July

July is Ramadan. It has been interesting for us looking at how the festival is celebrated. Traffic seems to get crazier around 4-6pm as every one leaves work and prepares to break their daily fast at one of the many restaurants that have put up special tents and offering yummy meals. That means Andrew has stayed at work latter than he would have like just to avoid the traffic jams.
Shops are full of decorations and large hampers, that seem to be the thing that is given away at, Hari Raya,  the end of Ramadan.

 The decorations are not showing up  very well but you get the idea!

One of the many stalls selling hampers and food 

for the  occasion.

We decided on Sunday that we should visit the Blue Mosque again but go in this time. We dressed suitably modestly and off we went. I had on jeans, short sleeved tee shirt and a wrap over my head and arms - not good enough! I was given a blue robe to wear over top. Andrew had jeans and rolled up shirt sleeves and he was ok! Our guide was very informative and I think he was happy when we went away with lots of literature!! The mosque is a very beautiful building, mind you it cost 70 million US dollars.

The owner of our apartment and her family have been wonderfully good to us. Cecilia has made sure we have everything in the apartment that we need, has bought us fruit from her home village because she says the shop fruit is not fresh enough, taken me shopping and out to lunch at her favourite stalls.  When I had an infected foot she took me daily to hospital to get it redressed. On Sunday night Andrew and I took them out to dinner. What a lovely night it was.

From left to right Kelvin, the oldest son, is doing a post grad on Theatre Direction in the US and  home on holiday,  Eric , Andrew, Cecilia, me. Ben the youngest son, who took the photo is doing a post grad in special education.