One week ago we traveled to the
big city. We enjoyed fellowship with
other workers, shopping, eating at Pizza Hut, McDonalds and a couple other
western restaurants. We stayed the
weekend at a friend’s house with co-workers from Barat who recently returned to
the country. I, Erin, also had a doctor
visit. All looks well with my pregnancy
and baby inside, who now weighs about 2.5 lbs.
While in the big city we also enjoyed our first shower in over a month. Don’t worry, we still bathe daily, twice
a day for John and I! But our water
situation at our house still has not returned to a “showerable” situation. What I mean is we still don’t have water
piped into our bathroom. So we use the
cultural method of bathing: using a scoop to wet and rinse ourselves from water
filled buckets. Needless to say, it was
a real treat to bathe under an actual shower head.
We returned home to Barat last
Monday, after a short stop at the immigration office. It was then we heard our current
social-cultural visa extension has been granted. We made plans to return on Tuesday for the
required pictures and finger printing.
Thankfully an employee at the office called Tuesday morning to notify us
the power was out, so the pictures and finger printing would have to be postponed. We arranged to make the hour trip on
Wednesday instead, only to find out, once we were there, the internet was down
and they couldn’t access the necessary programs needed for the pictures and
finger printing. Now we wait for a call
from the office telling us all is up and running. Our visa extension has been granted, but due
to delays in processing they have still not been stamped into our
passports. The funniest part is if we
wait until next week for finger printing and pictures, we will be able to fill
out the paperwork for the next month’s extension at the same time.
In other news life continues as
normal; schooling for the boys, language study for John and I, and a few home
improvements. Construction on the
addition unfortunately has stopped; the construction workers have not come for
over a week now. We have not had any information
from the owner as to why, except that a week ago they were waiting for a
specific tool. Thankfully though we did
get the wattage of our breaker box increased for the addition of a second air
conditioner. This has made the boys more
comfortable at night and homeschooling during the heat of the day much more
enjoyable for all!
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| A new backdoor for the addition. |
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| Walls are up. |
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A new water tank to the left.
It will eventually move to a platform on the roof.
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