December 4, 2008
Last weekend I hosted a birthday party for one of my friends at school. This girl is amazing, and I have seen her learn and grow a ton in the past year. She's now a leader of her classmates and is just a really cool chick. So I made her a birthday cake and let her friends trash my apartment to celebrate her awesomeness. We had a lot of fun playing some of our standard party games and eating a ton of junk food. Yes, my bathroom door somehow got broken during the party and now it won't close, but who cares! Yes, the bathroom in general and the floors throughout my home were covered with crumbs and squashed pieces of chocolate cake, but so what! We had fun, and it was a good reminder to me that this apartment is mine to share with others, not to keep all to myself.
   
   
   
In all seriousness, it is a little stressful for me to watch how dirty my apartment can get during a party where students attend. Many of them just don't know how to behave in a "western" home, or how to use a "western" bathroom. And it really is something I'm trying to learn from. I want to be a generous person, not one worried about all the chocolate cake getting rubbed into my couch. I have so far to grow in becoming a generous hostess, and really learning how to put others ahead of my personal preferences and my stuff. So this party was a lot of fun for the kids, and it was another opportunity for me to work on some of my personal issues that have room for improvement. And I sincerely am glad for those kinds of opportunities.

So..... onto a new topic........      One of my teachers, Rose, is always saying things that crack me up. Her accent and cute ways of saying things in English is really amusing to me. The other day when I wore my jeans that are ripped in the knees, she told me "my pants were broken." This morning during class she was drinking a cup of tea, and I had brought a small mug of coffee. When we set our drinks on the desks she commented that it was a true picture of her country next to mine. Because I told her that Americans often drink coffee in the morning, and she said that all the people in her country drink tea.
So I took a picture of the symbolic drinks on our desks.

After class we both went downtown to run some errands. We had lunch and then got manicures, which was a lot of fun. We ran some other errands and then we found a place for Rose to get her ears pierced. She has wanted to do this for a long time, but has always been to afraid. I helped her work up her nerve and she did it! She was really scared before she got it done, but afterwards she was incredibly excited. She went on and on about how happy she was to have pierced ears. I was very happy for her! After that, we went to a beauty shop and I got a horrible hair cut. No pictures included on that, as it will take me a while to figure out how to fix my new bangs so I don't want to cry. But I was kinda prepared for that to happen, considering I don't know the vocabulary in this language for describing hair styles. And even if I did, the styles they think are cool here are definitely not my taste.
Oh well. I live and learn. Especially when I live over here!
   
          

*********************************************
*********************************************

December 12, 2008
I got back home last night after a week out of the country. Although that's kind of just a technicality. But even though the city I visited is supposed to be part of this country, it might as well be on another planet. At least compared to the city where I live.

I really enjoyed my time away from home. I got to see some familiar faces, eat Western styles of food, see Christmas lights and decorations every where, and have Starbucks twice a day!

I visited a friend of mine at the beginning of the trip. She lives very near the big city, and her town actually has several Starbucks of their own. We hung out and had a great time talking and meeting with some of her local friends.

She traveled with me into the big city and we had a day to play together before she had to go back home. She showed me all the fun things to do that I had missed on my first trip here. We grabbed some Starbucks and started early in the morning. We rode the ferry across the bay to the island part of the city. We took the bus to the top of "the Peak" and went out on the deck to enjoy the view on a sunny day.
    
   
   
            
         

My friend helped me shop for groceries and we had a fun, busy day together. But the big city was really tiring so we had some sushi for dinner and she headed back home.

The next day I hung out with friends, hearing them talk about really amazing things that have happened in their lives. One guy told us the story of his life and I felt honored to be meeting him in person. It was a challenging time because I learned some things that really hit me where I'm at. It was a good time for me to examine the way I do certain things, and make some changes to the routines I've developed. And I was also encouraged to look at some things in my own life a little differently. I love times like this, when I can get a shot of truth that keeps me moving in the right direction.

In the evening I went out with a bunch of friends. We rode the ferry to the island and ate dinner on top of the Peak, overlooking the city. It was a lot of fun.

