Rovaer Norway: The Best Wedding Proposal Ever
The groom-to-be was able to rope the entire village into participating in his proposal to his girlfriend. He knocks her socks off – no matter what the highs and lows of the marriage to come, she will never forget this proposal:
Miracle Birth in Kuwait
Found the following on AOL News / What to Expect:
Clinically Dead Woman Is Revived After C-Section Birth
A pregnant woman in her ninth month was admitted to a hospital in Kuwait with an acute blood pressure condition, suffered cardiac arrest, and was pronounced dead. Doctors rushed to deliver her unborn child. The cesarean section was performed without anesthesia since the mother was presumed dead, and a healthy 6.8 lb baby boy was delivered. Then with one last attempt to revive the 36-year-old Filipina woman, doctors were astonished when she started breathing again.
“This is a scientific miracle at all levels,” hospital manager Dr. Hmoud Al-Zobi told theKuwait Times. Three days later the 36-year-old Filipina (or Pinay) woman named Zuraida remains unconscious at Al-Farwaniya Hospital, but doctors say she is in stable condition and are hopeful that she will return to health.
Zuraida’s husband, Verdadero, remains by her side. “When I visited her today, tears were rolling down her eyes. I felt she could hear me, she could feel my presence and was trying her best to communicate. ”
Said Verdadero, “I brought her to the hospital because she experienced blood and the water discharged at that time. Of course, I knew that she was already in pain and it was about time for her to deliver our second child. I was very happy. But my happiness changed to uncertainty when I heard that she was vomiting blood and was in danger and only a miracle could save her. I prayed hard for her to survive.”
Verdadero is a truck driver who is often away for days in Iraq and elsewhere. He feels lucky that he happened to be in Kuwait when his wife was ready to deliver their baby. “At least I was with her when it all happened and I really pray that she will be okay.”
During pregnancy, it is recommended that women and their doctors keep a close eye onblood pressure. There are many reasons for occasional spikes in blood pressure and most are nothing to worry about (in fact, worry only contributes to elevated levels). But chronic high blood pressure during pregnancy is something that should be monitored and treated to ensure that mother and baby are as healthy as can be.
Sunrise in Seattle: A Quick Trip
Oops!
Sorry! I intended to keep writing, but as it sometimes can, life just got away from me. I took a quick trip to Seattle to see my Mom on Mother’s Day, stayed with my best friend from college, ummm . . . when I count the number of years we have been friends, I am shocked!
Flying out of Pensacola, we flew over Bayou Texar:
I had a great seat, but the lady next to me sounded like she had terminal pneumonia, so I kept my face toward the window. Everything went smoothly, arrived a little early. Two hassles: I had decided for just a short trip I would use a shoulder bag/suitcase, and even though it was light, it gets heavy lugging it from gate to gate. On the good news side, it sure is a lot easier to travel with just cabin baggage, easy on – easy off.
Second, I just hate it that Seattle has relocated all the rental cars to an off-site location. The buses only stop at one end of the terminal or the other so again, there is a lot of lugging, whether it is wheeled or shoulder. You have no control over when the bus will come or when it will leave. It used to be so easy, just dropping the car off and walking directly into the terminal; now I have to calculate extra time for unknowns in the rental return process, oh aarrgh.
Traffic to north Seattle was horrible, even on a Saturday, it was like a normal work day when all the workers are streaming out of the city. On work days, there are windows when traffic is less, but a Saturday! Aarrgh!
It was not raining, or not much. That was a really good thing. Temperatures were lower than Pensacola. That was a good thing. We had a great Mother’s Day brunch, with my sisters and their hubbies, and Mom and I did some shopping. The next day, more errands and catching up on banking and bureaucracies. Those were all good things.
