Tea Time 4

A week goes by in this strange land and the basics of living here are explained to us new comers.It feels more like a pact for survival at first.  We form of group of about twenty, from all over the globe, employed to do all sorts of jobs from nursing and medicine to security and putting out fires. The compound sits behind walls and to venture outside, I must be covered from head to toe. 

During the week the girls have been taken"down town" to make one of our very first purchases. The abaya - a signatory black cloak that becomes my closest and dirtiest friend. It allows me to blend, though my long blonde hair stands out in a crowd. I cover my hair with the obligatory scarf and am grateful that rarely will I ever have to iron what I'm wearing beneath my abaya. Nor will I ever have to fashionably match. There will be many a time that I duck to the shop in my PJ's, with my trusty abaya, disguising my nocturnal wears.