   
   

The next day was very similar to the first. We listened to friends talk during the day, and I learned a lot. We went out to dinner together in the evening. This night we found a little Mexican restaurant, then found a little Gelato shop, found a Starbucks, and then we wandered around the city aimlessly. We were very full and had a lot of fun.
  

I had a dentist appointment the next day, but in the morning I met up with my friends for some sort of brunch that the locals like to eat. You order a ton of appetizer-size dishes. We ordered 19 things for 6 people and were all pretty full by the end of it.

That afternoon I bought some books and went to (surprise!) Starbucks to sit and chill and read. It was one of the highlights of my trip, as I rested and had time to think. The next morning I got up and saw the new movie "Four Christmases" at a nice theater. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie at a theater. It was so fun!

By the end of the day I had ridden the subway, train, taxi, plane, and another taxi back home to my city. I had filled my suitcase so full of groceries that I didn't know if I'd get it all in under the airplane weight limit. I was barely able to lug it all up the six flights of stairs to my apartment. I unpacked and displayed it to share with you the quantity and selections of food I bought in the big city. It might not be healthy, but these are some of the things I crave when I don't have any access to American foods.

*********************************************
*********************************************

December 29, 2008
This has been a week of parties that came in all shapes and sizes. It began last week with the city's "Department for Developing Good Relationships with Foreigners" Christmas party. The city invited foreigners who are businessmen, teachers, and students to have dinner and listen to many speeches in order to celebrate Christmas together. I went along for the ride because I figured it would be a good free meal. They requested that the students from my school sing some Christmas carols for everyone. We picked some carols with the most meaningful lyrics and practiced in the van on our way to the party. It was a lot of fun and we were in and out of there in less than two hours! I was really glad for that because it isn't always fun to hang out with foreigners. You just never know what you're getting into...
   
   

The next night was Christmas Eve. I went to school in the morning, but I was hoping to take the afternoon off. Instead, I got a call from my friend Lucy. She wanted me to come to a Christmas party that her students were having that night. I really didn't want to go because I didn't know any of her students, and I knew it would be really boring for me. At first I told her I wasn't going to go, but after hearing the disappointment in her voice I changed my mind. Unfortunately she didn't tell me where the Christmas party was, so I just assumed it was at our school. Once I got there (15 minute drive) I called her and asked where everyone was. She told me the party was at a different school where she occasionally teaches. So that was a 20 minute drive to the next school. Although the mixup left me feeling pretty frustrated, once I finally found Lucy and saw the look on her face I was so glad I had come to her party. She was thrilled to have me there with her. Per usual, when I arrived at the classroom where the students were sitting, they all gasped in awe and applauded when I walked into the room.

Although this was a party the students were throwing outside of class time, they were behaving as I used to in second grade when we had a birthday party at school. They all sat at their desks while a few class leaders passed around fruit, nuts, and candy onto a place mat on each student's desk. They made a few speeches, welcomed me a few times, some of the boys got up and sang along with the radio, a girl read a poem, and another few students sang along with the radio or acapella for their peers. That was about all I could take (it was all in the local language and I couldn't understand much of what was said/sang) and I left early after about 40 minutes. They all formally wished me a Merry Christmas, presented me with a gift the class had bought for me (in hopes that I would attend their party), and bid me a safe travel home. It was really touching because they showed such generosity to a stranger who had nothing in common with them.

Later that night Lucy called me to say that she had taught them some Christmas songs and told them the true Christmas story. She shared some of her own personal experiences with the class and some of the students expressed a sincere desire to begin studying with her outside of class in the future. Lucy was so excited and I was really proud of her!
   
   

On Christmas morning some of my fellow foreign students at school came to my house to celebrate together. We made muffins, drank coffee and hot chocolate, and watched "It's A Wonderful Life." They had never heard of the movie before, but when it was over they all thought it had really helped them to feel the Christmas spirit.

