I love the sheep, not the lambs.

The ladies in the kitchen were talking loudly. I could hear them roared laughter once awhile. I have no idea what they are talking about, maybe jut catching up with each other. Two khaltis are here to help with the cooking. HoneyStar said it’s going to be lamb cous cous for the lunch. Since yesterday the air smell lamb and I’m feeling a bit dizzy. HoneyStar slaughtered the sheep and Baba was helping. The ladies helped to clean the internal organ and I was standing there watching. Yes, only watching I dint help at all I dint know what to help and the thoughts of me petting the sheep’s head couple of hours before its’ death is a bit disturbing.

That night, everyone was enjoying their “internal affair’. The menu for dinner was the sheep’s liver, pancreas and I don’t know what other internal organs. I’m not a big fan of lamb at all. I do eat but don’t favour it. Internal organs were out of my mind. I struggled to chew chicken’s liver being served to me the first few days I was here. It’s not their fault but me who does not like animal’s internal organs. I did eat once awhile and that was it. I remembered when they insisted me to have the first serve, a gesture of respect I guessed. I just took half of the liver and chewed it bitterly. Janna, the 2 years old girl was sitting next to me, enjoying her meal. I secretly dropped the piece of chicken liver in her plate and she ate it without the adult realised what I had done. I continued my dinner with a relief.

suddenly the "Black Sheep" crawled into my mind. well, you'll understand it if you've been living in NZ before, yikes!"

Tonight, I was offering myself to do the dishes as usual but my SIL, Khadijah refused. She told me in the language. I don’t understand a single word but through her gesture I know she meant that. She took a bottle of juice from the fridge and a clean glass. I accepted it and sat down, drinking the cold sweet juice while watching the foreign “family sitcom” with no subtitle in front of me. After some time, I excused myself to prepare the bed for the night. I bumped into HoneyStar and Khadijah was telling him something. He said the sister asked me to take a rest and let others do the work. Great! I have nothing to do. I finished the three novels I brought with me, the satellite TV is in my BIL’s room and I couldn’t understand the local channel. So I decided to blog. HoneyStar promised to take me to the bookstore after weekend. I’m not too excited about it since the chance for me to find English book is rare. The books are either in Arabic or French.

“Could I wear make up tomorrow?” “Where will you get the make up?” “I don’t know maybe I’ll ask the ladies, some kohl is good enough”. I wish to wear make up on my wedding, at least this time since I was bare-faced for my real wedding last year. It was a mixed gathering so I had no chance. This time, it will be a separate gathering so I was hoping to paint my face with some neutral colours. I though he would disagree since last night I was told that his tradition permit the family members of the deceased to wear henna. I was unsatisfied with his reason but I had to settle with the main reason which is to just follow what his father said, to take care of his fragile heart at the moment. So I was thinking that if I’m not allowed to paint my hands with henna which is pure how could I paint myself with the cosmetic? Then he uttered, “Just a bit, ask my sister for the “tools”. I immediately called Najma and asked him to ask her. I was surprised when she took out a bag of make up from the drawer. It’s almost complete set just without mascara. He asked again,” who will do it for you?” “Me, I’ll do it myself”.

So here I am blogging the story of the day before I set off to bed.