One little bump in the road

Living without electricity was fun. The kids enjoyed using flashlights and wearing headlamps at night while we played cards or did other silly things. And reading by headlamp isn’t too bad either.

One of the funny things I realized I needed a flashlight for was make sure I got everything when I wiped Caleb in the bathroom, but everything else was do-able. When one of Karis’ friends came for the afternoon today, she didn’t quite understand why I wouldn’t let her turn the light on when she went to the restroom. Her parents know what our assignment was, but I would love to hear a 4 ½ year olds version of what she understood. Her family is going to South Asia, so they didn’t have this assignment.

During my ESL class last Saturday, it poured rain, so Doug and the kids just played cards, play-doh and games at the Quad when they came back from the post office. My class was interesting, fun, and a small review of my linguistics class at A&M.

The food assignment got put on hold this weekend. The Quad decided we would all cook next weekend, just on the stove top, after we had a chance to get to a grocery store. It has been decided that for my family, eggs and fruit for breakfast would be good. For lunch, the quad is going to do a "buffet." I'm going to saute squash and onions in my two omelet pans. I only have enough room to saute about three squash, and I'm thinking the other rooms are going to be in the same situation. We decided, after we eat all the food, we would head to the cafeteria to fill up the rest of our bellies.

I hope that's okay with the "uppers."

Our one bump in the road came Sunday morning. Caleb came to my room at 5am to snuggle with me, and he peed on my side of the bed!

Now I know that I could have saved the sheets until Monday and put some of the available twin sheets on our bed (Doug and I have put two twins together to make a King), but I didn't. I "pretended" that there was electricity in another sector of the "city," and I hauled my sheets to Quad #21 to wash. I live in #3, so I figured I traveled a good distance :)

It's been rainy here, but nice and cool. Monday and Tuesday were "Special Meal" days in the cafeteria (while our kids were in school - although Kylie did this exact thing with her class). That means, wash your hands thoroughly, walk into the cafeteria, sit down, and when the table has all 8 people, someone goes to the kitchen to get the tray of food. We have discussion questions to go through while we eat, and we pray for the area of the world where the food came from.

Since we were eating in "right-handed cultures" we tried to keep our left hand in our lap. Our first meal, on Monday, we had no untensils, just pita bread to pick up our meat and salad mixture. It was Middle Eastern food, and it was divine!

Our second meal was curry-filled Indonesian food. Spicy!! But we did get a spoon. Doug and I really liked it. The toppings for the rice and curry-meat were the most interesting: tomatoes, coconut, peanuts, sunflower seeds, and preserves.

I had African culture worship practice tonight, so I need to start homework instead of procrastinating some more. (Sunday night worship is going to be all in African languages, and I'm going to be on the dance/worship team singing in Swahili. And in case you are wondering, no, I do not know what I'm saying when I sing the words.)