Happy St. Patrick’s Day to everyone…. and happy birthday to my dad! Wish we could be there to celebrate.
Lindsay and I have come to the end of our time in the city we have been in for the past 6 weeks. We are to depart tomorrow morning at 6 am and make the 16- to 19-hour drive (it should be called journey instead of a drive!) back to the capital city. The capital city is much warmer than the area we have been, so Lindsay will be instantly happier!
This past week, we went to the border of the neighboring country and experienced their local bazaar. In case you are not familiar with the word ‘bazaar’, it means market. Our markets in the U.S. seem to be fairly orderly. They have normal opening and closing times, and usually have a decent facility (i.e. floors and a ceiling!). Well, not here. The floors were cobble stones and dirt. The ceiling was the nice big open blue skies (at least that day they were!) The hours were – well, we still haven’t figured that out. One fairly big difference between this market and the markets back home is - we were the only Americans there! Needless to say, we stuck out just a bit.
As one of our friends began to bargain for an item, 15 men (literally) surrounded him to witness what seemed to them to be a most amazing act. It was intimidating for me to have crowds surrounding us, and even more so for Lindsay. With the cultural changes we have experienced this far, this bazaar was on a whole new level!
One man who spoke English reminded me of a very shady used car salesman. He said ‘trust me, trust me, this is a fantastic product.’ I knew right then it wasn’t. He proceeded to try to befriend us. Then he took my picture with his camera phone and promptly turned it towards Lindsay. She gathered a lot of attention with her blond hair, even with a cover on her head! She was smart and turned away. Needless to say, I stayed very close to my wife during this bizarre… I mean, bazaar experience!
Once our outing was complete, we were very happy we had the experience – and even more happy to be heading back to familiar territory.
Now on to the next adventure ….our journey tomorrow morning!
God bless
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Earthquake and Hanging Out with the Local People
I guess you could say this has been a rather eventful week. First, the earthquake. Neither JB nor I have ever been in an earthquake before, and we experienced our very first one last Tuesday. We were on the top floor (fourth floor) of an apartment building sitting on the floor eating dinner with a friend, when all of the sudden, we heard a roaring sound and the building started shaking. As we sat there, the shaking intensified. I was frozen in fear. What should we do? Should we stay there? Should we try to run down the stairs and get out? We don’t have earthquakes in Texas! Our friend told us that it was best to stay there, and that if it got really bad we should get inside the door frame, but luckily the shaking stopped about 10 seconds later. My heart was pounding! I never, ever want to move to California!
We learned later that night that it had only been a 5.0 about 60 miles north of where we are living. Unfortunately, it was only about six miles under the surface of the earth, and because of that, there was damage to canals, roads, and houses. On Friday we sent a team out to survey the damage and assess needs. The people who live there are very shaken right now, because they have continued to experience multiple tremors every day since the earthquake. JB and I will go with another team this week to meet with more people and do further assessments. This is a horrible time for them, but it gives us the opportunity to love them, calm them during this time of fear, and offer our help.
Last week was a busy time for us hanging out with local friends that we have made here. The people are so warm and generous, and we have truly loved getting to know them. While there is a lot that we won’t miss here, we will undoubtedly miss the people. We had tea with our national “mother figure” and her daughter down the street Wednesday afternoon, we had a formal local dinner with JB’s friend Wednesday night, I had lunch with a girl friend Thursday, and on Thursday evening the family down the street invited us back to hear them perform their national music for us. They even got us up dancing with them a few times! (JB said that was the first time he had ever been asked by a man to dance! A different culture, for sure, but a nice and innocent way of getting people involved in the local dances.)
Yesterday evening we had dinner with a family that we met a couple weeks ago while out walking. I think I can safely speak for both of us in saying that our favorite times here are when we are spending time with the local people. Though there is a language barrier, we work around it, and we love sharing stories about our different cultures and about our lives.
Speaking of different cultures, today is International Women’s Day, which is a fairly important holiday here. We celebrated Men’s Day several weeks ago, but it is not quite as big of a deal as Women’s Day. I was given fresh carnations for Women’s Day by my young friend last night at dinner, which is remarkable considering that it is nearly impossible to get fresh flowers here. Everything is still covered in snow! We will blog soon about other cultural and lifestyle differences to give everyone an even better picture of what life is like here. Until then, God bless, and we miss y’all!
We learned later that night that it had only been a 5.0 about 60 miles north of where we are living. Unfortunately, it was only about six miles under the surface of the earth, and because of that, there was damage to canals, roads, and houses. On Friday we sent a team out to survey the damage and assess needs. The people who live there are very shaken right now, because they have continued to experience multiple tremors every day since the earthquake. JB and I will go with another team this week to meet with more people and do further assessments. This is a horrible time for them, but it gives us the opportunity to love them, calm them during this time of fear, and offer our help.
Last week was a busy time for us hanging out with local friends that we have made here. The people are so warm and generous, and we have truly loved getting to know them. While there is a lot that we won’t miss here, we will undoubtedly miss the people. We had tea with our national “mother figure” and her daughter down the street Wednesday afternoon, we had a formal local dinner with JB’s friend Wednesday night, I had lunch with a girl friend Thursday, and on Thursday evening the family down the street invited us back to hear them perform their national music for us. They even got us up dancing with them a few times! (JB said that was the first time he had ever been asked by a man to dance! A different culture, for sure, but a nice and innocent way of getting people involved in the local dances.)
Yesterday evening we had dinner with a family that we met a couple weeks ago while out walking. I think I can safely speak for both of us in saying that our favorite times here are when we are spending time with the local people. Though there is a language barrier, we work around it, and we love sharing stories about our different cultures and about our lives.
