Christmas In January!

Christmas arrived at our home today! We were so excited to receive the package of mail sent from the other location!! We got several packages and many letters, mostly Christmas cards and pictures!! It was truly like Christmas all over again for us – and I scored some dark chocolate and Decaf Earl Gray Tea as well!! The boys are enjoying their new matchbox cars and Julia her beads! She’s SO PRETTY! Thanks so much to all of you who took the time to send us snail mail and packages! What a treat!

This week is looking REALLY busy for us. Besides regular classes and homework, Josh had/has a meeting last night and tonight, and he went out bicycle-riding with friends this morning at 5:30. Tomorrow after school we’ll do some grocery shopping and hopefully go for coffee together (basically doing homework in a rumah makan (restaurant) – if we can find one that serves coffee…). I’m also home schooling the boys every day for a few hours. Tomorrow night we’re having a final dinner with some friends who are done here and going home for a short break. Another night we have plans to head to a larger town a 1 ½ hour drive from here with other friends – for (better) grocery shopping, dinner and a movie, if we can squeeze it in. It will be a first for us - seeing a movie here in this country, so I’m looking forward to it – hopefully something good’s playing! Both of us have language helpers coming at the end of the week and another afternoon we have a farewell for our favorite teacher at Language School. We’re going to need to weekend to recover and catch up!!

Oh, hey – long overdue update – had a few haircuts – from long to shoulder length to short. Makes it a lot easier to wear a helmet! (Helmet head is a drag, though!)

Anyway, gotta hit the books! Just wanted to share our excitement with you!!

PS - Check the photos link for more new pics!

Various Shots from Our First Asia-Pacific home

Julia's Hair - long enough to French Braid - and she sits still for it!!! Even better!











Mitchell enjoying RAMBUTAN! He's crazy about it!









A shot I took on the mountain, watching the sunset.

 







Josh driving his motorbike - I was on the back taking the picture over his shoulder!










Self-portrait on the mountain.

When Julia wakes early in the morning we send her to the toy room - this resulted one morning! :)

The Beach - South Coast

There was a nice little "rumah makan" that was part of the establishment we stayed at. It provided a nice place for the kids to play during the heat of the day. (That's where Julia is in this photo - playing with her My Little Pony - the one that was mine when I was a little girl!)

The boys waiting for another wave to jump over!

The photos above were taken by a friend who visited us over Christmas. We had a break from Language Study so we all went to check out a beach in the South. The accommodations were rustic and the waves were huge. It was a memorable trip!

Ibu Ibu Meeting

On Wednesday I attended my first Ibu-Ibu meeting. My friend Robyn from Australia attended it with me. She’s about 2 units ahead of me so I was hoping she would be able to translate things I didn’t understand. There were 29 women present of approximately 37 that usually attend. Of the women present there, 7 were Muslim, the rest would have been one of the other 6 sanctioned religions. When we arrived a few women had arrived before us, so we went around the room shaking hands with each one. Then as each woman arrived after us, they made their way around the room shaking each woman’s hand as we had. By the time everyone was there we’d all personally greeted each other. We opened the meeting with prayer – more like a time of silence during which each person prayed to Whomever they pray to. Then it was time to conduct business.

My understanding is that they collect money from each member for the various items of business. Some money goes to help with the upkeep of the community, other money goes to members of the community that need financial assistance and to local schools or free clinics. There is also provision made for women to use the organization as a savings account. They put their money in for special occasions, etc. and then when they need it, they can draw it out. All monies were reported on and made note of. Different officers gave their reports. I also noticed some recipes being read aloud – not quite sure why, though, if you consider we’re all women there, maybe that’s a normal way to share recipes! The Ibu RT – the leader of our community’s wife – gave some cautions to everyone there, telling them that diarrhea was going around and to be careful. Each person should drink their water warm and not cold. That would keep them healthy. (Robyn & I smiled at this one – we boil our water for at least 5 minutes before drinking it.)

Then we were served warm sweet tea in small glasses, bowls of boiled peanuts and each given a small box of treats for our snack. (The box was approximately 6”x4”x2” and catered by the lady down the street from me.) Inside was a cream puff type of pastry with a yellow filling – looked like vanilla pudding but didn’t taste like anything. I didn’t open the box until I got home so I got out some chocolate syrup, poured it over and shared it with the kids. The other two items in the box were shaped like egg rolls. One was actually like a crepe rolled like an egg roll. It was filled with rice and something else I couldn’t identify. The other was actually fried like an egg roll would be but the filling seemed to be all vegetables. They also included some hot peppers on the side.

After all the business was concluded (after an hour), Robyn and I were asked to introduce ourselves and they welcomed us. They closed “in prayer” in the same way that they opened it and opened the floor to a traveling salesman who was selling some “high quality” kitchen appliances. Robyn and I chose that time to head for home as it was 5:00 and time for dinner.

Side Trips During Christmas Break

While making plans for our time off over Christmas, we decided to make sure we saw some of the things that make our area special, as we knew we were leaving here in just over 2 months and might not make it back here anytime soon. Some places we chose to see were a larger city – where Batik is made and an ancient Buddhist temple (1200 years old!) which is about 2 hours from our home. We also decided to “camp” with some friends on a beach about a 4 hour’s drive from us on the south coast.

On December 29th we took a short trip to a larger city. We met some friends who work in a different area at the airport there and spent 2 nights, taking time during the rainy days to visit a big mall and shop at some of the tourist stalls. It was NUTS! It was hard to make them understand that we were not tourists looking for trinkets.

