In November, our language helper had to take a trip out of the country, so we had some unusually free mornings. Doug and I took advantage of the situation and told each kid we would each take each of them out on a date for breakfast or lunch, wherever they wanted to go.
We were almost successful. Here we are 5 months down the road, and Karis still hasn't had her date with Doug. Things in school kept coming up for Karis, but I know they will eventually have their date.
When I went with Kylie, she wanted a big Arab breakfast, so we ordered one that is designed for 2-4 persons :)
It was delicious and delightful!
November 11, 2019
Karis and I also went for a breakfast, albeit smaller. And Caleb and I got hamburgers one day for lunch. Doug also had a breakfast with Kylie and a lunch with Caleb. These extended times with the kids one-on-one were some of my favorite last fall!
Two days after my breakfast with Kylie, my friend invited me and another lady over for lunch. We always have good and fun conversations, and there are always so many things to try.
In her living room, I spied this picture on the shelf.
It's a lovely thing to go into another person's home and find sweet pictures of your own kids being displayed in their living space.
On May 9th, the city had a rare flooding.It rained and hailed very hard for about an hour, and
with nowhere for water to go (mainly because drains are covered in trash), it started coming into houses and rising under
cars.
I was in language class in our neighborhood, and this was my
view of things.
My teacher got a call from a friend whose car had stalled
and she needed help, and I’m sure she wasn’t the only one who didn’t know how
to drive (or not to drive) in high water.
After one hour, the water was pretty much gone in most areas of the city, and Doug and I were able to go out for date night.
Keira’s school was flooded on the first floor, and they had
to take all the carpet out.
When I went
to pick up Keira from school two weeks after the flood on May 20th,
people were stacking chairs outside and hanging more carpets over the balcony.
I went to the door and asked if there had been more problems
from the flooding, and the teacher just looked at me and said, “Today was the
last day of school.”
Oh!Nice to
know.Congrats Keira!
I had never been informed, but that didn’t keep us from
celebrating.Milkshakes here we come.
There are highs and lows in language all the time. It's a joy to communicate and be understood, but when I can't, it's a bit frustrating. I can obviously understand more than I can say, so even listening to conversations and being able to pick up things is a plus.
One of my friends here turned 40 in February, and she invited me along with 7 other ladies for a night of food, fun, and dancing.
All of us either had a shirt made with "She is 40," on it, or we made a sign and taped it to our shirt. She, in turn, had a sign on her shirt that said, "They're lying."
Her co-workers made t-shirts.
This is her and me.
The food was amazing.
We danced and visited in this room.
We danced to three different languages of music. During the local
songs, we danced to three or four different step combinations. And
then the two ladies who had grown up in different cultures taught us the
steps to their birth country's music. It was pretty fascinating.
We took pictures and posed in here.
We were all told to wear nice black dresses and a change of clothes if we were going to switch to T-shirts for the pictures. Also a first for me, she handed us baby wipes when we walked in her door to wipe off our shoes. She wanted us to wear our shoes inside since heels were part of our fancy outfits.
During dinner, it made me smile that she put on a playlist of "happy music" from America.
All countries were represented during the night :)
When we were ending the night with tea, the birthday girl decided we should play "Truth" (not "Truth or Dare").
Now, let me stop here and say that only the birthday girl and one other girl could speak English.
The other girl couldn't even speak the local language, of which I understand only a little and speak only a little.
So, when I first arrived and after introductions and answering their questions, we engaged in some small talk which I understood. But most of the night was me working up a sentence in my head, and then when I was finally ready to say something, the topic had changed :)
During tea, I just listened to the "Truth" questions and answers. I understood enough. It got rather serious with questions like, "What was it like to be married at 15 to man 15 years your senior whom you did not love?"
"After you got your certificate, how did it feel to be constantly turned down for jobs because you are a woman?" "What are the bad things that people say about me at work?" "After your husband was kidnapped 15 years ago, did you ever find out what happened to him?"
Granted, my friends who work in the refugee camps hear MUCH worse than these stories. The stories in the camps will make you cry yourself to sleep and even stop eating for a while.
Everyone here has a story.
Even my birthday friend remembers her mother carrying her into the mountains on foot to get away from the encroaching army coming into their city when she was a child. She is so thankful because some children were left on the side of the road when they got too heavy for their parents to carry.