Speaking of different cultures, today is International Women’s Day, which is a fairly important holiday here. We celebrated Men’s Day several weeks ago, but it is not quite as big of a deal as Women’s Day. I was given fresh carnations for Women’s Day by my young friend last night at dinner, which is remarkable considering that it is nearly impossible to get fresh flowers here. Everything is still covered in snow! We will blog soon about other cultural and lifestyle differences to give everyone an even better picture of what life is like here. Until then, God bless, and we miss y’all!
Monday, March 2, 2009
Our Trip to the Local Hotel
After one month of living here in very close quarters with others, it was definitely time for some “alone time.” After all, we are still newlyweds! Being the thrifty people that we are, we decided to check into the local “discount” hotel for the night. For only fifty dollars, we would have a warm room with hot running water, a bed, and some breakfast. As we walked to the hotel (about a 25 minute walk), JB said that if it was anything like a Motel 6, he would be happy. Boy were we in for a surprise!
To begin with, when he called to make the reservation, he told them that he and his wife would be staying for the night. “Your wife?” they asked, “or your girlfriend?” “My wife,” he told them. “Wife okay,” they responded. “Girlfriend not okay.” He reiterated that yes, indeed, he would be bringing his wife and NOT a girlfriend.
When we got there, we were assigned to room 102. That was the room with a big wad of gum stuck in the middle of the zero of the door number. Nice. Walking into the room, we were hit by the smell of curry. It turns out that our room was directly above the Indian restaurant, so like it or not, we were going to be smelling curry for the night. It’s a good thing we like curry!
We both immediately wanted to take a shower—something that we really crave since we don’t have running water at the house we are living in. Interestingly, in our double room, there was only one bath towel, one wash cloth, one hand towel, one bathrobe, one everything! Looked like we would be sharing. There was also one small bar of soap, and one packet of shampoo—Black Shine Shampoo. I was glad I brought my own shampoo. I would hate to see how my blonde hair would turn out after using Black Shine Shampoo!
Once we had showered we thought we’d read some and rest before dinner. We were really looking forward to some quiet time…until we noticed the Indian techno music coming from the Indian restaurant below us. Hmmm. Curry and techno. How relaxing. Maybe, we thought, we could find an English channel on the TV. JB started playing around with the TV but couldn’t get it to work. After he had fiddled with it for a while, he finally said, “Oh…someone cut the cable.” So, with no TV, we stretched out on the bed to rest and noticed that, not only was it very hard, but we could actually feel the springs coming through the mattress! Upon further inspection, we discovered that there was no mattress. We were lying directly on the box springs.
For dinner, we originally thought we’d head down to the restaurant that supposedly serves pizza, although they’ve never served pizza when we were there. It was so dark on the street and so cold, that we only made it a few blocks away and turned around. Forget pizza—we were going to eat Indian!
The bad news is that we both got sick from the Indian restaurant. The good news is that we did get our night away in a warm room with warm running water and non-stop electricity, even if it did have its quirks. Besides the barking dogs outside that woke us both up about a half-dozen times, we actually rested pretty well. (JB told me he also heard the patter of a mouse behind our bed once during the night – I’m glad I didn’t!)
Was it like a Motel 6? Well, not exactly. At Motel 6 they give you two towels and a mattress, but, hey, we’re not complaining! We got showers! We have learned to appreciate the little things in life. How richly we have been blessed!
God bless
To begin with, when he called to make the reservation, he told them that he and his wife would be staying for the night. “Your wife?” they asked, “or your girlfriend?” “My wife,” he told them. “Wife okay,” they responded. “Girlfriend not okay.” He reiterated that yes, indeed, he would be bringing his wife and NOT a girlfriend.
When we got there, we were assigned to room 102. That was the room with a big wad of gum stuck in the middle of the zero of the door number. Nice. Walking into the room, we were hit by the smell of curry. It turns out that our room was directly above the Indian restaurant, so like it or not, we were going to be smelling curry for the night. It’s a good thing we like curry!
We both immediately wanted to take a shower—something that we really crave since we don’t have running water at the house we are living in. Interestingly, in our double room, there was only one bath towel, one wash cloth, one hand towel, one bathrobe, one everything! Looked like we would be sharing. There was also one small bar of soap, and one packet of shampoo—Black Shine Shampoo. I was glad I brought my own shampoo. I would hate to see how my blonde hair would turn out after using Black Shine Shampoo!
Once we had showered we thought we’d read some and rest before dinner. We were really looking forward to some quiet time…until we noticed the Indian techno music coming from the Indian restaurant below us. Hmmm. Curry and techno. How relaxing. Maybe, we thought, we could find an English channel on the TV. JB started playing around with the TV but couldn’t get it to work. After he had fiddled with it for a while, he finally said, “Oh…someone cut the cable.” So, with no TV, we stretched out on the bed to rest and noticed that, not only was it very hard, but we could actually feel the springs coming through the mattress! Upon further inspection, we discovered that there was no mattress. We were lying directly on the box springs.
For dinner, we originally thought we’d head down to the restaurant that supposedly serves pizza, although they’ve never served pizza when we were there. It was so dark on the street and so cold, that we only made it a few blocks away and turned around. Forget pizza—we were going to eat Indian!
The bad news is that we both got sick from the Indian restaurant. The good news is that we did get our night away in a warm room with warm running water and non-stop electricity, even if it did have its quirks. Besides the barking dogs outside that woke us both up about a half-dozen times, we actually rested pretty well. (JB told me he also heard the patter of a mouse behind our bed once during the night – I’m glad I didn’t!)
Was it like a Motel 6? Well, not exactly. At Motel 6 they give you two towels and a mattress, but, hey, we’re not complaining! We got showers! We have learned to appreciate the little things in life. How richly we have been blessed!
God bless
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