We're Leaving on a Jet Plane

Blog Post About January 2021

The morning we were leaving, we got up early to get PCR tests. Everyone was a real trooper except me. One of my children has a video of it, but of course, I will spare you, and it will remain hidden.

Several friends came to pray over us and say goodbye as we were loading the car. For the things that wouldn't fit (see one of the items in this post), a sweet friend mailed them to us.

We made it to the airport with zero positive Covid tests and said our last goodbye to Kylie from the same. time zone.

Keira always has some crazy "arrival eyes."

And when I finally had access to my texts again, we had a sweet text from Kylie ;)

After arriving, we settled in a hotel and Doug got our car from a friend who had been taking care of it. 

After getting some sleep, Doug ran some much-needed errands. 

One of those errands was scheduling for the "generator man" to come and hook our house up to the neighborhood generator.

We went to see the house we had rented 7 months early. It was Keira's first time to see it and mine and Karis' second.

The man that kept our car had some guys clean the house for us before we got there, but unfortunately, they didn't do the most thorough job.

While Doug was unlocking the door for us to go inside, I saw this plug in the outside porch area.

Guess we aren't supposed to use it :)

Thankfully, city power was on, so we had lights. 

You can see where we ran our fingers over the wall in all of the dust the cleaners had left behind.

The "generator man" was late. We waited for TWO hours (cleaning in the meantime), but he never came.

January 14, 2021

The next day, Doug graciously hired the cleaners we've had for our other houses, and they did a fan-tab-u-lous job!

They bring about 12 guys and clean from the roof all the way out the front door.

Yes, they literally mop their way out to the street!!

January 15, 2021

Some dear friends of ours invited us to live with them until we could actually get in our house. The hotel was expensive, so we took them up on their offer. Karis went to live with two single girls, and the other 4 of us moved in with our friends.

This is our luggage as we are leaving the hotel.

Two days later, Doug and I went to a "cabinet" store to order our cabinets. You knew that most houses come without cabinets, right?

Doug had already met the man on a previous day at the house to take measurements.

This is what our cabinets looked like on the man's computer when we finished.

Is this what we got?  No

Did we get them within a month?  No

The saga continues...

Spring cleaning and a Slumber Party

Like many of you, lockdown proved to be a great time to clean.

I went through cabinets and shelves, slowly getting rid of things.

Everyone went through their clothes and pulled out what they couldn't wear anymore.

And Doug got the pressure sprayer out and cleaned the outside of the house.

You can see the outline around Keira of how much dust accumulates on our walls.

April 21, 2020

When the balcony upstairs is being cleaned with water, the cleaner may think all the bird poop 

(and yes, a LOT of that is bird poop) and dirt is flowing down the pipe to the street.

Guess again!  It flows down to the porch right by our front door 

(you can see the PVC pipe if you look closely), 

and the cleaner gets to start all over again, spraying it down the steps to go under the gate, 

and THEN out into the street.

Doug also trimmed all the trees and pressure washed our windows 

to make sure we had an unimpeded view of the yard when we were in the kitchen.

Keira also wanted to have a slumber party, 

so Keira got mine and Doug's pillows and blankets 

and put herself in the middle 

and set the whole thing up.

(This wasn't our last sleepover...

when the house got too hot, 

Doug eventually set a tent in the yard for us, 

and the three of us slept outside for two nights 

because it was cooler than sleeping inside 

(but I think that wasn't until June).

April 26, 2020

On April 21, 2020, the government announced new curfew hours: 

For the next month (until May 22...the second to last night of Ramadan), 

curfew was to be from 7pm to 6am, Sunday through Thursday and 24 hours on Fridays and Saturdays.  

Since people sleep a lot during the day during Ramadan, and they are mainly awake during the sundown hours, I think they thought this would help lower the numbers.

I didn't work.

Food, Food, and Cold Weather (not in that order)

Doug flew with Karis and her friend back to Turkey on February 6th and met up again with her mom.

She left just in time before we experienced a stretch of bad power in our neighborhood and before Doug had to go to the school to talk about someone slapping Keira.  Oh, the joys of parenthood!

On February 13, 2020, it actually snowed in our city.

Yes, this is as much as we got...a few snowflakes in the morning, and then...nothing.

The lack of power was a real issue though. Usually, we can stay warm by crowding in front of one of our propane heaters, but there was a shortage at this time, so without the use of electric heaters or propane heaters, we were just like Texans during the snowpocalypse of 2021. 

Below are some of our empty propane bottles waiting outside.  

