Nav Ruz

Nav Ruz is Persian New Year, a major holiday for any people of Persian descent (Afghans, Tajiks, Iranians). Our little town had a big party in front of the government building, sort of town hall, with stalls, dancing, and displays, sort of a little county fair. It did take place in March, so our timing is a bit late, but with internet this is when we could post pictures. 

Nav Ruz partiers at the line of stalls, showing off and selling wares

Demonstrations from the local martial arts classes.

Traditional dances.

Cooking Osh in big pots. This is a traditional meal, cooked the traditional way. Basically it's flavored rice.

Traditional instruments and dress. The couples in the back are wearing traditional wedding dress.

At several points in the festivities, all the little kids just got up to dance. I think we need more holidays where unsupervised children dance randomly in public.

Everyone carries around plates of grass. I think it symbolizes new life in the new year.

And the dutch aren't the only ones with wooden shoes.

Food types on display.

Traditional dress, bride and her dad.

Wooden and metal handicrafts.

Pictures from Down the Road

Much later than hoped or anticipated, I am finally publishing some more pictures for your viewing pleasure, these from a trip in march to a disaster sight.

Clearing an avalanche the covered the road on the other side of the border.

Driving through a partially cleared avalanche.

This particular one was blocked by a truck stuck in the snow. This was the first delay of the trip.

Yep, the bulldozer is pushing the truck out.

And the second delay. You can catch the size of the rocks by the guys standing next to them.

Blowing the rocks with dynamite, that just happened to be in our car.

Then the bulldozer comes in to push rocks.

Oh yeah, we don't exactly have to stand clear in this process. Yeah, that guy is standing in front of the bulldozer.

Caves in the hills. People used to use them to hide out from the raiders in the 4th Century.

Another avalanche, this one that crossed the river.

Mudslide up to a school wall.

Damage to the inside of a local house we are helping to rebuild. It simply filled with mud.

This is the outside of the houses. They are almost buried.

A more open stretch of land that is on both sides of the border.

Travel

 

So I think we have established by now that we live in a pretty remote and interesting part of the world. One of the interesting things we get to experience is a different kind of travel from anything we have really done before. By comparison to the US, it is never boring. It is sometimes dangerous, often tedious, but never boring. Take this last trip for example.

For work I (Matt for those keeping track) got to go at the end of the week on a trip to a remote valley high up in the mountains here. It’s about an eight hour drive, there and back, under normal conditions. Ok, so maybe not under normal conditions, but under good conditions. This is not the time of year one can expect good conditions, but hope springs eternal so we hoped to go up and do our work, turn around and come back in the same day.

About 40km out of town, not a quarter of the drive yet, that plan was revealed to be slightly flawed. There was an avalanche that was causing us a delay. Now, we had already passed more avalanches on the road than I could count (you really stop trying after the first couple dozen) but most were small (only a few yards wide and maybe 10 feet of snow or less) and were pretty easily cleared. Bulldozers work up and down the road all winter cutting through them, so you just zoom on by. This one was different. About half a mile of the road was covered, enough to take a lot of work to clear, and some rather large trucks had tried to cross too early and got stuck. The bulldozer (left behind with the fall of the Soviet Union, I kid you not) was clearing snow and pushing the trucks out from behind. After two trucks got pushed out we were able to work our way through without getting stuck and stopped on the other side of the avalanche.

The reason we stopped on the other side is that another couple kilometers up the road a rock slide blocked any further progress. This wasn’t a couple basketball sized boulders in the middle of the road, this was pickup sized boulders in a really big pile where the road used to be. This turned out to be more of a challenge. Luckily the local government/army official riding with us had dynamite (a fact I was blissfully unaware of until that moment. How was I supposed to know that the guy in the back seat with a bundle wrapped up in newspaper was carrying high and unstable explosives? I guess that’s way the other cars didn’t want to take him) so they set a couple of charges and cracked some of the bigger boulders. Now I don’t know much about dynamite (I do know how it smells after it blows now though) but it seems to me that setting it off in an area already prone to rock slides and avalanches is maybe not the safest undertaking, but you do what you have to do. They only had enough for two explosions, so again we turned to a Soviet-era bulldozer.

