Scenery from last week

Since you weren't able to come with us to the mountains we thought we would post a few pictures of the scenes we took in.

Somewhere Over the Rainbow

We saw the most amazing rainbow during our time in the mountains. Unfortunately by the time we got our camera the colors weren't as vibrant.

Rafting

While we were in the mountains we were able to go rafting. This was our first experience and loved, even the "boring parts", as the kids who were with us called them. The water was freezing so we were thankful for a hot shower afterwards.

4th of July

Even though we are outside the US we had a great 4th of July BBQ complete with burgers, chips, potato salad, baked bean, watermelon, and yep you guessed it a flag cake. The only differences were the homemade buns and no fireworks.

We were feeling a little patriotic and decided to perpetuate the loud American stereotype so we belted out the national anthem facing the flag cake. I wonder what our neighbors thought?

We concluded the evening by a little competitive game of kickball. We even had a little crowd as the neighborhood boys climbed the fence and became our cheering section. Overall it was a great celebration.

Saturday....a Wedding

We had the opportunity to go to our first local wedding. It was quite an experience and one that we will never forget. Weddings for this particular people group are a three step event here. 1st the bride has a gathering at her house with all her friends and family. Every room of the house and the patio are filled with tables set carefully with an array of foods, which include salads, fruit, tomatoes, cucumbers, fried bread, bread, chicken, and of course caviar. The bride can be found walking around greeting all her guests, then midway through the party the groom arrives with an entourage of his family members. The women bring the bride's family presents, and then the men offer an exchange of food and drinks in a symbolic joining of the families. After these presentations the groom's family is treated to a meal. The bride's female relatives during this whole event are busy cooking, serving guests fresh food. Song and dance follow the food, and finally the bride emerges from the house and the groom sees her for the first time

2. The bride and groom travel to the marriage office where they make the marriage legal.

3. After this step the bride and groom rush away to the groom's house for another party. Only this time it is for the groom's family and friends. The bride only takes one of her relatives with her to attend to her needs. She must remain solemn and stay in a corner throughout the evening. We were only able to attend the first two steps, but enjoyed being a part of such a neat tradition.

Wednesday...a trip to a hot spring

Wednesday our language teacher invited us to go to a hot spring near his village. The drive was stunning as we encountered lush green foothills the entire drive.
The Hot Spring was hot! We were glad the weather wasn't extremly hot because it would have been a little toasty. Needless-to-say we had a good time, despite the abundance of speedos and binkinis on people of all shapes and sizes.

Our language teacher enjoyed it so much partially because the last 2 months he hasn't had water at his apartment.

Tuesday...a trip to a village

Marvin had the opportunity to go to one of his student's village. Some of the things he experienced were excellent food (the meat kabobs are a local favorite), more food, and a little more food. Combined with excellent hospitality people sure know how to treat guests here. The picture above is of a few of the gracious hosts.

The Fortress

Upon moving into this house we affectionately named it the "Fortress". You can see why from these pictures.

Theatre in another language

Tonight we were invited to a play put on by the art school here in town. It was a great experience and turned out great for our language. We were able to follow the plot with the help of the actors. It was an interesting comedy about an African who wanted to marry a local person’s daughter. It followed the family’s process of finally accepting the inevitable. This is a picture of the curtain call at the end there are no Africans here so the actor was coated in dark paint. I am sure that was fun to get off.

Inherited Pets

Upon moving in to the house in the village we also inherited three pets: two cats and a turtle. I know we must be shocking all of you out there who know Erica well enough to know that pets are not her thing. We have successfully kept the cats out of the house and we hope they are enjoying the freedom of the great outdoors. (Erica is enjoying breathing). One of the cats, our favorite, loved to sleep in this flower pot when it was an inside cat, so we thought we would give it a try on the porch. Sure enough the next afternoon we found her snoozing away in the flower pot.

We also wanted to introduce you to Pippen Tort. He is such a spastic little fellow, and always gets excited when someone stands up in our living room and walks near its aquarium. It splashes like crazy to get your attention. It has provided hours of entertainment for us as we create voices for it and make up things it might be thinking.

A little plumbing problem

After moving out of our apartment we recieved a call from our landlord saying we were flooding the person below us. We dreaded going back to the apartment, but this time the grandmother didn't cry and her caretaker was friendly. So a plumber was called and soon they were tearing apart the tiles in our bathroom and the one below us to get to the pipes. Here is a sight of what our toilet room looked like after they had ripped the tiles out. The plumber had to leave and get the part he needed so I snapped a picture before I began hauling rocks and bricks down stairs. (Cleanup is not included in a plumber's job description, so what can I say at least I got a workout out of the deal.)