I watched a few more Christmas movies that afternoon and then went to Pizza Hut with some other American friends for dinner that night. I really enjoyed my time with them and appreciate the new friendship I have found with this family who recently moved into my city. The family consists of a young couple with three little boys. The wife is actually my age and is kinda from my home town. She agreed to do a little traveling with me over the weekend, so the next morning we headed out early to catch the bus to my favorite small town.

We had a great weekend visiting with my friends in the countryside. First we had lunch with a lady I haven't seen for several weeks. Lillian is her name and she is one of the English teachers at the local high school. We all had a good talk over lunch and then explored the town for a while. We went to the local Buddhist temple and visited a friend of mine who is an older female monk who lives there. It turns out that Lillian is from the same small village as this monk. In fact, when the monk was young, she was a good friend of Lillian's mom. We all had a great talk and it was the first time someone could translate all the hilarious stories this old monk was telling me.
   

In the afternoon Lillian had to go back to the school and my friend and I walked around town, buying some Christmas presents and stopping by the local market to pick up some meat for dinner. We watched a lady use a blow torch to roast some pig's legs. We checked out all the FRESH meat before picking something that probably wouldn't make us sick.
     

In the evening we had dinner with BinBin's family. They are doing much better these days. I could see that they had purchased a tiny space heater for their home and it was encouraging to think that they're finally doing better financially, after struggling so much this past year. As soon as we arrived, BinBin's dad got to work cutting up the large slab of meat we had brought to use for dinner that night. The grandmother worked over their homemade stove the entire time I was there; boiling water, washing clothes and cooking and reheating food.
    

In their typical way of wanting to be generous hosts, the parents also killed a chicken for our meal and spent hours cooking and preparing the food while we played with BinBin and her little brother, DiDi. We had a lot of fun watching the kids open their Christmas presents. I had a blast spending time with this family. It seems like it has been a really long time since I've seen them and I tried to soak up every minute we had together. (In the picture below you can see the large alter to their ancestors at the top of the main room in their home.)
   

The next day I got to hang out with my good friend Lisa. She's my best friend in the countryside and one of my best friends in this entire country. Although we're from different cultures and countries, we relate to each other's lives so easily, and enjoy many of the same things. My American friend and I hung out in Lisa's store for a while, watching TV on one of their many plasma screens, while she sold some refrigerators to customers. Eventually she was free to go out for an early lunch. We went to a place where we could have a bit more privacy and spent quite a while having some GREAT conversation. We were studying the Book and at the end of the lesson she decided to become my new sister. I was thrilled and so was she. She had a paper where she wrote the date and the commitment she had made.

That was definitely the highlight of my week. When Lisa had to go back to work, my friend and I headed to the bus station to come back home. But only after picking up two huge jars of lajao paste from BinBin's family, which was their Christmas gift to us. As we left their house, little BinBin was standing in the middle of the alley yelling "bye bye JieJie !" over and over again. JieJie is her name for me, which means "older sister." She kept yelling and waving at me, and my friend told me that she can't imagine how hard it's going to be for me on the day I say goodbye to this family and return to America. I don't even want to think about it. I love them so much, and BinBin will always hold a special place in my heart.

On Sunday morning I met with some of my teacher friends at McDonalds for breakfast and studying. We had a great lesson together and they were really challenged by the concepts I was presenting. I think all of us are appreciating that time together each week more and more. Our relationships with each other are growing deeper and we all seem to be opening up. I'm so proud of their willingness to grow together and help each other run the race.

Tonight is Monday night and I just returned from my final Christmas party. My school threw a party for the foreign students and our teachers. I convinced the school to take us out to Pizza Hut instead of having a meal of local food, which the students eat every day. So we had a great big dinner at Pizza Hut, played Mafia several times, and had a wonderful evening. It was the best party the school has ever thrown for us.
   
   
   
The pizza above is a salmon pizza. I just thought it looked especially interesting. I stuck with my Super Supreme Stuffed Crust. It's a winner every time.

I have had a very busy, but very fulfilling Christmas week. I hope you have too. And now, before the holidays wind down, we still have one more important thing to look forward to:
The Iowa Hawkeyes playing in the Outback Bowl on New Years Day!

GO HAWKS!