Table manners, scorpions and a wedding

10/3

We visited some girls who live a couple floors below us who were roasting chestnuts. We had seen people roasting them on little carts in the streets but had never bought any. They taste kind of like a baked potato but better. I remember reading books where people sat around the fire roasting chestnuts, that makes a lot more sense now.

On the way back from the bazaar we figured out how much money we spend on food each week. It is costing me about 5 dollars a week. That is really cheap living and I am enjoying all I am eating. We might be spending a bit more because we only added up fruits, veggies, snacks, bread, milk, and yogurt. We haven't bought any rice since I have been here so we didn't count that but rice is cheap.
Yesterday we went for a long run, about 45 minutes without stopping. We don't run on nice flat roads but instead on hilly paths. It is a beautiful, quiet road by a river, then we turn off onto more like a path. I haven't seen a car on it yet. But some of the hills are steep and long.
Seventeen kids showed up for study time and things got loud and wild. Lucy likes to have them play games and do interactive stuff. The kids get very into the games; for them it is a completely new way of learning and they love it. Even when she just has them write sentences they get soo excited it is crazy. The schools over here are just so different, they always have to copy and memorize. It is hard to believe that getting to think up and write their own sentence is a new and exciting idea for a 12 year old. The kids also have to wear uniforms, stand up when the teacher comes in the room, and stand up when answering a question.
Then we had a private lesson and they had a lot of fun too. This was our second time to visit this group and they just love learning. They didn't want the lesson to end and the one boy who is around 7 can not sit still his excitement at knowing the right answer makes him jump out of his seat. They were a lot of fun to teach and hopefully the enthusiasm will continue.

10/5
Yesterday we had to go to the border so Lucy could buy a visa. We left around 8 hoping to get to the border early again so we could get through quickly only to discover that they were having computer problems. The place was packed and crazy; so many people and cars and no order at all. The people have a problem with lines and the guards trying to direct people were little help. It took 2 hours to cross the border. I had to walk part of the way and that sucked because it was raining. Instead of forming a line to give their passports to the guard and get through they formed a pushy mob. I had to push and elbow my way to the front and definitely would of been knocked over a time or two except there were too many people to fall over.

Lucy wanted me to see the market so I would understand the difference in poverty between the two countries. We walked about 15 minutes to the bazaar. It was still raining but the roads are so bad that walking is safer. The bazaar was very smelly and dirty and much smaller then most I had been to. They had a meat section that was so gross we barely went in it at all. It smelled bad and they had things like whole dead smallish pigs. It was super gross and made me glad we don't eat any meat...the whole place was dirty and grungy. I wouldn't want to have to buy my food from there and yet so many people do. It was an interesting experience.

We decided to go look for a museum that Lucy had seen before but had never been to. We decided it would be better to drive though so we headed for the car on the way we bought a pastry filled with goat cheese. It is something that all the people eat and eat a lot of. It was really good but also kinda greasy. It would not be healthy to eat them every day but I guess people do.

The drive to the museum was about as much fun and stress as we thought it would be. The roads are really bad and so is the driving. The road is filled with pot holes and loose rock and with all the rain it was more like driving down a river bed than a road. There was huge puddle and pot holes filled with water so we couldn't tell how deep they where. We managed to get to the museum OK with just a bit of honking and swerving only to find that it was closed. The sign on the door was confusing as it clearly said in English open 9-5 Monday. However with some arm waving and confused looks we discovered that they had forgot to put the word closed on the sign. It was supposed to say open 9-5 and closed on Mondays.

Today Lucy is giving me a language lesson. I am learning quite a bit but not as much as I would like. I have a hard time remembering the words when I actually need to say them; I am getting better at understanding what people are saying. For part of my lesson I read either scripture which I am memorizing or names from a map they have. I should be very good at this country's geography soon.