Heartbreaking!!!
Needless to say, this night was a high and low.
The high was I was invited to a party where another language was spoken all night, and I managed to get by without any translation. The low was the heartbreak I felt for some of these beautiful ladies.
Another high that same week was playing Catan with our language helper, and speaking for two hours completely in the language I'm learning. Granted, the vocabulary is limited in a game, but still...
The first time our family played this in May of 2017 with our language nurturer, it sounded a lot worse.
OH...And I won :)
Here's a low.
Within the last two month, REAL milk has been coming into our region from a neighboring country.
I haven't had a glass of milk in this region for two years because I don't like box milk (but I do LOVE milk)! When I had real milk here for the first time, I felt such joy, and I was so glad I had bought 5 bottles of it.
Fast-forward to the next week. I saw similar shaped bottles in the store again, and thinking they were the same thing, I wanted to stock up before they sold out.
I didn't even look at the label, I just loaded 6 of them in my basket.
I got home and poured a big glass, and it was....
Yogurt water.
That's the literal translation.
It's written right there on the bottle, and I know how to read the script, but in failing to do so, I had 6 bottles of it in my fridge, and none of us are huge fans.
I poured out the bottle I had opened, and the other 5 were a gift for my language helper.
The kids' school had a Halloween dance the Friday before Halloween. It was for all students 7th thru 12th grade, so both girls got to attend.
I showed you a picture in an earlier post of Kylie's face with hearts on her cheeks (I've put it below, too). That was her make-up "practice" day. There is a girl who lives near us who loves to play with hair and make-up, and she came to "practice" on Kylie. That's why her eye shadow is two different colors.
The day of the affair, the hair and make-up girl and her sister came over, plus a couple of others.
I have no idea what went on upstairs, but for some reason, it took over FOUR hours to do hair and make-up for the three that were actually attending the party.
Must be a girl thing.
Just not THIS girl.
The one time I did go up there, the room itself looked pretty "made over."
Here's a shoe picture from outside. I always love these.
It's a simplified picture of the 6 girls that were at the house.
Karis got her outfit together in under an hour.
Kylie had been working on her skirt and collar for the previous two weeks.
Allow me a minute to fill you in on the skirt.
I bought the elastic in the market and the cards at the store, but Kylie still needed black and red tulle. I didn't know the word for "tulle" in this language, so we went on a hunt.
We walked to a street that had a lot of fabric stores, hoping we could find tulle somewhere, and then ask, "What is 'this' in your language?"
We found some tulle with beads all over it. We asked, "What is this called?"
He said, "Chulle."
I smiled.
Easy enough.
He had no "chulle" without beads and said that no one sold "chulle."
I had seen a bridal store before on our way to the city center (On July 2nd, I showed you a picture of their dirty gown outside their store), and I decided to take a chance there.
It was 7:30pm, and I knew it might be closed, so we hurried.
We had a good chuckle walking down "butcher row" as we observed all the sheep bladders and intestines laid out for some blessed patron. Eew!
We walked up to the wedding gown store just as a lady was locking the door. We asked her in broken language if she had any "chulle" for sale.
She kindly unlocked the door and let us in.
Instantly, the smell of sewage slapped us in our face.
It was awful!
And the floor from front to back was covered in water.
Something must have broken, and what an unfortunate pipe it must have been. Ugh!
All the mannequins had been put on tables. Dresses had been pinned up off the ground. But I couldn't help but think how the smell was seeping into the material of each and every dress in the building (including any tulle we wanted to buy).
We told her we would like some red and black tulle. She said she might have red and white, and we said that was fine.
At the same time, another lady entered, and they talked about what we wanted.
We stood in the water, trying to breathe through our mouths while we waited for them to come back from their treasure hunt.
They came back with a lovely red prom dress.
One lady held it high so it wouldn't touch the water, and the other lady lifted up the skirt and started cutting off a layer of tulle under the skirt of the dress!!
I protested, but she insisted.
Interesting, to say the least.
Red tulle down. Now for the white...
Please tell me she wasn't going to cut tulle off a wedding gown!!
She didn't. She came back with what must have been left-over scraps from veils. They weren't straight or clean.
