Home!

Well it turned out our landslide was nearly a 4 hour delay and so instead of getting away at 10:30 it was more like 2.  But we are home now.  Thought someone might like to know we are off the road.

The Road to Nowhere

We were headed home from the mountains this morning. About an 8-9 hour drive for us. Then about 1 hour into the drive the road was closed due to a landslide (how is that for mountain living?). So we had to backtrack that hour-plus since there was more traffic heading back to town. We actually had to pass the place we stayed to find another road out of town which is farther out of our way ... with a ton of traffic since everyone is using one road!

We've had a great time, though, and no one wanted to head home. That is the mark of a good time--when no one is ready to leave! And maybe we won't be leaving after all anyway :-)!!

Thankful

What are we thankful for this year?  Well, a lot has been going on but here are some things that we can be really appreciative of this weekend:

Bathtubs!  The last time we were able to take a bath was in … um … in …. early June, maybe at a hotel.  Now we bathe everyday (some days more than once depending on the sweat factor) but an actual bathtub?  That is pretty awesome.

Hot Water!  At our house we have these wall-mounted water heaters in our showers (2 of 3 anyway) so when we bathe we do so with hot water.  Well, actually, hot water is available but often not used by Craig since its always so hot, cooler water is a soothing change.  So we do not have hot water for: sinks (hand washing, dishes, etc) or the washing machine.  Where we are staying has hot water in the sinks so we can wash our hands and dishes in hot water.  That is nice.

Cold water!  Since where we live is hot and the water we have at sinks doesn’t come from pipes buried deep in the ground, its never very cold.  Its cool here and so on Thanksgiving Day when we were eating at Kumar’s we went to wash our hands and found the water was COLD.  That was pretty sweet.  Hard not to splash it all over your face when it’s cool like that.

Fire!  This place has a fireplace and since its cool here, we can use the fireplace (maybe its 60 outside and everyone was covered with blankets as we watched ‘Miracle on 34^th Street’).  It’s nice and smells good and reminds me of my grandparent’s house before they installed that dastardly, efficient wood stove in their fireplace (booo on the wood stove insert).

Turkey!  We carried our turkey 8 hours in a cooler to have it here for our big meal on Friday.

Enjoying ham sandwiches for breakfast!
Ham!!!  Omigosh … we haven’t had a ham sandwich since June.  You have to know that here pork and things like that are sold in a “special” section of the grocery.  It has everything except flashing DO NOT ENTER signs.  It’s actually in our rental agreement for our house that we cannot have pork there.  Plus our neighbors hate it and so we wouldn’t eat it there anyway.  But Wednesday night we shelled out $8 per pound for thinly sliced ham for sandwiches.  The lady offered us the first two slices to taste and we thought the kids were going to go crazy.  I hear pork does that to people…

Quiet!  We live near a pretty busy road and the traffic there never seems to stop.  So never does the noise of the traffic stop.  Now we are sitting and its so cool and quiet it’s amazing.  (Plus did I mention its cool?)

Towels That Don’t Stink!  Something about living in the tropics makes your towels stink.  They smell like mildew and it’s almost impossible to get out.  You wash and air out and throw in the dryer.  Then as soon as you get it wet and wipe your face it hits you, “Man, this towel stinks!”  It seems this weekend we have towels that smell like what towels are supposed to – nothing!

Christmas Music and Movies!  I love Christmas movies.  Normally I am sort of cynical and sarcastic (no, seriously) but I love Christmas movies.  You know, the kind where the bad guy has a change of heart and does the right thing and people go for the peace and goodwill of it all.  I love it that Charlie Brown has people rally around him.  I love the hope and that people see how shortsighted they are being and they mend relationships and they reach out and the give and think of others.  I love that I was standing in a parking garage surrounded by hundreds of people who know nothing of the true reason we celebrate Christmas and I could hear, “He rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of His righteousness and wonders of His love…” and I can close my eyes and be reminded that He really does rule the world and He does it with grace and love and patience.

