Seasons

            One interesting aspect of life in the mountains of Central Asia is seasons. Now, I know, seasons are pretty common to the human experience. The earth isn’t straight on its axis, so any location on the planet is going to experience regular changes in temperature and climate on a yearly basis. But much of the modern world has relegated seasons to a small part of life that really changes very little on a day to day basis. We live and work in air conditioned and heated buildings, import foods grown far afield or in greenhouses, and do most of our entertainment and recreation ensconced safely in buildings that shield us from all but the most extreme weather. Sure, the trip from the car door to other doors is more or less pleasant based on if it is winter or summer, but for the most part even a wardrobe hardly needs to change more than one or two layers.

            Here seasons matter. We live life in something of a rhythm we are just not used to in the US. We open the windows in the late spring, turn on the a/c in summer on hot days, close the windows again in the fall, and turn on the heaters in the winter. We eat cherries, strawberries, apricots, apples, lemons, peaches, and pears based on when they ripen in our yard or show up in the bazaar.

Even our work takes a yearly rhythm in a season. Spring is when we work to start up and inspect all the projects of the coming year, hearing about the damage and disaster from the winter. In the summer we work full days and travel up and down all the valleys, implementing projects, delivering materials, spending nights and days out on the road. In the fall we scramble to finish up each project before it is too cold to continue, spend a little leftover money on small repairs in villages, and start a list for next year. In the winter we pause, except for a few disaster responses we get to rest a bit and take stock of what we have done in the previous year and what our next year is going to look like.            

There is something reassuring and peaceful in a seasonal life. Strawberries are pretty special when they come in, a reason for celebrating even. Winter is a lot more enjoyable when you can remember how tough travel and visiting can be when it’s really hot, summer is more fun when you enjoy turning off the heaters in the house and opening up the windows. Work changes from season to season, keeping boredom at bay. Even our leisure and recreation changes from season to season, moving indoors when it’s cold and back outside when it warms up.

Now, we are just as eager as anyone else to take advantage of a/c and central heat when we get back to the US. We enjoy an indoor pool (or waterpark) as much as the next family in January and look forward to any Western grocery store where fruit is a year-round advantage, but there is something enjoyable in the coming and going of seasons and the pattern of life overseas. At least we will keep saying this to ourselves until our next trip to Great Wolf Lodge.

6 Months Later, Welcome Isaac!

I'm really, really, really hoping that the adage "Better late than never" applies to this scenario. Our third son is turning 6 months old today. TODAY!! And unlike with his older brothers, I haven't yet written out his birth story. As with every birth story, this one has it's unique aspects. So here you go!

Due date: August 20, 2016

Because of airline restrictions when pregnant and undesirable medical care in our country, I needed to be done flying before I hit the 36 week mark. So our family had tickets to fly to Istanbul for Baby's birth (this one's nickname was Baby, since we were going without knowing the gender again) July 16. The morning of flying out, Matt and I each did one last e-mail check before waking up Michael and Samuel. We didn't really anticipate anything, but just as a precaution, figured it was a good move. Turned out this was correct, because one of the ladies on our update list had written asking if we had already gotten to Istanbul and if we were okay based on what was currently going on there.

WHAT?!?!

So a quick Google search showed that there was an attempted coup happening in Istanbul, with specific portions of it happening at the airport we were going to fly into. Eek! Needless to say we started making phone calls to various people who make calls on how to handle situations like this, partially just to verify that there in fact was a reason for concern.

There was. Happy 8 months pregnant to me, right? ;)

After 3 conversations which involved waking 2 people up in the middle of the night, we loaded the boys up and drove to the airport. Matt went inside to see what was going on, then came back out and we got the approval to not get on that flight but work on a re-route.

So we came back, let the boys watch a cartoon, then got a little more sleep before working on finding a different place to go and getting the tickets and easiest paperwork option required for a pregnant lady to fly on to a new place.

We were honestly really looking forward to being in Istanbul for a birth again. We knew the doctor. We knew the hospital. We had made friends with some people there that we were looking forward to hanging out with. We knew how to live in that city. Basically, we knew what to expect and we liked it. A lot.

We ended up flying through Dubai and having an almost 24 hour layover there on my birthday (hooray for yummy birthday food!), then flew on to Budapest. Now as a city, Budapest is much, much more our style than Istanbul. It's smaller, public transportation is easier, English felt a little more prevalent, and it's, well, European. The medical coordinators who lived there were on-the-ball with picking us up from the airport, getting us to a little place to stay, and taking a couple hours to show Matt around and get him set up for him to take care of us well there.

