep or goat for they had the head of a sheep or goat in a pot showing us. The people who live there are very , very poor. They wanted family pictures takes so we took a lot and will bring them to them after we develop them. The area where they live is unheated and they have a home which is one room, with most of their possessions in it. Looks to be the sleeping area and living area. We are invited to the wedding. We will go but won’t eat.