Culture
I've been thinking about culture recently. As many of you know we were always told on the Doulos:
"Culture - it's not right, it's not wrong, it's just different"
and I agree with the idea it expresses that when you go to a new culture don't judge it and don't assume your culture is right and theirs is wrong just because it's different to yours. As the visitor you should adapt to the host culture and you shouldn't expect them to adapt to you.
But then some things are wrong. The selfish individualism in the UK is part of the culture but it's also wrong. The crazy driving in the UAE is part of their culture but it's wrong too! So living in another country can help you to leave behind bad parts of your own culture but you can also pick up bad things from the new culture!
I think the key is:
"Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."
Or in my words:
Become adjusted to any culture as much as you can so long as you've thought about it.
So I'm doing the thinking part now:
Dressing modestly - good idea - OK I'll do it.
Spending obscene amounts of money on designer clothes - bad idea - I won't do it.
Driving without indicating or taking any notice of any other drivers - bad idea.
Living with more interaction with other people, depending on other people, being involved in each others lives - good idea.
(anyone remember those Doulos program room videos?!)
I do find I have less control over my life here which results in me controlling random little things to feel like I'm in control. I did this on the Doulos by only eating Strawberry Jam.

(I mean I ate plenty of other food but the only flavour of jam I would eat is the strawberry one) despite the fact that in blind taste tests no-one could actually tell the difference between strawberry, cherry, rasberry, mixed fruits or even the apricot one. So once the marmite and peanut butter had run out (about half way between each food delivery) I would wander around the whole dining room looking for the strawberry jam.
Here I refuse to drive on Airport road (especially if the journey involves turning left) because it freaks me out - just too many lanes and having to change lanes and yuck so I drive over to Khaleej al Arabi and drive down the island and back over to avoid it even though it's longer because the road is less scary. I can handle it if I turn right onto it and right off of it e.g. to get to church. It's like solving a little puzzle to get places by only turning right!
I have also decided I don't like Al Rawabi milk I think it tastes weird so from now on I'm only going to buy Al Ain or Almarai milk.

These little things really make me feel better!

Toilet Twinning
I've spent the whole week trying to explain what toilet twinning is and why I did it after mentioning it on Facebook and discovering that most people had no idea what it meant - was I installing a new toilet in my bathroom? Was I decorating my toilet somehow? No.

Firstly the name - twinning is something we do in the UK between cities and towns - for example my city of Cardiff is twinned with Luhansk - Ukraine, Stuttgart - Germany, Nantes - France, Hordaland - Norway and Xiamen - China. There will be a committee in each city who will arrange visits between the two cities, exchange programmes, choir/orchestra tours, sports tours etc.

Toilet twinning means you twin or link your toilet with a toilet in a place which had no toilet until you paid for one to be built. TWO AND A HALF BILLION people don't have access to a toilet so they go when and where they can and can't wash their hands afterwards. This is really bad for their health as you can imagine it's also unsafe particularly for women who wait until it's dark and go outside the village and squat at risk of snake bites, being attacked and even raped.

Having a toilet along with education about hygiene and handwashing makes people healthier, children miss less school due to being sick, parents can work better and have more energy when they are healthier in fact for each £1 spent on health and sanitation £8 is returned through saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs.

Some people have a stereotypical view that Africans are lazy, in fact for the poorest often they're just sick, they pick up all kinds of bugs and viruses, a bit of Malaria once or twice a year, they are just what we might call 'under the weather' ALL the time but they don't know any different.

So what happens is a couple of charities in the UK (google toilet twinning) have started to build toilets in various communities mostly in Burundi at the moment. The measure of the 'extreme poor' is those earning less than a dollar a day - in Burundi the average income (average - so lots of people earn less than this) is $0.50US, 30p UK, 2Dh UAE. I can't even imagine that - I don't think you can live on that however cheap things are to buy you just can't. I don't think I could live on 2 Dh for 5 minutes if you include my rent, water etc.

I'm really thankful that I have 1 toilet in my flat in Cardiff, 2 in my aparment in AD, there are 3 at work - all of them have locks on the doors, sinks with clean water on tap - the ones at work even have flowers in - I'm so blessed!
So I wanted to twin my toilet to give people in Burundi a chance for toilet happiness too.

Do you want to twin your toilet?
It costs £60 UK or 370 Dh UAE to twin your toilet - you can do it online http://www.toilettwinning.org/ with a visa card or if you're in UAE and don't have a UK bank account you can give me the money and I'll happily do it for you to save the commission charges.