DB, Jeni, EB, and Lorelai

1. On your birthday in the country that I live in, it is custom to give all of your friends a cake and a present. No wonder no one knows when their birthday is!
2. I am raising a closet drinker. Recently, EB was crawling around the kitchen and crawled over to one of the cabinets she plays in. She pulled out a sippy sup full of water, drank out of it, put it back, and closed the cabinet.
3. I baked a red velvet cake for my friend’s birthday today. It was beautiful and delicious and the most complicated cake I have ever made. She took half of the cake out to the guards to give them some before taking the rest over to some friends. The guards took the whole plate – evidently the misunderstood. Then she came inside and said “Who at the rest of the cake?” Everyone in the house claimed innocence. The only thing we can figure is that the cleaning lady’s son, who comes with her and sits in the kitchen while she works, ate the rest of the cake. What a little rascal!
4. Our crate is coming! We just received an email that says our crate that we packed back in July will actually arrive in country TOMORROW!!! I will keep you updated on the progress of this!
5. Our city has a fabulous Indian Restaurant. It is the best Indian food I have ever had. I have asked DB to take me back there for my birthday date.
6. (Jody – this one is for you) I tried to tell one of our drivers that the city we live in is beautiful, but instead I said it is delicious. (The words are very similar)
7. EB is very ticklish – but only at night. All day you can tickle her silly with no reaction. Thirty minutes before bedtime, she will laugh her head off if you just act like you are going to tickle her.
8. DB has been sick for the past four days. They say you aren’t really doing your job in this part of the world if you don’t get sick much. (Should I feel bad about myself because I haven’t gotten sick yet?) They also say that everytime you get sick you build up more immunities to the junk found in the water and air – so after a year or so you just get used to it all. So here is the interesting thing: When he was sick for three days, I went ot the pharmacy, asked for Cipro, and was give 20 tablets for 2 bucks. No prescription, no doctor around, no examination of the patient – just walked into the pharmacy and walked out with Cipro imported form Germany.
9. For EB’s birthday she received a lot of presents from our national neighbors and friends. Scary presents. Like a teddy bear with red lightbulbs in it’s eyes that flash while he sings Happy Birthday in a freaky, chipmunk like voice. A doll whose clothes are held on with small nails. A doll that appears cute until you squeeze it and then it’s cheeks light up and it screams what sounds like profanity at you. EB loves all of these scary toys. She is no toy snob!
10. While EB loves her babysitter, we are not exactly sure we like leaving her to go to school for four hours everyday. If she is sick, that is a whole day of school that I miss, and with travel to and from school, it ends up being 5 hours a day. EB’s babysitter is wonderful, but I still feel a bit uneasy about the situation. Unfortunately, there are no other language learning opportunities for us at the moment. Please be thinking about this situation and how it can be resolved – either with me feeling better about it, or a teacher to come to our home. This is weighing on my mind, and is something big I am asking you all to be speaking with our Father about.

1. On your birthday in the country that I live in, it is custom to give all of your friends a cake and a present. No wonder no one knows when their birthday is!
2. I am raising a closet drinker. Recently, EB was crawling around the kitchen and crawled over to one of the cabinets she plays in. She pulled out a sippy sup full of water, drank out of it, put it back, and closed the cabinet.
3. I baked a red velvet cake for my friend’s birthday today. It was beautiful and delicious and the most complicated cake I have ever made. She took half of the cake out to the guards to give them some before taking the rest over to some friends. The guards took the whole plate – evidently the misunderstood. Then she came inside and said “Who at the rest of the cake?” Everyone in the house claimed innocence. The only thing we can figure is that the cleaning lady’s son, who comes with her and sits in the kitchen while she works, ate the rest of the cake. What a little rascal!
4. Our crate is coming! We just received an email that says our crate that we packed back in July will actually arrive in country TOMORROW!!! I will keep you updated on the progress of this!
5. Our city has a fabulous Indian Restaurant. It is the best Indian food I have ever had. I have asked DB to take me back there for my birthday date.
6. (Jody – this one is for you) I tried to tell one of our drivers that the city we live in is beautiful, but instead I said it is delicious. (The words are very similar)
7. EB is very ticklish – but only at night. All day you can tickle her silly with no reaction. Thirty minutes before bedtime, she will laugh her head off if you just act like you are going to tickle her.
8. DB has been sick for the past four days. They say you aren’t really doing your job in this part of the world if you don’t get sick much. (Should I feel bad about myself because I haven’t gotten sick yet?) They also say that everytime you get sick you build up more immunities to the junk found in the water and air – so after a year or so you just get used to it all. So here is the interesting thing: When he was sick for three days, I went ot the pharmacy, asked for Cipro, and was give 20 tablets for 2 bucks. No prescription, no doctor around, no examination of the patient – just walked into the pharmacy and walked out with Cipro imported form Germany.
9. For EB’s birthday she received a lot of presents from our national neighbors and friends. Scary presents. Like a teddy bear with red lightbulbs in it’s eyes that flash while he sings Happy Birthday in a freaky, chipmunk like voice. A doll whose clothes are held on with small nails. A doll that appears cute until you squeeze it and then it’s cheeks light up and it screams what sounds like profanity at you. EB loves all of these scary toys. She is no toy snob!
10. While EB loves her babysitter, we are not exactly sure we like leaving her to go to school for four hours everyday. If she is sick, that is a whole day of school that I miss, and with travel to and from school, it ends up being 5 hours a day. EB’s babysitter is wonderful, but I still feel a bit uneasy about the situation. Unfortunately, there are no other language learning opportunities for us at the moment. Please be thinking about this situation and how it can be resolved – either with me feeling better about it, or a teacher to come to our home. This is weighing on my mind, and is something big I am asking you all to be speaking with our Father about.

