Josh locked himself in his room today…boy that was exciting! All the doors are the super old fashioned kind—there are no doorknobs here, they’re all handles instead. And the keyholes are for the super big old fashioned skeleton key type keys. It looks neat, but it is such a pain! Josh thinks that it’s important to lock yourself in your room when you’re upset…the only problem is, that he couldn’t UN-lock it once he’d locked it! We spent probably a good hour trying to get him to turn the key in the lock, and all he did was sob behind the door. We were finally able to get him to shove the key under the door—which was no mean feet either, since there is only less than a quarter of an inch of clearance between the door and the floor—and Devin was able to unlock it from this side. Hopefully that taught him a good lesson and he won’t go around locking the doors anymore.
I remember always wondering if the expiration dates on things were for real, or just suggestions. Apparently, they’re just suggestions. It appears that everything in the commissary is expired…and that no one seems to really mind so much. I know of people who, even if it’s a day after the expiration date, throw it away without a second thought. Here, that would be considered extremely fresh, and sold for more money! Ha! I went to pick up some more children’s Ibuprofen there, and every single package expired January 2007. An entire year ago! Is that legal? I suppose that doesn’t really matter here, since there really isn’t too much to govern it, and I should just be grateful that it’s even there!! I am…I don’t really mind eating food that has long since expired, as long as it’s sealed…I just don’t know how I feel about giving my kids expired meds. Just another good reason why I really can’t wait for our shipments to come. If worse comes to worse, I’ll probably end up buying the overpriced, expired goods from the commissary, but for now I’ll just pray we don’t need it within the next month or two…or three…or four…
Driving here is absolutely HILARIOUS!! I don’t know that I’ll ever feel comfortable enough to drive here…we’ll see. It’s like a video game! I thought that the driving was bad in Guatemala…it’s ten times worse here! Good grief! There really aren’t any lines on the roads, no stop signs, I’ve seen one traffic light, but it didn’t work. There are thousands of yellow ‘taxis’ and they are the craziest drivers! They rarely use blinkers, and when they do, it’s usually only the right one. That could mean all sorts of things. Usually, it just means they’re going to stop—right there—in the middle of the road. So, you just drive past them and kind of hope they don’t start going again, but they usually do. The roads are fairly small—supposed to only be 2 lanes, but usually end up being 3 or 4, depending on the traffic and the amount of yellow taxis that you’re dealing with at the time. Crazy!!! There are no rules to speak of, everyone just drives in hopes of getting where they need to go without too many mishaps. I’m grateful we have drivers for the time being as we’re waiting for our car to arrive. And who knows…I may try to continue to use the drivers even after our car arrives!
We found a HUGE papaya in the yard (well, actually, Josh and the guard did)—I think the thing weighs somewhere between 5-10 lbs and is bigger than Claire’s head. Neat!
December 30, 2007
Some of the things that I miss from the church in the states: Air conditioning, electricity, carpet, bathrooms, padded chairs, chairs (sometimes there are, and sometimes you just stand), microphones, English, classes for the kids…Oh, it’s still church. Thankfully, we still have the sacrament, and there is RS and Priesthood…but only when there’s room. Today there wasn’t room in RS, so I (and many other women) went to Priesthood. Didn’t really matter. I didn’t understand anyway, and Andrew was mad because he needed a nap…so I stood outside with him where it was much much cooler (like 90 degrees…nice day! But it was AWFUL inside! Not compared to where Ben is, of course, and if he were to read this and make some comment it would probably be to the effect of – “Well, at least you get to go to church at all, and it’s under 130 degrees, so count yourself lucky!” I still don’t understand why anyone would actually CHOOSE to live in Iraq…but if anyone out there understands it and wants to enlighten me, feel free!) So, it’s a different experience here. I expected it to be different, though, so it’s not a big deal.
We are SO spoiled here! Whew! We have a generator, so when the power goes out, we have power all the time regardless. Apparently, the city loses power almost every other day…but we don’t feel it at all. Same with the water. I remember times in Guate when we would be out of water for days at a time—it was so nasty! But, here we have this huge water tank! Yesterday, the city was out of water for the whole day, and we didn’t even know it until our guard told us all about it. Crazy. And after listening to what the missionaries regularly eat out there with members and investigators…MAN I’m glad that I don’t have to!! Guatemala is CUSHY compared to this mission! Wow! And it’s always nice to be able to go to the commissary and find American stuff…even if it is all expired…it is still American stuff! (So, if anyone wants to send us American stuff that’s NOT expired, feel free! ϑ Just remember that you can’t send liquids to our current address!) But we are spoiled and sheltered here. We took a walk today around our neighborhood and passed the Algerian, Belgian, Brazilian, Chinese, Japanese, Israeli, Egyptian and Korean embassies…all just around the block! Crazy, eh? Our house used to be owned by the Germans up until about a year ago. Hmmm… I wonder why they sold it?
Happy New Year, everyone! I hope it’s a fantastic one…and just know that I’ll enjoy it before most of you will! Ha!!! ϑ We’re having our neighbors over to watch a movie using our wall and a projector…we’re not sure which movie yet…and eat pizza! Spoiled? Yes!!
No comments:
Post a Comment