Catching from Easter, to Sue's visit to our road trip

Our wonderful Azeb baking Ethiopian bread at 4am!

 

Sue making Monkey bread 

It took Ryan awhile to get the hang of his first Easter Egg hunt (=

    

Examing in the loot!

Family photo Easter morning 2013

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Will this work? Captions are not working. I am irritated.

Don't know where this will show up, but after the Easter sunrise service we did an egg hunt then we all took a big nap. Except mama of course.
Then we went to a nice, Western hotel and swam in their lovely pool. It was a fun day and the weather was PERFECT. The camels were randomly walking down the hill behind the hotel. So crazy.

Have i said yet how irritated I am at this crazy caption thing? What is the point?? I love the sunglassse on the kids (=

Our Easter photo - keep in mind we had just come back from a sunrise service in the desert (=

                              

"Let's Talk About Hijab"

Yet another great post from my friend Rachel......this is actually a guest post from a muslim woman explaining more about what it means to cover her head. GREAT perspectives (= This is a series on Rachel's blog so scroll down to the end of the article to read the other posts in this category...

Getting sick

I think I've written about this before, but there is a book out there called "Where there is no doctor" and in our part of the world, people know this kind of resource. We live in a country where most 40 year olds did not grow up with education, paved roads, electricity or hospitals. Today, there are plenty of both but the quality of each of them varies WIDELY.

We we like to joke and say we need a book called "Where there is a doctor and you don't want to go to him/her" Things covered in this book should be as follows:

- how to respond when your doctor gives you a list of 5-6 medicines for a simple cough. How do you know what to take? What is just extra stuff they are suggesting?
- or when they tell you to get a chest x-ray.
- how to respond to the category of folk lore and traditional medicinal suggestions. What do I do when he gives me his list of medicines and then tells me in detail how to make a certain type of tea, or tells me to feed my 2 year old coke and not fresh juice? There is a wide variety of suggestions that fit this category.
- how do you respond when your doctor insults both you and your child? Really?
- what do I do when they doctor is obviously rude and acting superior and at the same time demanding I give an injection for pain for a mere earache?
- what do I say when the doctor notes that I am turning 40 and relishes the opportunity to lecture me on all the things that will happen to my body as a result of turning 40. Higher likelyhood of diabetes, sagging skin, wrinkles, dry skin, night sweats, dryness in general (he was vague on this point), need for calcium. Really. He actually acted out the dry skin and wrinkles (=

Anyway. I think a book like this should be written. It helps to navigate the waters of a traditional culture with a recent infant mortality rate of 60% that loves going to the doctor to get piles of medicines to take with gusto. Just one of the crazy and humorous things about living out here!

Some random pictures

Our kids love to cook! Here they are with their own piece of dough (=

 

Our house helper learned to make these from a neighbor....it is a little like sopapillas. SO lovely!

 

Fried dough - every culture has its version. Yum Yum.

 

The round is the traditional shape, the duck.....layla's version. 

Yikes is all I can say. 5 going on 16!

 

There are lots of sweet moments like this these days. Layla is enjoying reading to Ryan and he just loves anything his big sister does! They do fight of course, but they are also great playmates.   

borrowing creativity

I just can't seem to find the mental or physical space and time to blog with intention these days. So sorry to those of you who are interested in life here (=

I will say that it takes about a month to "re-enter". It just takes awhile to say hello to everyone, to get the kitchen back in order, the linens back in their places and all your suitcases and stuff sorted out.

Also, it is winter for only a few more weeks and we are desperately trying to fit in all our outdoor fun for the year. We left here when the weather was JUST getting cool enough to be outside and we returned with a few weeks left of good weather. We love this season (=

The biggest thing to affect our return this time is that we moved to this house just a few weeks before coming to the US. We got pretty settled, but after being gone for THREE MONTHS (whew!) I had forgotten where  we put a lot of stuff.

In the meantime while I am not really blogging, enjoy this post from my friend Rachel who is a phenomenal writer and expat (=

http://www.djiboutijones.com/2013/02/20-things-expats-need-to-stop-doing/

City Water!

As most of you know, life tasks just take longer to accomplish here. Our new house (we moved in Aug 2012 but were absent for three months!) was not connected to city water when we moved in. We had to call for a tanker to come and deliver water 2-3 times a week. We would run out and not be able to flush toilets, do laundry or dishes on a fairly regular basis. It was a pain in the neck for Tom to keep calling the water guy and he had to be paid in cash in small bills each time. And he didn't want to have me or our house helper pay him because we are women and he didn't want to look at us. Really. He would hold his hand out and look the other way (= His idea of being religious, apparently.

So during our absence, apparently the modern convenience of being connected to the city water main reached our neighborhood and everyone is now connected! Our water guy was surprised to get a call from us because everyone in our neighborhood is connected.

Because we rent our home, the landlord had to give his approval in writing and send something with a stamp/seal for us to give to the water utility company. Instead of filling out an on-line form or mailing in something to us or to the utility company, our landlord hand wrote a note, put it in an envelope and put it on the bus from his town (15 hours drive or a 4 day bus ride from our town). Hysterical process once Tom registered what he was saying.

Several days later, Tom got a call from the bus driver that he had some papers for us and that we needed to meet the bus to pick them up. Tom did so and after giving them to the water utility, in about 12 business hours the whole process was finished. Life is crazy here, some things are so old fashioned (like sending a paper by bus) and other things so efficient (you show me any american utility that could move that fast!) and you just never know what you are getting!

All the being said, I will never have to monitor our water levels or think about how much laundry I am doing in one day again.....hopefully!

Also typical to life here, during the process of getting our water hooked up, a major pipe burst from the city water main to our water tank on the roof. Tom had to get that repaired as well today. He has put in two long  plumbing days. Thank the LORD he can figure this stuff out!!

Camping!



These photos swopped places and I can't sort out how to move them so read the second caption first (=

We went with two other families - Jon and Vic our old friends and W and E our new friends. We were 7 adults and 9 kids all under 6 years of age

We were so happy to get out and enjoy the good weather this past weekend! We drove a Looooooong way to get to this beach but it was lovely. Very crowded most of the time, but still a great location.

The girls enjoying jumping in the waves...the second day was much cooler and had a great breeze but it meant that the ocean was a too rough for them to enjoy swimming.

 

Jon and Vic brought a kite and the kids had such fun with it. At one point two South Indian men came along and asked to enjoy the fun and just took the kite out of one of their hands. Cultures are so different! They were very kind but their view of community extends to anyone near them whereas we sort of let other people just play with their own toys (= 

Walter kept the kids busy chasing the Monster. They are taking a snack break here (=

 

                      

The comments are not working. This is taking too much time. sorry! wish I could comment on each one without this taking 20 mins.

The last photo is quite dramatic with the town being pushed right up to the mountains before the road takes you up and out into the desolate terrain right before the beach!   

Chuh-bahmas

Here are just some random tidbits from life these days:
Layla had a sleepover today with her dearest friend Retha. She took a nap before she went and woke up desperate to talk to me about everything she had to pack for her sleepover. However, both my kids wake up super slow and her brain was not actually functiong yet. It was hysterical to watch her repeat the word Chuh-bahmas over and over trying to sort out what was wrong. I finally said "pajamas?" and hit the nail on the head.  That dear girl dug around for a big bag, filled it up with all sorts of nonsense (sorry Retha's mom!) and dragged it out the front door. So cute.

We went rug shopping tonight. We had 20 mins and bought two rugs (= I love knowing how to shop, how to bargain and how much to pay. It was SO EASY compared to our first time around. Granted we could have gotten them cheaper if we took more time, but we just had to move on. I'll show you pictures. This new house we are in has three more rooms than our previous house (office for Tom, office/second guest room and a large guest room.) Thankfully we did not have to buy more air conditioners....and there was furniture left here to fill two of the extra rooms, but we needed some rugs and it was about time to just go and buy them. The one for our TV room I want to wait on because I have a specific rug I am looking for . That is the worst way to shop here, but I have faith that they still have one somewhere in town (=

Layla is back in the swing of school. She had a bit of preschool paparazzi to deal with after being gone for three months, but I had prepped her teacher ahead of time and managed to squeeze her into the teacher's lounge and keep out the other kids (=

Ryan is talking up a storm and just being generally hysterical. He is now directing play time with us which is so fun. He wants to be a baby animal of some variety and wants one of us adults to be the mommy or daddy  version. It is all very prescribed in his head which is quite fun.

We had a time out in a park with my group of local friends. They were SUPER organized and very UN arab in their process (other than arriving an hour after their scheduled time). They had three or four plastic totes full of all the stuff for the fire and had fish to grill, shrimp, salad, and a pasta dish with broccolli (totally out of the box for them!) Coffee, tea, water and soap to wash up with, potato chips and a variety of drinks.It was a fun and freezing time. My kids actually wore their winter coats! It was really windy. So glad I grabbed them at the last minute!

Here is how it went down: "oh stephanie!!! where have you been? we haven't seen you? How was america? your family your trip? Ooo! you are a little bit fat!! (= yes, it is true, and they think it is a good thing after a trip to be a little bit fat (= awesome, no? That was all said in arabic, by the way (=

There is one girl in the group who is a sister and who lives in a different town. She desperately wanted to ask me if life in America was like it is on the TV shows. Dear girl actually said "but the men, they don't love a girl and lead her on and then leave her, do they?? Really!!?? I can't believe it!" Man, if she could see the stream of broken hearts from both genders...... Stuff like this is so sweet but so hard to actually correct. Her frame of reference is so so different.

anyway. I am getting super tired. Ryan had trouble sleeping tonight so I stayed with him until he fell asleep. It was hard for him to not have layla in the room.

Celebrating 10 years at Las Vegas

Before Ryan was born, Tom had and elaborate plan to surprise me with a cruise. This all fell apart when the doctor said I was not able to leave town, let alone get on a plane. It was such a sad thing (-:  This year he wanted to redeem plan but I was feeling too tired of traveling to add another trip to our time in the US. Instead, we settled on going to Las Vegas which is just an hour and 45 mins and we were able to stay for FREE at the Bellagio which is just so beautiful. Neither of us had been to Vegas and getting free plane tickets and hotel was just too good to pass up. It was a lovely time. I'm not sure we ever need to go back, but I'm glad we went once!

This was our newly remodeled room (= very modern. The mini bar was incredibly expensive and if you picked up ANY thing it was automatically charged to your room!

The lights at night were pretty fun to see. Our room had a good view.

 

 

The Bellagio had a lovely walkway through to the next casino hotel.

Our one and only attempt at the slots. We didn't understand how it worked so our one dollar was only good for one pull. Oh well (=

The food was incredible. We found an amazing deal to sample all sorts of buffets during our time there. You know you are getting authentic food when the instructions to the kitchen staff aren't even in English!

The Bellagio fountains are amazing. Truly beautiful.

This is a very large and complicated chocolate fountain! It started out in the ceiling of the walkway.

 

 

T 

 

We spent one of our four days driving out to the Hoover Dam and the National Park that was nearby. It was a nice break from the crazy/wierdness of Vegas (= So beautiful.