May 4, 2008
This weekend was a holiday in my country. The May 1st holiday. I received an invitation from my friend, Lucy, to travel to our region's capital city to visit some of her friends. Every holiday is a crazy time to travel, because ALL the people here are doing it at once. We decided to ride the train to this city, which was about 3 hours away. The train station could have been much worse than it was, but it was still pretty hectic, with people shoving each other to get on the train first. Fortunately we bought "sitting down" tickets, which means we shelled out some extra cash so we could have a seat on the train. Many people buy "standing tickets" and they just stand in the aisles of the train the whole time. They even do this on train rides that are 20 hours long or more! I can't imagine it...

Anyway, here we are beginning our journey at the train station and finding our seats on the train. We had a lot of fun together!
   

    

 

  

I could tell a big difference between the capital city and the one where I live. There was truly a SEA of people everywhere we looked as we drove through the city on a public bus. The bus was packed too, of course, but eventually we found seats in the back, away from all the press of bodies in the front.

We stayed with an old college friend of Lucy's. He and his wife just had a baby about three weeks ago. It was fun to visit with their family. They were so hospitable and generous hosts that I was able to overlook the fact that they served me a plate full of grilled 4 inch fishes for dinner. As in... they caught the little fishes from their backyard pond, fried them in the pan, and piled them on a plate - whole.

Well anyway, I had a great time with them. That afternoon Lucy and I explored the city downtown. We saw other classmates of hers, and went to this expo of some huge new building. It was pretty fun to see the skyline of a new city, even though it was REALLY hot.
   

   

One of the highlights of this city was that it has THREE Wal-Mart Super Centers. Dude that was exciting. It wasn't exactly the same as Wal-Mart in the States, but it was close enough to be a real treat for me. I had requests from my friends to bring back lots of brownie mix for them, but I wasn't able to find any.

The next day we were walking around the city and saw a bunch of people dancing in the park. This is very normal, but usually they are dancing with partners. This was actually line-dancing with a ton of people all doing the same steps, making a 90 degree turn, and doing them again. Seriously, I could have been in a country bar or something.
   

It rained on and off that second day, and was really hot and humid. Lucy was missing her young son after playing with the little baby at her friend's house, so we decided to head back home after lunch. We had lunch with MORE of her former classmates. It was a good meal and lots of fun hanging out with all her friends. Overall it was a really good trip!
   

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May 9, 2008
Dude, what a strange night I just had. Sometimes when I'm in the city it's much easier to forget how very different this culture is from the American culture. Especially in terms of appropriate and inappropriate topics of discussion for the dinner table.

So my roomie and I went out to dinner with a local friend tonight. It's the tall girl who climbed the mountain with me in January. I haven't gotten together with her since then, so I was looking forward to a night to catch up and see what direction our friendship can go from here. But she had other things in mind....    Apparently since the last time I saw her, she has joined into a pyramid-scheme company (remember Amway? It's pretty big here!) that sells ... get this ... sanitary pads.

So imagine the enthusiasm that companies encourage in their newest recruits - passion and conviction that their product is TRULY what all of their friends need to be using. Yep. It got weird tonight, folks. I'm not gonna lie.

So we go to this restaurant with our local friend, and she says we're going to be joining some of her other friends for dinner. We join them and eat a nice dinner. Then they say "we're going to play a really fun game!" I think... this is interesting and exciting! One of the men get out this cute pink box full of some different plastic bags. The women try to explain with limited language skills that this game has something to do with the thing that everyone has to have each month. I thought I might know what they meant but figured I had better clarify. I asked them, "Who has to have this each month? Everyone, or only women?" When they all quickly said, "Women." then I knew this game wasn't going to be within my comfort zone.
      

So the man laid out a few different brands of pads on the dinner table and began to give his presentation. Luckily, I couldn't understand any of what he said, but his demonstration spoke for itself. First, he got out samples of the different brands of pads and stuck them onto the table. We were all forced to feel each pad and decide which was best. Yes - I do mean forced. As in... the women next to us grabbed our hands and pushed them onto the pads.
   

We all had to vote on which pad we thought was the best. Then he got out this big syringe and filled it with water. He squirted water onto each of the pads to test which one would hold the water the best. It was straight out of a commercial. (I was in shock through all of this... torn between blushing, laughing, and taking pictures)
   

Then we all had to feel the pads again to see which one was truly the best. Now they were wet so it was even more uncomfortable. But the one in the middle with the green strip was clearly the winner. At this point I started anticipating the sales pitch so it became more fun.
   

After all this, he slowly tore all the pads apart, showing us the quality of the materials inside, and their different abilities to soak up the water. It was interesting once we got over the shock of this demonstration at the dinner table in this restaurant. He told us about the magic green strip. It was fun because I was mocking it all in my mind the whole time.
     

To sum up my evening... I didn't buy into the company, but I do expect my friend to be calling me in the next few days to see what I thought, and to invite me to a company conference in a few weeks. I will probably be busy.

