So? Lily, Scarlet, Azalea, Peregrine, Rose, Dolores, Sunny, Rani (in India), Cat, Christian, Jesus (in some cultures), etc. etc. are all names of concrete things or people, but are acceptable names. So why note Eyelet? Why do flowers pass but a pretty fabric does not? Ad who named you the spelling police?

TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE. Ayelet's a name, why not Eyelet?

Again (as I said elsewhere), Ayelet is an established name. There's even a well-known writer who has it (Ayelet Waldman). So what's so weird about the same name with an E?

Well, Ayelet with an "A" is a perfectly acceptable name (I think it's more common in Jewish communities) - there's even a well known author named Ayelet Waldman. She made the paperz awhile back for saying she loved her husband more than her kids.

So is Eyelet really that weird?

I just sort of decided to give her the benefit of the doubt that her mother is Roma or part Roma.

At 5'8" with big shoulders and hips (not a slight build), 145 would be downright skinny for me. Last time I weighed that, you could literally see my ribs. So.

Yep. My friend in Saudi had to visit 3 different mobile phone providers until she found one willing to set up a cell phone account for a woman alone.

They pay English teachers in women's universities SCADS of money, btw.

I have a friend living there now (teaching English) who...well, she's found things to like about the country and has managed to live there for months as a woman alone (she teaches at a women's university so she says under those circumstances, and among expats, it is somewhat possible to live a normal Western life).…

When I was a teenager - maybe 14-16, I don't remember exactly - I was home alone for a few hours. My parents' house is on a country road, two lanes, tiny shoulder (not enough to safely park), a few neighbors but not many, all of whom have open driveways, e.g., space for people to park when guests come over that isn't…

I wanted to post my own story (maybe I will) but after reading this I feel like...nothing I post can ever be good enough, why bother??

OK leaving aside the obvious grossness of that...you know, Saudi Arabia doesn't issue tourist visas for any reason other than visiting relatives or pilgrimage (if you're Muslim, and if you're an American Muslim, maybe not even then). The other ways to go are to marry into a Saudi family or go on business. So he wasn't…

I couldn't agree more! I started teaching English for less-than-philanthropic reasons (I wanted to travel, was pretty good at it and languages in general, was interested in it, hated office work - nothing about helping others, but I feel that's OK, that's why most people work, and what I do does have value even if I…

Because speaking English - even if not fluently - can be the difference between being the person who gets the job and the person who doesn't. Which can be the difference between whether your family eats or not. Fair? NO. But true.

Really, really into Jesus, huh?

The local friend of the expat seemed, from the letter, to change her behavior so out of the blue that I wonder if there's not some cultural misunderstanding going on here. Like, maybe by the standards of her culture's idea of friendships, she's just expressing sadness (or maybe even in her own culture she's being too…

"And while travel is great for expanding the horizons, jetting around, learning about other cultures, and feeling the overall largeness/insignificance of things, it will not in and of itself make you any different inside. You're still you, no matter the time zone (family motto)."

Oh god. The worst of it is that if someone is determined to be with a douche canoe like that, there's not much anyone else can do to stop them or make them Come to Jesus.

I think the story takes note of that, too, although more subtly. Notice the look on Charlie's face whenever they get to a camp or group and it has some (appropriated) Indian name, like "You're in Group Cherokee, over there in the corner" or "You're in Tent Iroquois" or whatever.

I also feel like...she's been told to carry water (btw notice that she and Charlie have the heaviest backpacks - the 'biggest burdens' - Charlie has to carry water AND a tent, that's totally a metaphor for the double burden of being a PoC and gay), but she's better at building fires. The whole "that's your job, that's…