A Trip Up A Valley

Work often takes us out and about to some interesting places. In December a rather strong earthquake struck one of the valleys in these mountains and caused some serious damage. Loss of life was minimal but the damage to some of the homes in the villages was rather extensive and sparked a rather large response with several countries donating significant funds to the response. Our organization typically focuses on the long-term response to disasters, so it was some time before we were asked to make a trip up the valley, but mid-February seemed to be that time.

            This valley is one of the most remote areas in these mountains. Typically the roads are closed from the first heavy snowfall until late March. The road is bad in the best of times, impassible of the river is too high or the snow is too thick. With the earthquake the road has been kept open by the government, so we could drive up, but it was still a challenging trip to say the least. It’s only about 100 miles up the valley, but at a whopping 15 miles an hour average, you are going to be on the road quite a while.

            My dad has asked me what the roads are like sometimes. I grew up in Africa, bad roads are a point of pride for people from my background. We take pictures of donkeys laying down in potholes, of roads with mud halfway up the tires on our way to church, this is one of the things that defines life in Africa. These roads aren’t really that bad. That said, in Africa, if you end up off the road, you are well… off the road. You might get stuck and have a long night pulling a car out of some unpleasant terrain, but you really just went off the road.

            This valley had roads that would have been a challenge in Africa, narrow and rocky with plenty of challenging areas to pull through, but with the added joy of being on the edge of a cliff and ice on the road. There is nothing quite like driving for 8 hours knowing that slipping off the road is a life-threatening proposition. The road is only one lane wide, so there isn’t a lot of slip in the ice before you end up worrying less about getting the car unstuck and more about getting out of it before you drown.

            Even in the midst of stressful driving, it was amazing how beautiful this valley was. There are long stretches of barren nothingness, a rather common thing in this part of the world, but everywhere you look there are magnificent peaks and stunning valleys. The higher villages feel like communities at the end of the world, yet you are welcomed with open arms by people who just had what little they owned to begin with threatened with total destruction. We slept on the floor of rooms sharing them with people who lost their own houses not long before. We even got to see aid work at its best, USAID donated several yurts (large, round movable tents, like a central-asian teepee) that were serving as shelters for several families, material was being delivered as we were there and, even in -15 degree weather people were starting the recovery process.

            It’s exhausting to go out for two nights and three days on a trip like this. I have learned how little I need to carry with me when I travel (a toothbrush, toothpaste, some deodorant, I am good for about a week) and we eat what people put before us and talk in their language all day. I would never say it is comfortable, but it’s amazing to get to take trips like this and see a part of the world so few people get to see. There are many tourist attractions up here that I have yet to go by and experience (it’s not easy to make time for them when we really prefer to not vacation in mountains) but the villages and roads we do get to see are a really neat part of living where we live.

Just a little view of the mountain road up the valley. I really only took pictures of the nice parts of the road, the other ones left me far too focused on not dying. 

A Cheed (house) in one of the upper villages. 

This hydroelectric generator is the sole source of power for one village. Nothing like a little elbow grease and ingenuity to keep something going. 

When a truck is stuck along the road you stop to help them out. It's the only nice thing to do, besides, you aren't going anywhere until they are out.

Walking along to inspect a house. 

Earthquake damage. International donors have insured most of these heavily damaged houses already are on a list to be rebuilt. 

One of the USAID yurts a family is using for the winter. 

The earthquake added a new window here. 

This is the current drinking water source for about 40 households in one village. The ice is about a foot and a half thick here, so everyone knocks the ice out of the hole each morning when they come to get water. Bringing a pipe for drinking water into the village is one of our possible projects this coming spring. 

Bringing water in by donkey. Got to have those kids do something.

Distributing building materials in the top village in this valley. 

No one lives higher up than this village, though you can walk higher up to a pass in the summer.

Inspecting a really old house.

This is what happens when an earthquake takes down the walls of these houses. They are built with wooden pillars inside so that even if all the walls come down the roof stays up. This is why loss of life was so low, very few if any houses completely collapsed even if many are not livable any more.

Just a village on an early morning. 

