Kylie: Home for a Visit

Blog Post About April 2021

Kylie came home for a visit for her 10-day break at the end of April.

We kept the surprise of her arrival from Keira, and when Kylie walked in, Keira sweetly burst into tears.

Kylie was busy while she was here. She met with a local businessman about increasing his instagram traffic.

April 25, 2021

She had lunch with her graphic designer friend and went to see her new office space.

April 27, 2021

She surprised quite a few people with her arrival, and we loved having her home, even if it was for a short while. 

April 28, 2021
 

It's now December 2021, and we anxiously await her arrival for Christmas in 15 days!!

A Beautiful Welcome!

Jamie drove us to the home we would be staying in for the next 6 months, and it was such a sight for sore eyes! 

(Did you SEE Keira's eyes in the last post?)

We arrived around 1am, and I think we stayed up until 3:30am just looking around, unpacking, and taking it all in.

After that long flight, I was SO glad to see this bed!

June 24, 2020, 1am

A couple of fellowships and some friends chipped in to make our stay so enjoyable!

Keira opened her closet and found new toys all for her.

That morning, when the sun came up, we were able to see the backyard, and I have no words to tell you what all of the grass and trees did for our souls.

June 24, 2020, 9am

It was good to be here, but we were still waiting on the rest of our family, and we knew we were not complete yet.

As a matter of fact, our luggage wasn't complete either.  That must have been a rough flight on everyone and everything.

One suitcase arrived with only ONE wheel, and another was missing TWO!

Covid affected our stay in America, as expected. There were some people we couldn't see. There were some people who didn't feel comfortable seeing us. And all-in-all, it was kind of weird.  But you know all of that, because you experience the same thing, right?

Back in April, when we were quarantining, numbers looked small for our country.

April 13, 2020

But the day we landed in America, the numbers looked different back where the rest of our family was.

June 24, 2020

The numbers were so small compared to America's, but the fear was very real for a lot of people, and it actually still is. The fear of death has paralyzed a lot of people, and they still aren't traveling outside of their homes much. Here it is, a year later, and our numbers are up again. We were put on a "restricted" list August 8, 2020, which means other countries do not want citizens traveling out of this country coming their way.

Hasten the day...

(Shout out to Kylie who turned 19 yesterday!!)

Flooding...Again

This was "traffic control" in our neighborhood.  

As we walked to the grocery store or fruit stand we would see a car

 or two come up to the police, and they always let them pass.  

I was curious how other parts of town were blockading people or allowing car travel.

I wish you knew how crazy busy this street by our house is ALL the time, 

because seeing this was so weird!

We were so thankful that the fruit vendor guys made it through to replenish all our neighborhood fruit stands.

March 16, 2020

And then on the 18th when rain came again, the gutters and drains couldn't handle it, 

and I was once again thankful drivers were not on the roads

The one great thing about my older kids' online education is that school continued the same 

whether there was corona or not. Whether there was a flood or not.

However, Keira's education was another matter.  

Like many in America, the French school wasn't prepared for something like this.

Her teacher had moved into a hotel before Covid because her apartment situation wasn't healthy.

The internet was spotty, and she didn't know how to use zoom or even make a video for the students.

The hotel she was in didn't have a generator, so when she would call the kids 

around lunchtime on Whatsapp to check in, if power went off, the call was dropped. 

(We have our internet hooked up to a battery, for instance, so we don't lose internet 

when power goes off - it would be really difficult for the kids to take online tests, etc 

if we were always losing a connection)

Keira's teacher would text the assignments every day on WhatsApp.

I would translate them in Google translate, 

and then Keira and I would work through them together.

It was quite the system!

The grey building with the white doors in the middle of this picture is where our 

neighborhood generator is.  It makes a lot of noise, and as you can tell from where 

I'm taking the picture, it is right across the street from our house.  But the noise is always 

a blessing to hear when the town power shuts off, and some man across the street starts 

the engine on the generator so we can have power.

I hope that whatever this guy got out of his house for was worth it.