Is this not one of the stranger experiences I have had here so far? I think so. This is what I'm talking about when I say things like "cultural differences." Seriously.

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So, on a different note entirely, I thought you might enjoy to see a picture of some of my girls from my school that get together with me each week to study the good book. Here are some shots from Tuesday's lesson. I am really encouraged by how well these girls are trying to obey their Father and dig into His Word.
   

And last, but not least, I have a picture of the first motorcycle injury. The bad news is that there has been an injury. The good news is that it didn't come from a lack of driving skill on my part! My roomie burnt her leg on the hot engine-pipe-thingy while getting off the motorcycle yesterday. Her leg will be fine, but she did get a really nice big blister from her burn. And that leads us to another cultural difference:
When my roomie noticed the blister on her leg during class today, my teacher said she would go get some aloe. She came back about 10 minutes later and I think she had gone to the woods and tore a piece off a wild aloe plant or something.
Hilarious and unexpected are the constant differences in the way I think and the way my friends here naturally think.
    

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May 25, 2008
I've been out of town for over a week and things have been crazy with unexpected adventures lately, so I have a lot to tell and cool pictures to share. So let's get started!

Almost two weeks ago we had a group of 6 friends from Texas come to visit us here. I had a great time with them and loved having the fresh faces and energy to interact with. We all wanted their time here to be full and purposeful so we really packed it in with activities. They spent their first few days here in the city. They had time to walk around and meet people on the street in order to to talk with them about some good stuff. We hiked up a mountain downtown, which overlooks the city, and thought for the people of the city where I live.
     
They met my good friend Lucy and spent some brief, but meaningful, time with her.

After a few days in the city we headed out to "my favorite small town." We had the opportunity to visit the English classes at the two high schools in town. We broke up into pairs and taught many classes. Our Texan friends had prepared several lessons to teach, which went great! They included a story, a song, and some Q&A time. The kids loved it. The teachers at these small schools were very excited to have us there to talk with the students. It was a huge motivation for the students to work harder to learn English, in hopes of being better prepared the next chance they have to talk with a real live foreigner. We made good friendships with the teachers, which is great for me. Now I have several English-speaking friends to hang out with when I visit the countryside.

There are two high schools in town. One is the "good" school with all the smarter students and a much newer, nicer facility. The other school was very run down, and the students struggled much more with their English. The first day and a half that we were in town, we taught classes at the "bad" school. I taught several classes with my friend N., who lives here in this country. I also taught a few by myself. We didn't have any fancy lessons prepared, but found that if we just gave the students a chance to ask us questions, we had plenty to talk about during the hour-long classes.
   
One pair of our Texan friends taught the song "Pharaoh, Pharaoh" with all the movements.
  
When we taught at the "good" school a few days later, it was easy to tell the difference. In the pictures above you can see that there are only bars on the windows, and the students are not in uniform. At the "good" school, the building is very new and nice. The students have school uniforms they all wear and everything is so much cleaner and newer.
     
When we finished the classes the students would always crowd around us to take pictures.
How many foreigners can you find in this picture?

Answer:  5

The first night we were in town, the teachers got them to open up the museum for us, and we looked at all the special things from the minority people groups in the area.
         

Most of the time we were in this small town, we were eating out with the teachers - building good relationships with them - teaching at the schools, or walking around town. We would walk while talking to Dad about the people all around us, hoping that they will all be our family someday and know about the gift that has been offered to them.
As we walked through town the first day, we ran into BinBin's family, so our Texas friends got to come into their home and visit with them.
   
Another day while we were walking and talking, a group of us went up to the Buddhist temple, which was a bit overwhelming for them, I think.
That group also got to stop in at BinBin's house and meet her family.
   

We took our friends to experience a real local massage. We had a lot of fun with that, and it was great to watch our friends see the crazy things of this country and take it all in for the first time. I have forgotten how overwhelming all of these things were the first time I experienced them. It was great to have new friends around to make everything fresh again.

After a few days in "my favorite small town" we decided our Texan friends were ready to experience the smaller villages. We broke up into pairs and all headed in different directions, going to places none of us had ever been before. I trekked out with a girl named Amanda. We had a great time and saw the most beautiful landscape I have seen in this country!

We set out around 9am and when we arrived in the tiny town, we met a lady named Vivi. She spoke a little English and we agreed to meet her at 6pm to have dinner and hang out together. She headed off to work and we started looking around the tiny town. We found the pool hall and the market place, which had lots of baby ducks for sale, among other things.
    
I knew there were some beautiful scenic places to see in this area, so we hired a "bread truck" to take us to the "land bridge." The views were amazing. Our driver was a really nice young guy and we had lots of fun chatting with him and taking pictures along the way. I found that my language skills were not as bad as I thought. During this trip I had to step up and do my best to communicate for Amanda and I, and I was surprised at how smoothly everything went!
           