This village has three trees that are shrines. I have never seen anything like them, huge ancient junipers that are corkscrewed up. At this altitude they are at least a few hundred years old, probably predating Islam here. The three are 500 yards apart in a straight line up the valley. 

The shrine house for the trees.

This is one of the little interesting features of the road, an icefall right on the way up the valley. 

It's a big one. You might not be able to tell, but there are blocks of ice the size of a car engine laying on the road, they were falling on the road as we drove. You had to just go up and over piles of ice to get by here, trying not to slip into the river. Not a bad place to ice climb if that's your thing though. 

Never let a little winter or frozen river get in the way of a good soccer game. Yep, it's a good bit below freezing and this kids put up a soccer goal. They seemed to be having fun too. 

One of the little houses up there. It's a rather poor valley. 

                                          

Meeting Surprise!

So often we are asked what a day in our lives looks like. Honestly, so many days look so different it’s hard to tell. Sometimes it’s an easy routine of keeping life going, other days it seems there is a mad scramble of work and keeping your nose above water. Other days are entirely unexpected and surprising, like one day a couple weeks back for Matt.

            We had gone to the local ministry of emergencies the day before to ask about visiting a local earthquake area that was in need of response. That evening Matt got a call from our engineer that the governor wanted us to come to a meeting the next day at ten. This is not entirely unusual, we have a pretty good relationship with the local government and we like to know and relate to them well, so we sometimes come by to meet and talk about common priorities and meeting them. So, Matt dressed up expecting a few minutes in the office with the highest official here and a chance to introduce himself as director. The other people at the office were a bit surprised to see him in a tie, but you have to make a good impression.

            Matt and our engineer, we can call him Greg, made it to the government building a little early and didn’t go up to the office but instead went into the large auditorium for major meetings. It seats about 200-250 people and was rapidly filling up. Ok, so this is unexpected. We’ve seen this before though, everyone stands up to report and they probably want us around just in case the ministry of emergencies needed to point us out as helping out with housing in the earthquake response. That is what we thought until the governor came in anyway.

            Now, it’s always a bit challenging to follow any language when native speakers are speaking to one another. It’s even harder here with “government language” which is a little more “pure” so unlike anything normal people speak. Even at that, Matt was pretty quick to recognize that this particular meeting had been called by the governor to bring in all the NGOs and have them report publicly on what projects they had planned in the main town here in the coming year. This is slightly awkward as we pretty much had settled on not doing any projects here, since our last few have had little positive response and a huge amount of headache. It was even more fun when the government presented a list of priorities they had which they expected us to meet in our projects. Luckily a few other groups were in line in front of us, though Matt got slightly more unnerved when each one was soundly chided in front of the entire room of every official or representative of importance in our town for not planning a project meeting these government priorities. Yay. Did I mention the tv camera? Yeah, this is big enough for local news to be covering it.

            Inevitably, despite possible prayers on Matt’s part for a small local disaster to end the meeting early, it came time for our NGO to report. There was more than a slight murmur in the room as the ONLY foreigner present walked up to take his turn. At least our engineer got to come up to help with the report. Matt made his little spur of the moment speech offering what our NGO could do (luckily water was one of their top needs and water is what we are doing mostly these days). The governor seemed to be happy to meet him and hear our report and we did manage to get out of the customary public shaming. There was another nearly two hours left of listening to needs and complaints from the community and assigning tasks, we don’t know if we will actually get a list of things we need to do or not since it wasn’t decided in the meeting. Matt did manage to get out of it without offending the entire room, and it seems this is one way to introduce the new director to the community. He even got to be on tv that night it seems.

            They say everyone gets 15 minutes of fame. It seems ours is in a local tv station in the remote mountains of Central Asia, but you take what you can get.

Moving Again

I (Matt) have very few skill sets that I feel I am unquestionably talented at. I am a moderately good mountain bike rider, not too bad at language learning, a good reader and writer, I even am decent at acting, but in none of these areas do I feel like I am among "the best." There is one exception. I am nearly convinced that I am one of the finest packers in the world.