Thankfully for him, a police officer from the blockade crew came down to help him out.

Covid...when it rains it pours.

March 18, 2020

Hedgehog Café and Coming Home

My friend Hayley introduced me to the concept of a Cat Café when I was in Dubai.  She told me about it, and I laughed because I thought she was kidding.  I couldn't get my head around going to a café for the sole purpose of having a cat to pet and sit in my lap while I ate a meal.

I like cats, but I don't like their hair getting everywhere (plus cats have been known to cause my eyes to water, my skin to break out, and my airways to close off - no big deal).  The amount of hair flying around our house from me and the girls is enough, why would I want more? 

In my mind I just knew I would never go to a cat café (because I might have an asthma attack), and that was pretty much the last thought I gave to it.

Enter Thailand.  

We had the opportunity to go to a Hedgehog Café, and I seriously couldn't believe my kids were excited about it, but they were, so we went.

You purchase a certain number of drinks and a dessert, and then you get some hedgehogs brought to your table.

They set us up with bowls of mealworms with tweezers and a few hedgehogs to annoy feed and love on.

The waitress told us the names of each hedgehog, and my children quickly became attached naming their favorites.

The fun didn't stop there.  Soon it was feeding time for the guinea pigs.

A lady beat some grass against the wood, and out they came, crossed over a bridge, and entered into a "feeding area," where many small children abused fed them.

Keira was gentle and patient - even as other kids came and stole grass out of her hands!

We stayed for quite awhile, and it was one of my kids' favorite things, so I'm so glad we did its. 

And yes, I did hold one hedgehog for a very short amount of time.  I thought he was going to skydive off my hands, so I quickly passed him off to Caleb as all the kids laughed at me.

Too quickly, our time came to an end, and we left the lush green of Thailand's hills to return to the vast desert in the Middle East.

 

Summer was officially over.  Time for school to start.

The White Menace

Last Saturday, Doug and I went to a flea market of sorts to look for furniture and rugs with two young ladies who know the language pretty well.

We found some beautiful rugs from a country right next door, and it was quite the experience buying the rugs.

Each rug hung on these huge racks that the merchants would flip through and tell us about the number of threads per "something."  I didn't quite understand it all.  And how much each cost.

 

After we chose one, they folded it up, and flagged down a man outside with a big, rolling wooden cart, to follow us all the way back to our car.

This is the one we chose for the living room.  I love it!  It brings some life into our white, sterile room.

We decided against wall-to-wall carpet, because everyone's advice to us is that we will want as much tile visible as possible in the hot summer months, and we want to be able to roll up our carpet if we want to.

After buying two rugs, we went to eat at a restaurant that makes food from that same neighboring country from where we bought the rugs.

Then, we went couch shopping.

Most people buy seating for 10, and that suited us just fine, since we're already 6.  

We've had a hard time finding couches that weren't white, gaudy, uncomfortable, or ugly :)

We thought we hit the jackpot when we found a store with couches we like (they turn into beds for guests), AND they had this dandy little color swatch and told us we could choose from two colors they had available.  Light brown or blue.  We went with the light brown, and the guys said they could deliver it in 45 minutes.

Wow!!  This is too good to be true!

Yep!  It was too good to be true.

Two to three hours later, they showed up.

 

We had cleaned everything, and made it nice and ready.

 

They brought a chair into the living room and started putting it together, and they took a chair and a sofa upstairs, and started putting that chair together.

I was busy cooking dinner, but when I looked up, this is what I saw.

WHITE!

 

In a desert country!  In a house with four kids!  White!

I stopped the man, and I got Doug's attention.  We pulled out the dictionary to say the words "No white."  We then found the words for "brown" and asked "where?"

It wasn't working.  He was assuring us that this is what we had bought.

I called one of the young ladies who had shopped with us who explained to the man over the phone that we did not want these pieces.

He said he had to leave the two chairs and couch because they had already been un-packaged, and they couldn't ride back in the truck because they'd get dirty.

Yes.  And their white!