In she comes and starts pushing rocks up to the edge of the cliff (did I mention all of this was taking place on the edge of a rather steep cliff that ended in a rather cold and fast river?) and then moving back to push more over. Very slowly we watched it move rocks around while a large crew of road workers and well wishers stood right around the bulldozer giving advice and directions. This is one major difference in road repair here. There weren’t any hard hats, orange cones, or people keeping you away. We just stood around (on the very rocks they were trying to move) and jumped in when we wanted to help. It was very much a different experience from the US where they won’t let you within a mile of explosives or bulldozers in rock slide areas.

Nine hours later, we were through both the avalanche and the rock slide. We did get delayed one more time that evening with an avalanche that a bulldozer was working on, but this one was just about 15 minutes of sitting. We did the work we needed to do up the valley and came back the next day. This time we hoped the road would be clear. No, this time we came upon a new avalanche with a new complication. A bulldozer was at work here too, but the transmission went out as it was in the middle of the road. So, now we can’t get around the bulldozer or over the pile of snow until we fix the transmission and move the bulldozer and try to get over the pile of snow, in the dark, on an avalanche. Sure enough, the resourceful and talented people on the road fixed the bulldozer in the dark (I don’t even know where to find the transmission on a bulldozer, I wasn’t even sure they had one) and shovel enough snow out that the cars could pass. Our wonderful Russian van jumped right over the pile and got out of the snow with no problem and only a couple hour delay. About 45 minutes from the end of our journey, wouldn’t you know it, a flat tire. We didn’t just get a hole, we busted the tire on a rock or something and then had to repair the fan in the engine. We got home around 11 at night, making the day long trip into a full two-day journey.

It’s rather interesting to travel here. Most of the road is always in imminent danger of rock slides and avalanches at any given moment, and seeing big rocks just sitting in the middle of the road is common. At any given time one could hit your car and there really isn’t any way to deal with that danger. I was talking to our driver looking at a major avalanche across the river and said it’s dangerous here, you have to be careful. He answered, no you don’t. Being careful doesn’t help. You just pray. Yes, yes we do. 

With our internet speed I won't try for pictures, check back in a week for pictures of road work you can't get in the US.

Excited about Life after Death

Someone that I have known since a youth just passed away this last week, and I had a potentially strange emotion immediately upon finding out: JOY!

This man is now no longer in pain and no longer worrying. He is sitting at the feet of His Maker, enjoying the place prepared for him, and basking in the beauty of JC's radiance and light, along with all kinds of other wonderful things that are possible. Our Dad is sooooo good, there's no way we could limit thoughts about Heaven to looking brainwashed, playing harps, and getting angels' wings (plus there's absolutely no foundation for those conclusions). What we get to look forward to, in part, is finally getting to enjoy the life that the Garden of Eden was supposed to provide...stupid sin!

My heart goes out to his family as they learn to walk through life with their earthly father and husband now enjoying their heavenly Father. What a road they have ahead while still here on earth...but what a joyous reunion when they get together with him again in the future and together get to experience Dad fully.

Clean Clothes for Valentines Day

Hopefully, you will find this as amusing as we did. If not, you can laugh at the fact that we found this amusing. Either way, please laugh. Or at least chuckle. Or giggle maybe???

Anyway, here's the scoop: I'm not good at doing laundry by hand since we currently don't have running water in our house. Or, let me clarify that statement a bit. Sometimes water comes up out of the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor after we've poured down more than the partially frozen pipes can handle, but that's not really considered running water. That's more like standing water.

So I'm not good at doing laundry by hand. I am, however, incredibly resourceful. While studying to be an early childhood education major, that's what seemed to strike me more than anything. So much of what we did was teach information, but an almost equal thing we did was teach kids how to be resourceful. If they didn't know something, where and how could they find it?

So, knowing that I'm not good at laundry, and wishfully spending each day giving our currently lifeless washing machine a glance and reassuring thoughts ("I want to use you, but just can't." "It's not you, or me...it's the lack of water." "No, you haven't been forgotten. I would use you if I could."), the realization dawned on me. We don't have water. However, we DO have power!