Now two years ago I probably would not have been able to make a list that included things like these (and commodes, soap and paper towels in bathrooms, free refills, and mall holiday decorations).  My list would have been different.  I’m sure yours is different.  Which leads me to worry that maybe you’d feel sorry for us or think we are missing something by not having hot water to wash our whites.  Then you’d be missing something important. 

I am thankful for all these things but they don’t make me wish my life every day were different.  I am so appreciative for the opportunity for us to do what we do, where we do it.  Today we got to stand at the base of a big waterfall feeling the mist cover us.  I got to hear someone say, “You speak my language really well.”  We get to be different for a reason.

Oftentimes I tell the kids that everything you get costs you something.  And it does, every choice costs you something.  But if you make good choices it also gives you something.  Maybe something you never even thought to ask for but find you can really love.  I guess now I even sound like a Christmas movie but I’m thankful for that, too!

Stealing? Not ME!

I am against the very idea of sitting outside a place and using their free wi-fi without buying anything.

I am against the idea, that is, but very willing to do it in practice.  Happy Thanksgiving!!

Happening This Week

We'll be traveling some the end of this week for Thanksgiving and are unsure if we will have internet or not.  If so, we'll keep you updated on our exciting lives ;-).  If not, we'll just have more stories for when we get back on Monday.

Here's hoping you have a great Thanksgiving ... try to do your best and enjoy your family time.  

From the people who brought you Imitation Crabmeat

Its Coming Together

With Thanksgiving approaching, our holiday things are coming together.  A few weeks ago we found some canned cranberries, then recently a package of Stove Top stuffing.  Finally we found this guy.

Some folks had said turkeys were hard to come by and expensive so we were excited to get this dude.  Weighing in at around 8.5 pounds, he cost right at $32.  Not exactly the loss leader you'll find this week in the US groceries but still we are glad he will get to be a part of our holiday!!

Igor = EGAD!

We just got back from seeing the new movie Igor  (well, its new here anyway) and man was it BAD!  Had I paid out the $1.38 for a bootleg DVD I would still feel robbed.  YUCK .... STAY AWAY!!

More Monkeys

The other day about 20 minutes from our house Craig was driving with a friend when he came upon a police car parked on the side of the road.

Now police check points are nothing new here (we've seen three in the past two days) but this was odd in that it was seriously in the middle of nowhere.

So when they got close they realized the policemen were feeding the monkeys bananas.  Which is a great idea for monkey viewing since we have taken the kids there before and not seen any primates at all.

So the policemen (being all about service and the public) shared their bananas and talked about the stress-relieving benefits of monkey-feeding.  Who knew?!?

Once all the bananas were depleted and people were tired of standing in the blazing hot November sun, everyone decided it was time to go.

But then came the best part.  One policeman took the banana stalk and threw it into the vegetation along the side of the road.  Which seems fine since its technically biodegradable.  Then he took the plastic bag and threw it into the weeds, too!!

Then it was time to get back to work.

**Disclaimer.  Wild monkeys are dangerous and can carry disease.  Please do not attempt to interact with wild animals on your own.  These law enforcement officers are highly trained professionals.  It is never right to litter.**

Yummy ... Slimy Things!

A friend and I got to hang out with some folks today having a Coke and some conversation.  When all the sudden a food offer came.  My reply?  The standard, "I ain't skeered!"  So out came the snails ... or something.  Here is a look into the slimy abiss.  Mmmm, tasty.

Turns out the trick is to make this kissing sounds whilst sucking the little critter out of his shell.  But of course not sucking so much so as to lodge the little dude in your tracheae or anything.  Careful now.  We didn't come all this way to die sucking on a shell.  I know it looks like we're doing shooters but we're not.  We sucking on mollusks ... or something.
Here is said friend who only ate one because I shamed him with my bravado.  It turns out its harder than it looks and tastes worse than you think.  Also, its very funny if you are not the white guy.  I guess so anyway since everyone was laughing.

Wet Sunset

The other night we went out for some Indian food.  When we left the house it was pouring rain.

As we got a seat at Hamid's, the sun was just going down (i.e hampir magrib).  Seems far off to the west things were a bit clearer.