 
When we arrived at this beautiful natural land bridge, we rented a bamboo raft and our driver ended up being our river guide. Amanda and I got to sit down on little chairs while he attempted to row our raft with a long bamboo pole. That turned out to be a lot of work when we were going against the current and the river was much deeper than the pole was long, but he did a great job!
   

        
When we were right under the land bridge, we pulled the raft over and climbed up on some big boulders to check out the view. While we were up there, another raft floated along the river. So we yelled "hello" and waved at them as they passed by.
   
After we finished rafting, we started to head back to town, but came upon a group of young people wanting to take pictures with us. There was a stone walkway crossing the river to get to a little village on the other side. Because of the heavy rain a few days before, the walkways were mostly flooded. We took pictures with our new friends and enjoyed the view together.
   
These kids wanted to hang out with us, and apparently had no other plans for the day. So the three girls jumped into the bread truck with Amanda and I, and we spent the afternoon traveling around the area looking at all the pretty mountains, rivers, and trees.
   

       

    

  
While we hung out with the girls, I was able to tell them about my life and how amazing Dad has been for all the years I've known Him. We made plans to play with the girls again the next morning. Then we met up with Vivi and went out to dinner together. After dinner we walked around town chatting with Vivi. She took us to a few pretty places to take pictures, and also took us to the village school - where we were literally mobbed by crazy, excited middle schoolers. Amanda just about panicked when the crowd of a few hundred children started pressing in around us. I thought they might start grabbing at our bags and clothes in order to take away a souvenir. We got out of there just in time. You can see the look of panic on Amanda's face while we took a picture with the headmaster.
    

    
When it got dark, Vivi took us to the tiny town's hotel. It was pretty dirty and although our sheets seemed clean, the room and the beds were full of little bugs. Gross - but what can you do when you're dead tired? We watched a movie with Vivi on my mini-DVD player. It was a movie about Dad, and presented the entire story to her. After that, she headed home and Amanda and I prepared to spend the night in our scary hotel room. There were some men staying in a room next to ours and we really didn't feel safe with the flimsy doors to our room. I took the big TV and desk and slid them in front of our door. Once we had barricaded ourselves into the room we felt much safer for the night!
       
When we woke up, we decided to go on a walk for a while and enjoy the beautiful morning. We took a road that headed out of town and walked for about two hours, going as far as it would take us. We got to see lots of people washing their clothes in the river, farmers working in the rice fields, and breathtaking mountains. We walked through a few villages and had fun exploring such a remote and rural part of this heavily populated country.
 

    
We also met various animals along the way.
     

 
At 10am we met up with our girl friends from the day before. Only one of them showed up, so we enjoyed walking around the countryside chatting with her. I was able to tell her much more about my Father, and somehow told her the whole story in her language!
    
When it was time to head back to my favorite small town, we sat in a corner store waiting for the bus. The woman who works there spoke a bit of English, and we were able to share the story with her and give her something to read to help her understand it better. I look forward to returning so I can follow up with all these great new friends I made!

So our whole group gathered back together and it was so fun to hear everyone's different adventure stories from their time exploring the villages all around the county. One pair had been able to talk with some new friends and 4 of them decided to join the family!

We all got on a big bus and headed to a tourist town for some R and R. Throughout the whole trip, when we were waiting around at a restaurant or riding a bus together, we would play Mafia. It was really fun and a great way to get to know our new friends!
   

The tourist town was so much fun. They had several places where I could go and drink coffee and sit down in a chair. Man oh man - that is the life! There were lots of restaurants where we could eat different types of food, and lots of great shopping. When we arrived we were all so exhausted that it was great just to rest. My hotel room had two and a half beds, with six of us girls staying in it. Another new experience for me....
    

     

     

    

We wanted to do something exciting together as a group, so the next morning we went out "river drifting." We thought it was white water rafting, but we later discovered that it was floating down a rushing mountain creek in a two-man boat with no paddles. We bumped and bounced our way down the mountain and went over many rapids sideways in our little boats. It was so much fun and something you would never find in America!
    

On our way to go river drifting, we rode in a small bus for over an hour. We drove through several small villages, and got held up by a funeral parade going down the road. I have seen funerals in this country before, but always at a distance. These people walked right next to our bus, which was stopped in the road and unable to go anywhere until they all passed. First came the men who were setting off fireworks along the way, keeping everything super noisy. The people had covered their heads with white clothes and all walked backwards, crying and falling on the ground as they went. Then the men carrying the casket came along. After that came the musicians, all blowing their horns or crashing their cymbals. It was very sad to see their despair at losing a loved one because we knew they have no hope when someone dies.

    

That evening we headed up to a larger city where our friends would be flying out of the next day. We had a good time sitting around and recapping our time together. This city is beautiful and has some cool things to see along the riverfront. While we were talking, a adorable little boy relentlessly tried to sell us roses. Another great night with our friends.
    

     
We packed so many different types of experiences into the week and a half that they were with us. I think they gave us some good tips about what to do the next time we have friends visiting us from America. There are many exciting new things happening because of their time here, and I look forward to seeing how things develop in the next few weeks.