Our First Packages Arrived!!!! :)

Thanks for the ideas for future posts...we're in the process of working on making some of those happen. But beware: the grounding of beef looks pretty disgusting if you ask me.

At the risk of seeming materialistic, we want to share with you some of the treasures that have recently come our way. It's really hard to express in an e-mail, FB post, or even a phone call how excited we are to receive boxes of love from people in the States. So, we'll do everything we can, including possibly embarrassing them on the internet, to let people know how much we appreciate the time, effort, love, and finances that they put into shipping us a box of goodies. Until a hug, squeeze, and smile can happen face-to-face, this will hopefully at least partially do the job.

As soon as we got to country, we learned that the water filter that a group of wonderful ladies donated to us arrived at my parents' house. So inside, we also requested a few other necessities that we could not find here at the time: index cards, (colorful!) permanent markers, contact solution, and rubberbands (which have since been found, but the more the merrier and we know that we'll use them all). Thanks to my parents for sending all of this our way!!! :)

What started as this...

...contained these (hooray for clean contacts and language learning!) and...

FILTERED WATER in large portions!!! We were using our hiking filter, a bucket, and a scoop. This is much more convenient!

 THANK YOU TO CINDY'S PARENTS!!!

Mailed exactly one week later, but arriving at our place on the same trip from the capital due to the generosity of some friends there, was a package from Matt's brother in Texas. Boy, does he know Matt's tastes well! He told us he was mailing a Christmas gift, which will be the one we will be able to open on Christmas day (some others from other loving family members should be meeting us when we go in to the capital just after Christmas day). But he decided to fill the rest of the space with light food items. So now we can have flavored water, spice up our food with chiles (Matt was SUPER pumped about this), and enjoy some more salad dressings (which may be used for things other than salads since the salad selection is minimal to none...hooray for chicken flavorings!).

What started as this...

...dumped out these yummies...

...and gives us something to look forward to on Sunday.

THANK YOU MICHAEL!!!

How to Keep up a Blog...or not

My biggest hope with starting a blog is that people (like you!) would get a glimpse into life here. But my biggest fear is that I wouldn't keep up with it. Life here through my eyes just seems so hum-drum sometimes. We have a semi-routine, which includes a bit of language class, making flashcards, flipping through flashcards, writing out some sentences, making 3 meals, and catching up on e-mails. Nothing about this seems very noteworthy, so it's tempting to not share any of it.

I also have no desire to turn this into an "I'm-going-to-pour-my-heart-out-for-everyone-to-see" blog. No thank you. We'll see if that ever changes.

I'm trying to think of things that you would be interested in knowing/seeing. Hopefully they would be things that can be handled with words since pictures take crazy-long to upload (I think that the 5 pictures from last time took about 45 minutes). That, and I'm really not good about taking my camera out and about.

So...any topic suggestions??? Comment or e-mail and I'll see what can be put together for you!

My Favorite Things

First off, a little shout out to the Sound of Music. Thank you for influencing my life.

Now on to sharing a bit of life here that, honestly, surprised me quite a bit. To start off with, I don't like cold. I am also more of a beach girl than a mountain girl. So, moving here was not for the scenery. It was for the people, who I just LOVE!!! (Well, those who I have been able to interact with via English, limited national language, and charades...usually a combination.)

That said, there have been several surprise blessings with living here. Several of my favorite things are found not only in country, but in our town! Enjoy today's listing:

• OLIVES!!! They have canned black and green olives here, so both Matt and I are happy. We tried the whole olive route, and I discovered that Spanish black olives taste different than ripe black olives (ripe are much better...nothing against Spanish in the big scheme of things...just in olives). And they have pitted ones, so now we don't have to try to cut the wonderful tastiness away from the seed.
  
• CHEESE!!! There's mozzarella, gouda, tilseter (no idea, but it tastes good), and something in a red package that we bought last week...worked well as a cheddar substitute. Needless to say, pizza and mexican have both been enjoyed multiple times in the few weeks we've lived in this house.
  
• PURPLE!!! Um, yes, my favorite color is found on many women around town. I was a little nervous about my 2 winter coats standing out because they are purple (as opposed to a more neutral color). But much to my surprise, purple is easily spotted on fashionable young ladies multiple times each day. That said, I'm on the lookout for a long wool PURPLE coat...maybe with faux fur around the neck and cuffs...wait, don't let Matt know. ;)
  
• DOVE SHAMPOO!!! This little item came into my life during my senior year of college with the phrase on the bottle "weightless moisturizers." Marvelous! I brought one bottle just to give me some room to be able to look for other options once we were here, but low and behold, the exact thing I want is available in almost any local little shop that sells shampoo. Happy hair, and happy Cindy!

So yes, these are a few of my favorite things. Hope you enjoy the little things in life where you are and also rejoice in the fact that every good and perfect gift comes from above. Guess someone knew what He was doing sending us here, and He has taken care of some little things that make it so much easier to live here than I anticipated. Happiness :)

Welcome to our Warm House!

We took a few pictures of our house to give you an idea of what life is like for us. Though it may not look like much from the outside, the inside is GORGEOUS! Though these pictures are not bad, they don't do justice to the feel of the place. This is the fourth house we saw, and immediately it simply felt like home. Below are the main rooms where we spend our time.

Potentially when we get to better (and free!) internet on our next trip out, we will have a video to upload. We'll see. Then you could get a better feel for things. In the meantime, thanks for rejoicing with us in what has been provided.

You can also use this as a sort of virtual way to lift up the places in our home asking for them to be used as a blessing to the people around us.