So we had a pretty nice sunset and pouring rain all at once.

The bottom picture looks a bit like the road is flooded but its not.  I think its just a back road and looks like that.

When the rain comes hard like that, though, we have plenty of water on the road.  Once it stops things generally get back to normal pretty quickly.

Guess one should expect that kind of weather in the tropics.  Sure beats flurries and lows in the 20's in my opinion.

Happy Birthday to Dad!!

We celebrated the big 38 with a trip to see Madagascar 2 and then on to TGIFridays for supper.

When we got home Angie quickly whipped up some homemade chocolate frosting for the cake she made earlier in the day.

She is quite the cook and goes way above and beyond the call of duty.  You can bet she won't get homemade icing on her birthday.  Just a bunch of curry puffs with candles in them!!

Sorry the picture is a bit fuzzy ... its the waiters fault.  Also notice we were all FREEZING in there.

If I am elected...

I promise to only allow people who can drive to install road signs.  Non-drivers will only be allowed flag and shovel duty.

P.S.  Water Update:  We had some for a while but now it is gone again...

Kami Tak Ada Air!

For some reason we have been without water for three days this week.  The first day we actually called a plumber who came and then left without doing anything except charging me $60.  This made all my neighbors mad since it was about 10 times too much.  

Now that actually made me feel good because where we lived before it was even hard for us to get our "friends" to tell us what a fair price was for something.  It was like they had a deeper commitment to fellow countrymen that they did not know than to us.  They would just say stuff like, "I dunno how much that should cost.  I don't usually buy it." Or something like that.  Then they'd stand by and watch you get taken.  

The Plumber Day was only for one day though.  Now, we have been without for two days (Friday and Saturday).  Finally the neighbors got the water company to bring by a truck for people to fill up buckets and stuff.  This was the scene this afternoon.  The first photo is really blurry but I posted it so you could see my friend waving.  He was thinking, "You take pictures of the oddest things."

Below is a somewhat clearer version of the same photo with the water guy actually filling a bucket.

These are my waving friend's buckets: that is a bunch in my opinion.
But these things led to an interesting exchange between Angie and her language tutor.  You see everyone, I mean EVERYONE, has a bucket like this in their bathroom.  It gets filled with water and used for various bathroom purposes.  Like taking a quick splash bath since sweat soaked your shirt though for the fifth time.

Well, it turns out we don't have a bucket like this.  So, as they were studying household vocabulary they came to this kind of bucket and the lady was explaining it like that: "the kind of bucket you have in your bathroom".  Then Angie told her we didn't have one.  "What?  You don't have a bucket in your bathroom?"  "No."

"In your bathroom.  You don't have a bucket?" "No."  Then back and forth a few times while the incredulity grew and it sank in.  We do not have a bucket in our bathroom.  We are obviously crazy, weird people.  Who have no bucket and are forced to take a shower all the time.  Sad.

Well, it turns out that those buckets are good for more than just your bathroom since our neighbors all have about 10 times the water that we got from the truck.  Here is our one bucket (we use it for mopping ... well we don't use it for mopping but it is for mopping).

We also had one five gallon jug that we filled.  Since we cannot drink the tap water, we buy filtered water (which Randy still wouldn't drink--only Diet Coke was safe enough for him).  The filtered water comes in these jugs and we just got five new ones today and so we had only one empty jug. 

By the way, the title above means "We don't have water!"  Air = water and is pronounced "Eye-Ear".   And we ain't got none.

By Request

Well, it turns out that I was wrong about the Home for Spastic Children.  Its an Association.  I am not sure what they do at their meetings but I would expect they are interesting.
This place is next door and a little more politically correct.  It says "Special Children's School" I guess this place is a bit newer than the Association.
Here is an example of another thing we see a lot.  Very specific job openings.  I always think about how something like this would go over in the USA.  Its one thing to say a person needs a specific skill, say that they must be able to speak Chinese.  This I think is different.

I really like when they get more specific.  Say: Single Chinese Girl 16-25.  Almost like a personal ad or something.