This is a skill built from nearly a lifetime of putting everything I own into boxes, bags, or suitcases and moving it all to a new place. My family first moved overseas when I was four and we lived in a very rural area, so several times a year our car was loaded to busting and we went to a capital city to restock. I watched my dad pack and unpack as far back as I can remember. I was 14 when I started this on my own, back and forth to boarding school with a couple of checked bags and everything else in storage for three terms and breaks a year. Three years in Nepal, living in Texas then North Carolina, moving from one apartment to another, then a move to Central Asia. Living here we pack up more often than I can say for short moves and have called two different houses home here (another in the US) until this year. Yeah, when it comes to packing, I am good.

I am not saying it comes stress free, it's a learned art form to put furniture, pictures, dishes, office supplies, kids' toys, winter and summer clothes (always remember to keep them separate for easy storage afterwards) all in their place, remember where they are, and put it all away in a somewhat organized state in the new location. It comes from years of practice, you just know how socks can keep a glass from breaking or how to layer shirts between pictures to keep them in one piece. You know how to use footlockers for breakables and keep extra clothes or jackets in duffel bags. You know you had better put the kitchen up last and get it out first if you want to eat, even if it's the hardest room to pack.

Life has once again called the Mitchell family to a move. We are back in the first town we lived in as I am taking the roll of director of our NGO. Like all moves, it comes with mourning as we leave friends behind, but as so often, that gets drowned in the particular stresses of packing and moving in this place. No moving companies to call, we asked around and got a dump truck for all our big items. I made four or five (they all blend together in memories) trips in to town on my own with a full car of stuff that wouldn't fit in the dump truck. The day we moved we weren't sure if we were even going to try at 9am, by 10:30 a truck was in our yard, it left at 12:30, not a lot of closure time there. Through it all Cindy had the fun of corralling a couple very active toddlers while I did most of the packing and unpacking along the way. It complicates things when the packing of toys has to take place at nap time so that someone isn't unpacking immediately.

We are now settled in our new home, with a foot of snow on the ground outside. The boys love the stairs (balls go down them really well) and the big kitchen where they can "help" mommy cook and rearrange spice containers. Mom and Dad are loving the luxurious new house with amazing features like a big heater, indoor toilet and shower, and (newly arrived from the capital) an automatic washing machine with a DRIER. Yeah, we are living the high life now. Now if we can just figure out where to put everything, we will be good.

Visiting a Baby

Today the boys and I set out on a local adventure without Matt, since that’s the culturally appropriate way to handle this. One of my friend’s younger sisters had her first child, a daughter, 10 days ago. She hadn’t gotten the chance to go visit so asked if I could help out. Ladies, especially with their firstborn, stay with their parents after giving birth so they can be taken care of and rest. Quite the system if you ask me!

Since the ladies rest, only close male family members are allowed, plus other women. Hence Matt not going. So Michael, Samuel, my friend, and I loaded up in the car with gifts (and an empty liter jar since my friend’s parents are our source for local milk…2 birds, 1 stone!) and picked up her mom and daughter along the way. I got complimented on my language ability (this was while having my friend re-say everything her mom said so that I could understand it) and played the creation story in their language in the background.

The house is just outside of town, so it’s not easy for my friend to get out there. Thus us having a vehicle is a bonus for her. And her parents are great! So it’s a pleasure to take the boys out there for an hour or so to visit.

The visit was mostly just sitting around while talking went on around us, especially since her parents and older brother were getting ready to go to a funeral a little over 2 hours away. But the highlights included Michael eating salt milk tea with butter, yogurt, and fried eggs (the only local foods he likes, and it was his first time trying the milk tea) and him getting to play with and watch a plethora of animals, including a kitten, rabbits, cows, goats, a turkey, and a renegade dog (Michael wasn’t afraid, but my friend was for him!). The lowlight was when Michael stepped on the 10-day-old girl. Yowsers! Talk about me panicking! They were super gracious and didn’t seem upset by it at all, and even invited us to come back again, but man, did I feel horrible!

So that was our outing! I told my friend on the way back about a difference between our cultures. In America, it’s not uncommon for someone visiting a new baby to hold the baby. But she didn’t hold her sister’s baby, and that’s not the first time I’ve seen the sister not hold the newborn. She said she didn’t know why it’s like that, but that if she finds out she’ll tell me. She then said that she’s afraid of holding the baby because she’s so small (I’m guessing this is the common reason, but that’s just a guess).