We took the "whiter" of the two piles she was offering, and then we discussed the matter of cost.
I asked her how much, and she said, "Whatever you think."
I said around $15 dollars in their currency. They laughed.
I pulled out the equivalent of $25 and made it seem like that was pretty much all they were going to get, and they took it, albeit reluctantly.
I thought they were kind of upset about the transaction, but nope...
They both pulled out their cell phones and asked if they could take selfies with us.
Then we waded to the front of the store where there was better light and took some more selfies.
After our mini photo session, we left wondering what had just happened, and at the same time, hurried home to wash the sewage smell not only out of the tulle, but also out of our hair and clothes.
Otherwise, this picture is what other people might have looked like after they got a whiff of us.
Doug said the rest of the transcript process wasn't too difficult. After Surprise went back to pick up the signed papers, he and Doug went to another government office downtown. After 30 minutes or so, they had government approval, and so they headed to the school to hand all the paperwork to the Asst. Principal. Now, we just owe them money, and we'll be ready for the beginning of school.
A couple of Fridays ago, Doug visited another town with a gentleman who has lived here for awhile. Once Doug was gone, we had some difficulty with the power, and it was 104 degrees before 11am. I wasn't able to ask all the questions I needed to my landlord's sister about when power might be restored (I'm still missing some key verbs in my vocabulary), So I decided to try and text my other neighbors (which I told you about before), at which didn't do so hot.
However, all that to say, I received my very first personal text in the local language yesterday!! I'm not going to lie...I took it to Kylie to read it for me and answer back, but hey, it's a start.
In reality, the heat problem is not really a problem. I mean, this looks pretty much like any Texas forecast. Hot at night, hot during the day, etc.
The problem is with the power.
The three air conditioner units work on city power, but city power does not run all the time.
Part of our fees for living here is to pay a man who is responsible
for cranking up the neighborhood generator when the city power goes off,
but he's not allowed to run the generator all the time either.
When
the generator IS on, we can run our fans and our swamp coolers, but
they just blow warm air. But I guess warm air moving is better than no
air moving. Doug has replaced the motors in both swamp coolers since it
started getting hot, and this week, he had to replace another one of
them (at midnight when the shops were open)!
So here is what life looks like upstairs at my house. One of the A/C units is in the big room, so Caleb and Kylie have moved some doshaks in there to sleep for the summer. When the city power is on, this room is nice and cool.
However, each of them also has a fan aimed a their body for when the city power cuts off during the night.
Karis' room is the hottest, so she has an A/C unit in there for her and Keira. But they also have to be prepared for when the power goes out, hence the fans.
That's about it for us here. We're just basically hot.
I have, however, learned to be thankful. I mean, Abraham (I mistakenly said "Moses" in a letter to some friends recently) wandered around these lands for a long time with no fan, swamp cooler, or A/C.
It was 109 degrees on the day we went to test Sarah* (a relative of Jasmine,* my neighbor). Sarah* was at her uncle's house.
Everyone in the family (which seems to be many people in my neighborhood) had been using the uncle's house as a meeting place lately because Jasmine's* mother had been attacked by a stranger, and she was healing there.
We have been told many people visit her at night, and this house certainly had a big enough sitting room to hold a lot of people.
I took a picture from my corner of the room just to show how far it was across and to tell you another story.
We sat in the room with Jasmine*, two of her daughters, her injured mother, her uncle, and a male cousin. We talked for a long time. The male cousin (who was older than I) quizzed me on my language. The injured mother kept saying, "She will learn." And he kept saying, "She speaks well. I just want to see what she knows." (I could actually understand all of this).
He would test me on different objects in the room, and then when he found something I didn't know (like a "cigarette lighter"), he would proceed to teach me, and he seemed to enjoy that.
The family really seemed to like him, even though he seemed big and gruff, and I grew to like him, too.
Jennifer* asked about the framed gun over the fireplace and asked if it had been his grandmother's. (She meant to say "grandfather," but I know all too well about making mistakes). They laughed and said, "No, they had bought it."
But then the cousin got up and went to the corner and picked up what looked similar to a Tommy Gun, and said it was his. Can you see it leaning on the orange pillow?
He said it was for "Daesh." (the Arabic word for ‘a group of bigots who impose their will on others.' They use that name because it delegitimizes "the organization" and because it is an insult or swearword in its own right).
