December 4, 2007
Track meets, Thanksgiving, and Training. Interesting topics for tonight's blog. Two of these topics are pretty out-of-date, and one is fresh from tonight! I'll try to be succinct, but you know how that usually goes......... sorry about that......

My college has an annual school-wide track meet which happens to fall the week of America's Thanksgiving holiday. All the students and even teachers participate. We compete on teams based on the school department we study in. I was on the foreign language department team. We were limited to two events per student, so I ran the 800 meter and the high jump. I was in track my freshman year of high school and that is the last time I did the high jump. I had never raced in the 800 meter before. But because of my height I knew I had a good chance to win these events. When I found out that the girls of my college don't train at all for the track meet, and many students are forced to participate by their teachers, I knew my chances had gone from good to great!    

My friend, Nate, competed in the javelin and shot put. We all had a wonderful time. The three-day track meet (all classes were canceled) began with a parade around the track. All the student teams lined up in groups and the rest of the students in the college came out to watch the spectacle. As is usual for my life here, they wanted us Americans to stand at the front and hold the sign for our department. Some students were dressed in what could only be cheerleader costumes. I never noticed them cheering, but their outfits were pretty funny. Here are some pictures from the opening ceremonies.
      

      
I watched my friend throw the javelin for the first time in his life. Some very helpful competitors gave him lessons right before it was his turn to throw. There were many strange things that happened during the days of this track meet. Too many to try to tell.
      

        
My 800 meter race was fun, and I finished 2nd in my heat, but overall I think I lost by quite a bit. I have no idea what my time was. To my surprise - although many girls had obviously not been training at all - some were amazing runners and were super fast. But I did much better in the high jump event. I was the tallest competitor by at least 3 inches. We started with almost 40 girls and the event took a long time because they allowed each person an infinite number of attempts to jump over the bar. Some girls tried to get over the bar 7 or 8 times before finally giving up. I took a picture with the final 4 girls and then with the girl that ended up getting 2nd place. She was probably about 5' tall.
    

   
Considering that all the people here jump over the bar as though they are trying to hurdle it, these girls were GREAT athletes. I was using a much better technique but they hung with me a long time! I did end up winning this event and setting a new school record! My prize will be a certificate and a cash award equivalent to about $3 US dollars. Ye-haw! Also, while I was busy with the high jump event I was called away to do a television interview, which was pretty funny. My good friends from school hung out all day long to cheer me on. It was a great day that I will never forget. We had a lot of fun and I had a crowd of about 200 people watching me and taking pictures as I finished out the event. They were all cheering for me - including the girls that had been competing with me. I loved the atmosphere. Unforgettable.

          

         

   

     

Thanksgiving was pretty good, but mostly it just made me miss the GREAT times I have each year with my own family. It was fun to get together with some other Americans who live in this city and enjoy turkey and other traditional Thanksgiving foods.
 

Okay, now I will get to the meat. This past weekend I went back to my favorite small town. And I am rejoicing because I was able to hear that two of our new sisters have been digging into their books! They are reading, asking questions, and even talking with their family and friends! I was so thrilled. They agreed to start meeting together for the purpose of teaching, answering questions, and showing them how to live their new life. It was a rockin' thing to hear from them because it's something that I have been in constant thought over for a month.  Nothing compares to this. The track meet and other events like that - they're fun memories to make, and good ways to experience the differences in culture, but they don't hold a candle to getting to hear a new sister tell me that she's been reading her book and wants to learn more! Now THAT'S living!

My roommate and I went all over our favorite small town this past weekend, talking with lots of different people and getting to tell them all about the greatest gift ever given. Many of them did not want this gift, but we are so thrilled to be able to tell so many people. We met one girl who had heard about the gift in the past and said she wanted to receive it. But we weren't sure if she was just saying that to be our friend. (It's a pretty common thing for people to tell you what they think you want to hear - even if they don't mean it). We'll get to visit with her again next weekend to see where she's at with her decision.

Here are some pictures I took from this weekend. The first ones are of my favorite person in this country. We call her BinBin and she is so full of joy and beauty. I love this kid!
   