My good friend and I had time to catch up and – as we are wont to do – analyze and strategize. We spent a good amount of time laughing at ourselves and our dilemmas. We laughed at the problems of aging. We laughed at who we thought we would be (who ever thinks they will get old??) and who we have become. Here is what sunrise over Lake Washington looks like from my friend’s house:
Flight home uneventful; arrived in Atlanta a few minutes early and I was out the door in a flash, running running running down one concourse and up the other to see if I could get on the earlier flight to Pensacola which was leaving in MINUTES! “No, no, not possible” the gate clerk said without even looking up; she was already working on two other women, I am guessing flight attendants trying to get back home. I waited a minute, bushed from the long run and lugging the shoulder luggage, then said “I think I will just go find a barbecue” and the gate attendant said “Wait!” and I thought she was going to tell me where to find the best barbecue, because I had like three hours, but no . . . she was printing me out a ticket! I got the last seat, back, back, way back in between two great big United States Marines, but it was a fun 45 minutes and I was home three hours earlier. All that is really good!
Even though it is not Seattle to Kuwait, I still like to shower after a long flight, I just feel germy! AdventureMan made me a beautiful salad with sauteed Portobello mushrooms on top, oh yummmmm and we delighted to be together again. Woooo HOOOOO, home again 🙂 Sorry to be out of the loop, but when you are one day out, one day back with two days in between, time just swooshes by.
Bloggers Create Freedom Friday in Oppressed Eritrea
I heard whispers of this on National Public Radio, and found this write up on The International Business Times website. The message is simple – in a country where even a glance can be interpreted as treason, express your non-support of the government by STAYING AT HOME ON FRIDAY, the day Ethiopians usually go out and visit with friends, gather together and mingle. Ghandi would smile; this is civil expression at it’s most civil 🙂
Let the empty streets speak for you. LOL @ a tyrant making staying at home a crime against the government!
Eritrean bloggers outside of Ethiopia started it, smuggling an old Eritrean phone book out of the country and making calls to acquaintances – and strangers – in Eritrea. People didn’t even have to respond. they could just listen . . . then they developed a robo-call to help them enlarge the number they could reach.
Eritrea is considered one of the continent’s most opaque countries. National elections have not been held in the Horn of Africa country since it gained independence in 1993. Torture, arbitrary detention and severe restrictions on freedom of expression remain routine.
President Isaias Afwerki does not tolerate any independent media, the internet is strictly controlled and Reporters without Borders recently named it 179th out of 179 countries for freedom of expression.
It is illegal to criticise the government, prompting the Eritrean diaspora to set up a campaign to reverse the Arab-style call to take to the streets every Friday by emptying the streets in protest.
“We made phone calls from diaspora to Eritrea,” Meron Estefanos toldIBTimes UK. “We have a phone catalogue and called random numbers every Friday, telling them to stay at home and think about problems in our country.”
The phone calls “give them [Eritreans within the country] an opportunity to protest without risking too much”, according to Freedom Friday’s coordinator in the UK Selam Kidane.
The activists turned to a computerised auto-dialer called robocall to spread hundreds of thousands of taped messages to Eritrean phones. “It is time to restore our liberty and dignity” messages were sent automatically.
In another message, the mother of renowned political prisoner Aster Yohannes recalls the fate of her daughter, who was arrested in 2003 and has disappeared.
After two years, the movement is finally gaining momentum inside the country.
“Now they trust us inside the country, we have our team in Eritrea that puts out posters and leaflets late at night,” Estefanos said.
“The plan now that we have their trust is asking them to go out and demonstrate.”
About 1,500 Eritreans leave their country every month, according to the United Nations, paying up to 30,000 euros ($39,500) each to seek a new life free of grinding poverty and repression.
Earlier this year, Amnesty International put the spotlight on Eritrean asylum-seekers who are kidnapped from Sudanese refugee camps by the local Rashaida tribe, sold to Bedouin criminals in Egypt’s Sinai peninsula and severely abused while they are held for ransom.
One thousand refugees are held captive in the Sinai, according to reports. About 7,000 people in total may have been tortured and 4,000 may have died as a result of the people-trafficking in humans from 2009 to October 2012, according to recent data. A total of 3,000 people disappeared from 2007-11.
