"ELIPH"

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for reading about how my time is in Lebanon. I have officially been in Beirut for 15days! It actually feels like we have been here longer, but in a good way : ) We are pretty settled in--there are a few other things that we are trying to get worked out, but it will all fall into place. For example, we might be buying a washing machine to use this year. Beirut does not really have coined laundry mats. We have found one that is close by, but we are trying to figure out which way will be cheaper. The first load of laundry that we did was at a dry cleaner that is very close, but it was EXPENSIVE. They remove stains, wash, dry, & iron your clothes. That was the first & last time we will take our clothes there to be cleaned. Anyways, other than a few details, we have jumped right into our "normal" routine for this year.

TODAY......The past two days we have not had a normal schedule because the muslim holiday called Ramadan(the month that they fast) ended yesterday. So the last day of the month that they fast and the first day of the month that they are not fasting anymore is a big celebration and everything closes...including Universities. So pretty much our schedule was also changed. For majority of the day, we went across Beirut to the nationals home to help them move into a new apartment. We took one of the city buses there because it is the cheapest. Well considering Beirut is soo big, it takes about 30minutes to get there by the bus. This was not our first time riding on the bus, but it was an interesting bus ride to say the least. I was very tired, so I closed my eyes and kept dozing off a little bit. I woke up because two little eyes were starring at me...haha. This little boy that was about 7 years old was sitting in front of me, but was turned completely around looking at me and cheesing from ear to ear. I just smiled back and started looking out the window. Well, this kid was amazed or something at what he saw...haha. He yelled over to his little brother and then both of them were starring at me. All I could do was laugh because I didn't know why they were looking at me. I figured it was because I was not from Lebanon, but they didn't look at Brandon or Marcus and they were sitting right behind me. The little boys started talking to me in Arabic and I said, "I'm sorry, I speak english...do you know how to speak english?" English is a second language in Lebanon, so kids are taught english very early on. It was obvious that he didn't speak english because he continued to speak in arabic. I kept saying "I'm sorry I can't understand what you are saying." One word that I remember hearing them say over and over was "eliph"....which is the title of the post for today :) For the rest of the bus ride, these two kids were starring at me, smiling really big, and trying to make me understand arabic. A few minutes before our stop, they started making all these silly faces at me. I had no clue what to think, so I just laughed & laughed & laughed. Whenever we got to our friends home, I asked khatchig to tell me what "eliph" meant. He looked at me kind of strange and said, "where did you hear that?" So I told him the story about the 2 kids. He laughed and said, "interesting, eliph is not normally used when you speak arabic because it means 'weird'." Haha. I laughed and felt bad all at the same time because basically these two kids were calling me "weird." It was funny though : ) After spending most of the day helping our friends move, we had some time alone at our apartments to get ready and get some work done. On Wednesday nights, we have something called "family night." This is a time that we plan to do something together that is not "business" oriented. Like, we go out to eat, cook dinner together, go to a movie, play cards, etc. So tonight Marcus, Brandon, & I went to a resturant right around the corner called "roadster cafe" to have dinner. It was very good, but a little expensive. I had an appetizer sampler with buffaloe wings, chicken tenders, fries, and mozzarella sticks. We had a good time. When we got back, we ran into a guy that Brandon & I met a few days ago on the elevator. His name is Alex and he is a student at one of the Universities here. He was in the middle of crisis b/c he locked himself out of his room, but they would not be able to give him another key until tomorrow because of today being a "holiday." So basically Marcus & Brandon invited him to their apartment to hang out until his friend got here to pick him up. I went to my room and joined them a bit later. Marcus & Brandon enjoyed there conversations and made a new friend that lives in our building. We have found that majority of the people that live in these apartments are students also. It is very cool because we are able to meet other students that we live near. After Alex left, we walked right around the corner to Burger King to get sundaes! They were delicious and we laughed alot. It was fun. So today has been long, but very good. We are excited about getting back onto our "normal" schedule tomorrow. Well I gotta go study arabic so I will be in touch again soon : )

XOXO

PS-please feel free to post comments or ask me questions!!!