Easter and Toilets

Blog Post About April 2021

I know it's Thanksgiving for you in America, but I've just gotten to Easter last spring.

For Easter 2021, we got together with a large group of Americans and we all brought dishes to share.

The house that hosted grilled a lot of chicken tikka for us, and there was more than enough to feed everyone!

April 4, 2021

Keira and a few kids had an Easter egg hunt in the house and the courtyard. 

The weather was nice, and we enjoyed a long afternoon together.

I don't know why I am going to show you this, but I took a picture of it because at the time, I was thinking, "Does this ever happen in America?"

Maybe it does.

Maybe this is what a lot of gas station restrooms look like.

But for here, this is pretty common. 

This is a toilet at the local medical clinic I went to for a check-up.

Can you see all the water dripping all over it?

I'm pretty sure this was not from a recent cleaning.

All the water on the seat, on the floor, on the top, etc is from the previous user. 

This culture likes to use a spray hose when they finish going to the bathroom, most of the time in lieu of toilet paper. 

It's rough being the person that follows this act because you have to do a lot of wiping down before you can use the apparatus.

I just thought I'd share.

April 5, 2021

And instead of ending on that note, here is a picture I took of Keira off of instagram of her dancing last spring.

April 11, 2021

The Second Coming (of family)

Blog Post about Summer 2020

Doug, Kylie, and Caleb were left behind to finish things up after the lightning-fast move. 

Doug had to take our air condition units off the wall at our old house and put them in storage. 

He hired a crane to take the water tanks off our roof and move them over to our new house. 

Then Doug had to get permission from our new landlord to put a western toilet in our new house and turn the bathroom door around because the door swung inward over the squatty area.  The landlord really wasn't excited about it, but he agreed to it.

In the meantime, Doug was watching the news. He was waiting for commercial flights to start up again, but instead, things seemed to be getting worse.

So he booked flights on a charter to get them out on June 28, 2020.

And guess what?  

On the city's instagram post the day they were boarding the plane, these were the posts:

"NEW ROUND OF LOCKDOWN IS EXPECTED TO IMPOSE FROM TOMORROW."

"LOCKDOWN FROM 6:00AM - 0:00AM TILL JULY 4"

"PHARMACIES, SUPERMARKETS, GROCERIES, AND BAKERIES WILL REMAIN OPEN DURING LOCKDOWN DAYS. 

LOCKDOWN PERIOD: JULY 29 - JULY 4. 

LOCKDOWN HOURS: 6:00AM - 00:00AM 18 HOURS"

Coincidence?  I think not :)

So, while they were boarding, I was watching more instagram posts come through and feeling so thankful.

The next day said, "AIRPORTS THROUGHOUT OUR REGION WILL REMAIN CLOSED TO COMMERCIAL FLIGHTS UNTIL JULY 15th."

I'm so thankful that Doug felt led to buy tickets and get out, because realistically, commercial flights did NOT come back on July 15th, and it would have been a long time until he found one. The charter flight just happened to be the best option.

On the day they left, the Covid numbers in our region read:

Total confirmed cases 5,533

Total recovered: 1,634

Total deaths: 180

Total active cases: 3,719

I am more than aware these numbers pale in comparison to what was going on in America. I was keeping track of the numbers there, too, and this screenshot from May 30, 2020, was one month before we flew back.