 The next day, the merchant and another gentleman arrived, unannounced, during our language time with the color swatch.  I was thankful we had a translator this time.

The man with the swatch said we could pick ANY color material and ANY color pillow, and he would get it to us in 10 days.

What?

While our translator was listening to the swatch man, the merchant was telling me proudly that he was a Christian.  ISIS had taken three homes he owned, his business, two of his three cars, and money, but he and his family fled in his last car to our city.  He is starting over, and I must say, he is very kind.

He asked if he could bring his wife and children to our house to meet me sometime, and of course, I said, "Yes."

We picked out a new color material and new color pillows, and we'll see if this will actually happen.

They eventually came back three days later for the furniture, but that is a story for another time.

And believe me.  It's a story!

Getting Settled

We survived the 24-hours without a toilet easily, and it prompted me to go outside and clean the squatty potty.  I washed the walls on the outside and the floors on the inside.  While scrubbing the acutal squatty, I found some "residue" tucked under the edge that had been there for awhile, which was probably causing the smell.

So glad that's over!

Also that first night (as we experience every night at some point), the power went out.  We had the solar lanterns lit on the dinner table, and just as I got ready to snap this picture, the power came back on.  But you get the gist.

After one night sleeping on the doshaks, Doug was prompted to walk down the street and investigate mattresses.

Lo and behold, he returned within two hours with a truck following him.

He was a little disappointed that he didn't get as much discount as he thought he could have gotten, but when the only thing you know how to do is point and look at a man's calculator when he types in numbers for you,  you pretty much get what you can.

We like the mattress!

Also, on this day, we went to a government office (think "closet with one man and a heavy cloud of cigarette smoke hanging in the air") to have copies of our passports made and stapled to another sheet.  That's it!

I had my mobile taken away and a full pat down to go to that office for a total of 3 minutes.

Then, we headed to a clinic (on the other side of town) run by the government to have our blood drawn and tested (for malaria, HIV, bilharzia, etc).  We paid about $50 and then stood in line for the needle.  The sign says "Blood Withdraw Exit", but it also happens to be the entrance, which makes it quite crowded and complicated.

We were told to return to the "Smoking Man's" office in two days, and he would have the results of our blood test and we could get our permits.

Well, that didn't happen...

But to continue on with setting up our house, the next day, Doug went walking down the street again, and this time when he came home, a truck followed again very quickly.  This time it was carrying a washer and dryer.

I love this man.  He knows the way to my heart!

The dials have pictures on them, so I don't even have to know how to read the language yet to operate it.

 The amount of dust on top of the packaging was enough to give anyone pause.

But the following day, a very nice man helped us hook them up.

That's the nice man, climbing out the inner second-story window to get to our water heater and some pipe he needed access to.

Since the door to the laundry room (that's what I call it) opens to the inside, the washer and dryer wouldn't fit in there, so Doug and the other man re-situated them under the stairs.

I'll be honest.  I hated to lose that under-the-stair storage.  Or on second thought, I could have put Keira's bed under there!! :)  However, since I will only need the dryer during the winter months, I could, realistically move it up to the third floor landing and retain some of the space under there.

We'll have to see.

To finish up our week, since this was Thursday (their Friday), we went to pick up our permits at the government office.  Smoking Man had our papers and it showed that we had had our blood tests done, but he said he needed to see our receipt for the $50.

We took a taxi back to our house.  Found it.  Took a taxi back to the office, and Smoking Man released us to go upstairs to see the "Big Man" who makes all the decisions.

The Big Man couldn't decide if he should charge us a lot of money, so he sent us home and told our translator to come back the following week.

Long story short (and awesome), today our translator went back, and he said we were only charged a fee to process and laminate our ID cards (about $17).  Nice, huh?

No more paper work or blood given for one more year :)

End of the week also meant homemade pizza and a movie.

I have some tweaking to do to get these better, but it was a good first start.

 

 We all sat at the kitchen table and watched a movie on a laptop while eating pizza.

Sounds like a good night to me.