Then a younger man entered the room, and we all stood up for some reason. He greeted the other men and then sat down. Then 7 more men entered the room, and no one stood up. (We asked later and found out that the younger man was considered a guest (even though he's married to a lady in the family) and the others weren't considered guests). I don't know what determines all of this.
All of the women (there were more there by now) went to the kitchen when the men arrived, and they beckoned me and Jennifer* to come in the kitchen as well, but Jasmine* was sitting by her injured mom, and she wasn't leaving, so we stayed with our friend.
Do as they do, right?
It was the first time I'd been in a room with this many local men. None of the women spoke at all except the injured mother. And in this particular case, one loud man took over the conversation. He was talking about killing someone. He was angry. He said someone was crazy. He talked about a large sum of money. He was pointing his finger and aiming at people and hitting the ground with it. I basically had no idea what was going on, but everyone else was kind of snickering.
He had crazy eyes, and my feelings about him were confirmed when the big cousin across the room, mouthed to us that that man was "crazy." Crazy enough (pun intended), the word for "crazy" in this country is very close to a cuss word in English. As a matter of fact, many of the cuss words we have in English are used in everyday speech here as normal words. It really catches me off-guard when they are used or when I have to use them!!
After all of his ranting, he got up, walked over to the fireplace, and picked up a belt with several clips/rounds of bullets attached to it. He belted it to his waist. Then he picked up the gun, and walked out.
No one said anything.
Wasn't this the other man's gun?
I thought we might have some Independence Day fireworks or something.
Then another man that had followed him out, came back and belted to his waist another set of clips that I hadn't seen sitting in the fireplace.
Then someone came back in to report that the crazy man had slipped and fallen as he had left the house, and everyone laughed.
I'm pretty sure laughing at a crazy man with a gun is not a good thing, people!
Anyway, after 2 1/2 hours of this "testing visit," I was exhausted. We had already mentioned to Jasmine* that we needed to leave, and she said she would come with us.
But we waited for her to make the first move.
Because that's what you do.
It wasn't happening.
After 20 minutes, I texted Doug, and wrote, "Call me."
He got the message thankfully, and he did call.
I said, "Did you need me?"
He said, "Of course I need you."
I got off the phone and looked at Jasmine* and said, "My husband needs me."
And there you have it. She got up.
Jennifer* and I were hosting a local family at her house that night and we both needed to cook our dishes.
The English center, at which Doug teaches, is hosting an English camp for 50 children ages 8-13 in a couple of weeks.
It is the job of the teachers to sign up the children, test them and collect their money. Since it's mostly mothers at home with their children, Jennifer* and I have been going to houses of neighbors we want to connect with to inquire whether they would like their children tested so they can attend.
We first asked Jasmine* about testing her 9 year old daughter "Z." She told us we could come on a Tuesday at 4, so we did.
We visited for a while, and then I watched Jennifer* give the oral test. It was a very simple way to see whether she knew her colors, could recognize letters, say the ABC's, could answer easy questions in English, like "What is your name?" "How old are you?" etc.
"Z" tested at level Zero, but that is normal for the kids in my neighborhood. They start having English classes in Kindergarten, but having teachers who don't know English very well, it makes it hard for them to progress very far.
"Z" could say most of her colors and sing her ABC's, but when we asked what a shirt, a door, an eye, etc. were, she couldn't say the word in English.
I know from the day she came over and watched me make salsa, that she does know "banana," "orange," and "apple," because those are the things she could identify on my counter, but she can't say much else.
We were offered drinks, but we declined out of respect for them. Jasmine* then informed us that none of the girls in the house were fasting at that time. One is pregnant, and the others are dealing with female things, and the laws for fasting don't allow them to take part in fasting during that time.
They started drinking juice, so we had a little as well.
Then Jasmine* made a call for us to another mother (her cousin) who said we could come in two days to test her daughter. Then after 1 1/2 hours had passed, we left and walked over to the house next to mine.
The brother and sister of my landlord (and part-owners of the chicken butchery) live there. The rooms that side up to our house are my landlord's sister and the three kids she has taken in. Then there is a kitchen built onto the front porch, and on the other side of that are a few more rooms where my landlord's brother, his wife "Beautiful," (that's what her name means) and their three kids live.
