Well, it seems the dumpling party was a success. The 7 of us made over 200 dumplings! I'm not sure how many we ate but we definitely still have a lot left over for dinner tomorrow night. It was so much fun to be included in this tradition! Here's some of the interesting things I learned...today is the shortest day in the year. After this it will probably get much colder so we eat dumplings because they are shaped like ears and that means they will keep our ears warm!
Yep, you read that correctly! We're having a baby! Our baby is due July 9th. We are going to a city 2 hours away for all of our prenatal care and (hopefully) the delivery. We could deliver the baby in our city, but feel more comfortable at the foreign hospital (where all the staff speaks English). We will probably go there a week or two before the delivery so please join us in asking that the baby will not come until we get there but will come quickly once we arrive! If we have a boy, we are going to name him Elijah Bearl and if we have a girl, Elizabeth Grace.
I realize that sonogram pictures are usually one of the most beautiful things that a parent has ever seen, and mysterious blobs to everyone else, but I figured that at least the grandparents would enjoy these pictures!
Last week we had our Thanksgiving culture night. We had pork chops (it's hard to find turkey here!), mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, brocolli salad, cranberry sauce, cornbread dressing, green beans and apple pie. We agreed that this was their favorite meal we have served. While we were finishing cooking dinner, they decorated our Christmas tree which they also really enjoyed. I don't know if you can tell from the picture, but we think its really cute that they hung other ornaments off of the angel on top!
My school is offering some free elective courses and I am taking paper cutting. Yesterday was my first class so these are still really basic but it looks like we will be learning some really interesting ones in some of the later classes. 
We bought this peanut butter thinking that it was crunchy, but instead it had rice krispies in it. Weird, huh?
We weren't celebrating Thanksgiving until Saturday, but on Thursday afternoon we started getting pretty homesick so we called some of our best friends, Ashley and Jesse, and asked them to come over for dinner. We didn't eat typical Thanksgiving food, but L did make some incredible sweet potatoes (picture above). After dinner we were able to talk to both of our families (including all of our grandparents) which was wonderful! Here is the recipe we used for the potatoes (from allrecipes.com):
Although L generally feels that musicals are meant to be endured rather than enjoyed, he took me to 42nd Street last week. It was wonderful and I loved every moment. This was the first time that anything like this (it was an American group on tour) had come to our country so that was especially fun. The program was full of letters from American politicians (for example...Hilary) congratulating our country on their first taste of Broadway and expressing their hope that the two countries will continue to have cultural exchanges. Another really amazing part was that I could read (a small amount) of the subtitles and even laugh at the way things were being translated!
This is what I found last Friday when I opened my case to lead music for a group of friends. It had fallen over before we left the house but didn't think anything of it since it was in it's case. If you are a guitar player or have ever owned anything that was highly valuable to you, you can imagine the pit in my stomach. That night when we came home, A and I laid hands on it and asked for a miracle. I mixed up some epoxy and glued it together. So, it is working again and we are just hoping it will last a few more months! There is a slight possibility I could find one here, but most are not very good quality, so I may have to wait until we come to the States. I would show you a picture of the restored version (ugly but functional), but alas, our camera is not working. Ahhh!
Don't ask me how it happened...all I know is one minute I was whizzing down a bike trail and the next I was picking myself up off the ground. Luckily, I fared much better than my front tire. In mountain bike lingo, they call it "potatochipped." The most damage I personally suffered was painfully sore arms after carrying my bike about 2 miles to the closest road. I had to flag down 3 taxis to find one willing to put my muddy bike in their trunk. Today I hit the same trail again, paying much more attention (and with stronger rims), but never found the reason for my unintentional audition as Superman.
