Post Turkey

We made it through Thanksgiving!  The time celebrating with friends was really sweet, and the initial fear of the turkeys lurking in my freezer eventually panned out to some darn good birds, if I do say so myself!  I even managed to squeeze both seventeen-pound birds (separately, of course) into the oven bags made for 8-10 pound birds without anything igniting during the baking process.  I wasn't too sure just what would happen with the plastic bags being a bit more snug than the manufacturer intended; but alas, my fears were in vain.  We had moist, non-scorched turkey for both the meals I was responsible for, with lots of leftovers (turkey chili) to boot.

I will confess that the food and friends were a highlight; our family dynamics were not.  Without going into too much detail, I'll share just a bit about the realities of living overseas in a pretty challenging environment and the struggles that brings, at least for our family!  We've noted that as the stress mounts from so many life circumstances that are out of our control, we're often unaware of how much we are each affected by the tension.  Well it kind of hit a snapping point the week of Thanksgiving, leaving Kevin and me in conflict but the kids (I thought) pretty unaware of the tension between us. It wasn't until we'd returned home on Thanksgiving night after a fantastic day celebrating with friends that Eli, my most sensitive child as far as being intuitive to others' feelings goes, made a comment that shocked my socks off.  When I was debriefing with the kids and asking how they'd enjoyed Thanksgiving, Eli's response was that it was his "worst favorite" holiday (meaning, his least favorite).  When I asked why, he couldn't give me a good reason.  In fact, he couldn't give me any reason at all!  And this is after he'd had a day of pumpkin pie and getting to play football in the snow and his favorite strategic war board games with his best buddies.  So I realized then the effects that our mounting stress is having on our family.   While we sometimes can't even verbalize what it is that isn't "right", we still have a number of things that are obviously wrong.  So the past several weeks have been spent doing some heart searching and crying out for wisdom and discernment about what change looks like for us.  We have no easy answers at this point, but both Kevin and I are actively engaged in pursuing what needs to be tweaked (or even radically changed) to get us to a point that is both walking in obedience and also taking our family's emotional well-being into account.

Noah's penguin-style sledding

In the midst of so much heaviness, we've also been making "fun" more of a priority!  We managed to coerce a friend's daughter to watch the kids so we could have our first date night in months.  We went to one of our favorite restaurants--it's central Asian cuisine with a Russian flare.  Kevin found what I termed a "Chinese pot roast" on the menu--chopped up beef and veggies in a sauce, Chinese style, served over mashed potatoes.  Kind of cracked me up!  Karis and I went to the Art College's dance recital with a few other ladies and their daughters and had such an amazing experience.  I would have given anything to take some pictures and videos to post but didn't dare, as they gave strict instructions not to.  During the performance there were a few ushers walking the aisle with green laser pointers.  If someone was talking or their phone buzzed, they would zap you with the laser pointer, making it obvious to everyone around that you were the perpetrator!  I think my friend and I actually got zapped once as we whispered about one of the dances.

sledding 

We also took off one day last week when Kevin's language tutor canceled and drove about an hour to the mountains where we spent the day sledding.  The kids (and Kevin and I!) had such a blast!  The snow was amazing and once we had the "hot hands" in our gloves, we stayed warm enough to spend most of the day there.  We had surprised the kids with this outing, which made it even more special for them.  We've decided that it might behoove us to make this same trek once every other week for the sake of everyone's mental well-being!

Rolling dumplings with our Chinese teacher

Trapper trying to catch snowflakes

Building snow caves

Eli going record-deep in the snow!

 Shame!!!  (Key buzz word in this culture for how discipline is doled out.)  But it really just made us get the giggles.... :)

The snow mountain built by Joseph kids

gingerbread men decorating

We came sooooo close to our first real local cultural event this past weekend.  Some of our favorite neighbors are an older couple who have 4 kids--one living in the US and one living in Canada with their families.  The Canadian couple is back here visiting, and we've had such a great time connecting with them and their 5-year old son, who is bored and so thankful to have other English-speaking kids around to play with.  In this culture, it is usual to have the boys circumcised at age 7 or 8 and then throw a huge party afterward; culturally this is about as big a deal as a wedding is.  So our 5-year old friend was planning on having this done early since his grandfather has cancer and the fear was that he would pass away before getting to experience this rite of passage of his grandson.  So we got invited to this super fancy party where I was going to have to get my hair done in an up-do and was instructed to wear lots of heavy make-up (eye liner especially) and big, sparkly earrings.  (These are the signs that you've put time and effort into preparing to attend this sort of event.  Yikes!  I'll be honest that I was NOT excited about getting my hair done poodle-style!)  Unfortunately, the grandfather ended up passing away two days before the big party, so they canceled it.  I'm still wondering how they got the word out to the 400 guests who were supposed to be in attendance.  I think that the emphasis on family connections and tightness of community maybe make this sort of thing not as big a deal to communicate; they seem to have such tight circles that maybe it's easy to get the word out quickly without having to do anything too official or formal?  So they told us the party would be re-scheduled and they'd let us know when that happens, but I'm thinking for the 5 year old's sake that putting it off a bit is probably the preferable option!

