Talking, Traveling and Observing a Turtle

Two simple conversations in two consecutive days.

Friend 1: Couple X has a wonderful mansion in the U. S. I visited them there last year.
I: Really? I did not know they owned a house back there. I heard about their huge house here.
Friend 1: I saw it too. Unbelievably lavish.
I: This is the sort of life I like to lead!
Friend 1: But do you know that their only son is autistic?
I (compassionately): No. I did not know that. Goodness, all their life means nothing to me now.

The following day.
I: Do you know that couple X has a mansion in the States and a wonderful house here.
Friend 2: Wow. Nice.
I: But I have also just got to know that their child is autistic.
Friend 2 (instantly): They are fortunate. There are undoubtedly many poor couples who have autistic sons too.

........

I visited Yemen for the first time last week. A troubled country that became (again) under spotlight after the incidents of the trapped parcels.

Much is being said about Yemen. Terror, failed regime, internal conflicts that might lead to separation, amazing traditional architecture and the kind people. But what amazed me most was how qat/khat chewing, which is deeply rooted and completely accepted in the society, went beyond the definition of a habit to become a collective activity that involved gathering, socialization, current affairs' discussion and sometimes decision making.

It was somehow surrealist to see, starting from 3 or 4 PM, almost every male adult (and some teenagers) in the streets, shops, taxis having like a bubble in one side of his mouth because it was "the time". Women, according to what I have heard, were also active except that we could not see their swollen cheeks under the veil.
By the end of my short visit I felt what I saw crossed the amazing borders to the depressing ones.

........

I bought a turtle 2 weeks ago. I have never seen a turtle walking that fast. She never stops moving in the house the whole day. A stereotype- shattering turtle. I love her!