Nicholas

 This is my special friend, Nicholas.  I love him sooooo much!  He is about 5 years old and a handful.  I get to see him about once every week or two.  We are good friends with his mom, who was previously an English student at our institute.  Nicholas attends a very good school here in our city, along with most of his older brothers and sisters.  He's very intelligent and also very sweet.  However, in the above photo, he is busy stealing the precious blueberry cream off of his mother's pie (there are no blueberries in K-land, so it was very special to all of us.)  On this particular night, he also did this to my phone:

We love his family so much.  They are very kind and respectful to us and have truly let us become a part of their lives.

In about 3 months time, I'll be headed back "home," but I'll be leaving behind some new "family" that I've made here in K-land.  Nicholas will be especially hard to leave behind.  Please remember him for us!

It's the Little Things!

Up until today, my neighborhood has had nasty dirt roads.  If they aren’t dusty, then they are muddy.  People have lived in my house for over 6 years waiting for our city to get around to paving their roads.  Today was that day!

We have been so excited about the road progress that we didn’t foresee some of the troubles of today.

First, an explanation of K-land plumbing.  All the water from our sinks and showers runs out into the streets.  Additionally, K people are super clean and desire to have everything spick and span 100% of the time.  It’s hard to do that in a place where a dust storm could roll in any day.  This means they wash their outside courtyards, steps, gutters, etc almost every day.  All this water runs into the street too.  Today, this was very inconvenient for the men who worked on our road.  They told everyone in our neighborhood they could not run the water into the street until they finished the road (which will actually be tomorrow).  That’s a BIG problem for K people: no cleaning!

It was a problem for me and my roommate too.  We have a major event to get ready for: a new co-worker!  We cleaned the toilet room, the shower room, the bathroom sink, did laundry, cooked some food, entertained guests, and mopped the floors earlier today, all before we were told not to use the water.  This left a big pile of dishes and us feeling pretty worn out.  We didn’t smell that great either.  We really needed to shower.  But we couldn’t!  No water allowed in the streets!  What to do???

I was desperate and decided to swallow my pride.  When my roommate looked for me around the house tonight, I answered her from behind a door, “Don’t judge me!  I’m taking a shower in here tonight!”  Where was I?  The toilet room, of course.

Yes, I used a hose to take a shower tonight.  And what made it even MORE exciting was the loss of our electricity for the majority of the time I was in there!

I stood there in the dark, and I could only do one thing: Laugh!  Only in K-land would you take a shower using a hose, standing over a squatty in a room the size of a closet, and in the dark.

I found myself thinking, “Gee, it’s very fortunate that the toilet water doesn’t run out into the street so that I can use this room to take a shower.”  Then, another thought occurred to me.  “Wait.  It’s ALWAYS a good thing the toilet water doesn’t run into the street!”

I’m so glad the Father helps me remember to be thankful for the little things: