Friday, June 12, 2015

Shots, Parties and Trashy Cucumbers: Pics of our week

Saturday morning coffee cake: the only time we allow toys at the table... so they all show up.... 

A nurse flew in this week to give measles vaccines to the villagers... 

This is our trash heap where we burn our trash... Jason came over to help Brant investigate a vine growing out of the side...


Turns out we have cucumbers growing! Two huge ripe ones and about 50 baby cucumbers that are just dying to be turned into pickles... our most successful gardening venture to date! (And we didn't do a single thing to the stupid plant... maybe we should stop trying so hard with the bell peppers and watermelon!)

Yes, those are cucumbers.... right next to a tuna can lid and a plastic bag...

Last day of school... we invited our co-workers' kids over for a movie night to celebrate...

It's officially summer break in the tribe!

Friday, June 5, 2015

Routine & monotony

I get emails often asking when we will be “settled” into our life here. I am not sure how to take that question... either 1) the person thinks we have boxes still to unpack, not realizing that unlike normal Americans who move into new houses, we are actually building our house with our own bare hands and unpacking the boxes takes second place to building the shelves to house the stuff or 2) living in the tribe will feel “normal,” assuming that I can toss out 34 years of previous life experience and suddenly feel normal seeing malnourished kids on my front step and having neighbors with no electricity or clean drinking water. Yeah, not sure that’s ever going to feel “normal.” 

But if the inquirer wants to know if we are into a routine and surviving daily life, yes, we’ve got that one down. I love routine and order and am thankful that within just a few weeks of moving in here (had to get some bookshelves built first!) we had gotten into a good routine as a family and our days have a good rhythm to them. I actually love our life here. There are few interruptions; and the ones that we have fall into very defined categories: “death or craziness in the village” “somebody in our family sick” or “plane coming in today” ....that’s about it in our small world. 

So a glimpse at our day....

5 am - Brant is up and starting language study and Bible study.

6:30 am - The sun is up. Every single day of the year. Living on the equator is pretty boring on the seasonal patterns.

7 am - We have radio call in to town. The noise and the having to yell to be heard always wakes the boys and I up if we’re not already awake.

7-8:30 - Breakfast. Granola (homemade) or oatmeal (instant) every single morning. Some mornings we have eggs or leftover pancakes and every single Saturday we have coffee cake. Boys do their chores and we all get ready for the day. I wipe counters clean from the previous nights' dead bugs, clear the rafters of spider webs and sweep the entire house.... every. single. morning.

8:30 - In theory this is when we start school. But I’m really slow going in the mornings and so are the boys, so sometimes this gets pushed til 9 or 10. :) We do school all morning, with a short snack break. School is actually going really well. It’s SO easy to homeschool when no one can call you on the phone or drop by your house unexpectedly or when you don’t feel the pressure to run to the store. Our mornings are quiet and peaceful and usually decently cool. We’re studying American history together this year and it’s been really fun. We’ve also been working on science units together - last semester we spent all semester studying the human body and this semester we’re doing outer space. Brant studies language and deals with people who come to our porch and goes to the village to visit and get new words and phrases. Sometimes he works with a language helper on our front porch and I can steal outside for a few minutes and sit and listen and learn new words.

In the mornings, I also try to get all the laundry done and also house cleaning and all my food prep and baking. I can usually keep up with that while I’m working with the boys.

12:30 or 1 pm - We usually do lunch late because I’m trying so hard to cram in all the school stuff and get the boys finished up. Lunch is the hardest meal for me here. All bread has to be made by hand and lunch meat is outrageously expensive and has to be ordered from off island.... so sandwiches are out. We do PB and J once a week, but again, bread making is a pain. Cheese is very, very expensive, so mac and cheese is not a good option (though I’ve been ordering cheese powder from the States by the pound and doing mac and cheese once a week.) We can get dried kidney beans here, so I make a huge thing of refried beans once a month and freeze them and we do beans and tortillas once a week. We do leftovers from dinner a lot as well. Seriously, if you have any easy lunch ideas that don’t involve anything frozen you buy at Cosco, I would love to hear them. :) 

1:30 or 2 - The little boys and I are done with school and morning jobs and they play and I get my afternoon stuff going.... I do my Bible study time during the afternoon. It’s hot and I’m usually tired and ready to rest, so I love just laying on my bed and reading my Bible and resting for a few minutes. I also get my language study time in during the afternoon - on a good day I get about an hour of computer work done (listening to recordings and reviewing words/phrases I’ve already acquired) and then I can spend about an hour out with the people practicing talking and getting new words. Brant continues to study language; sometimes in the afternoons he takes a break to exercise or get in a short nap or work on a house project.... anything to keep his focus sharp.  

5:30 - The villagers love to come out in the evenings and play ball on the airstrip or sit and hang out. It’s cool and beautiful and the kids run everywhere and play. It’s hard to make ourselves come in and get the evening going - dinner, brush teeth, reading time, bed... The boys are in bed by 8 pm. 

I would love to say that leaves Brant and I a couple hours to ourselves, but we are toast by the end of the day. We immediately shower and crawl into bed. We talk some and try to watch a TV show (already downloaded) or read before lights out by 9:30. 5 am comes early and we have to start the whole thing over again...