We went grocery shopping today at a supermarket called Little Tamimi, which apparently used to be a Safeway and still carries some Safeway products. It was actually pretty OK with enough variety of products and meat and produce. Everything, of course, is labeled in Arabic, but luckily you can usually find some English at least identifying what it is. As with every time we move to a new post, we have to start from scratch (we can’t transport food in our household effects) and have to buy everything one needs and wants in a kitchen and in the house, in addition to food.

I wanted to take pictures (of course!) as I like photographing grocery store displays, but my husband thought that I might be pushing my luck, especially since it’s often prohibited in other countries (including the US, I seem to recall). So I took this surreptitiously (although it was pretty comical since something was wrong with the settings on the camera so had to fuss with it for a bit) while he was in the checkout line, in the dark – they turned off all the lights over the cashiers at 5:10, about 20 minutes before the evening call to prayer. Apparently all commercial establishments close (four times a day, I believe, as the first prayers are very early in the morning) so the employees can go to the mosque; in some places customers can stay locked inside, or can go outside and wait to be readmitted. Luckily they were rushing people through (and we had a lot of stuff and really didn’t want to have to wait for a half hour or so) to get as many people taken care of before prayers as possible.