Saturday, March 16th:
Spent most of the day preparing for my new roommate to arrive - cleaning, vacuuming, boxing up the things Sarah left. I also got to do some sewing! One of my expat friends let me borrow her sewing machine while she is out of the country.
In the afternoon we went to the Duhok men's basketball game (upper division). They won ... in overtime! Definitely an exciting game. Afterwards we went to dinner at the restaurant that serves rolled sandwiches and a variety of salads for 3000 ($2.50). Andy's parents enjoyed it and we had some good laughs.
In the evening (9pm - 11:30pm), Lisa and I got to help Andy at practice. Well, I took pictures and kept stats for one of their shooting drills while Lisa helped Andy coach.
Going over the breakdown for practice:
At the end, Lisa was included in the final huddle (having women help/instruct the men is definitely unusual for this culture, so it was a sign of acceptance that she was included):
It was a late, but very fun evening!
Sunday, March 17th:
Got up relatively early after such a late night. I was able to get some things done, but wasn't able to Skype with my friend as I'd hoped. At 10am, I went to breakfast with Katie (my expat friend). I've never had a Kurdish breakfast at a restaurant before! We had lentil soup, an "omelet," bread, cucumbers and tomatoes, and lots of tea. We stayed long after we'd finished our meal just to talk and catch up ... and they kept bringing little glasses of chai. In the end, I had four of the small tea glasses!
When I got home, I finished a couple loads of laundry, including the sheets for Hannah's bed. Her room is officially ready! Oddly, a man from downstairs came up to check the pipes in our Eastern toilet (which I never use, but thankfully had cleaned last week). He said the pipes were leaking into his ceiling (yuck!) He checked the water in several places in the apartment, but couldn't really determine where the leak was coming from (perhaps all the rain?) It was strange to have a man in the house while I was there alone, but I'd just been listening to a sermon about the protection promised by my Heavenly Father, and was able to rest easy in that knowledge.
Early to bed as I have to get up before 5 tomorrow for the trip down to Erbil...