Anyway ... we try to be responsive to you, dear reader, so if you ever need to see a photo of something we mention--just let us know and we'll try to grab one for you!!

Movie Day!

One great thing about home schooling (at least our version of it) is when you can just take a day and slow down.  Today we slowed down by going to the movies. The big guys went to see James Bond Quantum of Solace and Angie and the younger ones got a repeat of High School Musical 3.  

One interesting thing about seeing James Bond was that it was filmed in 5 or 6 different countries.  So then when they were in Bolivia and speaking Spanish, the subtitles were still in two languages and neither of them was English.  So Craig's reading skills were being taxed while Caleb was just missing stuff.  

It was pretty cool, though, with lots of explosions and stuff.  Maybe not so edifying but certainly entertaining on a "slow down" day.  It was kind of disappointing that he never says, "Bond ... James Bond" in the whole movie.

Tonight Angie and some neighbors hung out and baked chocolate chip cookies.  They commented we were obviously foreigners since we had both an oven and a microwave.  We didn't tell them our oven is convection...

Wait, is that a Submarine?

Recently I was showing the family a "short-cut" (which actually went nowhere) when we saw this thing.

Now this particular road kept winding and getting smaller and muddier and we kept getting closer to the water; then we saw this big daddy.

It looks like a submarine and was actually pretty large (notice the house behind).  Now its not on the par with the one Sean Connery drove in that Tom Clancy movie but it was bigger than our car.

Which, of course, begs the question: What in the world is it doing here?  Some short-cuts are like that ... you don't get what you were looking for but you find something you never imagined.

Excuse Me, Mr. Potter....

I think it must be sinking in around where we live that we are just here and weird (like in that we buy LOTS of potatoes and little rice) but sort of normal and OK and not too interesting.  But tonight we drove about 40 minutes away to another part of town to check out a mall.

Of course this mall has a KFC and we ended up in there.  So after we ate and went to the counter to trade Hudson's toy for another some employees came out to our table.  "Excuse me, sorry to bother you but you speak our language, right?"  "Well, yeah...a little."  "Well, can we take a picture of your kids?"

We used to get this all the time but not so much lately.  But tonight the camera phones were out and everyone was staring.  Thankfully, the kids were taking it OK tonight and so not only did they get pictures of the kids but with the kids as well.  

This is the confusion of getting everyone set up for the photo shoot and checking our light meters and stuff.

Also becoming rarer is people stopping Caleb to tell him he looks like Harry Potter.  I think that is half the reason for the photos.  People here think he is a dead ringer for whoever it is that plays Harry Potter in the movies.

This is the money shot.  The blonde hair.  As Hudson's gets darker, he gets out of some photos but Bethany remains a blonde star.  "Is it natural???"  They always ask.  I wonder who would color a 7-year-olds hair then I remember about the Moms at County Fair Baby Shows and get my answer.

Then when it was all over, the most amazing thing.  They brought us out a gift bag from the back.  It was this bag made from untearable KFC material with something for each kid and the newly popular KFC paper towel holder with a chicken on top!  It was just like the kind of gift bags they give Paris Hilton for showing up at stuff.  Pretty cool.  And I would've just settled for a free refill.

Can There be a Triple-Negative?

I heard Wednesday afternoon (our time) President Obama's victory speech via BBC Radio.  One line stood out to me as something so typical of America today:

"It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled - Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America."  

(**You can read the whole thing here if you missed it. Forgive me if there is bad commentary with it. I didn't read the article, just stole this one line from it.)

I thought it was such a funny was to say someone was able to walk (or whatever).  From now on it seems I am to be known as "not disabled".  If you know me, you probably know I am not real big on defining people by the thing that is different about them, especially if its "bad"; surely there is something more interesting about a guy than that he just has one eye (for example).  So since we don't want disabled people to feel like they are missing out on anything, now we are disabled and not disabled--a double negative that I guess means "able" but I am not totally sure.

So this led Caleb to wonder then if people who are currently labeled as disabled to want to then refer to themselves as "NOT not disabled".  Which leads me to the question above, can there be a triple-negative?  If so, what does it mean?

