I just opened the refrigerator in my room…

…to get some juice that I stuck in there the other day and I discovered a plate of fruit as well as a plate of little sweets and candy that had been left for me and my roommate. 

Hospitality they have here!

And there is such an abundance of food at every single meal.  I am offered more food at any given meal than I typically eat on an average day.  And since much of the food is the same at every meal, I have needed to select my food out of what is offered based on what meal it is.  I will eat my flat bread, cream cheese, and hardboiled egg for breakfast, save the yogurt and orange for snacks, the flat bread and hummus/cucumbers/tomatoes for lunch and try to sample the rotating dinner entre…all these items are available at every single meal. 

And check this out: we are not to leave the compound except to go to the hospital.  SO, if we need something, we can ask the guards and they will go get it for us.  And they refuse to accept payment!  Like adamantly refuse to accept payment.  Which makes me sort of reluctant to ask for anything…

But we do have this sort of nifty “third party buy now, pay some body else later” policy I have discovered.  I asked our head of security to buy me some shoes for the ICU since the do not allow us to wear street shoes in the ICU and I have been wearing my running shoes.  I wound up with the middle eastern take on Crocs…blue plastic clogs with holes and little plastic flowers on them…and me paying for them directly was made clear to be out of the question.  However, due to the aforementioned payment option, I was able to give some cash to Cody, one of the Preemptive Love Coalition guys, and HE can then give it to our security guy. 

One of the girls had given her laundry to one of our guards (who are also bizarrely charged with the duty of washing our dirty clothing) and a pair of jeans didn’t make it back.  At first there was denial that there had ever been jeans…then acceptance of their disappearance and assurance that they would be relocated.  After much discussion amongst themselves, the guards determined that new jeans would need to be provided… “We buy you new jeans!” despite the fact that the missing pair of pants has really never left the building….they just need to be located at some point seeing how it is doubtful that they simply evaporated. 

This morning they did show up.