But the place they had us staying stressed me out. It was teensy. There was a bedroom with a queen bed, and the couch in the living room was laid down and made up into a bed. The little table for eating had to be moved around so we either had room to sit at it for a meal or walk in the living room. There were 2 burners in the kitchen, a mini-fridge, and enough counter space for a loaf of bread to sit on. People who live in Europe probably are used to close quarters and aren't thrown off by the lack of space. But thinking of living in these conditions for potentially 2 months, while also adding in a little baby, brought the tears. Lots and lots and lots of them.

Happy Belated Birthday to Cindy!

So after some more e-mails asking how we were supposed to make this work, we got approval to look around for other housing. We spent a few days looking at options and eventually found something that had a full kitchen and three bedrooms that would take us through the due date to the end of August, where we could look at that point for other options if we needed them.

Zoo time

We moved and got settled in this place and spent the days waiting for Baby's arrival. Matt took M&S out almost every day and did the grocery shopping and, frankly, most of the cooking. We tried to structure life so I could take is easy, not wanting to trigger Baby's arrival before my sister made it to us August 17. We didn't have any guarantee that someone could watch M&S when I went into labor, hence wanting to wait for her.

And ice cream time

In the meantime I got to meet my doctor and get a view of the "hospital" where I would deliver. Wowser!! Hospital is in quotes because it's set up more like a clinic, having regular business hours during the day but not being open 24/7. I was told it would take an hour or so to get the delivery team together if I went into labor at night.

We enjoyed good food and fun in Budapest until August 16. The downside of being there was the lack of community. We didn't meet anyone except the medical coordinators, and while they were superb, they didn't have time for socializing.

That night we put the boys to bed and were watching a show. During the show I started feeling something. You'd think that with this being my 3rd kid I'd recognize contractions, but still was unsure it was really happening. But since it would take an hour to get the delivery team together, we got the ball rolling to get to the hospital. And our medical coordinators came through with one of them staying at our place while M&S slept and the other taking us to (and staying at!) the hospital.

This hospital is swanky. Seriously. It apparently used to be a 5-star hotel, and they've done a wonderful job of keeping the luxury feel of the place for their clients. We got an apartment that hosted a queen bed for recovery. I never got poked once with a needle, but there was a way to quickly get me into surgery if that need arose (which is thankfully didn't).

Daddy got skin time

Bonding in the real bed (as opposed to hospital bed)

M&S are sleeping at home the whole time we're out having this little guy...crazy!

We called for the team to gather around 10:15 the night of August 15 (Matt's and my anniversary), were at the hospital by 11:30, and when the midwife checked me in, I was at 5cm. The doctor arrived about an hour later. There was also a pediatric nurse there for when Baby came. That was the delivery team. Oh, and there was NOT an anesthesiologist. That's the one part of this scenario that I wasn't pleased with. I had told everyone related to this pregnancy that I wanted an epidural if I made it to hospital early enough to get one. They all knew this. They had told it back to me. But he didn't show up. I didn't ask why. But I did scream and cry while pushing. So much for planning ahead with the epidural. :(

First holding by Sam

First holding by Michael

Anyway, yet again I had a pretty quick delivery. Baby was born at 2:05 am at 7 lbs. 6.7 oz. and 21 in. long. For what felt like several minutes (in reality, it was probably only 1 min.) we didn't know if Baby was a boy or a girl. They placed Baby on me wrapped in a towel and no one announced the gender. Matt kept trying to get a peak at where the goods would be, but it wasn't happening. Finally he saw what he needed to see and Isaac Devon Mitchell had a name. :)

Paperwork took a while since you have to get a Hungarian birth certificate in order to apply for a US CRBA and passport, so after 2 weeks we had what we needed and an appointment at the embassy was available.

Everyone loves a sleeping baby, right?

Breakfast was yummy, and lunch included sushi. Score!!

Slightly awake

Snuggles from Aunt Vicky!

The nice staff humored Michael's love for gloves. 

Love the joy!

Teaching Isaac the ropes of manhood 

'Sup?

In the meantime, my sister arrived the evening of August 16, which was just in time to give Matt extra hands with the older 2 boys and go on outings around town. She stayed with us for 2 weeks and we all LOVED having her around! So glad she had the time and resources to visit us for that time.

Love this picture of Aunt Vicky!

Obligatory nap time photo

Like father, like son.

My favorite picture to date. Melt my heart...

First bath at home.

"One order of food to go, please."

Not the hairiest kid I've seen, but definitely the most hair of our three boys.