Oh, and I forgot my camera, though don't know if they would have been comfortable with me taking pictures anyway. And since my phone is a dumb phone, there wasn't even that for a backup. Oh well, maybe some other time.

 

Welcome Thumperl!

Um, wow...delay in blogging? Yes, this definitely falls in that category.

A lot has happened since October, and yet not much has happened all at the same time. We took a 3 week vacation to visit Matt's parents in Zambia (and my old stompin' ground after college). Then we went to a meeting in Turkey, where a doctor from the US was concerned about me going into labor early. So we ended up not going back to our country (well, Matt went for 3 days and was able to get some things in order) awaiting the arrival of Thumper.

So now we have another child. Very strange since we left the US 2 1/2 years ago as a couple, and now we  have two little boys. But we'll be back on that side of the ocean later this year to do introductions, and we're really looking forward to that!

"Every birth is different, or so I've been told. And this definitely seems to be the case. When hearing stories of other ladies who have given birth in Turkey, I had my hopes for a speedy, starting-on-its-own delivery."

 This quote is how I started the blog about Michael's delivery. Um, this is exactly what happened this time. And I didn't even remember writing this! Funny how Dad works. He did give me the desires of my heart...15 1/2 months later! :)

Thumper was due March 7. I had been going to checkups every 10 days because of the US doctor's concern about early delivery. At first my doctor didn't see these things, but she kept a close eye on me and did tell me when she saw things that could indicate an early delivery. So I tried to take it easy (between a fabulous husband and an excellent family we were sharing an apartment with, this actually was able to happen most of the time!). On Feb. 17, a Monday, I went in for a checkup. At this point I was past the concern mark and a delivery at any point would be fine and Thumper wouldn't have to go to NICU. My doctor said I wouldn't be making it to 40 weeks, so sometime in the next 2 weeks we would get to meet our 2nd child.

Stereotype? You betcha!

We then headed to the mall as a family of 3 (after going on a hunt for Coldstone Creamery near where we were staying...sadly, it hadn't opened up yet). We walked through the mall after grabbing lunch at the food court (hooray for Arby's!) where I even told Matt that I wasn't mentally prepped for having 2 kids yet. I know, 8 1/2 months of prep time and I hadn't gotten there. Just call me slow.

When going to bed that night, I told Matt that I thought something might be different. There was some mild pain in my lower belly, and it felt different than it had other nights. So I let the flatmates know (by this time there were two other families in the apartment...each family had a bedroom) and promptly fell asleep at 10:30. This was strange because for several nights prior I couldn't fall asleep until sometime after 11.

At 2 I made a bathroom run, then laid in bed for the next 30 minutes rocking myself through pains (at which point you say "Why didn't you call the doctor?" Again...slow.) I wasn't convinced they were real contractions instead of Braxton Hicks. So from 2:30-4:30am, I googled the differences online, timed them, and wrote a couple e-mails. At 4:30 I finally woke up Matt to ask about the cell phone. After a brief moment of tears brought on by nerves, I talked to my doctor who said to go to the hospital and have them check me out. We woke up a flatmate to ask her to keep Michael, and out the door we went (after fumbling around packing the hospital bag in the dark while trying not to wake up Michael...theme of the post: slow.)

She called ahead and apparently told the nurse she expected it to be false labor. After all, she had just seen me less than 24 hours ago! My final words before walking through the hospital doors were to tell Matt that I wanted an epidural. But when the nurse checks you at 5:20 and you're already at 8cm, that goes out the window really quickly.

My doctor got there at 5:40, found me at 9 cm, and broke my water to help hurry things up. Fine by me! Don't know when the pushing started, but it was less than 30 minutes. I kept digging my nails into Matt's hand saying "I don't like this! It hurts!" But at 6:18am, our newest addition completely arrived. Another boy! Matt was pumped because he and one of our flatmates were the only people throughout the entire pregnancy to guess boy. And it made my heart happy to know that Michael would be growing up with a brother close in age to play with.

Helloooooo Samuel!

That said, may we introduce you to Samuel Slayton Mitchell. He was born at 2.805 kg and 50 cm (that's 6 lbs. 3ish oz and about 19.7 in.). And for those of you wondering, Michael made the adjustment quite well and either ignores or tries to care for his younger brother. Couldn't have imagined that going as smoothly as it has.

