Clothing Room and Haircutting

Becky made a wonderful dinner of omelets and hash browns, so for the first time since we've been here, we had a nice homemade supper. I feel full and happy, and ready to tell you all about the past two days.

Yesterday was Monday, which at the Oasis means clothing giveaways. Yesterday in particular was children's clothing, and boy, was it a loooong day. The way they do things at the Oasis is they give each group who walks in a number, and then each group is taken into the clothing room individually and allowed to take four to five articles of clothing each. Well, around fifty groups showed up, so you can imagine how incredibly long it all took. Becky was in the clothing room all day, but I could only take it for one shift and then I had to get out of there :S I spent much of the time in the kitchen, washing cups and then filling them again with tea and coffee. Also spent a little time with the kids, building block towers and knocking them over.

Overall it was an extremely long day, and we were all exhausted and hungry by the end of it. Five of us (Eileen, Becky, me, Miriam, and Vera) all went to a restaurant called...oh, I can't remember the exact name. I'll probably mess it up, but I think it was called Schlapfelhof. It's known for their wines, and the owners make the wine from their own vineyards. Not being a connoisseur of great wines, I settled for a grape drink that was tasty. I also had grautstrudel, which is basically sauerkraut inside a pastry. Very good, and very satisfying after a long day.

So that was Monday. Tuesdays at the Oasis are haircutting days, and mostly men come to that. It was another long day, but the atmosphere was far more relaxed and quiet (aka - no children!!). Unfortunately, there being mostly men in the big room, Becky and I were more or less confined to kitchen duties for most of the day (which if you're at the ARC keeps you pretty busy, but haircutting days can be a bit slow).

(I just found out that Heath Ledger is dead and I'm totally shocked! :S)

One of the high points of the day was meeting a Somalian man who we found out was in Athens for two years, and only came from Greece four months ago. So he spoke fairly decent Greek, and we had a nice little conversation about his time in Greece. It was soo satisfying to finally be able to talk to someone - I'm tired of constantly wishing I spoke German or Russian! Anyway, this guy was friendly and nice to talk to - apparently he had very positive experiences with the Greeks (Greek people, that is, not the Greek government or civil servants). He had nothing but nice things to say about the culture, the food, and the people. I guess he obviously had to leave because the government wasn't doing anything for him. I was very excited by the whole encounter :D A little bit of home.

At one point during the day, David walked up to me and Becky and said: "If anyone asks, you are 16 year-old Serbian girls." Apparently, if they knew we were American "ladies" eligible for marriage, we'd be targets for marriage proposals, because marriage = a passport to America. So yes, we are Serbian. I'm not too impressed, David. If you could think of a more believable lie then I might be inclined to play along :)

I also "talked" with an Ukrainian woman who was there with her four-year old daughter (by this I mean a lot of sign language and guessing was involved). From what I could gather, she has been in Austria for one year with her three children, and fairly recently her husband was taken away by the police. Poor woman, she told me was going crazy :( Tonight was her first time at the Oasis, apparently her home is very far ("100 kilometers"). I would like to see her again. Pray for Irina and her husband and their three children when you think about it.

Well, this has taken me an extremely long time to write, so I think I will sign off and let you all read :) Guten nacht!

PS. "Mein namen ist Kendra". Figure it out!