We arrived
safely in the smaller city to study their local language. We rode a night bus, after a wonderful
Thanksgiving celebration with other ex-pats, and arrived at about 4:30am. THANKFULLY the boys slept really well! We were graciously picked up by the family we
are now living with. They offered us
their eldest daughter’s room to sleep in until morning (or at least later
morning), which we were all able to do for a couple more hours. That morning we ate pastries (the local
version) and coffee (with sugar). Mid
morning I, Erin, along with Whitman joined the wife on a trip to the
traditional market. It was great to see
all the produce, meat, household items, and even toiletries they had. The wife bought blue nail polish for her
daughter, yes, at the traditional
market. The rest of the afternoon we
spent just hanging out at the house.
We are trying
to get settled, yet still very much in transition. The second floor, which we where first
offered, isn’t quite finished. So the
daughter’s room we were graciously offered is our room as a family. The firsts two night we slept well, but last
night the four of us in one bed began to be more uncomfortable.
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| Our current sleeping situation... becoming local! |
Thanks to our
host we have lined up a language tutor.
He works for the department of tourism and a local museum. Due to his work schedule and there only being
one tutor, John and I are attending a 2 hour language session together. That means the boys get to come along and try
to be quite! Movies, books and snacks
are very helpful.
The rest of our
time is still pretty unscheduled. I
often will help the wife cook at 11am, when she prepares a few different dishes
for lunch. Later we eat the left overs
for dinner. We’ve eaten at least four
different kinds of fish thus far. Today
I did laundry. My first time using a
twin tub washer, do those even exist in the states? When we arrived I was very glad to see it,
then I noticed laundry being done by hand and figured it must be broken. Apparently the wife prefers laundry to be
done, by her house help, by hand. Shortly
after I hung up the clothes it began to rain.
Mid-day it cleared up only to rain again early evening. I brought our laundry in before the second
rain, though some of it was still damp.
Once inside I struggled to find a place to dry it, so I just laid it
all out on our bed and pointed our 6 inch fan it.
We are in the
middle of an incredible learning experience as we get to live with a family and
focus on language study. Even teaching Caedmon
is on hold as I arranged his lessons so he gets the whole month of December
off, a perk to homeschooling! But it is
also becoming challenging as we try to maintain some of our normal routines for
the health and well being of our family.
We will be here
with the local family for 3 weeks, celebrate Christmas on another island, then
come back to the same city for continued language study. So here we go!