10/6

Today we talked to a lady today who told us that the news is saying this will be the coldest winter here in a thousand years. It went from hot and humid one day to winter cold overnight and Lucy cannot remember it ever raining this much.
We visited a family with a super cute 6 year old who loves Lucy. It was a fun visit and study time. A good number of kids showed up and they get so into the games; they are fun to watch. Different kids show up each time and they always find me fascinating and want to ask me questions; it is quite entertaining but it is kind of tiring. Lucy told them I would bring pictures next week. The people here are very big on family and love looking at the pictures. Jakota and Jedrick are very interesting to the girls here, at least until the learn how young they are. Several of them have said Jakota has eyes like some actor so they always talk a lot about him but that is the only part I get.
After the study time we had my favorite private lesson with the three kids who love to learn English. They are so enthusiastic and say the funniest things. I can tell just by watching them and then Lucy tells me what they said on the walk home. The lesson is only supposed to be 45 minutes but we have a hard time ending after an hour and the youngest said he would like the lesson to be 10 hours long because it would only seem like an hour to him.
10/7
Today it felt really good though to be out running again though after 5 days without running. We ran up a big hill it was probably a mile long and at times pretty steep since it wound up one of the big hills which they call mountains. We also visited a family, had a private group lesson, and got invited out for diner. The food was amazing as usual and we stayed for hours. This family is really nice they have invited us over 3 times now they have a little girls she is the one I gave piano lessons to.
Pray that kids keep showing up for running and that Lucy will be able to teach the kindergarten classes. They guy at the very top of the education system does not want her teaching. The kids, parents, teachers, principle, everyone, wants her to teach and it would be really cool to for her to be able to interact with so many kids while they are at such a young age but this one guy is saying no, so she may not be able to teach.

10/8
Today we ran a long a beautiful road. Almost every time we run I wish I had my camera but it is hard to take pictures and run. It was a cloudy coldish day but didn't rain so hopefully the weather keeps clearing up. Then after running we had the private lesson with the three kids and they invited us to eat diner with them first, the food was once again very good. Since we ate diner and then had the English lesson we ended up staying with the family from about 6-9 then we visited another family. We ended up staying there quite late.

10/9
Lucy knows a lot of people and the people here are all really nice. It is fun to go out so often and even better when they have kids. I still don't know what is being said but have more or less gotten used to just tying to play with the kids, or just praying for the family while Lucy talks. The visits seem to go by quickly most of the time which always surprises me since it would seem like they should be long and boring.
Getting invited out to diner is really nice because the food is so good but I am still having trouble with the change in table manners. They are pretty much opposite to what our table manners are. Instead of asking for things to be passed people just grab what they want or even get up and walk around the table and get it. They think it is rude and lazy to ask people to pass things, They keep both hands on the table and often elbows and use both hands to eat. They think it is rude to eat all the food on your plate, so you are always expected to take more than you want and not finish it. They also eat right from the serving dishes. For example they always serve salad and instead of taking a scoop and putting it on their plate, they just reach over with their fork and take a bite when ever they want some. They don't talk much when they eat so sometimes that makes the meal seem awkward to eat in near silence.

The host is always supposed to keep offering food and will sometimes even just reach over and put things on peoples plates, but the guest doesn't have to eat it if they don't want to, and isn't expected to. If you do eat all they give you they think you are rude and greedy and will talk about you after you leave. That is opposite of what most people think about being expected to eat everything. The people here also don't find it wasteful because they just take it back off the plate and eat it later. Lucy says they will just cut off the bitten of piece and save the rest, so just because something was put on your plate and you don't eat it does not mean it is going to be thrown out. It isn't even because the people are poor it is just how they do things.
Another strange thing that has stood out to me is that all the little girls dolls and barbies always have their hair pinned up. This is because they think it is showing off and bad to have your hair down (that is the point of head coverings to keep guys from the sin of lusting because of girls hair). So we never go out with our hair down or loose and all the girls are very careful to keep their dolls hair up as well. It seems weird to play with dolls and not comb out their hair but they never do. If they do anything with the hair they just make sure it is staying pinned up.
10/10