In contemplating what to write about for EB’s birthday, I thought I might wax eloquent about the joys and blessings of having her as a part of our lives this year.  Instead, I have so much to say about EB’s birthday that I have to write it in two parts so that you don’t get bored reading one long blog post.

It all started Thursday with a “family” party – some dear friends that we knew in Virginia that are here with us went out to eat and helped us eat some yummy cake Betty Crocker style.  We ate at the “British” restaurant in town – delicious hamburgers and French fries – a very special treat for us!  We decorated the kitchen with pictures of family members and brightly colored streamer type things.  EB got to eat cake for the first time all by herself – and man did she have fun.  She covered herself in cake and icing and loved every second of it.  (We took lots of pictures and videos – if we ever have good enough internet for a long enough period of time, we will upload them – but don’t hold your breath.)

Our precious little girl was surrounded by people that love and her one year of life was celebrated with much pomp and circumstance.  

Friday we had another kind of party for her.  We invited every national that we know – our teachers, EB’s babysitter and her family, the cleaning lady and her family, our neighbors, our drivers and their families, and our guards.  Almost everyone came that we invited and it was a FULL HOUSE!  According to national custom, the men were hosted in one room and the women and children in another.  As we prepared for the party, we realized that we did not have nearly the supplies we needed to host so many people.  We began asking our driver/neighbor if we could borrow things from him.  He magnanimously told us that we could borrow the things we asked for, but little did we know how much we needed him!  He showed up at our house this morning with 12 serving dishes and showed us exactly how to arrange all of the pistachios, almonds, chick peas, raisins, and peanuts we had bought.  Then he went home and came back with 16 small dishes to put chocolates in.  He disappears again and came back with a serving tray full of tea glasses because he knew we didn’t have enough.  And, the piece de resistance, 22.5 pounds of cake and 6 pounds of cookies purchased at the local bakery were arranged beautifully on 10 of our neighbors serving plates.  We may have bought the food, but we were totally clueless as to how to serve it in an appropriate way – thank goodness for the awesome driver/neighbor/lifesaver who helped us pull it all together.

It was an awesome party for EB – she was doted on and played with to within an inch of her life by the 15 kids that came while my teammates and I served tea and tried to muddle our way through conversations with the 20-some-odd ladies in the room.  DB had a great time hanging out with the guys as well, and we have pronounced the afternoon a roaring success.  We feel this is a huge first step to making friends, a gigantic lesson in cultural do’s and don’ts, and some excellent practice in using our language. 

I made at least one pretty big language phopa (at least that I know about).  As everyone left, I told then boldy how happy I was that they had come to my home.  It wasn’t until I repeated the kind phrase to my language teacher that I found out I had been saying “I am so happy that you are leaving my home.”  Oh well – I hope they understood what I meant, and I think they let it slip – they all still invited me to come to their home sometime.