When my family was here on vacation, my nephew got an ear infection. He had previously had one in the States, and my sister remembered the name of the medicine. At first, we went to a doctor and got some obscure antibiotics along with some “herbal” medicine. When that failed, I got on the computer and figured out how to translate the medicine they had used in the States. We went to the pharmacy and made the discovery that even name-brand medicine is about 50 times cheaper than in the good ‘ole U.S. of A. and that we could easily get this prescription grade medication over-the-counter. This thrilled my parents who saw an opportunity to stock up on a few prescriptions. After a half hour on the computer, we went to a pharmacy armed with my poor rendition of a translation. My mom’s medication, we were informed, required a prescription but as we turned to leave we heard the pharmacist say, “Please step this way and see our in-house doctor.” We were directed to walk to another counter where the doctor’s visit promptly began: “What is your name?” (editor’s note: name withheld to protect the innocent) “How old are you?” (editor’s note: age withheld to protect me from the wrath of my mom) “How many boxes would you like?” Oh, I don’t know, about 10 years worth? (We actually asked for about 6 months worth, but suspect we could have bought them out with no objection.)
Then, before we knew it, the prescription had been written and we were back at the first counter buying the medicine. That was it! Name? Age? What do you want? That comes to $2.36, and would you like fries with that?
Often when I say “thank you” to someone for helping me, the response in reply is “it is my pleasure.” Today I had gone into the office of a classmate for some technical help. As I normally do in these situations, I wrote out difficult English words such as “hydrochloric acid” and “spectrometer” on a piece of paper so that my friend could understand me. After receiving help I turned to leave and said a heartfelt, “thank you.” This time the response was, “You are welcome, you have my pleasure.” Though a little humorous, such a response is in no way out of the ordinary. Non-native English speakers often confuse words and phrases. As I walked out the door he said it again, only in a little more standard English, “It is my pleasure.” Feeling a little awkward I said “thank you, again” and walked out the door. After only a few steps I realized the guy had followed me out and was right behind me saying, “You have my pleasure!” “THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! You are too kind!” Finally, a final time I heard in plain English, “YOU ARE WELCOME, BUT CAN I HAVE MY PENCIL BACK?”
-L
Spicy Noodles ($1 for one large helping): I’ve already eluded to the “spicy noodles” which usually comes with a mix of lamb, peppers, tomatoes, garlic, and noodles. This is just the base, however, and it often includes eggplant, carrots, potatoes, or a wide variety of other vegetables. The combinations are endless and I think no two bowls of spicy noodles are alike. They also have a variety where they fry the noodles, which is also quite tasty.
Mutton dumplings (7 cents each): These can be found every morning on any street corner and are also cooked on the side of clay ovens. They are generally pretty good, but some of them are all fat and gristle inside. One morning I bought six for breakfast, but after three my mouth was completely saturated in fat and I couldn’t eat any more. Unfortunately, I was nowhere near my toothbrush, so I walked around all morning feeling like my mouth was coated in wax.
Kebabs (14 cents each): These are my personal favorite and I ordered kababs with every meal. Mostly, it is lamb on a metal skewer, but chicken is sometimes available, and you can usually find a street stand selling liver kababs (which are pretty good, too).
Polo (75 cents per bowl): This is a rice dish with fried vegetables. Usually, the vegetable was carrots or this yellow thing that we never identified. These were served up in bowls large enough for me to crawl into and take a nap. There were also chicken parts mixed in (legs, wings, etc.) which you could ask to have added to your bowl (28 cents extra).
Soups (14 cents per bowl): There were a wide variety of soups, usually with onions and some type of dumpling inside. Most of the other ingredients were unidentifiable because it had been pulverized though I saw the occasional celery stalk or carrot piece. The best part of the soup at the street market is the ambiance. Imagine joining 7-10 men three times your age on stools about 8 inches of the ground. People are walking by, brushing against your back as you scarf down your bowl. The lady selling the soup is crouched on the ground in front of her two pots screaming the name of it every 6 seconds while lifting the lid to show her goods. Following those around you, you eat everything but the piece of meat. When you have guzzled every last bit of goodness from the bowl and only the meat is left, the lady takes the bowl and then offers you your piece of meat. You take it with your hands, eat all the meat off the bone, and then throw the bone in the bone-pile on the ground in front of you. Then (because you have watched to see what others have paid so you don’t get ripped off) you hand her exact change, smile, and make your exit. A priceless experience.
Opke (75 cents per head): This dish is also made in an incredibly large pot and is a soup with about 50 goat heads bobbing in it. I had to try this on a day that A stayed in the hotel. I attacked the cheek first, ripping the cheek and lips of in cave-man fashion in one large chomp. Then moved to the tongue and finished with the brains before slurping down the juice. Everyone around looked quite pleased and I think I may have been the first foreigner to take them up on the dish. I have to confess, however, that I couldn’t quite stomach the ear, which still had hair attached and was all cartilage anyway.