We arrived home on the 31st after taking in  a Buddhist temple on our way home. It was incredible in structure and creativity. We all climbed all the way to the top in pouring rain. There were also strong winds while we were up on top of the structure, so that was a bit crazy. Despite each of us having our own umbrella, we ALL got SOAKED. Spencer’s umbrella turned inside out!! We got some pictures anyway, risking the life of our camera.

We spent New Year’s Eve sleeping and New Year’s Day catching up on laundry and stuff. Then we packed again and left the morning of the 2nd to the beach.

We didn’t stay in tents, but our accommodations included a little bungalow with one room – room enough for 1 bed and a small bathroom with a “bok mandi” (tub-like thing that holds water – you scoop water out of it and pour it over yourself – their version of a shower) and (YAY) a western toilet. The kids slept in another little bungalow – theirs had a local style “squatty potty” but they had a “real” shower. We brought a pack n play for Julia to sleep in. The beach had tan sand but it was quite clean – not even seaweed on the shore. It was a public beach across the road from our bungalows and we mostly had it to ourselves. Around 4 PM the kids were done with school and came out to surf. Josh was able to borrow a boogie board and spent a lot of time fighting the waves. The boys gained confidence each day and by the end really enjoyed jumping in the waves. Spencer even rode some small ones on his kickboard!! We brought a small tub for Julia – filled it up with water from the ocean and set it up on the sand. She played in it for hours!!

We arrived back home on the 5th and our friends left for their area on the 6th. School started again on the 8th. I’ll try to post more photos on the Photos section of our site – check the link on the right.

Christmas

Christmas was very different and somewhat difficult for us this year. Thanks to some friends and family members there were great gifts for the kids.

Some differences were: no fireplace to hang the stockings over, a difference of about 7 feet in the heights of the trees from last year to this year (see the photo), also I didn’t have time or energy to do a bunch of Christmas baking. And of course, no extended family.

On the other hand, we had gifts to give, we did have a tree and stockings, we had friends that are like family and of course we had each other. We also got together with others from our organization to sing carols and fellowship on Christmas Eve. Another normal thing was that we began playing Christmas music the day after Thanksgiving!

It’s amazing how important traditions are to making things feel “normal”. Josh and I discussed traditions we would like to implement in our family as well as things that each of our separate families did as we were kids. Josh grew up in Venezuela in a remote interior location, so he had some “normals” as far as things to do for a tropical Christmas. Having been born in Canada, SNOW was a requirement for me!!

Anyway, just to give you a taste of our Christmas. I was going to post a picture of our tree, but forgot the picture at home. (I'm uploading this at a friends') Next time...

Back To School!

Whoa! We’re back to school after just over 2 weeks off over Christmas and New Years. School is only 2 hours long now with more in-depth homework. Several nights a week we have to interview people and write an essay to turn in for correction the next morning. Then over the weekend we have to combine all of the essays of the week into one big one. I did my first interview this afternoon with a lady who runs a warung (small convenience store) in this neighborhood. She and I attended the okumene together in November. The topic of conversation was “Patterns of Meeting” and greeting people on the street. The interview reinforced something we learned this morning: the words that we have been using to greet people for the 5 months we’ve been here are not socially normal. At least, not normal for after we've gotten to know each other. In a formal situation we would still be behaving correctly. That both frustrated me and made me laugh. We must have looked so stupid to the people around us!! At least they’ve been giving us grace in that regard!! I still need to write the essay, will do that later after the kids are in bed.

As I was walking home from the interview I saw the neighbor across the street standing by the street watching her kids play, so I engaged her in conversation. I had been praying for an opportunity to talk with her and be friendly as our neighbors aren’t out much to chat with. 45 minutes later I was glad when she said that the garbage man was coming so I could go get the trash for him.
Topics with her ranged from:
· the gift of food she gave us (and the rest of the neighbors) when her daughter was born (did we like it? I said we did – it didn’t taste bad though actually it made us all ill)
· to (when another woman stopped by to chat in their dialect – I don’t understand their dialect) how fat I was (they chose that topic, not me – and my neighbor was so kind as to let me know in the trade language what they were talking about when the other lady left) and (then back in the trade language) whether or not I was on a diet or if I really liked eating. (I’m sure she knows how much and what I eat - probably common knowledge as gossip is a favorite pastime of women around here and she knows my helpers.)
· Also whether or not I like my helpers (I do and said so – she’s their friend – want to make sure they get the message)
· and whether or not I like kids (the lady before me apparently let the neighbor kids come and go – I’m not as open to people in and out) – probably because kids are not allowed in our house without an invitation.
· Then whether or not I wanted to have more kids because “you’re still young”
· and if not, did I use an IUD. (Really.) If not, what did I use? (Try getting out of that one.)
· She ended with the fact that our kids are beautiful and handsome because my “suami” or husband and I are beautiful and handsome. (Good note to end on...;) )

Whew – all of that in the trade language. My brain hurts! Anyway, please continue praying for me as I develop relationships with the ladies in our neighborhood. I’m looking forward to the next okumene (believing ladies meeting) next month and the Ibu-Ibu meeting is on Wednesday afternoon, so that’s coming up soon. Thanks for your prayers!

Visiting a Temple on a Rainy Day

We had some friends join us over our Christmas break - they were working elsewhere here in Asia-Pacific and wanted to see some of our area. We picked them up from a larger city the day after Christmas and on the way home stopped at a local temple. It started raining - HARD - just as we were driving up. Since we'd just gotten there and our friends wouldn't have a chance to visit it again, we went up anyway (very carefully). We pretty much had it all to ourselves! It's an incredible work of stone.