So our sweet EB girl enjoyed her birthday immensely and was the very bridge we needed to begin really becoming involved in our community.  I mean, one month in country and ten days of language classes – why just have a few people over?  Go big or go home, right?  At least that’s DB’s philosophy of life, and I think in this instance it was right on target!

Estay Frock means throw up in dari. Why, you ask, do I know the word for throw up? I mean, I only know about 200 words in the whole language – why throw up? Well, it all began the day it snowed and we learned that the word for snow is “barf.” Obviously, this led to us wanting to know what the dari word for barf is. After much miming and acting out, we found out the word for barf is “estay frock.” We learned this word just in time to use it 46 times in one day – the day that EB “estay frock”ed all over everything all night and all day.
I am still not exactly sure why EB estay frocked – she had no fever and did not act sick at all – but two loads of laundry and three baths later she stopped estay frocking and THEN had a fever. Day two of EB’s weird sickness I was giving her Tylenol and discovered 5 new teeth. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, EB acquired five new teeth in one day. I don’t know if this is why she threw up, but I am certain it is the reason for two of our three sleepless nights and 99% of EB’s crying and fussy/clinginess. After this discovery, I began administering much orajel and Tylenol and all is well in the land of EB.
Saturday is EB’s birthday!! I can’t believe she is one year old! We are going to have a “family” party on Thursday with real cake (betty crocker kind) and some friends that are here that were also part of our “family” in Virginia. Friday we are inviting every national we know over to the house for a party – the kind where EB really is just an excuse to make friends and meet our neighbors and she will probably nap most of the time. We are very excited about this, and hope you will be thinking of us and the possibly outcomes of this event. We are expecting anywhere from 10-100 people, so it is a little bit overwhelming, but in this culture it is sort of expected that you invite this family, and then this family, and if you invite this person you have to invite this person, and then next thing you know 100 people show up.

Somehow, they make their way to Central Asia.  Brightly colored windsuits from the 80’s, crushed velvet skirts from the nineties, chunky heals from five or six years ago – even puffy, rarely worn snowsuits from all eras – somehow they all found their way to the “second hand” bizarre in my city.  Don’t ask me how they get here because I have no answer.  All I know is that I bought a black, crushed velvet skirt from Express at the bizarre today for $3, and a Liz Claiborne crushed velvet shirt for $1.25 – clothes that are beautiful by the aesthetic standards of nationals here, but would earn me some pitying looks from my fashionista friends in the states.

DB bought and planted 3 rose bushes today, which will hopefully produce lovely red roses in our yard, and we have patio furniture for our rooftop patio.  We are preparing for spring, while wearing two pairs of long johns and doubling up on wool socks.  Supposedly, spring will be here soon and we are very much looking forward to it.  We heard a rumor that we will have electricity almost all the time in the warm weather months, which will be very convenient – it is still taking us an average of 2 days to wash a load of clothes and 3 days to dry.  You can imagine that our laundry situation is dismal at the moment.

After 5 days of language we are doing remarkable well.  We have improved our vocabulary greatly, and are learning how to form sentences.  One of the shop owners today was clearly making fun of us about something – our lack of understanding, maybe how much we were paying for items that he would have sold us for less – I don’t know, but I was humiliated for some reason.  I guess that goes with the territory of living in a foreign country where you understand about 2% of what is said and guess at the rest.  Also, I probably sound like a 2 year old when I speak.  The driver told me today that when someone quotes me a price for something, I need to respond with half as much, and argue a little bit.  I just learned all of my numbers yesterday, so hopefully I will get better at “bargaining” in the future.

Toot is the word for dried blueberries.  They are very popular here. 

Mumpkin means maybe-I thought about making that EB’s nickname, but then I thought the nationals might think it was weird.

Something that sounds like Y2K is said quite often – not sure what it actually means.

Things are going well these days.   We are in a sort of rhythm.  Our cleaning lady comes three mornings a week and vacuums, cleans the bathrooms, and sweeps and mops the stairs and all of the landings.  The babysitter comes 4 afternoons a week while we go to language school, and she cooks supper and cleans the kitchen really good while EB naps.  Sounds like an easy life, right?

Actually, we still work pretty hard almost constantly.  Think about what you accomplished yesterday.  Maybe 10 or 12 things, right?  Here, a realistic expectation is to have a To-do-list with one thing on it, and then still be surprised if it gets done.  Things are going well overall – we are all eating very well – DB and EB are gaining weight, actually, while I have dropped one pants size in the three weeks we have been here.  I guess carrying a 20 pounds baby up and down three flights of stairs many times a day is doing me a favor, huh?  

