Sorry its been a while!!

Hey guys, we're still here! Sorry I haven't updated this in a while... its been quite a month.

We just finished another round of basketball camps, and had a great time. We did a camp at a girl's home, and another in a public school. This time, we did all girls camps, which I really enjoyed!! I helped with the defensive station.


I tried to get these girls to settle down for a picture, and this was the best I could get. They were so excited about us being there and getting to learn how to play basketball.


This girl helped with translating at one of the camps.


At the end of each camp, all the girls wanted us to sign their t-shirts and get pictures with them. It was fun to see how encouraged all of the girls were after spending just a few hours teaching them basketball and encouraging them.


These girls were in the finals for "knock out" (I call it gotcha). The winner won a basketball.


And of course, we never go hungry. This plate of cous cous was huge!


We traveled to another city with the team of coaches. It was fun to take in all the sights and smells.


We took a carriage ride, and the driver let Karl have a turn (not really, we just stopped for a picture).


This place came alive at night. People come in and set up restaurants, and the square fills with people. We saw snake charmers, men dressed like women dancing, food everywhere (including lamb brain) and had the best fresh squeezed orange juice for just 35 cents!

Basketball!

Last week, basketball coaches from the States came to help us run 3 basketball camps. We had a great time, and all of the camps went well!




We did a basketball camp in another city, and this is a spectacular view of the "old city." People live there today, and there are no cars, just donkeys and mules.


The little guys didn't know much about basketball, but it was so cute to watch them try and play!


Dates, anyone?




These girls were so cute, and loved playing basketball.

Spain!

We took a quick trip to Madrid, Spain this week and had a great time! We were just there for one full day, so we walked around, enjoyed the sites and had some good food! We also enjoyed sitting in Starbucks for a little while:)


Madrid was full of plazas, like this one, with nice fountains and monuments. We just enjoyed sitting on the benches!




We also enjoyed the cow statues everywhere! It reminded me of the hokie bird statues in Blacksburg.

We love food

I recently decided to start learning again how to make some of the delicious dishes over here. When we return to the States, I want to be able to continue eating all of this yummy food! Last week I learned how to make "djaj mhmr" which just means red chicken. Tasty! I can confidently say that this may be my favorite way to eat chicken - but then again it has been a while sense I had Chick-Fil-A! Karl likes it, but the olives are a bit much for him.




We went back for more... We took our friends to the camel market this week, and enjoyed our meal once again! Here's Karl ordering a variety of camel: ground meat, brochettes and sausage.


Here we are posing with a new camel head. This one was pretty decorative!

Half Marathon!

This weekend, we traveled to a southern city for the annual half marathon. I (Angela) ran with another friend, and Karl was our official stuff holder. This race was much more organized than the 5k race we ran about 2 months ago!



Here we are at about the half way mark.


The course was beautiful, with the lovely snow capped mountains!


I finished the race in just under 2 hours! We had our picture taken with these people from our city - Karl has coached the boy in the pic basketball! They gave us free t-shirts and hats, which was a nice gift, although I look super dorky with the hat on.

Bon Appetit!

Today we went with some friends to a local camel bucher (just a 20 minute walk from our house!). We picked the meat, and took it to a "restaurant" where they cooked it for us, and served mint tea, bread and veggies. It was actually really tasty!


The key to all of this was to not hang around too long in the meat section - hanging camel is not the most appetizing.




We were eating right next to a mosque, so we were watching the men pray. It was quite a cultural experience!

Its raining

Sorry I haven't blogged in a while! I just haven't taken any pictures. Its been raining a bunch, so I guess that's my excuse. I am including some pictures from the year that I never posted. I'll have some more updates later.

This cafe is close to where Karl coaches basketball. Good name, right!?