This quickly became one of those situations where later I said, "But in America this would have worked." Note to self: You are not in America, you are not in America, you are not in America. Maybe I have enough memorized now.

In the States, a washing machine works in such a way that you can turn the dial to the portion of the cycle that says spin, and it will just spin. That's it. No water required.

This machine that came with the house we're renting is all in Russian. Before the first use, I translated everything with an app on our computer and drew it out just like it is on the machine. Since there was a button that seemed to let you select wash, rinse, or spin, I figured that when only the light above the spin picture was lit, then it would just spin.

Wrong!

The clothes got locked in the machine (yay front-loading washer) because it couldn't get water in...why it needed water, I have no clue! But since it couldn't get water in, it wouldn't get to spinning. and it wouldn't finish a cycle which would unlock the door in order for us to retrieve our much-needed clothes (pretty much all of both of our base layer stuff was in there).

After several hours of it just sitting in there, we tried doing different settings again. No luck. Then Matt unhooked the water hose so he could try pouring water into it. Again, no luck. Just when we were about to give up, I remembered that the little drawer where the detergent goes gets water in it in order to dilute to powder. So we chose the setting that was rinse and spin only, and started pouring in water through the drawer. IT WORKED!!!!

I was doing the happy dance while it was spinning because we wouldn't have to tell our landlords the next day, when a rap-tap-tapping came on the door. Guess who? BUSTED! Oh well, they didn't say anything about it, so guess it didn't alarm them too much. Needless to say, after they left (they were trying to fix the frozen drainage situation...still is a problem though), we both laughed at the hilarity of the situation.

But now I have a trick to get the soap and water out better than I can do by hand: rinse and spin in the machine. Hooray for being resourceful...and HAPPY BELATED VALENTINES DAY!

Merry Christmas!

 Okay, so this is a little bit late. Make that almost 2 months late. But oh well. Better late than never, right?

When we got to the capital, awaiting us were a couple packages. Actually, they spread themselves out over the next several weeks, so we got to get goodies over the span of 4 weeks, one at a time. Not a bad deal.

First arrived a package from Zambia. Yep, that's right: Africa. Matt's parent's live there and they wanted to contribute to making our first Christmas abroad special. It only took a few weeks for this one to arrive. This bad boy made it before we went to our meeting. Check out all the stamps that it took!

Inside were several food goodies, like coffee, tea, sprinkles, and icing, as well as some seasonings and reminders of Zambia.

Next we received the Christmas presents from my parents and sister. Though it was mailed before Matt's parents mailed theirs, it took a few weeks longer for it to arrive. Go figure. Guess that coming from a third world country is faster than from the good ol' US of A. Go figure!

So my family, though we don't think of ourselves as having many traditions, has traditions. In keeping with such, each present was neatly wrapped and labeled with a "to/from" sticker. Marvelous packing job guys! It didn't look like anything shifted at all.

 My parents also sent another box that had a HU-MON-GOUS stainless steel french press/carafe from REI and a container of coffee creamer. Needless to say, both have been put to good use every morning since they arrived.

Last, but definitely not least, is the box that my sister sent. Matt's Kindle died once we got here (of course it would), so he was going without. But below you will see the happy man reading electronically once again (current selection: Is That a Fish In Your Ear?: Translation and the Meaning of Everything). He was so excited about getting the Kindle out and checking it out that we completely forgot to take a picture of the goodies inside. But the socks are my bedtime socks, the chocolates have been consumed...completely, and the other goodies have been put to good use or are waiting the perfect time to use them.

Thanks family for all you're doing to stay connected while we're over here. The e-mails are priceless, the phone calls are fabulous, and, well, anything tangible is simply fantastic (though if we had to choose something to drop, it would be the stuff...we like communication!!).

Love you all!!!

Language Fun

Disclaimer: This post is free-thinking. That is, it follows stream of conscious thought. If you get lost in it, don't worry. We do too.

