PATRIZI'S EARTH: Amazing Cultural Experience

I sat next to three blacked clothed, face covered, Muslim women today on a bus to visit Mosques and learn about the local religion, and cultures along with about 15 Chevron wives, and 2 poor boys on Spring break from Texas wishing they were on the beach at South Padre Island getting a taste of their own culture.

We had tea, coffee, donut holes, micro pizzas, and something really nasty I can't describe to start off with in this fancy room. I learned so much. I have a newly formed respect for the faith these people have about their prayer time, 4:22AM, 11:45AM, 5:44PM and 7:10PM, and one more time I forgot. I think we pray to the same God, theirs is just named Allah. They are not all terrible suicide bombers or terrorists, these gals were fun and cute and it was lovely. They were real, I even asked them questions about arranged marriages, How they breathe under that thing, how much their dowry was, and how many wives their husbands had. We are not all that different, it just seems that way.

Then we had a huge lunch with dessert first, dessert, desert??? Can't remember which! Marbled sponge cake, huge pans full of rice and meat and some sort of oatmeal and meat mush, the third dessert/desert of the day was a completely tasteless apricot colored jellyfish that they put in a blender with unflavored jello and served warm. GROSS! Check out the color of that blue sky! No Photoshop done.

There was this one beautiful Head Mother Superior type with the most amazing yellow and teal eyeshadow to die for, (literally) but I was not allowed to take her picture. She was precious and said that only God could see her face, and me! Not being able to take her picture, that just about killed me. But to all your surprises, I respected her wishes. I did come home smelling like an Arab lady covered with what they call perfume, but not sure what camel's rear they got it from... UGH! I even got a fancy bottle of it as a souvenir from the Madam herself, Eau de la Camelrump!

Henna is the Arabic temporary tattooing, and I got mine on the ankle, Chris rubbed olive oil on it tonight so it will turn brown. Now there's a new use for Olive Oil we haven't tried yet.