Grapes (raisins ranged from $3-6 per pound): By far one of the best parts of the trip was the grapes. We even visited “
Tea (free at any restaurant or food stand): We also brought home some tea, which is black (though they call it green tea) and served hot. What I think makes it awesome, however, is the dash of nutmeg they add to it. Perfect for washing down nan, kababs, and goat heads.
After we safely returned to K town and spent a few more days, we decided to head north to another city (T-ville). We had hoped to get train tickets, but for reasons never fully disclosed to us none of the travel agents in town could get us tickets. Instead they suggested the sleeper bus. Initially, the sleeper bus sounded like the next best thing, it seemed, after all, just like a train on wheels and without a restaurant car. The only thing we were apprehensive about was the duration…20 hours on a bus just didn’t sound like fun. Our only other option, however, would be to fly to the closest airport and then take a 3 hour bus the rest of the way, but we were more apprehensive about forking over the money than we were about the 20 hours.
After stowing my backpack I ran to a little store to get a few provisions (nuts, fruit, bread, and bottled water) to cram in A’s stuff-sack with our other essentials (camera, toilet paper, Clif Bars, a deck of cards, two books, an Outside magazine, a Time magazine, and 3 Newsweeks). When the time came to climb on, we were given a plastic sack to keep our shoes in. This is apparently the subtle, polite way to say, “I don’t want whatever is on the bottom of your shoe in my bus.” Once we found our “bed” we truly began to panic. I don’t know exactly what I had in mind, but three rows of bunk beds with two rows of walk spaces was not a promising start. Imagine the sadistic designers of economy-class jumbo jets sitting around trying to design something truly space-saving, uncomfortable, and profit maximizing. Those guys would be fired because they couldn’t come up with something as ridiculous as these bus designers. For starters, the walk space was barely wide enough for me, or A for that matter, to walk down sideways. Ditto for the beds. I had to wedge myself between the wall and the purposeless rail on the edge of my bed to be able to lay on my back, and even this was only accomplished by perpetually shrugging and folding my arms across my chest. Add to that the fact that the beds were at a 45° angle so they could shove the legs of the person behind you under your head and likewise your legs under the person in front of you so that it almost felt as though they were in your lap. This brilliant design allowed the bus company to stack people on top of one another, double their profit, and provide jobs for trauma counselors all at the same time! The main problem, however, with the angle, was that I kept sliding down the bed and my feet and legs would get smashed into the cubby-hole at the bottom.
Moving from the claustrophobia, I will now move to the anti-hygiene issues. Aside from the fact that you could contract whatever infectious disease or sickness from the 8 people within arms reach or 29 people within sneezing distance or 2 people you were virtually spooning (luckily for me one of them was my wife), was the possibility of contracting something from the previous 15 people who slept, ate, farted, and shed in your bed since the sheets had been washed. Indeed, upon surveying the cabin it became apparent that the first order of business for all passengers was to rake leftover crumbs from their bed onto the floor and their neighbors bed and then to pick all the hair from the surface of your pillow.
I know you are all in suspense, but I will let the cat out of the bag – we survived. How? Well, for the first hour, we passed the time by hyperventilating, convulsing, and crawling into a fetal position and bawling our eyes out. Then we realized that we were only lunatic, weenie Americans who couldn’t seem to cope, so we dried our eyes, calmly stated to each other our dying wishes, and decided to play cards. Facing each other to play cards was a precarious balancing act which couldn’t be sustained for long periods of time, so we interspersed that with reading. After about 5 hours or so, the bus pulled over so everyone could grab some supper. We decided to head to the unpopular empty restaurant down the street and both ordered the only dish we could name – something the locals call “spicy noodles” which we had grown fond of. When we got on the bus it was too dark to read or play cards. I contemplated becoming a basket case again, but got distracted by the incredible night view. It seems that the desert is the place to go if you are a star-gazer. As I looked out the window I saw more stars than I think I have ever seen in my life. I was so amazed, the next three hours passed like three minutes and the spell was only broken because the bus stopped for a potty break.
