One Random Day in the Life

Not that you're interested, but I chronicled part of a random day here, and I thought I might share.

There are different things about every day, but of course, there are also similarities.

When we first wake, there is no power, and when it was more "winter-ish," there was no light.  Breakfast was made by lantern-light.  

There has generally been power from 7am to 8am since the middle of January, and then it goes off until late afternoon.  This picture was taken around 8:15, after the kids have gone to school.  We are very fortunate because we have windows in our house.  So many people have to use lanterns even after 8 am.

This is the view outside my kitchen window.

If the blinds are closed, this is my "view."

Usually, we're pretty good about washing dishes from dinner the night before so they are ready to put up the next morning, like this.

 But sometimes,  I wake, and I'm met with a mess from a lazy night.
 


Since I only have one sink, I put all the dirties in the red basin and boil water on the stove.



Very soon, it's all done...till lunch.


We usually have pretty good power at night.  It shuts off until midnight, but until then, I can usually get all the wash done for the day and hang it on our rack and on the stairs.  This is what I see the next morning.  And yes, we still have "crunchy" towels, just like we did in Africa.

I get everything folded into piles, ready for the kids to pick up after school.  The trunks are my "pantry."  These are where I keep goodies that are sent from America, multiples of an item, or salsa and pickles that I make.

 Now, the rack will sit empty all day until the power comes on again at night.

And, I wait until the kids dutifully fill it up again by throwing their clothes down from the second floor.



Throwing their clothes down must be a lot of fun because I never have to remind them to do it.



I also vacuum in the late afternoon when there is power.  For some reason, someone tiled this house with WHITE tile, so every speck of anything or hair from anybody's head, is noticeable to the downcast eye.

If we have had city power the night before (versus generator power), that means our hot water heater was working and a hot shower can be had the next morning.  But getting prepared for a shower is quite a shock to the system when your house feels like 50 degrees or colder.  We also try to take "military showers."  They need to be short, and while we're soaping up, we turn the water off, so that the rest of the family will have enough hot water, as well.

*cold*

This picture was taken in January, when I used to hang a lantern on the door of the shower.



It gave me pretty good light, but I realized with water running over my eyes, I keep my eyes closed most of the time anyway, so I stopped taking a lantern with me.



Next, I try to pick out an outfit and put on make-up in my room by lantern or iphone light.  Even with the door open, it doesn't get a lot of light in there.  Recently, I've been taking my make-up into the living room and applying it there.  I stuck myself in the eye several times in my room trying to hold an iphone light in one hand and apply mascara with the other.

Since our afternoons get busy with kids coming home, their activities, and our language tutor coming to the house, I usually go to the vegetable stand in the morning and start prepping for dinner.

My door to the vegetable stand and the outside world.

Looks like we had a dust storm, and somebody needrd to hose down the front porch area.  

I believe after I took this picture, Doug cleaned the porch.  I'm sure the neighborhood ladies get a kick out of seeing him do "women's work," but again, we want to be different, and this is one way we can show how to humble ourselves and be a servant to others.

When I return from buying vegetables, I homeschool Keira until lunch.  After lunch, when I'm ready to go for visits, most everything in my neighborhood is shut down for naptime, so visits have to wait until later.  Most everything in this culture happens late at night, anyway.  

For example:

The girls finish their dance classes around 10pm.  

Caleb gets home from soccer around 8pm.  

Doug gets home from teaching around 8:30pm.

Dentist appointments here START around 9pm.

Late night dinners are a regular at our house.  It makes for short nights, but we are getting used to it.

I left a ton out, but you kind of get an idea of a no-nonsense day.

Happy random day to you, too.

Date Cookie

I think one of the favorite desserts around here is a special cookie made with mashed dates rolled inside.

An American friend of mine was learning how to make them from her neighbor, and she invited me to come.  I was a little late because I had language class, but I got in on most of it.

My friend mashed the dates flat on the plastic with oil on her fingers so that they wouldn't stick to her.

Her neighbor rolled the dough out on a tri-legged wooden table.  

Most ladies use this small table for either rolling dough or cutting veggies or meat since most of ladies cook on the floor.  It's quite handy.

