Friends

I love friends and surrounding myself with people that I love to be with.  That is something that I have always loved and I can remember growing up throwing parties whenever I would get the chance, just to have people over.  Some days when it is just me and my family in the house I feel like I am going to burst if I don't invite people over.  So, the last few days has been filled with friends and it has been nice.  I think my boys are the same as me because they are constantly asking me, "where are we going today?" "I want to go to some one's house!"  It is funny too because sometimes they could really care less where we are going or to who's house we are going, they are just excited about getting out.  (me too!)  Some days I dread the monotony of the same 'ol, same 'ol.....

So, I had some friends over and made cheesecake brownies for dessert, and there were so many of them left I had to invite some more people over the next night to eat them all up.  (although we still have a bunch left.)  What fun!

The thing I am finding hard is crossing the cultural barrier.  Ugh....It is SO easy and SO comfortable to invite other westerners over.  We speak the same language, we know that when we ask if you want tea or coffee and you say no, that it really means no, and you don't have to ask a certain amount of times and then serve the coffee anyway, it is just comfortable....ya know?

Comfortable....

That is a word or a state that can keep you in the same rut, and you never get out and you never grow.  So, I need to meet some of my neighbors and step outside of my comfort zone and not care if I make mistakes in the language, or I don't serve the tea just right, or I don't know all the right etiquette.  I need to just make some friends that we can laugh with and learn with.  Oh Lord, help me to do it.  Since we have moved to the other side of town I have really been feeling like I am in a different country.  The signs in the grocery store are all in Arabic now, so it takes me forever to figure out the price of the lunchmeat, or the price for the olives, because I am sitting there reading like a first grader......  The part of town that we have moved to is much more traditional and not as western as before, so the women are covered more then on the west side of town.  One of my neighbors came down today to check her water meter that is inside our gate and she is fully covered with just the slit for her eyes to see.  How can I relate with these women?  Our lives are worlds apart....but yet we live with just a few walls in between us.  I so want to bridge that huge chasm in between us and find some common ground.