The excrement chamber was torture chamber number three. Not for me so much as A. Well, I think I’ll just let her tell you: “There was absolutely no privacy. I don’t really want to go into it, but if you were shielded from the bus you were in full view of the road and visa versa.” She still can’t quite talk about it, but I will say that it was also a communal experience. Everyone just squatted in a group with everyone talking to their friends.
When we got back on the bus, I was so uncomfortable I just went for a new tactic completely. Feigning that I was incredibly interested in learning the language in one night, I went and sat on the front steps and made friends with the driver and the boss. I just figured I would be more comfortable staying up all night than trying to sleep. It seemed that I was welcome company since the boss was interested to learn a little English. He knew “father” and “son” but wanted to also learn the female version “mother” and “daughter.” I also taught him: husband, wife, boy, girl, bus, train, thank you, okay, train, bus, sleeper bus, public bus, get on the bus, get off the bus, this is my bus, boss, I am the boss, etc. I contemplated just telling him that the English word for his vehicle was “torture chamber” and looking back I wish that I would have. Imagine the favor I would be doing to the next foreigner if before buying their ticket the bus owner had said, “Hello! This is my torture chamber! Please get on the torture chamber! Yes, this is a public torture chamber!” I learned several words as well, but mostly we talked in our mutual second language. I learned many things about the torture chamber. It holds 39 prisoners at a time. It makes the 600 mile round trip every 4 days: 2 days of travel, 2 days of rest. It is a 3 man crew with two alternating drivers and the boss who takes care of everything other than driving. It costs about $140 US to fill up the tank, which must be done 3 times per round trip. They also pay about $140 US in toll booth fees one way. There is a toll booth every 100 km (60 miles) and the fee varies at each booth. They must stop at each police checkpoint, which is about every 200 km. They each make about $300 US per month, though I’m sure the boss gets a little more. I also learned A LOT about each of their families. Finally, several hours and 3 toll booths later my eyes were getting heavy and I headed to my 2 ft2 of space for the night.
The next day passed slowly, but we eventually pulled in to T-ville, tired, smelly, a little grumpy, but still alive. All told, we were glad for the experience, but next time we’ll walk. We left with two new friends and a taste of what the heavens look like from the desert…and a nasty looking rash on A’s arms.
-L
The two of us and a guy from
About a third of the way back, just before making it to where we had encountered the mudslide the previous evening, we made a detour and were told, “No pictures!” We headed into a military base to pick up a few more propane bottles. Then when I thought we could not possibly hold any more, a guy flagged us down and we picked up (I kid you not) a V6 engine, and one other guy who rode in the back on top of the propane bottles (which were still on top of my backpack).
As we continued to make our way passed the mudslide and down the mountain we recognized His provision. It seemed that the mudslide we encountered was only the first in a long string (I think I counted 9 total) over about a 30 mile stretch. It must have taken them all night to clear the road. So, had we found a vehicle headed back, or tried to wait it out, we would have been stuck in a vehicle all night. Or worse, gotten caught in one of the mudslides!
But for me, the most incredible part of the journey was the brilliance of the driver. He made that journey with almost 100%, no overhead. How? He made the entire 120 mile downhill trip coasting in neutral. Literally, he started the engine about 6 times for no more than ½ a mile to 2 mile stretches. Heck, even when he got to the relatively flat land on the edge of town he didn’t waste any gas on us…he just said, “You out here.”
-L
As we debated the choices given us while racing back up towards high altitude another idea came to mind. (Mom, skip the rest of this paragraph.) I had the driver go back to the mudslide. Donning my running-come-mudslide shoes I made my way across the 100 yard obstacle course which was now moving considerably slower to see if I could find a vehicle on the other side also planning to turn around that could take us the rest of the way down the mountain. Mudslide traversing could be the next adventure sport, and though I had visions of being the first winner at the next X-games, I was also wondering how in the world I was going to make the follow-up journey with a 40lbs. backpack, much less my dizzy-headed wife! On the other side, though I didn’t find someone to take us, I found out that road clearing crew was on the way in a matter of hours (in other words, “it may be clear by daybreak tomorrow”).
-L