Trucks playing the old national anthem on loud speakers usually drive through every neighborhood in the city at least once a day so you can hear the music, go out of your gate and stop the truck, and trade out your empty bottles for full ones.

At some point, Doug heard of a place that had a few, and he drove to go get them, paying a much higher price than normal, but we were grateful!

A few days later after school, Keira was invited to play with some girls that go to a different school.  Their mothers' got together and made quite the feast for an "after school get-together."  

February 16, 2020

One of these ladies (two days earlier) had held a birthday breakfast brunch for her daughter (turning 9 or 10) at a nice restaurant in town.  Keira and I were invited, but we were WAY underdressed.  First off, I had never heard of the restaurant, and secondly, I didn't know that the birthday girl would be switching between a party dress and a floor-length formal during the festivities. Not to mention, most of the moms and their daughters were also dressed very nicely.

At a few nice restaurants here in the city, they have their basements made into play areas so parents can visit undisturbed.

While you are dining (and after kids have eaten), you can take them downstairs and a restaurant employee will watch them.  Sometimes it's free.  Sometimes it costs around $1.50.

I thought this basement was pretty impressive!

Trampoline

Pretend kitchen

Make-up and hair

And I love that you can see evidence of all the moms who come down to get their kids.

Small tricycle track

As I was leaving, I saw several of these "dust busters" plugged in the walls around the restaurant, and thought these guys must be pretty smart, especially when I saw them cleaning up parts of the kid table with one.

I had one when my kids were smaller, and I used it A LOT!

A Fresh Start to Fall

The start of school meant the start of dance and soccer.  The kids are always glad to get back to their extra curricular activities.

The dance ladies went out for sushi to celebrate being back together.  

I'm definitely NOT a dance lady, but they were kind enough to include me.

The first soccer game (not practice) was at this field across town, next to this mall.

 Why waste electricity running lights for the field when the lights from the mall do just fine.

Not.

After about 30 minutes, someone actually did turn some lights on which was nice for my more "mature" eyes.

Also, I decided to clean off some of our upstairs balconies so as the weather got more delightful in the fall, the kids could do school outside.

I worked hard hauling water in buckets from the bathtub to the balcony and then squeegieing it down a hole...not knowing where that hole went...I assumed the street.

Wrong!

All the bird poop and 9 months worth of dirt came rushing down this little spout...

onto part of our front entryway, so I had to clean it all again.

This one was about to start losing some front teeth, so I wanted to grab one last picture before they all started falling out :)

Things I See (Vol 11)

Welcome to "Things I See."  If you want to see the previous installments, you can click on:

 Volume 1 , Volume 2, Volume 3, Volume 4, Volume 5, Volume 6, Volume 7, Volume 8, Volume 9, Volume 10

See anything?

This one building of MANY in the city where people line up daily trying to get visas to get out of the country. It might be for work, a trip, or for permanence, but it just causes me to be thankful for my passport country.

I know you can't see it, but the SAM Office Furniture building is NOT on the street.
(It's over by the green plastic playground equipment)

Twins!

I love that she tried.

At the salon where I get my hair cut, younger boys are hired to hold the hairdryer for the hairdressers, they also hold the foil for the hairdressers on ladies' heads who are getting their hair colored.

I thought this was unique, but maybe this same thing happens in America???  You'll have to let me know.  I'm not that familiar with salons in America.  I can count on one hand how the number of salons I've been to in my life.

This is in our old neighborhood.  

Your eyes are NOT deceiving you.

Yes, that is three lanes of traffic PARKED on our street, and our gate is down on the right where you can see a dark blob of people sitting. 

March 19, 2019

Our side-of-the-road grazers look a little different than they do in South Texas.

"Chevy Runs Deep," but what does SHEVY do?

Ahhh!  Breathe in that beautiful air!

Speaking of air...

It's pretty common for houses here not to be built to code. (*smile)

Doug put rubber on the bottom of all our doors when we moved in because there was at least a half-inch space for dirt and air to come through (and the elements are still successful sometimes).

This is our front door area.  You can see to the right of the door how it's not flush with the wall.

Here it is zoomed in.

March 28, 2019

You wanna know why these small things don't bother me?

The back door to my kitchen in Africa had a ONE INCH space down the right side of the door.

You could literally put your hand through the hole, so Doug filled it with classy trashbags ;)

I've searched and searched for the picture of it, but after going through three years of Africa pictures twice, I still couldn't find it, so you'll have to take my word for it.