Doha, Qatar on House Hunters International
Oh what fun – last night on House Hunters International, I got to search for an apartment in Doha. Well, not really, but virtually. Here is what the episode description says on HGTV:
Just after getting married to Meena, architect Ken jumped at the chance to help design Doha’s new international airport. So, they’re trading in the golden state of California for the golden lands of Qatar. But as these newlyweds discover each other, the new city of Doha is also discovering its own identity as it moves towards the future. From sleek new development to traditional neighborhoods, real estate agent Ana Figueiredo will help them navigate Doha’s changing landscape. Watch as House Hunters International uncovers all that glitters in Doha, Qatar.
I checked YouTube; the episode is not yet up. It was so much fun, seeing this young couple in the Souks, down near Al Saad in Mirqab, and out at the Pearl. The apartment they settled on was in Al Ashmak, near the Corniche; I think it was one of the Bilal apartment buildings.
Worst Drivers in the World: Traffic Fatalities by Country
Driving in the Middle East is a whole other world, a world of chaos until you realize that the rules are different, no matter what the published rules are. To drive in Qatar, I started at 0430 on a Friday morning, when there was little or no traffic (things have changed) and would drive until traffic began to thicken. Eventually, I knew the city and gained confidence that I could drive without getting killed. In Kuwait, for months, I would only drive to relatively nearby shopping areas, or drive only on back roads carefully plotted on the map during low traffic hours. After a while, you begin to get a sense of things, and the sensation of imminent death lessens.
Adventures in Qatar: a radiator dropping off a truck in front of me, being hit on purpose by a man who didn’t like women driving, being pushed into a round about by a Hummer, being nearly assaulted by two young Qataris who believed we had insulted them by being in the lane where they wanted to be, watching men drive up the wrong side of the ring roads because they were too important to wait in line, later standing and laughing at their crashed cars – Daddy would buy them another. It sounds crazy, but you get used to it.
Kuwait was a whole different ball game, controlled chaos at high speeds. Adventures in Kuwait: the sleeping elderly man driving in the lane next to me who almost hit me, watching drivers drive through red lights as if they were green, sparks off the fenders of SUVs on Highway 30 as people wove quickly in and out of traffic, the dramatic crashed and burned out cars on the sides of the highways, the car impaled on a palm tree – 10 feet above the road. Kuwait was so surreal that I couldn’t even begin to imagine how some of the accidents happened; I learned to be a very prayerful driver.
So out of idle curiosity, today I looked up highest rate of traffic fatalities per country, and found this on Wikipedia. So here’s a surprise . . . Kuwait’s fatalities statistic is roughly equal to that of the United States. Qatar’s is significantly higher, and many countries are even double or triple Kuwaits fatality rate. I’m having trouble wrapping my mind around this.
List of countries Fatalities per 100,000 inhabitants
World 20.8
Afghanistan 39.0
Albania 13.9
Angola 37.7
Argentina 13.7
Armenia 13.9
Australia 5.71
Austria 8.2
Azerbaijan 13.0
Bahamas 14.5
Bahrain 12.1
Bangladesh 12.6
Barbados 12.2
Belarus 10.9
Belgium 10.1
Belize 15.6
Benin 31.2 1
Bhutan 14.4
Bolivia 16.7
Bosnia and Herzegovina 10.9
Botswana 33.8
Brazil 19.9
British Virgin Islands 21.7
Brunei Darussalam 13.8
Bulgaria 8.8
Burkina Faso 31.1