Our First BBQ

We had some teammates visit us this weekend along with good weather so we decided to have a BBQ. Marvin is working hard grilling all the food for us.

Things we have grown accoustomed to:

We have been here over 3 months now and the other day we evaluated how our life has changed. Here are a few things that have changed:

• We are ready to entertain with the ring of our door bell, and we always have a quick meal that can be thrown together for guests.

• We shine our shoes every time we leave the house, and notice when they are dirty.

• Grocery shopping is done over a period of days as you can only buy as much as your hands can carry and often times you have a list of items you need to buy elsewhere because the store was out of that item.

• We drink alot of tea.

• It is true that if you get one task accomplished a day you are lucky. We have learned how to realistically plan what a person can and cannot get done in a day. For instance yesterday I planned to study and work on the computer at the office. Well the power was out therefore only studying happened.

• We have learned how to cope with having your water shut off for the day. Trashcans are great for holding water, and we always make sure they are full.

• We have learned how to tag team tortilla making.

• Days of prepackaged meals no longer exist, cooking from scratch is the name of the game.

• When attempting to speak this language we are use to receiving blank stares.

These are just a few ways our life has changed.

Are those mountains?

We couldn't believe it when we woke up to sunshine, then we went outside and we even saw the mountains. It has been over a month. Because this was such a treat we thought we would post a picture.

Tour Our Old Apartment

Even though we are moving tomorrow we thought you might enjoy seeing pictures of our infamous apartment. As you can see it really is a nice apartment, but the things behind the walls are the problem. The only room that is left out is our office, primarily because we had already started to pack this room before we took pictures.

A School Tour

The director of the school we work at, gave us a tour of a school he helped start. I have been given a tour of a school before but this school was nothing like what I had seen before. The school looked like a Museum. Everything was carefully placed, and the place was perfectly manicured, which is very ODD here. The pictures I have included are of the pool room and the art room in the school.

Performance

Our tour of the school was concluded by a wonderful concert of national dancing and song done by the students. It was the cutest thing.

Name that Machine

These machines were all found in the medical room of the school we visited. I don’t know about you but I don’t think I want to know what these are for.

Orphanage Visit

Last week we were able to visit an orphanage in town. They had a spring celebration and each class had a program to show the little darlings off. This program included many songs, a little dancing, the teachers brought out puppets, and played simple games with the children. The teachers did an excellent job at entertaining the audience and the children. We were surprised at how well behave the children were. All the children at this orphanage are under the age of 3 and the class of 18 month- 2 year olds (as seen in the bottom picture) were sitting on chairs patiently waiting their turn to participate. The top picture was taken at the end of the program where all the children were given a gift of goodies. All of them took them back to their chairs immediately, sat down and enjoyed them.

An hour from the Mountains

This is a picture of a village about an hour away from the mountains. Things are greening up and starting to bloom. It isn’t every day you get to experience two seasons.

Who says it can’t snow in April?

Before we headed home we traveled higher up the mountain and encountered snow. This made pictures and even walking difficult.

A Little Fun

While we were at the mountains all those healthy enough enjoyed a little extreme sledding on the bottom of a ski slope. The dots in the picture on the left is us getting ready to slide down. We were able to get some serious air on this slope. Marvin was disappointed he didn’t get to sled due to his ankle, but it gives us a reason to go again next year.

Meet Some Neighbors

When this group of teenagers found out we were Americans we automatically became their friends. Most of the young people where we live have learned a little English in school. So every time we go out for a walk, or to buy some fruit we have a group conversation with these teenagers. Now I say group conversation because it takes the group to put a sentence together. They work well together and if they don’t know a word they will yell to a person walking by and ask if they know the word for ______ in English. It is quite entertaining.

Isn't she a BEAUTY!

PTL we got a washing machine. We thought we would share the good news.

Our first injury

Marvin has enjoyed playing basketball every week, and until this week there have been no injuries. We thought we would share a picture of his ankle. Since he twisted his ankle he has been hopping all over the apartment, tomorrow will be his first time out of the house using public transportation, we will see how sympathetic people are to people on crutches. Be thinking of him as he recovers, he is eager to get back on the court.