     

       

  

     

      

Tonight my roommate and I went to a coffee shop we like to visit once a week. Yes - I love coffee and coffee shops - but we have some friends that work there that we have been sharing with. We go there for this great-tasting rose milk tea, and they inevitably invite us to stay for dinner. It's usually great (SPICY) authentic food, although sometimes a little gross and inedible.    HA!
Last week we promised to bring my guitar and sing them songs and tell them some important stories. Many times it seems that our efforts to put on a "concert" falls flat because of distractions or busy schedules, but it all worked out perfectly tonight. We had three of our friends sit there listening intently to the stories and songs (we sing in their language). At the end of our presentation we found out that two of them are already sisters, and the other one isn't interested right now. But then all three of them enthusiastically agreed to have us begin meeting with them weekly to teach them how to tell these stories to their friends. Pretty cool stuff right? So I am anticipating that the one girl who wasn't ready tonight will be coming around soon.
    

So - to summarize: I get to have lots of unusual experiences here. I get to make unforgettable memories and sometimes live a life of infamy because of my nationality, skin color, and hair color. And I get to see peoples' lives changed forever. I get to see people who were empty become full. I get to see father do things that I have never seen so clearly before.
I am loving this life! I could never dream of anything else ever again. What could compare? I'll tell you :   nothing.           This is it for me.         This is what I was MADE for.

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December 10, 2007
Things are really starting to move in a steady direction towards GREAT! I went to my favorite small town again this weekend. My roomie and I left Friday afternoon and came home Sunday night, so it was my first three-day trip. Unfortunately it was also the sickest I've been since I came here. I had some major pain and sickness going on, which I will not describe due to its extreme unpleasantness. I went home from school almost immediately after arriving at the college Friday morning. I slept until mid-afternoon, when it was time to take the bus to my small town. I went to bed at the hotel early Friday night and slept until about noon on Saturday - off-and-on. I was able to go out for about three hours on Saturday and then had to return to the hotel to rest and be sick some more. I went out again for a couple of hours on Saturday night and then went back to sleep. By 10am Sunday morning I was feeling mostly better and was all better when I woke up this morning.
As a positive note; I think I literally lost about 10 pounds so.... bonus!

This week has been really exciting for my roommate and me. As I wrote last Tuesday; we met with some friends at a local coffee shop who we will now begin meeting with regularly for the purpose of studying together. I'm looking forward to our first session tomorrow night.

On Thursday I took one of my teachers out to lunch. We talked about lots of things, including the most important thing in the world. I was able to explain a lot of new information with her and I am hopeful that she will be interested to discuss this topic again in the future. My teacher's name is Lucy. Please think about her in the coming weeks, because she will be hearing a lot about Christmas as we put on a program for the school.

On Friday night (despite my poor health) my roommate and I wanted to take our friends out to dinner. This family has us over to their home for dinner almost every time we visit my favorite small town. We have told them about the great gift available to them, but they are very poor and it's difficult for them to think about anything other than their immediate physical needs. I wish I could do more for them than just taking them out to dinner. They are wonderful and their children have completely captured my heart. Their daughter, Bin Bin, is my favorite person in this country. I wish I could keep her with me all the time. She is the sweetest, most joyful child you could ever want to play with. Her cheerful laugh transcends all languages! Anyway.... we had a fun meal together. I thought I'd take some pictures of the remaining parts of our chicken dish so you can see how they serve the meat here. It was a good thing I took the picture when I did because the rest of the parts were quickly eaten! I am not kidding.
       

       

On Saturday morning, while I was stuck in our hotel room feeling sick, my roommate was out on the town looking for new friends. She stopped into a day spa where they specialize in giving facials. She made friends with the ladies there and we went back to visit them together later that night. One lady wanted to meet us for breakfast the next morning. After breakfast we went back to the day spa to hang out. I had my guitar with me because we had already checked out of the hotel. They wanted us to sing them some songs, so we went into the back room where they were giving facials and sang for probably an hour or more. My roommate had a great talk with these ladies on Saturday, and we sang some great songs for them, but they weren't interested in receiving any gift. We made great new friends, though, and will go back to see them again soon.