Burundi 23.4
Cambodia 12.1
Cameroon 28.1
Canada 9.2
Cape Verde 25.1
Central African Republic 32.2
Chad 34.3
Chile 13.7
China 5.1
Colombia 11.7
Comoros 30.3
Republic of the Congo 28.8
Cook Islands 45.0
Costa Rica 15.4
Croatia 9.1
Cuba 8.6
Cyprus 10.4
Czech Republic 10.4
Denmark 3.1
Dominican Republic 17.3
Ecuador 11.7
Egypt 42.0
El Salvador 12.6
Eritrea 48.4
Estonia 7.5
Ethiopia 35.0
Fiji 7.0
Finland 6.5
France 5.5
The Gambia 36.6
Georgia 16.8
Germany 4.5
Ghana 9.32
Greece 14.4
Guatemala 14.7
Guinea-Bissau 34.4
Guyana 19.9
Honduras 13.5
Hungary 9.9
Iceland 3.8
India 11.1
Indonesia 16.2
Iran 35.8
Iraq 38.1
Republic of Ireland 3.51
Israel 3.7
Italy 8.7
Jamaica 12.3
Japan 3.85
Jordan 34.2
Kazakhstan 30.6
Kenya 34.4
Kiribati 7.4
Republic of Korea 11.3
Kuwait 16.9
Kyrgyzstan 22.8
Laos 18.3
Latvia 8.7
Lebanon 28.5
Lesotho 26.7
Liberia 32.9
Libya 40.5
Lithuania 14.8
Luxembourg 9.0
Madagascar 33.7
Malawi 26.0
Malaysia 24.1
Maldives 18.3
Mali 32.1
Malta 3.4
Marshall Islands 7.4
Mauritania 35.5
Mauritius 11.1
Mexico 20.7
Federated States of Micronesia 14.4
Mongolia 14.5
Montenegro 14.6
Morocco 28.3
Mozambique 7.0
Myanmar 23.4
Namibia 28.6
Nauru 9.9
Nepal 15.1
Netherlands 3.9
New Zealand 8.6
Nicaragua 14.2
Niger 37.7
Nigeria 32.3
Norway 5.4
Oman 21.3
Pakistan 25.3
Palau 14.8
Palestinian territories 5.6
Panama 12.7
Papua New Guinea 14.2
Paraguay 19.7
Peru 21.5
Philippines 20.0
Poland 10.7
Portugal 7.9
Puerto Rico 12.8
Qatar 23.7
Republic of Macedonia 6.9
Republic of Moldova 15.1
Romania 9.4
Russia 19.5
Rwanda 31.6
Saint Lucia 17.6
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 6.6
Samoa 12.8
San Marino 0
Sao Tome and Principe 33.0
Saudi Arabia 29.0
Senegal 32.5
Serbia 9.8
Seychelles 18.5
Sierra Leone 28.3
Singapore 4.8
Slovakia 7.1
Slovenia 10.4
Solomon Islands 16.9
South Africa 33.2
Spain 6.9
Sri Lanka 13.5
Sudan 34.7
Suriname 15.8
Swaziland 26.3
Sweden 2.9
Switzerland 4.7
Syrian Arab Republic 32.9
Tajikistan 14.1
Thailand 19.6
Timor-Leste 16.1
Togo 28.1
Tonga 7.0
Trinidad and Tobago 15.5
Tunisia 34.5
Turkey 13.4
Turkmenistan 18.6
Tuvalu 9.5
Uganda 24.7
Ukraine 11.2
United Arab Emirates 37.1
United Kingdom 3.59
United Republic of Tanzania 34.3
United States of America 12.3
Uruguay 12.8
Uzbekistan 9.7
Vanuatu 18.6
Venezuela 21.8
Vietnam 16.1
Yemen 29.3
Zambia 25.6
Zimbabwe 27.5
Like all statistics, I think some are honest, and some need to be taken with a grain of salt. I found reading through them fascinating. You can get more information, accidents per thousand cars, total accidents, etc.
AdventureMan and the Box Turtle
“There’s a box turtle in our backyard!” AdventureMan exclaimed, coming in after making his early morning rounds to make sure all was well in the garden, and to bring us up to date on any new developments. I was eating breakfast with our house guests, getting ready to leave for water aerobics class. (If you come to visit, you get to come to water aerobics 🙂 too!)
The two guys went back out to consider the box turtle, but the box turtle had disappeared. Of course we kidded AdventureMan.
“Are you SURE you saw a turtle? How would it get in to the backyard?”
He was mystified, but certain he had seen a box turtle. They searched all the spots they could think of, but could not find any turtle.
This morning, I was up early feeding the Qatari Cat when I saw a movement in the yard, and there he was, the box turtle.
AdventureMan was still sleeping; so I ran and got my camera and took some photos. I think he was aware of me, but couldn’t figure out where I was (I was inside, he was outside). When he got up, AdventureMan was delighted to have his observation verified, and hurried outside to see if he could spot him. Nope! Turtle back in hiding.