Yesterday was my first day completely immersed in the national culture.

The cleaning lady came for the third time, and it is kind of awkward for everyone. We hemmed and hawed around about what she should do, and sort of watch her while she works. I feel it necessary to work at something while she cleans – otherwise, I am just a lazy American, right? Finally, when she still had an hour left to work, we invited her to have tea with us and sat and talked. Basically, we are paying her to be our only friend in town. Oh well, good language practice, right?

I then met with EB’s babysitter. For 5 hours. Without being able to speak the language, I wanted to have her here for a couple of days to just see what I do with EB. We struggled through the first few hours, and then EB took a nap. Seriously, what was I supposed to do with this woman for two hours while EB napped?

So, we went shopping. We walked to the Market that is right down the street. The goal for the day was to buy ground beef. Now, this has been one of my biggest aversions to living here – buying meat. Picture a mud hut with entire animal carcasses hanging from wood rafters right outside. With my trusted national friend, though, I could not in any way act repulsed or disgusted, so we walked together to the butcher and asked for ground beef. After a long discussion that appeared to be an argument, the butcher began measuring slabs of beef. My friend asked for one kilo of meet, but I thought I might need two.

So after measuring the meat on a scale, the butcher then began to cut it into smaller pieces. A giant knife, a wooden stump, and very quick movements resulted in little square pieces of meat. Then, he turned on a motorized grinder that had a stick shift attached to it, tied a plastic bag to one end that I hesitate to say to you has never been cleaned, and started stuffing meat into the top. He also added three different kinds of seasoning and three whole onions. No kidding. The result was 4.4 pounds of ground beef, seasoned with onions, pepper, and two other unknown seasonings.

When we got home, I realized I had made a mistake in the amount of meat I bought. 1 kilo equals 2.2 pounds! I had bought nearly 4 and half pounds of beef! I decided no matter how many pounds of ground beef we have, I needed to cook it all right away. I could not stand the thought of that raw meat sitting in my non-working refrigerator for any amount of time. My friend (EB’s babysitter) laughed and laughed with me about the amount. I tried to explain to her that in America we use pounds and I forgot the how big a kilo was. Oh well – next time I will get half a kilo!

So I cooked it all up and used about 1/3 of it to make spaghetti. It was seriously the best spaghetti I have ever eaten. Whatever those mysterious meat spices are, no matter how revolting of a process it was to acquire, it tasted delicious and no one is sick today. I will, however, send DB for the ground beef from now on.

The other day DB, EB, and I walked around the neighborhood to buy veggies and fruit.  As we came around one corner, we paused in astonishment as we watched a 12 camel caravan parade down the street.  DB and I exclaimed loudly, pointed them out to EB, and watched the entire procession.  No one else on the street even paused to take notice.

We have yet to go one full day with running water in the entire house.  Right now, the kitchen has no water, but our bedroom floor is flooded.  Seriously, the plumber has been at our house 8 days in a row.  I won’t bore you with the mindless details, but I do ask you to remember this when you talk to our father.  This is a source of great frustration for us all, but especially DB, who spends hours on end trying to communicate with the plumbers – I am very proud of him and how well he is doing!

One thing we have figured out is that DB can get a great haircut and beard trim for just three dollars.  Not only that, but with that haircut came a head massage and a neck adjustment that cleared DB’s sinuses – no kidding.  Right there in the middle of his hair cut the “barber/chiropractor” just popped his neck both ways and DB said he feels better than he has in weeks! 

We spent yesterday afternoon “shopping” for a few things.  It was an interesting experience and we found some great stores that have baby items.  We bought a few odds and ends, and even talked someone down on a price they quoted. 

All in all, we are adjusting to life here, but a bit discouraged by the water situation.  Also, EB is struggling a bit.  She is pitching a fit everytime we sit down to a meal.  Please remember EB and her adjustment, as well as the fact that she is a baby learning to live without getting her way – I am trying to find a balance between understanding that she is adjusting to a new situation just like I am and knowing that she cannot always get her way.

DB met some of our neighbors last night, which is the whole reason we are here, and we are holding on to that.  EB and I will visit with the women soon as well and we are really looking forward to having some friends here.  We can’t actually TALK to them – but we can sit around and smile at each other and play with our kids, right?