Rock and mud walls...check! Tin roof...check! Garden areas around 2 of the sides...check! 4 sheep and 1 cow that like to wander through the yard...check!

What is a dalids? This is one! It is the room that is first entered in a house that is raised. Right now, it is probably the coldest room in the house since it is just by door (which is to the right by Matt's shoes). But in summer, the coolness of this room will make it a great place to sit and visit with friends. To the left is the doorway to the foyer/hallway.

Oddly enough, this is my favorite room based on appearance. I couldn't quite get a good picture, but it pretty much serves as the foyer/hallway in the house. Off of it are 4 rooms: kitchen, guest bedroom, western-style living room (still working on furnishings, as this was the master bedroom), and our bedroom.

Welcome to the kitchen! This doorway is off of the left wall from the foyer (you can't see it due to the trees that are being kept inside during winter). It's cozy but quite functional. If I had a picture of Matt you would know what our dishwasher looks like. :) What you can't see is the wood-burning heater to the right of the table and the gigantic blue container that holds 100+ pounds of flour...yes, you read that right. Bread anyone???

 

This is the room that heats the best...current outside temp. is 38.5 F, while this room is 67.3 F...nice! Between the heaters (which we have to turn off around supper time in order to be cool enough to sleep at night) and the down comforter on the bed, it seems as though we are set for winter.

Things Learned

So it crossed my mind that a few new tricks have been added to my repertoire since moving here. If you are interested in learning any of them for yourself, just ask. Otherwise, enjoy this random listing:

• In order to have a warm shower the entire time, turn the water off while lathering and don't set the water for good pressure until the very end. Also, having a small heater in the tile room is a plus. When you put socks on first, you can stand by the heater to warm up without getting your feet dirty.
• Brown sugar can be made at home by mixing sugar and molasses. Wow.
• Calling the States is only 5 cents/min. Really nice.
• Radiators double as dryers for clothes.
• It is physically possible to live out of a fridge the size of one you might find in a college dorm room, minus the functioning freezer.
• Anyplace can feel like home quickly when it's the place you know you've been led to from on high.
• When eating at someone's house here, never ever clean your plate. Otherwise, they feel like they didn't give you enough and bring on more.
• It is easy to pray with and for people here. Fabulousness.
• Garbage disposals are best if alive...like sheep, for example.
• Washing dishes is a great 2 person job (thanks Matt!).

Village Visit

While my wonderful husband is working on making omelets for brunch, I thought it would be a good time to head for the blog. Since the last posting, we have been busy moving out of our friends' house (who were SOOOOO nice to accommodate us for over a week) and into a place of our own! We are super excited and love our new little house, but have yet to take pictures. That will be a project for this week, so you can be on the lookout in a few days for some literal glimpses into what life here looks like now.

But in the meantime, you get to see what our life will mostly consist of. Well, they may not be completely accurate for the next several months. During winter, we will be hunkerin' down (does that sound Southern or what?!?!) and working on mastering language learning while simultaneously staying warm. The sun is shining really brightly today through the windows, which should make it a good laundry day (hooray for line drying). Anywho, my mind wanders...

Most of our work will be out in villages in the surrounding areas. We were able to visit a couple of these places last week, but one place in particular provided some good photo opportunities and cultural sights. The people here are known even in other countries for their hospitality, and we were not let down one bit. The mom immediately swept me away into the house when we arrived (being the only female in the group) where I got to meet her sweet blind mother-in-law. I sat with Granny for quite a while, the whole time with her touching me and trying to talk with me. But the language I've learned only a minuscule fraction of is not a language she understands, so her words were falling on deaf ears...and she couldn't even see me smile and nod while trying to follow her! Oh well. It was still a really neat experience, and maybe in the future I'll be able to understand them and be able to talk back. In the meantime, it's a lot of sitting.

Here's the beautiful skylight that is found in pretty much every traditional house.

Hooray for indoor heating that also doubles as the stove.

The fantastic spread before the meat was brought out...fresh cream, fresh yogurt, and homemade bread, along with a few sweets.

Pumpkin Soup

When I lived in Africa to teach for an absolutely amazing family (HAPPY BIRTHDAY MICAH!!!), they introduced me to many new and wonderful things. One of them was pumpkin soup, which was Micah's favorite meal at the time (don't know if it's been replace by anything else since then), so in order to celebrate his birthday week and my success in making sweet-ish (whoops!) pumpkin soup, here's the start to finish of the project that occurred several weeks ago when we were still in the capital.

I  never actually cooked it in Africa...just ate it. But while in the States there were two ingredients that made making it really easy. One was canned pumpkin. Um...that's not available here. So instead the process started with this: 

Select a pumpkin...Check!

Turn the pumpkin into puree...Check!

Ground your own nutmeg...Check!

Make some yummy soup...Check! (But next time, distinguish between sugar and salt before cooking...heehee!)

Deeeeelicious!

On a different note, today was the first day of snow! It normally starts at the end of December, but it's the beginning of November. Wonder what this means for our first winter here...

In our Town

Welcome to the little pieces of our life that we'll be able to share via this blog. At times it may be boring, and other times we hope you find yourselves laughing until you tear up. But in all occasions, we hope that you get a glimpse into the crazy adventure of a life that we've been led to lead and feel like you're able to walk this road with us (whether it's a safe one or on the side of a mountain).

Once we find the camera where the pictures of our arrival trip are stored, we'll see if it works to upload some of them, so be on the lookout. And comments are good motivation to keep writing, so if you have any thoughts that you'd like to share, put them on here or shoot us an e-mail.

Here's to years of life on the edge...