Third kid goes on a lot more outings earlier in life than his brothers did.

More snuggles with Aunt Vicky

And our first family-of-5 photo...success!!

This one in particular is enamored with Isaac and a huge help to his parents.

So (belated) welcome Isaac, and happy 6 months! We love you and you are such an easy baby. You laugh and smile freely, especially at Mommy. You go to people readily, and you sleep and eat like a champ. I'm really looking forward to seeing what all you bring to our family as you continue to grow.

Road Trip

Another Road Trip

            Roads are just a crazy and common part of our lives. No one in the US talks about driving as much as we do, not unless you have a crazy-long commute or drive for a living. Every trip we take is a complete unknown as to how it will turn out and you just never know what story is coming out of a given trip down a road.

            This last one is yet another “adventure.” I remember an essay Louis L’Amour wrote that basically said that only an idiot goes out looking for adventure. I believe it was titles So You Want Adventure Do You? Basically it said you can get yourself into all kinds of adventurous trouble if you want but you are stupid if you do. Adventure is what happens when stuff goes wrong, when plans are derailed and all of a sudden you are making do in a new and potentially disastrous situation. It’s rarely fun, often dangerous, and something you really shouldn’t go looking for, but at the end of the day (if you get out in one piece) it makes quite a story.

            This was supposed to be like pretty much any fall trip up. The weather hadn’t got bad in a while, it was about to rain but the rain hadn’t started yet, and the road keeps getting better and better. I was hoping to leave the capital around 6am and get home in under 12 hours this time, a very ambitious but not impossible timeline with the current road conditions. We packed up as smart as we could, got as much ready as possible the night before, did our shopping and pulled out half an hour late on Monday morning.

            All went pretty much as expected for the first 3 hours. We got gas in a big town about 220km from the capital, then headed out of town over a pass that would take us to the border. Just at the edge of town we got pulled over. I didn’t think I was speeding, you never know what law you are getting pulled for breaking but I stopped without feeling too defensive. Turns out the very polite and friendly police were just saying the road was closed for construction up ahead, at least until lunch.

            Now, you never know why roads are actually closed, but it’s not always why you are told. Sometimes you aren’t told at all. Sometimes it’s something totally different than you are told. Sometimes the army is doing maneuvers, sometimes there is an actual military operation, sometimes someone important is going to be there, you just never know. So, we pulled over to the side of the road and watched a few tv shows on the computer. About lunch time I asked again and the police were willing to let us through, so we lost about 2 hours but the journey is still worth making.

            So we went up a hill. There is really one high pass left on the way home, this is it. At the top of the hill is a police and army post stopping access to the border towns and a small town. As we got up to the post, the army registered us and let us through like normal but the police stopped us and said, once again the road is closed for construction. No one is allowed on it. It’s closed from 6am to 6pm every day. Ah.

            So talk as I did, I could not talk my way through that post to the road even to see if the construction crews would let me through. It was just after lunch time by this point, so we drove back down the hill to the town to look for a place to stay. There are hotels here, but it’s usually hard to find anything that’s even basically comfortable for a family. The one place we did find I went in and there was not even anyone around to book a room with, not a good sign. Back to the capital we drove.

            We took a day to rest again. 11 hours on the road just to end up back where you started can be a bit draining, so I spent Tuesday repacking and reorganizing the car a bit, getting ready to try again. Our initial plan was to drive starting at 1:30am, get to the post before 6 and hope that lets us through, then get home early afternoon. This is a long drive in the dark and tired, but it seemed like the only thing to do. The other option was leaving late enough to drive through the post at 6pm, but arriving at home in the early morning hours after driving all night on mountain roads is just a bad idea.

            Then we got a phone call that opened another option: the Northern Route. There is the first road cut through the mountains that goes over a pass in the north of the country. By reputation the road is shorter, but higher and worse quality than the southern route, which is saying something. So, off we went on a new road out.

            Now, one thing about living in the former Soviet Union, they figure if you don’t know how to get there, you ought not to be going anyway. So, they won’t make good maps that show you the turns or put up signs in most places, you just need to know how to go. It makes travel to a new place interesting to say the least. On the plus side, it’s not like there are many roads around, so it’s hard to get lost once you get on the right path.

            So we were off on an unknown road in terrible weather. I did make one wrong turn on the way, ended up 17 kilometers (10 miles or so) out of our way so it lost us half an hour early in the morning. It was raining on us just a few minutes after we left and kept on all morning and into the afternoon, which didn’t slow us down much but did keep it from being dusty. I say raining, but there are more passes on this route and just outside the capital we crossed the first one in a couple inches of snow.