Also on Sunday afternoon we got together with our new friend Sarah. We met her last weekend at a different day spa while needing to find a restroom. We were able to share some great news with her which she was happy to receive. This weekend we got to verify that she is sincerely on board, and has even been telling the story to all of her co-workers during this past week. We got to tell her some new stories which apply to the upcoming holiday and give her a book. I'm looking forward to watching her grow week-to-week. Please keep her in your thoughts as you remember her.

We met with our sister, Mary, who has continued to read and study week-to-week. She is growing all the time in her understand of important things. We'll be going over some new deeper things with her next week, as well as with Angel (her friend) and Sarah (at the day spa). I'm excited to watch them grow deeper as they study and learn!

Those are my most recent updates from this past week. My roommate let me pull a bunch of pictures off her camera, so I have some new pictures to share with you from the past few weeks. At the end of November we had many of our friends from school over for dinner. The other students at our college who are also studying the local language are mostly from Indonesia. A few are from Thailand. I often call the whole group "my Indonesian friends." They are so much fun and are very dramatic in their laugher and excitement about any little thing. My roomie and I had them over for a yummy Mexican dinner. After dinner they had me get out my guitar and wanted to sing P&W songs. It was a really cool time.
     

I took some pictures last week after I took Lucy out to lunch. I was walking around downtown and thought I'd share some pictures of a gate to one of the many city parks. Each park has a big gate like this at the different entrances around town.
     

Here is a picture from my foreign student field trip last month.
Posed here are many of my Indonesian friends as well as some of our teachers.

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December 17, 2007
This was just another crazy week living overseas. I will start with a picture from this past Friday afternoon. Then I will tell you how I came to be in a picture such as this:

It's a very quick and easy process to go from an observer on the street into a drummer in full traditional costume. (for a foreigner...)   Here's how it went down :

Step #1 : "Hey - I see a big crowd of people over there and hear loud music playing. I think I'll check it out."     I go over and observe the following things as I circle around the crowd of people, trying to get a better look:

    

It was at this point that the ladies getting ready to perform on their drums noticed me.
Leading to Step #2: Take advantage of the peoples' deep desire to have their picture taken, thereby drawing a crowd by the presence of a camera and a white person.  They imediately started posing for me and gathering around, wanting to be in my pictures.
     
The ladies had to begin performing, so I walked to the side, where many large drums happened to be sitting.      I saw one drum without a player.....
Step #3: Never be afraid to ask.... you might be surprised how often they will say "YES!"
I gestured to one of the ladies, who was performing during all of this, and she nodded for me to pick up the extra drum sticks. I started playing with them, using the same pattern as the ladies around me, which impressed them all quite a bit. So much so that they stopped playing to gather around and instruct me on more interesting drumming techniques. We all began playing together for the rest of their performance.

This obviously drew a large crowd of people, not only for the music and show that was going on, but now because of the American girl playing along with them.  My roommate walked by on the street and stopped to stare at the spectacle I was, once again, involved in.

Step #4 : The locals remember that you have a camera and take everything to the next level in order to make a good picture. This requires teaching new traditional drumming poses and dressing me in one of their outfits (taken off another lady).
       
And there you have it. Four quick steps to go from just another face in the crowd to an active participant, in full costume. It was a lot of fun.

Last week I received my first care package from home. My parents sent it to me and included some great food that cannot be found anywhere in this country. Important things, well worth shipping across the ocean. Things like..... blueberry muffin mix and good coffee. I also received the world's tiniest nativity set, which was subtly tucked into my box of coffee. Hilarious. Thanks mom, I love it, obviously!!!
    

It has been much colder here the past few weeks. I spend a lot of time walking around in the city, and because my school classes are in an open-air building, I am constantly cold. I now wear long underwear under my clothes every day, and most of the time I have on many many layers. It's normal here for people to keep all their layers and coats on, even indoors.

I went to breakfast with my roommate this weekend before we headed out of town. A hotel in my city serves Western food, so on special occasions we have breakfast there. They decorated their lobby for Christmas, which was a beautiful sight to behold.

