La, ma-andHum'sh khobz.

We had 3 days of Arabic lessons on arrival, and now those are over. We have enough language to read the street signs, if there were any, shop and the hanout, the corner grocery stores which have enough room in them for 3 people and the shopkeeper, and are stacked floor to ceiling with goodies of everyday varieties. We can do some basic bartering, which is done for everything here, including groceries at the hanout! It's a way of showing that you value your time with them, that you would bargain for a good price instead of just paying so you could leave quickly.

Yesterday we visited the Medina, the old city, for the first time. Most of the city is still from the seventh century, some even older. This was actually the first town founded in the whole country - I don't know why, since it's not a coastal town, but it used to have a nice big river and lots of little tributaries that made the soil very good.

So I don't illustrate the wrong picture here: I am in a city. The sun-kissed land does not mean I'm in the African bush, there is traffic and bustle and (often) toilet paper. It's a very different city than anything in America, though, and the Medina is the extreme example. There are no cars within the downtown Medina streets, and the streets are only a couple feet wide. There are awnings built over it all to keep out the strong sunlight, and every square foot lining the street is filled with a different kind of merchandise. Vendors holler about their wares of exotic fruits, hand-embroidered tableclothes, pottery, etched brass, whole animals for meat... It's all so colourful and bustling and noisy.

For breakfast I had mango juice and peach-grape yougurt. Everyone loves Danon here! Ramadan starts tomorrow.