The Baboon Coughed
We’ve had three sets of houseguests in a very short time span, and today is our first day of ‘normal.’ We saw our friends off at 0430 (we used to call it oh-dark-hundred) and I couldn’t get back to sleep, so by the grace of God (and I mean that literally) I got up and walked.
I know I need to walk. I’ve always walked. I used to run, but I suffered for it – the knees – and decided I didn’t want to pay that price. But when my sister was here, we decided to take a walk and I said “don’t worry, I walk fast” and she said “I don’t, I am so slow now, my body has to warm up.” Confidently I started – and starting is uphill from my house. Very shortly, I discovered my fast was her slow, and I was HUFFING and puffing, and so embarrassed because I guess it’s been a while since I did this walk . . . but we did it. It felt good. And I was happy for a nice cool morning so I could do it again.
I ran into a neighbor, ignored that she was in her nightgown, we both pretended she was as fully dressed as I, had a brief conversation and she went inside with her newspaper and I carried on. About halfway through my walk, as I puffed along, I heard it.
The baboon coughed.
I could even smell a faint drift of wood burning fire. I could hear the doves. But it was only very briefly, very intangential, and I quickly realized it must have been a dog barking distantly; I could still hear him. For one brief moment I was back in Zambia, and while I love the magic of Zambia, I would not be out for a mile long hike early in the morning while the lions prowl for a last meal before they settle down for their day-long snooze.
We are off this morning to a grand plant sale across the bay in Milton. Symphony tonight. Back to “normal” for Pensacola.
Carnival Cruise Ship: Adrift in Mobile
Newest news out of Mobile via AOL News on the cruise ship that was disabled by fire and had to be towed into port. Exiting cruisers wore bathrobes saying “Never again with Carnival!” It just keeps getting worse.
MOBILE, Ala. — U.S. Coast Guard officials are searching for a missing shipyard worker after a disabled Carnival Cruise ship broke free from its mooring in Mobile, Ala.
Petty Ofc. Second Class Bill Colclough says a crew is searching the Mobile River for the man. He went missing after the ship drifted from its mooring Wednesday afternoon. Colclough was unsure of where the worker was when the ship became dislodged.
The U.S. Coast Guard tweeted that high winds are likely to blame for the Triumph becoming dislodged. The National Weather Service reported winds between 35 and 65 mph blowing through the area. Carnival spokesman Vance Gulliksen says the ship drifted and is resting against a cargo vessel.
The Triumph was disabled Feb. 10 by an engine fire that stranded thousands of passengers onboard for days in the Gulf.
Sunset Dolphin Cruise with Olin Marler in Destin
We did this same cruise with the same house guests two years ago, and . . . we never get tired of it. We don’t do it that often, and it is always fresh and relaxing.
We booked with Olin Marler Charters out of Destin. Fortuitously, we had a Groupon. It was so easy, buy the tickets online, call for a reservation, be at the dock at 5 p.m. for boarding.
Yes, it can be a crowd. Yes, you always have to know where you want to be and head directly there so you will have a good view, although people do wander. Yes, you have to hope that people who take young children aboard will be responsible and watch them like hawks. Other than that, these cruises are fun and easy.
There are other cruises. The others that we saw were all very crowded, people packed like sardines on little barge-like boats. We like a boat with a couple levels and lots of places where you can take photographs without having to crawl over anyone – or having people crawl over us! – to get a photo. This is our second time with Olin Marler, and I expect it will not be our last – it’s just so much fun.
We saw lots of dolphins. Dolphins are not so easy to photograph as they surface and dive, oh aaargh. If you want to see dolphins from our last trip, click on the blue hypertext in the first paragraph.
Also lots of seagulls and lots of sunset 🙂 Great times with special old friends from Germany, our sons have been best of friends for years, too.
This is the boat they took us out on, the yellow one:
Sunset is nearing:
Can’t get a good shot of the dolphins so might as well see if I can get something interesting with the seagulls and sunset:
When the sun actually sets, it gets cold quickly. We had a very warm day, maybe 80 degrees F. and it dropped almost immediately by 30 degrees. Fortunately, we knew this happens and came prepared this time 🙂
Great way to end a day, followed by dinner with the same good friends.
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