Entertainment Close To Home

Carnival At Your Door

Check this out. Capitalism at work. No motor, two sets of pedals (one for moving kids, one for moving on), & three kids having fun for a price much much cheaper than the travelling 'spring' fair in Prince George. (Grandma's: Note that the back tire is chalked for safety.) What you don't hear is Indonesian kiddy music blaring super loud courtesy a scooter battery powering an old tape cassette deck.

World's Best Sprinkler

As it is rainy season, ones' afternoon plans must take into consideration massive amounts of rain. One day Amy and I discovered we could throw bathing suits on the kids and out they go, happy as can be! I guess it's similar to Canada, except instead of bathing suits they'd be wearing snow pants, tuque's, boots, & mittens.

 

 Simon enjoying rainwater pouring out of the gutter.

Neighbourhood Celebration
As I mentioned in our last post, our family was invited to a Christmas / New Years neighbourhood 'Christian' get together a couple weeks back. It was held about a 2 minute walk from our house in a roofless building (that looks like it one day might just get a roof). But, with a portable tent and a full sound system the party was in business!

This was our first experience with the local Christians in the community. Obviously at this stage in our language training we understood very little, but it was very neat to gather with & celebrate with other Christians, as we have Christ in common! This particular building is kitty corner to a M*slim boarding school. For us, being new to the country and culture, it is an interesting dynamic to here the Call to Prayer ring out at the usual time from all the Mosques in the community, while being at a Christian Christmas gathering...Not something I've experienced before!

Poor Ol' Wilson

Our friendly backyard spider met his (her) match the other day. Luke was looking for targets with his squirt bottle, and squirted him with a mild mixture of soap and water. The next thing I hear is "Daddy Daddy come look! Wilson the spider is coming down from his web!"

At first I didn't know what was up with this big ol' spider bailing out of his nest, but apparently the mild mixture of soap and water is a little more caustic to a spider than it is to us! It was a sad occasion but also (as I imagine some of you would agree) a relief that there isn't a giant spider in our backyard. All in all, Luke discovered quite an efficient way of "off-ing" a large spider, (or family pet).

Poor ol' Wilson gracefully dying on our lawn.

Older distinguished British fellow narrating:

"As the hunter becomes the hunted, and as the predator sometimes becomes prey, the vicious circle of life and death continues..."

Luke mourning the loss of beloved Wilson.

Luke preferring the crispy crunch of an apple to the crunchy crisp of a soapy spider.

Non-spider related bits of news:

Amy and I have just completed our first week in Unit 2 of language school. As busy as our school routine is (seemingly very busy), we do feel a little normality to our lives when compared to our first month here. As we are learning a new language from scratch, we are just getting to the point where we can have a very basic conversation with someone local:

(Translated for your reading pleasure)
Me: "Good afternoon Ma'am, Could I have 3 water (bottles delivered)?"
Ma'am: "Good afternoon Sir! Oh yes, we can deliver some water. How are you today?"
Me: "Uhhh..."
Ma'am: "How are you?"
Me: "Oh! Good, good...Can I...pay...uh..."
Ma'am: "Would you like to pay now or when the water is delivered?"
Me: "Yah, now! Thank you!"
Ma'am: "That will be thirty eight thousand, please."
Me: "Sorry...?"
Ma'am: "Thirty eight thousand."
Me: Oh, yah, Thirty...eight..."
Ma'am: "Thank you Sir..."
Me: "Thank you...See you later!"
Ma'am: "Yes, see you next time!"


Of course, we've had our share of word mis-use as well. As I can't remember all of them, I do remember "reviewing" my previous day to my class in Unit 1, and instead of saying "My house help cooked our lunch", I said "I cooked my house help for lunch". To get the point across to what I had just said, the instructor proceeded to draw a giant pot with my poor house help stewing in it.

The other day Amy meant to say "Sampai nanti (until later)". But instead she said "Sampai lantai (until floor)". Or, weirdly enough, google translates sampai lantai to cathedral...which could be totally wrong as google translate is useful but often wrong. But either way, it was a good laugh at the time. We're thankful for the patience that has been given to us by all those Indonesians that have painfully put up with our non-sensical attempts to communicate. Good thing the Javanese are so outwardly polite!

A week or so ago we also had the privilege of attending a Christian neighbourhood Christmas & New Years get together just down the street from our home. Yes, it is a bit weird (from a Western stand point) to have something like this almost a week after the new year, but I think it is common to have such a combined celebration here. Despite us understanding very little, it was a neat experience to gather with fellow believers in Christ! I hope to share a bit more about it in our next blog post.

A Scooter's View

A couple days ago I got brave and zap strapped my camera to the front of my scooter to try and film a time-lapse of our town. Although I missed the 'downtown' section with all of its interesting sites, I think this gives a bit of a glimpse of what it looks like here when the traffic isn't too bad. We hope you enjoy!

Outdoor Swimming in January

The other day our family went swimming! I brought along our point and shoot camera for documentation sake.

NOTE: I seem to have become a camera snob and feel the need to point out to people when my photos were not taken from my good camera, even though I may be the only one who notices.

Yah yah, I know...All you folks with snow in your yard are a wee bit jealous of what you see in these pictures. But please know - before you send an letter to the editor and consider cutting our support, we definitely thought of all of you as we sipped our sodas pool side in the relative 'cool' of the morning...'cool' being relative, as 'cool' to Java is August in Canada :)

Sorry, I couldn't resist a few smart remarks. As any of you with kids very well know, getting out of the house once in a while is paramount to preventing insanity. In a country with way less organized entertainment than North America, and with a family who doesn't have much of a clue (& often is a little low on options), a pool is a real blessing!

As this place is a hotel / spa / restaurant type of place, we were able to walk over and have some lunch after swimming. Amy had a salad with her meal, and she bit into some little pepper that just about burned her mouth off her face. I think it is just Indonesian to have at least one hot item on a plate to make it a "complete" meal...that and rice of course.  I, not being one to squander chances, ordered a burger.

In Photos...

If I remember correctly, I think these shots we on Christmas day. A few local girls came over and spent a bit of time playing with our kids in the yard. As you can see, the girls obviously have held a baby before, as they probably help a lot with their own siblings!

Luke showing off a snail shell (I think) he found the property beside us with the neighbour kids. This one is a small one as some of the others looked rather mutant sized. Simon is carefully piecing together the dinosaur bones he discovered in his Christmas archeological egg artifact (courtesy of Amy shopping in Idaho).