morgan makes friends

I've made my first Yemeni friends. Their names are Aliya & Latifah, and they're approximately 7 years old. Aliya lives across the street from us and yesterday afternoon, while Nate was outside smoking, she approached him to inquire about his marital status. Upon finding out that Nate did indeed have a wife, Aliya briefly went home and returned with a handful of sea shells and a request that I come outside. As I've only learned the most basic greetings at this point (in addition to the alphabet) our conversation was pretty limited, and after admiring her shells for a few minutes, Nate and I returned inside to study. Several minutes later there was a knock on our door; Aliya had brought her friend Latifah to meet me as well. I exchanged greetings with Latifah, then resumed my studies. Minutes later...another knock. Nate answered the door and told the girls that I had to study. That's fine, they replied, followed by a request that Nate open our window and curtain so that they could just stand outside and watch me study. Nate kindly told them this was not possible tonight, but maybe another time. Following this odd but endearing request, the girls continued to come to our door, about every 20 minutes, requesting that I join them for a meal, requesting a tour of our house (to which I politely said "no" but which they took anyways, squirming their way past me into the apartment, oohing and awing the entire time), and more requests to open our curtains.

with Aliya