While I was in the countryside this weekend, my roomie and I met with our sisters, Mary and Angel, again. We were able to teach them a great lesson on how to talk to Dad. It was so awesome to help them learn about this great gift we have; to be able to talk with Him anytime we want, anywhere we are. They also memorized their first sentence. It was so touching to me when Angel turned to me and was so excited as she said "I can recite it!" I just sat there tearing up as I listened to them practice saying it over and over. Wow. It's like nothing I've ever witnessed before - this process of adults discovering for the FIRST time the joy we experience as we have a relationship with DAD. I love it.

On the way back to our hotel Saturday night, after talking with Mary and Angel for around 3 hours, we passed some young girls on the street. They said "hello" to us, so we struck up a conversation to see how much English they could speak. (not much). We asked them how old they were. They said they were both 18, to which I replied with a Mr. Burns impersonation: "Excellent......" (from The Simpsons)     I asked them what they were doing Sunday morning, hoping to meet them for breakfast. Instead, they invited us to go climb a mountain with them. Of course we accepted. So the next morning we all hiked up one of the steep hills on the edge of town. The old stone steps leading from Buddhist temple all the way to the top were so steep and narrow I could hardly believe it. We had a great hike and had some good conversations with our friends as we went along.
    

              

    

    

    

      
After finishing our hike, my roomie and I took these girls to our favorite bakery for a late breakfast. We shared the story with them, but they didn't have an interest in receiving the gift at that time. So we walked around with them some more and they took us to their school, where they live. Most of the youth in this country live at their school rather than with their families. These girls are basically high school seniors, and we went to their school campus to play some ping pong. I enjoyed playing for a little while but we didn't play any serious one-on-one games with anyone. I think it's because all of the students could tell that we were no match for any of them. When the time came for my roomie and I to leave, our new friends wanted to come with us and help me carry my bags. I let them carry my backpack together across the school yard and enjoyed the hilarity of the two girls sharing the load.
      

As we killed a little extra time that afternoon before taking the bus back to my home city, we came across a snake show on the sidewalk. There was a thick crowd gathered around, but thanks to my height and long arms I was able to take a picture over their heads.

Sunday night my roomie and I went to my teacher's house for dinner. This is my teacher, Lucy, who I shared the story with two weeks ago. She is great and was so very excited to have us over to her home. She is, as she told us repeatedly, "a good cooker!" We ate dinner, watched Transformers (spoken in the local language, with English subtitles), and then I learned a new card game. It was a great night, mostly because Lucy said she has been thinking about the story we talked about a few weeks ago. She agreed to have lunch more often with me so we can talk more about Dad and what it's like to follow Him.
       

The other day while I was downtown in my city, getting ready to take the bus to the countryside and participating in the drumming performance, I took some pictures of the street. The bright colors are everywhere you look in this country. Every wall and door is decorated in bright red. The big red arches can be found over many streets and sidewalks. I just wanted to share the look of the land here in my city.
     

One last thing.... LITERALLY while I was typing this Blog, my roommate knocked on my door with mail for me! I received a care package from my best friend! Thank you Renee! I love it! I got my favorite coffee (caramel truffle, Milstone brand from Target) lots of chocolate candy, some cards and a candle from my friends in Oklahoma City, and other great things. Of course I quickly spread it out to take a picture.   If you ever feel yourself being led to ship some American goodness over to me, please contact me immediately for the necessary instructions to get it here!!! Just kidding. But I sure do appreciate it. It is obviously a highlight to my week when I get anything that reminds me of home. I love you all and look forward to telling you about our special Christmas events in my next Blog.
    

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December 22, 2007
Tomorrow is our big college variety show, of sorts.... and the foreign students have been given 30-40 minutes of the 2 hour program to put on a Christmas show. We will have over 10 minutes of secular Christmas songs with dancing, 10 minutes of a Christmas nativity play with the Christmas story being acted out in the local language, and then 10 minutes of meaningful Christmas songs sung by a choir. I was put in charge of forming a choir and directing this last part of the Christmas show. I have been having two-a-day rehearsals with my choir for the past three weeks, teaching them 4 Christmas songs. One will be sung in English and the rest in the local language. I have about 35 people (almost entirely women) singing in my "Angel Choir". We will be dressed in all white and will have shiny silver "halo's" on our heads as we sing. We had a run through rehearsal in the school auditorium this past Tuesday. This has been a great way to get to know students and make lots of new friendships. And we don't sound half bad! We have a small section of girls who can (kind of) sing harmony as long as they stand really close to me. Here are pictures of my choir singing, as well as me with several of my "Angels".
   