            The road is smaller and much less traveled than the first 200km of our normal drive, which is nice when you don’t have to do any passing or getting stuck behind big trucks in the mountains. We made the turn off the main road to go over the pass and the road got noticeably worse. It is paved in parts, though mostly what’s left is little bits of pavement with mostly pothole rather than road. The road winds up the mountains, through villages and in some really beautiful country. This side of the mountains has trees, a new experience for us here.

            After lots of driving we ended up driving into snow again. It was still coming down and the higher we got up the pass the more snow was on the road. Before too long there were several inches of snow standing on the road, making driving interesting to say the least. It was slow and deliberate going, especially with no other traffic (no one to help if you get in trouble) and no familiarity with this particular road. It was a little slick on the way down, I get pretty focused when the brakes no long work downhill on the side of a mountain because of the ice on the road, but then soon the snow stopped and we were on the dry side. The sun came out and we went down a very steep section of switchbacks and before long were back on the road we know and have traveled before.

            This drive wasn’t the 11 hours I hoped for. 14 hours on the road from start to finish and we got home quite tired but happy to be there. Every adventure like that makes me grateful to be home and grateful to be back in once piece. We don’t go looking for it but adventure comes our way from time to time anyway.

Food

Food is a funny part of life for us. What we eat, what we find in the store, what we eat on our visits and among friends, these take a prominence here that they don't seem to when we were in the US. Now, don't get me wrong, we have always been people who love food. We loved hosting people for meals, loved going out to and trying new restaurants, had wide and varied tastes in food. We have always enjoyed food and even had great fun with the foods of the places we have lived before, whether that be Africa or South Asia.

Then we moved here. I am sure there are people who love Central Asian food. I am sure there are countries in Central Asia where the food is really good. We are not those people and don't live in one of those places. Our little corner of the world is a rugged and dry mountain climate and people who live in climates like this are much more concerned with simply staying alive than developing a rich and varied cuisine. As such, while we have very few terrible meals, we don't really have any we miss when we aren't here. Making local foods isn't particularly difficult, but we don't eat them in our house and don't make a habit of seeking them out. I am perfectly content to eat what is put before me in a village, but I won't be making it for myself.

Foods are pretty basic here. First there is the national dish, Osh. Osh means food. So their main food is literally "food". It's a rice dish, a pilau, basically fried and boiled rice with onion, carrot, garlic, some spices and some meat. Then there is ShirChoi, literally milk tea. With a bit of bread to dip or soak in it, this is generally breakfast, at least in the mountains, and often lunch for people in poor circumstances. Now it's more than just milk. Just to make it healthy and tasty they add copious amounts of salt and butter. This seems to be a mountain thing, they do a similar thing in Nepal among Sherpa and Tibetan peoples, but it's a big local dish that they are proud of. Bread, flat bread usually cooked in a clay oven, is at every meal and pretty much every time you sit down at someone's house to eat, bread is life here. Fried meat and potatoes, a few other special dishes that rarely show up in villages round out the general food choices that we get to face, all fairly bland and basic. There isn't much we hate (though there is a fairly not-great party dish for funerals and religious events that shows up every now and then and salt butter tea takes some getting used to) but really not much to miss either.

So we end up making our own foods much more than local stuff. This is often dependent on the vagaries of season, availability in the bazaar, even if the roads are open and imports can get up here. Sometimes our choices come down to hot dogs and bread, since that is what is here. Other times we have lots of vegetables and basics to cook almost whatever we want (as long as it doesn't feature pork very heavily, though duck breast fillets have shown up a bit lately and make a decent substitute). It's a pretty normal conversation to talk about finding different items, where they were, and how much was left.

"Yep, bananas are here now, about four dollars a kilo, such and such place in the bazaar."

"You won't believe it, but oreos showed up in the big grocery store yesterday!"

"Yeah, we have cherry Dr. Pepper right now. Don't know if they will ever get it again, but it's here."

"Hey, I found a russian thing that apparently is cottage cheese. Hope you can find it sometime, here is what it looks like, but I bought all they had. Sorry."

This can be a source of great friendship or great bitterness. It is hard to let go when a unique item from home shows up and no one bothers to pick you up some. On the other hand, when a random shop down in the capitals ships in a bunch of Dr. Pepper and friends pick you up some cans (or cases of cans as the case may be), it forges an unbreakable bond of friendship (at least from our side).

