hello from Babelistan

Not much going on. I made a goddess. Isn't she pretty? In spite of the red, she is calming to me.

Today I watched Daughters of Afghanistan. I checked out the dvd from my public library. It's aimed at middle/high school students, so there's nothing graphic in it. But it is still very sad, and I cried in a few spots. It reminded me of the movie "Osama" which is NOT about bin Laden, but about a young girl who is disguised by her widowed mother as a boy, so that she can get a job, so they won't starve to death. "Osama" is the first movie produced by Afghani film-making since the fall of the Taliban, and it paints a pretty horrid picture of what life was like under the Taliban. In fact, I had watched it while I was pregnant, which was a big mistake. Not something I recommend doing.... I actually own a burqa, a real one from Afghanistan. I had the opportunity to request that someone stationed there bring me something, and I asked for a burqa. I suspect he thought I was nuts. But I have since used it as an educational tool when I've done dance demos for school age kids. Funny thing... I can't get the burqa on my head. Even most of the petite ladies I know can't get it on their heads. It's an adult woman's burqa but it's too small for most american women... what does that say? that people are so undernourished there that they can't even grow as big as us? Most people who put it on feel claustrophobic in it. By the way, that guy also sent a couple other things, which was very nice, a couple hats that can be used for fun costuming.

Then, ironically, I watched an Elvis flick, "Harem Scarem". I'm not a huge fan of Elvis, but this was on some "belly dancer's list of campy flicks to watch with fake belly dancers in it", so I watched it. OMG, the sets reminded me of classic Star Trek sets... I fully expected to see some familiar set that was missing my favorite ripped-shirted captain, but no... no Kirk or Spock sets. I did watch the flick too close to the Afghanistan movie though. For the first 15 minutes of the film I kept thinking to myself "if this were for real, that woman would have been stoned" or similar. It was definitely a campy B film, had a lot of dumb racist stuff. Elvis was a crappy actor in it... is he a crappy actor in general? or was he just not feeling this movie specifically? Oh, and the creepy scene where he sung to the 9 year old girl (who was a better "belly dancer" than the women who were supposed to be the dancers) smacked of pedophilia and he would definitely not have gotten away with something like that today. Otherwise... I actually laughed a couple times in the movie... probably not as intended, but just because it was so silly. Oh, and the costumes also reminded me of Star Trek. Campy but fun. Totally inaccurate for the middle east of ANY time... in fact, most of the stuff the women wore looked like it was based on costumes from India. But that's okay, as I recall, none of the Elvis flicks were intended to be taken seriously?

I've been sick today, which is why I've been watching dvds. I also watched the Wiggles twice and a Thomas the Train dvd 4 times. (while Kevin was home and up). I was so done with the Choo Choo vid that I made Kevin watch a boring belly dance workout video, which I did not attempt to do the workout, though I did a few arm things which Kevin thought was hilarious, and tried to copy. He also showed me he knows how to do Downward Dog... His sitter does yoga, so I am wondering if she sometimes does yoga while the boys are up. Speaking of his mimicing... He also knows almost all of the stuff on Wiggle Time... he does all the animal sounds and gestures, hops and stomps... it's not perfect but he does the stuff with the video and it's so dang cute. I need to teach him some dance stuff. :)