   

   

   

   

This has been another cold week at school. As I wrote previously, my classroom is in an old fashioned building. There is no heat and the classrooms are not closed to the outside elements. I have a real life chalk board in my classroom, which makes everything dirty and difficult to breath. I have three classes which all help me learn the local language. I am the only student in my classes, although recently I have had a woman sitting in on one of my classes. Her name is Hilary and her husband is a new professor at my college, so she is trying to learn what she can of the language.         My three teachers all have English names. They all speak English to some degree. First we have Shirley, teaching me in my "Listening" class.
      
Next we have Lucy, teaching my "Conversation" class. She is the one I have written about many times, as I have been able to tell the story to her.
     
Last is Norma, teaching my "Phonetics" class. She didn't have an English name, and is studying English in order to be a better teacher for me. I wrote down all the names of women in my family and she chose Norma for her English name! How fun!
       

Friday night the city I live in threw a huge Christmas party for all the foreigners living here. It was held at a nice coffee shop. Most coffee shops in this country don't just serve drinks. They are some of the more expensive restaurants in the city. This is because coffee is not something people like to drink in this country, so the foreigners are the main clientele for these types of restaurants. People here prefer to drink tea.
It was really strange to see all the white faces when we showed up at the party. Don't get me wrong, there were less than 15 white people there, but that is a HUGE number where I live. I met some English teachers who are from the midwest and we had fun chatting about our impressions of this country, and our adventures in living here. We were served a great meal, and I drank iced mocha that could have come straight from Starbucks! The city's "People's Friendship Association with Foreign Countries" was hosting this party and the government officials made many speeches about how great the city is doing economically, etc. blah blah blah. The head guy, the mayor's assistant, came over to my table and made a toast to us for the TV cameras to record.
    
I was asked to prepare a musical number to perform for all the guests so I had all of the girls from Indonesia (who are all in my Angel choir) and my other American friends sing "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing" in the local language for everyone. This was easy because it's one of the songs we have prepared for tomorrow's program. We had a great meal and another unforgettable night!
   

    

   

  
Above is a picture of me with Hilary and her husband, Gordon, who is the new teacher at my school from Scotland. They are really nice.  Hilary was caught trying to eat with a fork in one hand and chop sticks with the other. (below)

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December 25, 2007
On Sunday evening my college had a big variety show and my American friends and I were given the opportunity to present a Christmas Program during this event. We had three sections to our Christmas show. First we had some singing and dancing of popular secular Christmas songs. Then we had a Christmas play which acted out the Christmas story. Lastly, we sang three traditional Christmas carols in the local language and one in English. I was the choir director of this third part and ended up with over 30 students singing in my "Angel Choir." Here are some short movie clips from the event on Sunday night.

Despite some technical difficulties and other normal last minute problems to solve, the whole night went wonderfully and we all had a GREAT time. If you wonder why the audience is cheering at random moments, it's because they're overwhelmed with excitement at the sound of a foreigner speaking their language, or sometimes just by the sight of us. I will post more pictures of the Christmas program soon, but for now I will let the movie clips speak for themselves.    Enjoy!


