I found this on the side of an old blue truck. You may recognize this from the flag of Saudi Arabia. It is the shahada or Islamic declaration of faith (written in a special script):لا إله إلا الله محمد رسول الله
la ilaha illa llahu muhammadun rasulu llah
"There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of God"
An old friend from Mauritania grows wild here...Calotropis Procera. There's actually some useful latex fibers produced by this shrifty shrub. But watch out for the milky substance that oozes out of the leaves. It is reputed to blind one permanently should it come into contact with the eyes.
So riding on a minivan from the university to my place, I noticed this steering column sans the epidermis. It caught my attention immediately. It seems to be like a "How Things Work" Encyclopedic diagram brought to life.
Fellow English Language Fellow Whitney and Amideast Academic Coordinator Nafisa enjoy a moment of laughter. Whitney wears the abaya now because it makes life easier, in the sense that she gets less attention out in public than she would otherwise. Nafisa laughs and jokes a l'Africain quoi...after all she grew up in Kenya and still speaks Swahili fluently. Nafisa has good memories of San Antonio when she attended the TESOL 2005 conference on the Riverwalk. :)I whipped up some guacamole last week and it wound up being a hit with the Amideast staff. It didnt last long in the teachers lounge and several of them asked for the recipe. And that wasn't even MOLCAJETE guacamole!!!