Pardon Matt's crazy eyes...trying to keep a wiggly newly-walking little boy still for the self-photo was a real trick!

My heart melts every time looking at this picture.

3 Becomes 4

So obviously we're waaaaaaay behind on the blog posting thing. This is actually a trial run to see if it's even possible to post from home. Our internet isn't anything fabulous, but sometimes it surprises us at what it's capable of doing. I'll try to upload a picture as well, but if there's not one...well, then you know that didn't work out.

Our big news at the moment (though you probably already know this either via our updates or Facebook) is that there's another little Mitchell bun in the oven! Due early March, "Thumper" and Mikey will be about 16 months apart. Whether this one is a boy or a girl will hopefully be a surprise yet again, but either way, we're expecting these two kiddos to become good friends quickly.

We had a teammate who just had a baby in Turkey and they used a different hospital than we did, though the doctor was the same. From their initial tour of the hospital, it sounds like a better fit than the other one. Not that the other one was really bad or anything...just that this has some improvements on it. Like, for example, the labor and delivery area is not only on the same floor as the recovery area, but is NOT in the basement. Hooray for windows! It didn't bother me like I thought it would, but what a mental joy it will be to not be in the basement for that, plus quicker getting to the recovery room. Anywho, we're excited.

Life has gotten slower here (and we weren't sure that could happen initially). We not have jars of tomatoes, salsa, and pickles (dill, break & butter, and hot dog relish), so here's to hoping they were done well enough to still be good in a few months. But I can officially say that we've broken into the canning world. Now, don't get too impressed. I'm pretty sure that anyone in the western world would be appalled at the method and equipment we used, but we were taught the local way and that's all we know...and frankly all we're currently equipped to do.

Introducing Thumper! Can you find the head and the rather round belly?

A New Home

The living room, packed full of stuff.

The small bedroom, stuff all in it.

The river just below our house. It's also the border.

Our living room, cleaned up. We have a nice, big cabinet in it, some storage room that we really like having.

Looking to the right in the living room. The couches all came with the house.

Our kitchen. We also enjoy these cabinets, although we have less room than we used to. Things are a little tight in these cabinets, so we are thinking of getting some to add.

The kitchen sink and tables. We don't have any counter space yet.

Michael's room. We put our old couch/chair set in here, figured it would be easier to spread out in here and not worry about keeping it too clean.

Our hall. I am standing at the front door. The first door on the left is our bedroom. The second is Michael's, with a storage room behind it. Straight ahead is the living room. To the right, behind the fridge, is the door to the kitchen. There is a hall on my right to the bathroom.

The bathroom with our washing machine.

Our water heater and the rest of the bathroom. Note the lack of a toilet. Also note the bucket with a lid. 'Nuff said for now.

Our view from the kitchen window. This is our yard, the toilet is the small room on the far left of the picture, mud walls an a low roof. We do have a pretty decent view

We have a new home. I am sorry it took as long as it did to upload pictures, but life has been a combination of slow internet and extreme busy-ness. We have a good story about the moving process as well.
If you have been doing much keeping up with us lately, you will know that about 2 weeks ago, the Mitchells made a move to a new house and town. After a year and a half in the town we have called home, we packed up our stuff once again, and moved to the district headquarters of another area about 3 hours away. Don't let the term "district headquarters" fool you, it's a town of a little over 3,000 people with a tiny bazaar and four roads. Perhaps we felt like we weren't living remote enough. 
Moving in Central Asia is an experience in and of itself. We had to hire moving trucks on our own. One truck was too small, so we hired two "chinese pickups" and asked the drivers to be at our house at nine. One showed at 8:30, the driver and Matt loaded that car and got him on his way. The second showed at 11, but this driver had a severe limp, so we both loaded what we could, then we asked for our teammates to come help load the heavy stuff. Eventually it all made it, some of the chairs were scratched or missing legs, but all told it was a very successful move.
We are very happy  to be in our new home, settling in, meeting neighbors. We wanted to share a few pictures of where we live, hopefully we will post again soon about how life is different in our new place.