"Silent Night"


The Christmas Play


"O Holy Night"


"Joy To The World"

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December 31, 2007           PART 1
Man! I have had so many things going on this week during Christmas that it's hard for me to keep up! A few days before Christmas, my roommate's family came to visit us, which was a lot of fun. They're really nice and we enjoyed showing them some of our favorite spots around town and out in the countryside. I'll give you the highlights of the past week:

December 23rd was our college variety show, during which we were allowed to put on a Christmas program. It included the Christmas story acted out in a play, as well as a choir full of "angels" singing Christmas carols. Please go to my previous blog to watch some video clips and see pictures of this event. It went great and I'm so glad to have been able to share this story with the whole college. Here are some pictures from backstage during the show:
      
and a last minute rehearsal outside my classroom during a downpour (right) :
   
You can appreciate the beautiful (homemade) costumes of Joseph and the angel Gabriel :

On December 24th, during the day of Christmas Eve, I traveled to my favorite small town in the countryside. My roommate and her family went too, and we met BinBin's family for lunch at their home. My roomie and I had some Christmas gifts to give the family. It was such a thrill to watch them get so excited. We got a large plush blanket for the father and mother, and fun musical toys for the children. BinBin played her little keyboard the rest of the day, even as they walked us to the bus station across town!
     

     

    

    

We went back to the city that evening, and went to a cool traditional restaurant downtown for dinner. Here are some pictures that my roommate's family took while checking out our city. They did a good job capturing the look around town:
   

   

On Christmas Day we did a lot of cooking in my apartment during the morning, preparing for lunch over at a friend's house. We had a small gift exchange with my roommate's family. Here is my roomie, her mom, and I showing off our new Christmas necklaces.  

We had a great feast for lunch. All the types of food I would have had if I was back home with my family. It really helped Christmas FEEL like Christmas for me. We also had a "white elephant" gift exchange with lots of coveted gifts to choose from. We played cards and Balderdash in the afternoon and had a great time together.
  

    

Christmas night I was invited to attend the International Women's Ping Pong Championships, which were being held in the city I live in. Of course I went! It was very interesting and fun to watch these ladies get crazy with their ping pong paddles. My roommate's brother and I went together and met a lot of our friends from college once we arrived. He and I were both wearing our Santa hats and I believe we were the only white people in the stadium. A camera man caught sight of us and came over during the tournament to do an on-the-spot interview.
   

     

On December 26th and 27th I invited all of the students and teachers from my "Angel Choir" over to my house for a Christmas party. I told them to divide up and come one of the two nights because my apartment is very small and wouldn't be able to hold all of them at once. Wednesday night I had 10 students come. I had a big spread of food and drinks for them and we had a really fun night together. I taught them some fun group games that I know: "Signs" and "Mafia". They loved it! Then we sang the Christmas carols from our performance and I taught them some other carols in English. Of course we loved singing together and it was fun to discover that they had memorized all the words of the Christmas carols we had performed in their language. Those songs have some great lyrics to have hidden in their hearts!
After that I told them about the history behind Christmas, the meaning of it, and my personal background and story concerning the greatest gift ever given. It was a really good opportunity to deepen my relationship with all these students who have become my friends. I hope that some of them who were interested in my stories will start meeting with me regularly to discuss them further. One of the girls who came on Wednesday night brought me a Christmas present. She MADE me a scarf! I am wearing it in the picture below:
    

       

     
On Thursday night I had a much larger crowd show up for my party. I had at least 23 students there, which was well over maximum capacity! We did the same games and I told the same stories as Wednesday night. I loved getting to know all these students, and be able to share such important stories with them all.
  

    

    

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December 31, 2007           PART 2
This past weekend I went where no (white) man has gone before. It was really a great trip into the unknown. I traveled out through the countryside and up into the mountains. I went with my friend C.C. She's great and we had a lot of fun together.
We started our trip by heading out to my favorite small town. We didn't stay there long, though. We took a small van to a near bye town to see what they were up to on a Friday night. We found a hobbit house that I'm SURE would have lead us to Middle Earth eventually...    

Also, I saw some guys hanging out the way they like to do around here. They convinced me to get out of the van and take a picture with them before we returned to our town. We rode in a "bread truck", which is a tall and narrow minivan which you can hire as a taxi. They call them "bread trucks" here because they think it looks like a loaf of bread.
       

    

When we got back to our town we weren't ready to go to the hotel, so we walked around looking for action. We saw the museum which has all sorts of cool historical stuff from a local minority group. We tried to get in, but the doors were chained shut and they were clearly closed. No matter, though! We bumped into the museum curator in the town square and he promptly took us into the museum to look around as long as we wanted. He told the night watchman to let us out when were were done, and then left us in the museum unsupervised. We couldn't resist climbing on, and playing with ,some of the displays.
   