            Any of you who have ever learned a new language, not for a class or for fun but for necessity of life, know what a joy that process is. Yeah, sure. It’s a struggle for anyone, even those good at learning it. One of the added joys to the particular language we are learning is a new alphabet. Now, it’s not a hard alphabet, not anything like Devanagri (for Hindi or Nepali) or a Chinese alphabet. It is Cyrillic basically, the Russian alphabet with a few changes. It is phonetic (each letter makes one sound) and the letters look remarkably like Latin (English) letters. That is where the fun comes from:

            Let’s start with vowels. A is normal, pretty easy to deal with, E looks right and sounds right, O, yep, still doing well. I? Well, I is a backwards N, sounds like a short I (mit) but looks like И. Oh, and the N is an H. So bread, Non, is HOH. Fun huh. This, of course, means you will never be able to write a capital N in English again in your life without pondering for a second how to write it. The H is a X with a tail on the end of the bottom right side. The X without a tail brings us to another joy of this language, gutturals. These are sounds that aren’t in English at all, but are formed at the very back of the throat. German has one (the X sound in our language, sort of like you are clearing your throat) but we have the joy of two more: K with a tail (a K made with your throat, not your tongue, just try it, it’s fun) and what looks like a F (the X, but you add voice to it, sounds like you are gargling). They use X all the time too (the words for house, how are you, good, all these use gutturals) so you get a clear throat on a constant basis. Now, just to keep you hopping, there is an F without the lower line, the Г. You would think it would be an R, nope, it’s G. R is P. Yep, that’s right, so from now on you never will be sure writing R if you actually need that little tail. We do have something that looks like R though, the Я. It’s fun, it’s ya. It’s what is called a yoted vowel, one that starts with y sound. We have four of those: ё (sounds like yo, not ye), ю (yu) and й (yi) round them out. Just in case you thought you were done with vowels, we do have a y, it’s u (like in Luke, unless it has a line over it, in which case it is look, or maybe I have those backwards). If you really do like the u look though, we have it in handwriting, it is the cursive version of И. Yes, many of the cursive words have no relation whatsoever to the English or typed letters. A g handwritten is the D sound (a Д) and the handwritten T (wonderfully enough, a T in our alphabet) looks like M. Oh, we have an M, it is M, it even is handwritten M, but it has a rounded top, the T is pointed. Joy.

We do lose some sounds, there is no W in this alphabet, but we do have the Ш. It’s sh. Do you happen to like the letter B? If you do, Russian is great for you. They have lots, we only use a few. В, capitalized or not, is the v sound. On the other hand б is the sound b in English. Ъ isn’t a sound at all, it’s a glottal stop used on words imported from Arabic, sort of like the middle sound in uh-oh. Just in case that’s not enough for you, occasionally things are written in Russian, so we also get the Ь and Ы and I don't even know what sounds they make. We do have a C, but it always sounds like s. Always. Numbers are the same, but З is not 3, it is a z sound. On the other hand, a backwards Euro sign Э is a soft e, sort of like in “eh”. P is fun, it’s П, not P (remember P is R and Я is ya) Now, just in case you thought the pi thing is easy, they also have Л, a very close letter, which is the L sound. There is no plain vertical line, like I or l, those are only in Russian and I don’t know what sound that is at all. Other than that they have the ch sound Ч and something like the j in judge Ж as well as our normal j, the ch sound with a tail. It’s not in Russian, they added it for our language by the tail, so I can’t type it. Other than that, it’s really a very easy and simple alphabet.

            Ah, the joys of language, and we haven’t even mentioned learning the language and having a high version (the one that everyone teaches you, the one written in literature, but not how anyone talks at all) and a street version (what you actually need to be able to speak, but it’s nearly illegal to learn it in class, so you have to fight to have someone actually give you those words and grammar structures which are in no grammar books) and living in a place where this language is not the native one, so no one wants to speak it.

Somehow though, we are picking it up, little by little, talking with people, and actually learning to love speaking it. Once you start communicating, reading, and even writing in another language like this, even though you sound like you are 2 (look me, I go market, I come after your house and tea drink, me like eating tea) somehow they understand you and you understand bits of what they say, and it’s all worthwhile. Sometimes, it is actually pretty fun.