bedoin fashion

Yesterday afternoon Suzanne and I went to the Bedoin market here in Beer Sheva. The Bedoins are nomads of the Negev Desert with a local community here in town. Every Thursday afternoon there is a shuk, or swap meet style market. It is mostly inexpensive clothing, and a particular style of fashion (middle east desert style). In addition, they have the fruit and vegetable market on a daily basis, for really cheap produce - and lots of interesting conversation! Definitely the place to practice my Hebrew and Arabic. One of the guys was trying to hit on Suzanne, but I with the broken Hebrew was the mediator, which didn't go over too well.

Speaking of Hebrew, I talked to my Hebrew teacher about the fact that I cant read the script characters, and she will allow me to sit in on the class when it starts up again in a few weeks. She basically told me that I cant read (stating the obvious) and deduced that this is what was causing me to experience difficulty in her class. The break from hard-core hebrew class has been nice, yet its all around me on a daily basis so there is never really a break.

Speaking of languages (one thing leads to another, gotta love it)... have you checked out the new French version of the International news in English, france24.com? I guess its their answer to my favorite news source, aljazeera.net, who has recently started broadcasting in English. It's interesting enough, the layout is pretty bad (maybe France lacks graphic designers, who knows), but the important thing here is that they've made it easier for me to keep my eye on Sarkozy.