Now just so some of you don't think I am a cold-hearted meanie when it comes to calling people names, the other day I drove by a place that was called (no kidding), The Home for Spastic Children.  I thought of taking a picture but didn't.  I thought the name AND my photo would have been in poor taste.

Birthday Central!

We got our BIG birthday season (2 Grandmas 11/5, Caleb 11/6, Craig 11/17, Gramps 11/28, Angie 12/5, Bethany 12/8, Papaw Bob 12/9) off to a little early start this evening.  

Caleb officially doesn't turn 12 until Thursday but since the Davis Family Homeschool has a field trip to the zoo planed for that day, we decided to open presents early.

The celebration culminated in a PSP and some cheesecake.  Not a bad way to have a holiday.

A special HUG goes out to Craig's Mom on her birthday today--Nov 5th!!  We love and miss you!!

Holy Smoke!

One way we are still the same as we ever was (to quote The Talking Heads) is at the grocery.  Nearby we have a thing that is like a British version of Super Wal-Mart.  Now I don't mean--if you squint and dream and hope--its like a Super Wal-Mart.  I mean apart from being able to buy chicken with their feet still attached (and big bags of just chicken feet) its like Super Wal-Mart.  And heck at the Super Wal-Mart in Miami they probably sell chicken feet ... who knows?

Anyway, one way we are still the same is having this huge cart full of stuff on grocery day.  Especially with weird stuff that people don't buy so much (i.e. Diet Coke and beef).  So tonight we were at the store with our cart full of stuff that is going to cost $100 and people watch us walk past with their eyes bulging.  We can see it in their expression as they poke the person they are with and think, "Holy Smoke ... how much is all of that gonna COST?!?"

One day we thought this poor little old man was going to hurt his neck as he craned around to see the little screen that shows the total.  I wanted to ask the cashier to spin it for him so we wouldn't have to pay for his chiropractor.  Or his acupuncture.

But you know what?  That is just how we roll.  A full cart and a happy Momma.  I'll bet that little old man would have a happier home if his wife only had to go shopping once a week and not every day!!!  

Sports are Different Here

This weekend we had the chance to check out some sepak takraw .This game is a microcosm of what its like to live on a different continent.  Its impossible to explain.  You see its like volleyball played on a badminton court without your hands like soccer with a woven ball about the size of a softball. That is what its like.  A bit of this and a bit of that to try and give the big picture.  

The tournament here had teams from all over SE Asia: Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, China and somehow a team from Canada!  (This particular place is normally low on white folks.  Meaning one time I saw a white guy there in KFC other than that the only white folks I see around there are mine.  Today I actually saw TWO at once.  Spooky!)

So at any rate, we watched some sports and watched the people watch sports.  They were into it.  It was really something to experience.  

This is a crowd shot.  The kind of folks that are normally staring at us wondering from whence the whiteys came.

Every crowd has this going on, right?  From fireworks to parades to takraw.

The skycam view.  The games are going on inside a shopping center.  The center court is open all the way up and so people gather at the rails to watch.  This was from Saturday night at the quarter finals.  For the finals on Sunday there was no way to get near the rail.  The crowd Sunday afternoon was quadruple the Saturday night crowd.

Caleb and Bethany with the defending (and eventual 2008) champions from Thailand.  That guy with the head band could kick the ball down your throat from 50 yards.  He was a scary dude.

Feels LIke Home...

We saw this guy Thursday night at a mall.  That would have been Oct 30th ... or officially before Halloween.  In case you were unaware anytime before Nov 1 is officially the time you can complain that Christmas stuff is out too early.  

Now I am sure Wal-Mart and Cracker Barrel have had Christmas stuff out since September but this was a comforting reminder of the over-commercialization of Christmas (its not just for Deepavali anymore)!

Update:  Today (Sat) we saw a ton of Christmas cards at a store.  They were very heavy on the "Seasons Greetings" and "Merry Christmas" and light on some of the stuff you might imagine (and I don't mean Santa).