That said, we eat very well all things considered. Thanks to the Russians we get some of our favorite staples in stores here, including Gouda cheese (from time to time), mayonnaise, olives, and plenty of yoghurt. Cindy is quite adept at making bread, so we get sandwiches and such fairly regularly. We buy good meat in the capital and freeze it and bring it up, so even hamburgers and ground beef burritos get in rotation here. There are always a few little things that make eating a joy when they either show up or get sent to us. We want for nothing really but tastes of home can be as much emotional as tasty. Getting a food you haven't eaten since you were last home is a brief moment of joy that is hard to describe.

This is true even of people on short term trips. It's fairly normal to get short term personnel or visitors reminiscing about barbecue or sushi after two weeks in country, blissfully unaware of the years yet to come before you get to enjoy such things. You never know what you will miss until you can't get it, but we have to bite our tongues every now and then and avoid bringing up how long it is going to be before we get Chick-Fil-A so stop talking about it before I make you eat stale bread from the bazaar for the next week.

Food is so much more than just sustenance. It is fellowship and memories. It is sitting around a table (or a table cloth on the floor) and enjoying company. It is trust and hosting and so much of what we miss and what we enjoy. It's a picture of home and something to look forward to any time you miss anything about home.

So, if you ever wonder why someone who lives overseas has so much food on the list of things you could send or you wonder why their Facebook feed is a constant obsession with junk food, it's something that stands in for home in many ways. It doesn't matter if they live in a remote corner of nowhere or in one of the biggest modern cities on the planet, you never get a full taste of home until you get home. (Even in London, trying to describe biscuits and Jimmy Dean style pork sausage at a grocery store, yeah, we got some interesting looks). Sympathize from a distance and let them have their longing. And offer to take them out for a meal sometime...or even better, host them in your home for one.

A Day in the Life

A Day in the Life

           

            Life does not always look consistent from day to day in the mountains, but we have some themes that keep reoccurring. For Matt, that means going out to projects to “inspect” them and decide if a project is one we want to do. We have to ask if it’s a project that is needed and wise, but also if it will give us a chance to spend time with people in the village and if this is in an area we want to keep spending time.

            Last week, the project visit of the week was a trip about 20KM out of town to a village of about 400 households to look at one of their canals. We were up early to get out of town by 8, in the summer the sun up on the mountains can get pretty hot so we wanted to avoid too much walking up in hot weather. Our engineer, our office manager, and I all hopped in the car and drove up to the village.

            Once we got to the village we picked up a couple of the village leaders and drove up toward the canal. We kept driving up, up, and further up, about half an hour up a little track in the side of the mountain to some high pastures for animals. I parked up where the road finally disappeared and we walked about 200 yards further up the side of the mountain to the canal.

            Now here’s the thing about canals here: they are dug and sometimes carved into some very steep sides of these mountains. Usually they are a slight line of green on a sheer cliff. To walk along these canals there is a little path about a foot wide you get to follow, inevitably on the down side of the canal. I have never hiked in areas as exposed as I do here walking up to and along canals.

            So we start along this canal. I am reminded of Donkey in the Shrek movies (“Shrek! I’m looking down!”) and remember that, while I don’t have a true ‘fear’ of heights, I do keep a very healthy respect of them. Nothing quite reminds a person of that respect like your right hand hanging over a thousand foot drop along a trail. Somehow locals take this like a morning stroll down a neighborhood sidewalk. I feel more like it’s a half-hour near-death-experience.

            We got out to the damaged section and looked the damage over. Sure enough, about 20 yards fell down off the cliff and need cement and rebar to reinforce it. Everyone working on the canal was over sixty, nothing is quite as humbling as being outwalked and outworked by a group twice your age. We talked over repairs, I got to pray with the group, and then restarted the casual little stroll along a cliff face back.

            I always have a slight temptation to kiss the ground once we make it back to solid ground, but try and act casual like everyone else when we get down. We still had the drive down the road, then a visit with one of our hosts for tea and soup for lunch. We sat in a little house next to the river, had a meat soup heavy on the fat, talked a bit about life and whatever came to mind, and took off for home.

It was partway through the drive down that I started to feel a bit weak and achy. By the time tea was over and we were headed home I was definitely feeling sick. After the half hour drive home, I was ready to crawl into bed, where I stayed for the next four days getting over some as yet unknown illness. You never really know how any given day is going to go.

Our little parking place. Notice the car?

The valley the canal is on. The canal is the little line on the mountain on the left of the picture. 

Discussing the canal before we head up.

At one point it goes through a split in between two rocks.

A little tight here. It doesn't look like it, but it's hundreds of feet down off there to the right. 

Just cut into the rock here.

This is where the canal fell out.