What we see everyday

Above is a picture of the backside of our apartment building. When we look out our window we see kiosks and another apartment building. Our apartment is the first row to the left of the concrete center (a stairwell), three stories up, the apartment above us has laundry hanging out.

This picture was taken on our walk home from the grocery store, as you can see there are children out playing due to the warmer weather. Usually you will see a group of older women chatting by the woman selling sunflower seeds. This area is behind a elementary school so there are almost always children playing here.


Our neighborhood has everything you could ever need. They sell milk, eggs, juice, cheese, bread, canned goods, fruits and veggies, meat, household supplies, cell phone minutes, clothes, office supplies and a few stores even carry Pepsi. We love our Kiosks!

Erica's Language Helper

Since we have arrived we have frequented a store that sells everything you need for your home. The family that runs the store and the girls that work there make us feel so welcome every time we go into the store, so I decided to ask the owner if she could be my language helper. (It is ideal to have someone who doesn't speak English so it pushes you to learn.) So through translation via cell phone she decides that since she doesn't know English so she can't help me, but her niece can. So she calls her niece and tells her that she needs to help me. So I talk to her niece, get her phone number and I tell her I will call her about a day we can get together. So after this ordeal, we sit down for tea at the store, and the owner is helping me say the words of my lesson, and then she starts saying something that involved the words you, telephone, and go by car. When she asks me if I understand, I say I a little. I thought she was saying I can call her and then I can go over to her house. But apparently it was a question because she stands up puts her coat on and tells me to it is time to go to the Route Van. This is the point where I put it all together and learn we are going right now to her niece’s house. So what do I do, I get in a route van that I have no idea where it is going or how I will get back home and go meet her niece. During this 20 minute ride the lady is graciously helping me pronounce all the words on my paper, while everyone on the route van stares at the foreigner.

In the end her niece is very nice and we have a lot in common. She is having a rest from work right now so hopefully the niece can convince her aunt to help me when she has to go back to work.

Solar Eclipse

Life was a little exciting in the middle of the afternoon one day last week, as we were able to watch a solar eclipse. As I walked home from the store everyone was standing on the sidewalks awaiting the eclipse. Soon the moon covered the sun and it became pitch black at 3:00 in the afternoon. Here is a picture that we took out our window.

Neighborhood Wannabe Cowboy

Marvin returned from the market and informed me the cows were out again. So we obviously ran to the window to watch, and we were surprised to also see our neighborhood wannabe cowboy hard at work, (a.k.a. the neighborhood crazy man). Don't worry he helped all the cows make it safely across the street.

I think it Works!

Let us tell you a little bit about the Market here in CA. You see, they like to show you the product works before you purchase it. Therefore when Marvin went to buy hair trimmers, well this is the result.

Yes the lady grabbed his arm and shaved his wrist.

How do we look

While we were on our trip we had an opportunity to take a picture wearing traditional clothing. We all had a great laugh at Marvin's hat. He did say it was warm.

Our First Trip to the Mountains

We took a little trip to the mountains this weekend. It was great seeing more of the place we live. Throughout our drive we encountered several shepards, and men moving their cattle on the road. It definately took us back in time, and it is interesting how different life must be like living in the mountains.

Forced to be the "Chips & Salsa Guy"

Here is a picture of a part of the local market.

The second week we were here I, Erica decided to go shopping at the market by myself. We had worked on our numbers and I was able to catch on to the prices with a little concentration. So I headed out to buy spice jars. Once I found them I asked the lady how much they cost and she told me the price, now this takes concentration when you are first learning especially when they name three numbers. I was still trying to understand what she said and apparently I was just standing there staring at her because a minute passed and she lowered the price approximately $1.00, the funny thing is I was going to buy them for the orginal price, I just needed to know how much to give her. I guess this is one way to bargin huh.

So this experience reminded me of an analogy our ESL teacher shared with us about language learning. Language learning is like a good Mexican restraurant. You have the chip guy who drops the chips and salsa at the table and runs, this guy knows very little language. Then you have the drink guy who knows how to take drink orders, he has a little more language. Finally you have the server who is able to communicate with you. Now we were warned when we arrived we would be dishwashers, however we have been forced to become the chip guy. Hopefully soon we will move up to the drink guy. We can't wait.

Cows in the Complex

On our short walk to from our apartment to the grocery store last weekend we encountered a few stray cows. They took a detour to enjoying a late afternoon snack on their way home.