After rolling the dates in the dough, she would cut little slits in the top for the classic look that you can see in the pan above.

When the pan was full (and this was just pan one of two and a half), the neighbor brushed them with raw egg before we baked them.

Making them was quite time-consuming, and I will certainly appreciate them more when I am offered them next time.

We ran out of dates before the dough ran out, so on our third batch, we made half a pan of just "cookies."

To be honest, these were never my favorite thing to eat when I visited homes, but after making them, I'm endeared to them a little more.























































I kind of look forward to the next time I get to try them, and guess what?

Newroz is right around the corner.  Remember that?

Celebrating the kids

Usually awards for schools take place at the end of the year, but the school that our kids are attending, doesn't do any "honoring" in May.  However, they principal scheduled something for January 18th, and awards were given based on their first term's performance.

All three of our kids were given the same two awards.
One for maintaining a 90% average or higher, and one for maintaining a 95% average or higher.

It seems strange to me, because if they had just been given the one for 95% average, it would have covered both of them, but oh well.

The lower one was presented by the US Consulate General, and the higher one was presented by the principal.

This is the principal with all of them.

It's so rare that I get a picture of all of them, so even though this was taken in a cafeteria with some strangers in the background, I figured I would let you see it.

 Thanks.

Afterward, to celebrate, we visited a place that we had heard was in town, but we really weren't sure whether to believe it or not.

It used to be called "P.J.'s Pizza," but now...




This is pretty amazing!  The pizza actually tastes the same!!  The only "wrong" thing about the night was that they served garlic mayonnaise with the pizza instead of garlic butter sauce.

As I checked out, I asked the man if there was any chance they were ever going to serve the garlic butter sauce, and he said, "Yes!"  Apparently, the garlic butter sauces were "misplaced" in shipping.  He said in few weeks they might arrive.

We shall see...

Happy days

The Center of the City

We had a guest the third week of January, and we took her to see the center of the city.  This cute girl went with us. 

She loves to see the fountains, but unfortunately, they weren't on.  Maybe the winter weather and the cold has kept them from being turned on.

Many people were out in the sunshine, enjoying a day of nice weather.


 I started noticing all the little places downtown where they sell tea for men to drink.

All of the chairs were set in rows. 

Can you see all the men sitting in rows of plastic chairs across the street?

It's nothing much, but I thought it was interesting because in the States we would gather in circles to visit and converse.

This was only my second time to come downtown since arriving here a year ago. 

There is a big bazaar and lots of places to eat and drink tea, but I definitely feel like it's kind of a man's world down here. 

Most Good Things Must Come to an End

Well, we know that not ALL good things come to an end, but for vacations, this is simply not true.

Our short two nights away was a lot of fun and much-needed, but we knew we needed to head back down the mountain, into the valley.

We can't always live on the mountain top, right?

Here comes our ride back down.

Our chariot.

We made it down the mountain, loaded up the car, and went to see a nearby waterfall.

It used to be covered with a few ramshackle buildings that included a place to sit and drink tea.  

The buildings looked VERY shaky and thankfully have been torn down. 

There were many men working on new construction.  

It looked like a firm foundation was being built at the base of the waterfall, and a new tourist/resort place is currently being constructed.

We look forward to seeing the finished product.

In the meantime, we took a few selfies in front of the construction.

The End.

First Day in the Snow

Our first morning, we all woke up from a warm night to see beautiful views out our windows.

When everyone was ready for breakfast, we were stumped for a little while as to how to get to where food was prepared.

The night before, after we checked in, a man took us up to our room in a SUV with chains on his tires.  But now we realized we were far from the restaurant/lodge, and there was no foreseeable trail.

So we called the front desk to inquire, and they said, "We will send a car."

This picture is taken from the restaurant, looking back up at the rooms.  It is quite a distance.

But I couldn't help but wonder, "What if this place was totally booked?  Would they shuttle all of those people back and forth to meals in the scant three SUV's they own or what?"

This is a view, looking up from the sledding area, without the sun in your eyes.

Well, they came and got us.  There were only two or three families there on Thursday night, so it was easy to manage.

