Playing Charades

You are all probably thinking "Do these people do anything besides move and make ridiculous videos?" The answer is, yes. We had a week of meetings and then a week of basketball camp. Then, today Bradyn and I went to a small village just outside of our city, up in the mountains. We went to talk to some of the women to see if they were interested in having us come and teach health lessons.

We visited a family we know of who are very welcoming. Unfortunately, most of the family members suffer from a muscular degenerative disease, but they are super-sweet and very kind to host us for the afternoon. We did determine that they are interested in lessons, but only by a very difficult process. The problem is, most women in villages only speak a tribal language that is similar to, but on the same as the dialect of Arabic we learned. All of the men speak it. There are three women in this family. Two of them only speak the tribal language and the third woman is mute because of her disease. It was an interesting time with us speaking to the mute woman and listening to her by watching her hand motions. Then she would try to communicate with the other women with her hand motions and so on and so on. It is hard because it is not sign language, it really is like a big game of charades, but in another language. One time I asked her how she learned Arabic and she pointed to her ear. I thought she meant that she couldn't hear me so I kept repeating the question. But she was actually trying to say that she learned by listening.

So, I wanted to show ya'll what it looks like to spend an afternoon in the village. Basically, we sit on a carpet with pillows against the wall. And we eat around a very miniature table. You have to take your shoes off to go on the carpet. Before tea is served, they pour water over your hands so you can wash them. The tea is usually pretty good. It's always hot (they are freaked out by our sweet tea) and full of sugar, which is why most older people suffer from diabetes. It's fun to hang out and the people always go out of their way to make you feel at home.