Journal Entry from January 5, 2009

Today the girls went to the royal palace to visit with the President of the UAE’s mother and they apparently had a great time…meanwhile the guys went to the zoo wasn’t quite as interesting but was good nonetheless. We toured with Mr. Donald who works with the zoo and plays a big part in its expansion that will be happening soon. We then met up with the women for lunch at some friends of Gerald’s parents, Fahd and Fatima and their extended family. The women had visited other homes than just the President’s mother and by the time we had lunch it was their 4th or 5th meal! We visited with Fahd and Fatima’s family which was quite large! All the children still live with them even when they get married…except for the women who go live with their husband’s family. Fahd had 13 or 14 children and almost all of them lived with him in his LARGE house that cost him millions of dollars. Lunch was again on the ground but more extravagant then at Abrahim’s because of Fahd’s wealth. We also ate with our hands again a meal of rice, goat meat, bread, carrots in yogurt, and Pepsi. They served us WAY too much food and we couldn’t possibly eat it all! As Westerners we think that eating everything on your plate is polite and needs to be done but in the Arab culture if you do that then they just give you more because you must be hungry to be able to finish what they gave you! So by now we knew that and left enough on our plate for them to let them know we were full. It helped that they didn’t eat with us. Even though it would have been nice to eat with them it was nice just to eat by ourselves without having to be careful to do everything right because here all the traditions and rules applied! I had some of the goat meat…which I didn’t really care for because of the texture. It was very tender but also smooth almost like fat and my mind couldn’t get past it no matter how hard I tried to tell myself it was fine! I had to cover up the texture with a LOT of Nan (pronounced “non”)…Arabic bread. After the meal, more visiting and a tour of their house, we parted with gifts being given to us from the family and headed to their “garden”. Upon arrival we realized that a “garden” is where you keep all your stock animals and has nothing to do with lush greenery and plants…especially in the dessert. We got to see their goats (many different kinds), camels, bulls, cows and a VERY beautiful and trained horse. It was half Arabian and half English and was pretty small but it was powerful, responsive and obedient. James was on it before a minute passed after our arrival. He, Owen and Micah all got to ride the horse. The family was extremely nice and hospitable. Then we drove all the way to Fujairah to stay with the Johnsons for the night. Mrs. Johnson is Gerald’s cousin and they are a lovely Mennonite family with 9 kids. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them playing basketball, four square, SPUD, Navy and the Army as well as heading to a fruit drink shop later that night where James talked the guy who delivered drinks for the shop to let him ride his motorcycle. It was pretty late when we got back and we headed off to bed. For the first time on the trip I finally got my OWN bed and slept very well!