They chose a breakfast for us, and told us four servings would be plenty for the six of us, and they were right.  It's called the "Arab Breakfast."  One serving came with an omelet, a turkey sausage, cucumbers, tomatoes, labneh (Lebanese yogurt), slices of a mild cheese, olives, tahini (sesame seed) paste mixed with honey and Nutella, bread, apples, and oranges.

It was good.

Then, we went outside to explore.

While Caleb and Keira were experiencing their first snow ball fight with some national kids, Kylie and Karis tried out this swing.

From the top, we could see the city we have had our eye on for awhile as a possible location to move.

Here's a closer look.

And an even closer one.

Besides snow ball fights, making snow angels was definitely on the agenda. 

Making a snowman was too, but after several tries with snow that wouldn't pack tightly, we took a picture with some kind of small alien creation we put together.

I'll spare you the sad photo.

Then, we tried out sledding for the first time.  Below, is a picture of my sledding companion.

Isn't she cute?

She is standing on a MOVING conveyor belt that is taking our sled and us to the top.  This is not America, and you can tell because there are no rails or safety features to keep us secure.

This was the last happy ride for this little girl.  After this sled down the hill, her toes had had enough.  

How do we get back to our room to warm her up?

I went to the front desk (which is a one room check-in station at the top of the teleferik cable), and he said he could call a car, but since several people were checking in with all of their luggage, he thought it would be better if I walked 1/4 mile over to the restaurant because a car would come there faster.

The sad little girl and I headed for the restaurant, and eventually a car did come.

After warming up for about an hour and putting on dry socks, the rest of the crew came in, and they wanted us to come back down so we could see them ride a new ride and watch them sled one more time.

With new vigor, the little girl said, "Ok."

Doug and the three olders rode the "Skyswing," while all the people who were still on the mountain cheered them on behind me.

(The SkySwing a machine that pulls them back and up and lets them go, much like the big pirate ships that you see swinging in parking lot carnivals).




























The last sled ride of the day was a little different.  The snow was starting to ice over, and the worker on the mountain wouldn't let us use sleds anymore.  He said it was too dangerous.  We had to use inner tubes on a track instead of just going down the snowy slopes.  You can see the tracks to the left of Keira on the picture above when she's on the conveyor belt.

The inner tubes were a little more scary for Keira and I because we couldn't control it.  It was a straight path, but we still had the capability to spin and not see where we were going.  I think there might have been some screaming on my part.

Even though we had to take a car back up. 
Wait a while. 
Call another car for dinner. 
Eat. 
Call another car to go back up, etc.,
I'm glad we had gone down after warming up so that we could see this...






















This was taken with my iphone.  It really was this pink and beautiful. 

Wish you could have been there.

(And I want to wish my handsome son a happy birthday!)

Our Weekend Away

Some sweet people are letting us borrow their car while they are away, so the weekend after the kids went to school at the beginning of January, we decided to get away from the city for two nights. 

We headed to the mountains.

These are the first small ones we saw as we left the city.

Then, after about an hour, we headed into the canyon as the sun set. 

About this time, we actually got a phone call from the place we were staying saying, "Are you still coming?"

They were concerned, because the hotel we were staying in is on top of a VERY tall mountain.  

And the only way to get up to the hotel is to take a small, gondola-type car called a "teleferik."

And the teleferik was getting ready to shut down for the night.

But...we made it.

This is our last look at the teleferik station below as we headed up the mountain into the darkness of the night.

As we neared the resort (after a FIFTEEN minute ride up the mountain), we started seeing signs of civilization (and SNOW) outside our windows.

Keira's first time to touch and see the snow.



It was also my older kids first time to be in the snow (posing with a small reminder of Africa).

But as you can see from the picture, we were ill-prepared for snow in the shoe-department.

There were definitely some frozen toes and fingers the next day (and maybe a few tears from a 4-year old about how miserable she was because her socks were soaked and icy...I totally don't blame her).



HOWEVER, the place where we stayed had 24-HOUR ELECTRICITY, heat CONSTANTLY running, heated bathroom FLOORS, and a heated TOWEL RACK in the bathroom.

Now, THAT is cause for a picture to be taken in the bathroom!

It was a fun first night!