There was a map of the county, showing the topography. We used this to plan out our adventure through the mountains the following day.

The next morning we started out in a "chicken bus" which is just a small public bus which is often crammed full of people carrying anything imaginable, including live chickens.
   
We saw some great scenery as we headed deep into the countryside.

When we arrived in a tiny town, we were greeted with stares and confusion. For many people living there, we were the first white people they'd ever seen.
     
School let out for lunch as we were walking down a street. They children saw us and freaked out with excitement. A large pack of them followed us around town for at least a half hour. We kept trying to lose them but it was difficult. We were a little afraid we might get arrested for causing such a loud public disturbance!
      
We eventually lost the kids as we walked through the marketplace. We started out in the water buffalo district. I was a little afraid of reliving my past trauma of a buffalo charging me, as I tried to take a picture in front of these animals!
   
You can see how easy it is for us to stick out of the crowd in towns like this:
    
Here is a lady selling "fresh" pork. And a car that I guessed has "wash me" written on back.
     
My friend had to work very hard to find anyone who would take us across the mountains to get into the smaller villages where we wanted to go. Eventually she convinced a man in a bread truck to take us - for a high price. Once we saw the road we had to take, we decided it was well worth the price he charged us.  Wa-hoo! Off-roading in a minivan!
     

The trip into the mountains, and across them, was beautiful. Our driver was really cool and even stopped a few times so we could take pictures of unique things we passed.

   

   
We came upon some people building a bridge across the mountain river. We went down and were pretty surprised at the large machine they had stuck right in the middle of the water. They had a dump truck on the side of the road - propped up with bamboo logs so it wouldn't fall down the hill. Pretty cool and pretty crazy!
    

   

The bread truck wouldn't take us to the town in the mountains that we wanted to go. He took us to a small village and told us we could catch a chicken bus from there. The small village was so cool - and had some cool minority people living there... the kind I'd like to get to know more.... We struck gold with this village! Below (left)is a 90 year old lady who let us into her home. Below (right) is a place of worship for the people in this town.
   
We had to go to the bathroom after all this bumpy traveling combined with multiple cups of coffee. So we asked where the bathroom was in this town. Some ladies led us to the public restroom and it was this small mud-brick hut (below left). My friend went inside first, and when she came back out she said "man, that was hardcore. I have never seen anything as bad as that before, ever. You have to be really hardcore to go to the bathroom in there." Well, if you know me at all, you know that I cannot resist words like that. I got so excited and said "I'm hardcore!!! I'll go too!!!"     I can verify that she was not exaggerating.   Below right is a horse I saw with a saddle that many animals were wearing in the mountains. I can't even imagine how uncomfortable that thing would be to ride on: all metal and wood.
         

We wandered around this village for a while and then hired another bread truck to take us to the next village down. It was another beautiful drive and when we arrived in the town we saw more cool sights. An old lady saw us and wanted us to come to her home. We followed her home and she insisted we stay with her and go home the next day. It took a lot of strength to convince her that we weren't going to stay the night at her home. All the people around here had these little fire stoves in the middle of their rooms, and everyone would gather around to warm themselves. They don't exactly have heating in their houses.
   
I'm not sure why this guy drove his motorcycle into the river, but he had quite a time trying to get it back out!

Our final leg of the journey was in another chicken bus. We had an eventful ride home as we came upon a river and had to take a ferry across.
   

   

   

When we got back to my favorite small town that night, some people came up to us as we checked back into the hotel. They wanted to hang out with us all night and take us out to dinner. So we went with it and had a good time making new friends. My friend was able to tell them the great story while we ate dinner, and then we went to the town square to take pictures together. After they had the pictures printed and laminated, we went to a pool hall. The pool tables were all lined up on both sides of the road, in stalls in the side of a building. It was freezing! I tried to learn the local card game, but couldn't figure out how to play it before we had to go. What a fun night with our new friends!
   

   

   

Well, that's all for my weekend adventure into the mountains. We accomplished our goals for the trip and came back home very happy and very exhausted. I can't wait to go back!