Monday 25 January 2010

Pictures of Our Dorm Room




I tried seven different school computers and finally found one that sort of works and will let me upload pictures. No wonder there are so many, most of them don't work. So, here are a few pics of our dorm room. Yes, it's a mess, but four of us live there and only two of us are tidy. One of my roommates is Turkish, and the other two are ethnic Turks from France. None of them speak English, but luckily I remember enough French to use when I don't know how to say something in Arabic. Except the Turkish woman only knows a little Arabic (the Turkish girls speak Turkish together), so someone usually has to translate from Arabic into Turkish for her.

The room really is not big enough for four people, the table only seats two, and the closets are very small, but it's okay. We have a minifridge, although the school provides two meals a day, which is a good thing because the food is awful and expensive that I can't eat it, it makes me sick.

We are fortunate to have heaters in the rooms, and not to have to worry about the electric or gas bill. My roommates like to keep the room extremely hot and dark, and I like to have fresh air and daylight, but we tend to sleep at opposite times, so that works out okay. They stay up most of the night and sleep in the morning and afternoon, and I get up before dawn and go to bed early. I get rather cranky when people come into the room at all hours of the night and try to talk to me.
Here is one of our electric heaters, complete with roasting sweet potatoes. They are frequently used for heating bread, but people are always forgetting about the bread and setting it on fire.


We are lucky that there are only four of us in the room, most of the rooms have between five and eight or more beds. I don't think the school will be able to cram any more people into our room, which is why we chose it.

I do frequently wish that people would just leave me alone and quit asking me personal questions, it is one of the reasons I get up hours before sunrise. It's the only time I have any privacy.

3 comments:

  1. Salam aleikom,

    wow maybe you'll pick up Turkish?! :)

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  2. Well, I've picked up a few words, but I'm doing my best to get them to speak Arabic. That's why we're here after all, and they've all studied Arabic in university before.

    I've been dubbed Mekden (a Turkish man's name), because they can't pronounce my name. Nobody here can, lol.

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  3. Walaikom salaam! Sorry, I forgot that bit. Hope you and your husband will be okay, insha'Allah.

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