Last night it rained really, really hard here. When we went to bed it was cloudy and kinda looked like rain but we didn't realize how crazy a storm it would be. The wind was really driving the rain and it was pouring down. We woke up when the wind coming through the house made one of the doors slam shut. When Lucy went to close one of the windows that was left open a crack the wind was driving the rain in so fast it soaked through the three hand towels she had brought to dry the floor and she had to go get a beach towel. We could hear the wind howling and driving the rain into the building it sounding like someone was throwing buckets of water at the house. Luckily the storm didn't last too long because once we where awake it seemed super loud so it was hard to sleep. Plus we had found a scorpion in the hallway a couple of nights ago and were worried about where it came from and if it was a really poisonous kind. We had been asking people if it was normal to find scorpions. Most people we talked to had their own scorpion story so it is fairly normal and at least one guy had been stung and he didn't do anything about it and was fine. But the people all said that they scorpions live in the roofs and when it rains really hard then they come into the houses they are mostly nocturnal though so not a lot of people see them and they leave again. So here it is pouring rain and in the middle of the night and the electricity shuts off while we are up trying to make sure all the windows and doors are shut and not leaking and the first thing we imagine when the lights go out is scorpions crawling down the walls. So we hurry back to bed to hide from the scorpions and try and sleep without thinking about scorpions crawling into bed with us.
We haven't seen any more scorpions and both fell asleep again pretty quickly but we don't plan on walking around in the dark any time soon.
We have been invited to a wedding so I am looking forward to that. We don't know who is getting married Lucy has never met them but they some how know our neighbor who invited us. It is important to have a crowd at the wedding and they don't care if they know the people or not. They just think the more people at the wedding the better so we get to go. I don't know when it starts or where it is but it sounds like fun. I guess there will be dancing and music and maybe food.
10/11
Today we went on another adventure, this time to a town in the middle of the state we are in. It was in the mountains. We had to drive kind of a long way to get to a town which is called the town on the hill. It is a pretty cool town that goes right up the side of a pretty steep mountain. We drove through the town and then went for a hike farther into the mountains. It was a nice hike and we ended up hiking to the ski slope of the area. It has only one lift and only one run but is the only ski slope around so the locals are very proud of it. I took some pictures because I knew Jakota and Jurney would want to see a local ski slope. I was very surprised when I saw it and realized they only have one run. During the hike it got really foggy and then started to rain so we ended up getting kinda wet but at least it wasn't too cold. On the ride back to the town we stopped to pick some wild apples which we thought where pomegranates but when we found it was apple trees instead we tasted them and they where really good apples so we picked a bag full. They are some of the best apples I have tasted and we where happy to have a snack.
We took another hike to a pretty little fountain and then a short hike to a lookout. It was so cloudy and foggy; it felt like a movie set and we were guards in a distant lookout.

When we got back we ate an unusual diner of lentil lasagna it has lentils, eggplant, zucchini, tomatoes, and spices and of course lasagna noodles and just a bit of cheese.
We are in one of the only towns where the mountains aren't right up against the town. The drive today was really pretty and I am always surprised by the little towns in seemingly remote places that we find. People live everywhere right along steep mountains and everything. But the kids then have to go to boarding schools. Kids in first grade are sent to boarding schools and only come home and see their families on the weekends. Their is actually a boarding school for 1st thought 8th grade in our town. It is hard to believe kids that young are going to boarding schools but hundreds of kids are. Plus most kids go to boarding schools for high school and some far enough away that they don't go home until summer. But it is normal for all kids to go to a boarding school as soon as they enter 8th grade.

10/12

This afternoon we visited some girls who were watching a pretty cute little boy but, as most children here, he was a handful and spoiled. I would never want to have to raise one of their kids and wouldn't let any one here babysit for mine. They let this 2 year old boy climb on a stool, take money from out a drawer, and then when he ran out the door they had to chase him so he wouldn't get run over. Then instead of punishing the kid, they just followed him across the street and into a store where he picked out a big chocolate bunny which they bought for him and let him eat. That is just one of the many things I have seen in the last couple of days. These people really don't know what to do with kids and aren't big on punishments. After that there was the the usual tutoring sessions and a study time at the school. There will be more study time opening up and for more grades so we will now be even busier and will have to move some of the private lessons into the evenings.

10/13
Most people at the wedding where dressed nicely but only those closest to the bride and some younger people where really dressed up and they had on formal dresses, their hair done fancy, lots of make up, and were wearing gold from when they got married.
Young men and women don't dance together so just married couples and family members danced. Then they cut the cake, then they people line up and give gold to the couple. They get a lot of gold but that is the only presents they get and only family and close friends give it. Then they did some of the traditional dances which where fun to watch. They form circles and dance fast. It is a kind of like folk dancing and looked like a lot of fun.