We sat in the sister's house, thinking we were going to ask about testing the son and daughter of "Beautiful" (because those are the two kids we know), but the sister also wanted us to test two of the kids she has taken in. However, they needed to talk to the brother for permission to attend the camp, so they asked if we would return the next night at 9pm.
Sure.
We were offered drinks, which we turned down out of respect, and they were very appreciative and said we were good people.
While we visited, "Beautiful" went to wake up one of her children.
It was 6pm!
We had a very good visit, and returned the next night at 9pm to see if they were committed.
They were, but they said they had to wait to pay until they got OUR rent money on the first of July.
Testing was funny. We had to keep reminding moms, aunts, cousins, and siblings to be quiet and not help the person being tested. When Jennifer* would say, "How old are you?" in English, you could hear a whisper across the room, "Taminet chenda?" (which means the same thing) so the student would understand the question. I wish I could have taken a picture of all of the huddled around that piece of paper.
All four kids that were tested scored a Zero, but again, that's normal.
While we were there, they got a facetime call from another sister that lives in America. It was her idea to build the house next to the butchery that I live in and use it for additional income. They handed the phone to us to visit with her and her children since we speak English. This happens a lot.
One time in a taxi, the driver found out we spoke English, so he called his brother on the phone, handed the phone to Doug cold turkey, and told Doug to talk. I guess they think we will be instant friends and have tons to talk about if we both speak English.
The visit with Beautiful and her sister-in-law was good, and I was glad for these relationships. Doug usually only deals with the landlord, but it is nice to have a relationship with the ladies over there as well. I actually knocked on their gate two days later because I was having a problem with the electricity and Doug wasn't home. I was glad we had already established a connection.
For Father's Day, back in June, we took Doug out for lunch. We had to wait until 2pm for the restaurant to open, because...Ramazan.
He ordered a Mongolian steak but was given the Mongolian hamburger by mistake.
No mistake here.
That thing was at least 6 inches
high between the buns!!! It had what looked like three chicken-fried
steaks stacked up with fried mozzarella cheese between them, and some kind of
sauce oozing out the sides.
In case you were wondering, he did NOT pick it up and eat it.
A knife and fork were involved.
I split a Hawaiian burger with Kylie, and it was just the right thing to lead into a nap.
I hardly ever take naps, but on this day, it was glorious!
At 5pm, my friend and I took our maxi material to a tailor to have her alter the bought ones and make the un-made ones, but she told us we needed to soak our material first.
So, I went back home, and we had a mini-TV marathon. We were all exhausted and hot. We didn't want to move too much. Again, I understand why the locals are sleeping during the day.
The next day was officially the "First Day of Summer."
Although, I feel like we've been experiencing "summer" for a while now.
When the sun was high in the sky, and the temperature was 104 degrees, Doug, the girls and I walked to Stationary Street. I've mentioned this place before.
Again, it was quiet, and the streets were empty. I guess the reason the office supply stores remain open during the day is because offices still have to work and need supplies during this crazy time.
And again, I was so excited about being in my favorite kind of store that I forgot to take pictures!! I did however, buy three new journals for different language uses (lesson plans, language practice, and new language journal).
And I did take one picture on the way there.
This pitiful looking wedding dress just sits outside of its shop 24 hours a day, covered in dust, as an advertisement to come inside and shop.
Does this dirty gown beckon you at all?
Things you don't think about unless you're here, but all the notebooks open from the back (remember, they read back to front, right to left).
I really do need a notebook to practice language.
I sent a text the other day that took me 30 minutes to write. I wanted to show you a picture of it, but just in case some people could read it, I would be very embarrassed. I couldn't find the "sh" key, so I just used "s" (my friend showed me later that if I hit the shift key, I get a whole new group of letters), and I'm sure I spelled all the words wrong.
But here's an example of my yahoo page that pulls up on my computer.
And here's our six names that I wrote in my language notebook.
Betcha can't tell which letter makes the "K" sound...
The kids favorite day in language, by far, was the day we played Settlers of Catan. Of course, who wouldn't love playing a game for an entire class period?
On Thursday, May 26th, our language helper gave us all the words we might need based on what I had written down the day before. I wrote them down the best I could phonetically.
I'm not good like the rest of the members of my family at writing the letters yet.
Here's Kylie writing her numbers (and spelling them out) on the refrigerator white board...just for fun.
Of course, since I wasn't actually playing the game when I wrote down the words we needed, so I missed a few phrases like, "I don't have any," "It's your turn," "points," "I'm winning," and most important: "I have ______, but I'm not giving it to you."
Here we are setting up.
When we actually played the game, it was on the following Sunday, and that just happens to be the day that our friend Richard shares Truth in the front of a room full of people. Richard loves Catan, and we have been fortunate enough to be invited for a few games at his house.
So, we thought about Richard (and Tim, Joyce, Valleen, Tre and others), and we played a rousing (yet slowish) game of Catan. After a while, we didn't have to look at our sheets as much, but it was still a fun challenge, even if we did accidentally slip into English every now and then.
My sister, who is quite the linguist, learns one way (very easily, I might add).
Some learn by immersion.
Some learn from Rosetta Stone or other on-line programs.
We used one called Pilat in Africa.
And now we are using another program called GPA (Growing Participator Approach).
We "grow" in our participation of the language. For example, on March 13th, we started language, and yesterday, April 14, was the first time we spoke.
Yep. All we've been doing this whole time is learning vocabulary words by listening.
As of yesterday, we had heard/learned about 589 words!!!
It's much like a child learns to speak his mother's language. He listens for about two years, making some sounds here or there before he starts putting sounds together to make words himself.
We just sped up the process from two years to 25 days.
I thought you might be interested in some of the things we do, so I took a picture of some "lessons."
Here is one where we were learning vocabulary words about things outside.
We start with one card, hearing the word several times, and then we add more cards, one at a time. After each added card, our language helper, tests each one of us on all the ones on the table (even if there are only 2), so essentially, we are getting to hear them a LOT of times.
Once we felt like we had a pretty good handle on all of the words, we looked at the picture below, and our language helper would say a word, and we would point to it.
After doing that for about 5 minutes, then he adds verbs, like: "I go to the mountain. I stand in the snow. I sit beside the river. I walk on the sidewalk," and each time he says a sentence we choose the picture of the verb off the table (not shown here) and put that verb on the noun on the picture.
After doing that for 10 minutes, we would add adjectives: "The tired man looked at the sun. The crying woman washed her hands in the river. The old man sat on the roof and looked at the sun."
Confused yet?
Of course, by this time, we knew all the prepositions (in, beside, between, on, under, etc) and we had studied the adjectives (sleepy, hungry, tired, sad, happy, etc), so it just kept adding to what we already knew.
At the end of the lesson, we would make a video of all the new vocabulary so we could listen again in the evening.
It is difficult to hear and understand sometimes, but still, easier than speaking.
Another way we learn is through a book we have with pictures. Our language helper will look at the pictures and tell us how the conversation might go in his culture. For example, the page on the left shows a person sneezing.
Yep, in other languages, there are certain things you do or don't do when person sneezes.
The second series shows a person asking the time
The third series shows someone interrupting two people to ask a question.
You get the idea.
Then, once our helper discusses all the cultural nuances with us, we record him pointing at each series and saying what each person would say in each situation.
This video show us learning colors with M&M's, pencils, and cards.
Then, some days, we cover the table with all the items we can (they won't all fit), and our language helper will put random sentences together about anything, and we have to find the pictures that match what he is saying, from washing dishes, to eating food, to picking up clothes, to understanding the parts of the body (the word for nose is "kapoo" - pretty fun, huh? And the word for mouth is "doe," which is what my kids call my mom, so that one should be easy to remember.)
We get excited when there's a "free word," like "plies" for pliers, "tip" for tape, "lampa" for lamp "potata" for potato or "kittlee" for kettle. It's also nice when we hear something sort of familiar. To say "this is a broom," it sounds like "owa jessica."
And the color purple was the same as "purple" in another language we studied a little last year.
One thing I didn't expect was to be able to use anything we learned in Africa.
But the Lugbara had borrowed a lot of words from Arabic, so the words for "time," "okra," "pen," and "pencil, "for example, have been VERY close to what we learned when we were in Arua.
This isn't conclusive, but it will give you some idea of the kinds of things we do each day.
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