Kevin's Chinese pot roast

Our other main entertainment as of late has been the snow.  So I thought I'd been in snow before when I'd taken trips to the mountains of Colorado.  Not so much.  I've never seen anything like this!  It started snowing about a week and a half ago and everything has been COVERED ever since.  Like, feet of snow so deep that our pathway out our front door to the market stores is literally several feet higher off the ground than it used to be due to how much snow you are walking on top of!  They have the most amazing machines to clean both the roads and the walking pathways, but even with all of those machines mobility around town has been significantly hindered.  I just drove the kids to a practice for a Christmas drama they're participating in and it took me 40 minutes to get them there when it normally takes about 10.  And I was slipping and sliding on so much ice that I was holding my breath they whole way.  At one point I got hung up on some of the bumpy icy parts and literally couldn't move forward.  The men in the two cars behind me got out and kindly pushed me so that I could gain traction.  So thankful for kind helpers along the way!  The kids have been building all kinds of snow forts, snow mountains, and sledding courses around our building.  I'm amazed at how long they can stay out in the cold.  It's just warmed up to 14 degrees today (it's been down to 1 degree several times in the last week!), but they can stay out for over an hour at a time.  Now I will say that we are going through LOTS of hot chocolate, but at least I've been able to find it at one of the larger grocery stores here in town so I'm not having to totally depend on our care package stash.

the depth of snow on our car

Eli helping shovel us out

So with the cold and the snow there is no doubt that we have at least the climatic feel for Christmas!  The kids are marking the days till December 25th.  We'll spend Christmas Eve caroling at a friends home and haven't quite figured out Christmas day yet--maybe opening our home to a group of friends or maybe just doing a low-key family celebration.  I'm hosting a Christmas brunch for a group of ex-pat ladies in town this weekend along with a friend who also had the itch to do more holiday celebrating.  We're basically just using it as an excuse to make lots of our favorite holiday dishes (most involving cream cheese!) and have some ladies fellowship time--something that seems all too rare out here where we are.  I did convince one friend to take off across town with me in a taxi (it took over an hour and a half due to the distance and the snow still on the roads!) to go to a newly-opened H&M!  NOT my favorite store in the US, but man was it refreshing to walk around a mall in what seemed like a "normal" holiday activity of doing some shopping!  I even found some skinny jeans, which sounds a bit problematic considering the very conservative culture in which we live.  But I've found that my bootcut jeans don't go over my "real" boots that I have to wear here--the ones that are super thick and able to handle the extreme cold and snow that we walk through every time we go out the door.  So skinny jeans are actually the acceptable pants of choice around here where heavy boots are required!  Who would have thought?!  (Wish I'd brought those skinny jeans that are still in my parent's home in Dallas...)  I don't see the trek across town coming again any time soon, but it's nice to know that within an hour or two there are a few "getaways" that feel like a bit of a treat from what's normal in our neck of the woods.

Two Sheets???

"What?!  You have TWO sheets on your bed?" Noah exploded with shock at the sight of it.  Yesterday he was helping me put the sheets back on our master bed after I'd washed them, and I was once again reminded by how many little things we do that are different here from how we would probably do them in America--and having two sheets on a bed are one of those things!  In Asia it's typical to only have the bottom fitted sheet (over a very hard mattress, I might add!) and then have a duvet (with no flat sheet in between).  So we've adapted to that practice in our own home (it's certainly easier to only have to change the bottom sheet and then wash duvets periodically!) and that's all that the kids see at friends' houses and in hotels.  When I told Kevin about Noah's response to seeing two sheets on one bed later that night, we both cracked up at the thought of just how many little things our kids see as normal/abnormal.  Pretty funny to think about them having that same reaction when they go to college and see a roommate with TWO sheets on their bed--shocking!  Ahh, who knows just how far-reaching the impact of this ex-pat lifestyle will be on our sweet kiddos!

Horse carcass on the back of a truck

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and I'll be honest--I'm haunted by the turkeys that are in my freezer at the moment!  It's actually 3am right now, and typically I'm sleeping at this hour.  But instead I couldn't sleep, mainly with thoughts of turkeys flying through my head, so Trapper (the cat) and I are here on the couch in the living room.  I went two days ago to the only import store in town that I know of where I heard you could buy a turkey.  I had orders from friends to pick up 4--two that I am planning to bake (we're celebrating with friends both on Thursday and on Friday) and two that are for other families who don't have cars, so getting to the store and getting the turkey home are more of a challenge.  It was a total China experience.  The three women sitting at desks in this closet of an import store began by informing me that there were no turkeys in town this year.  Then one of them remembered that it was really close to Thanksgiving and she got another one of the ladies to get on the phone and make some calls.  By the time I left the store 15 minutes later I had a promise that there would be 4 turkeys waiting there for me the next day!  So yesterday I returned at the hour they'd appointed, and sure enough, no turkeys.  I was thinking it was going to take another day of trekking out to try again to pick up the birds the following day, but thankfully they finally showed up after I'd waited for 40 minutes.  However, I was not expecting the size of the turkeys to be what they are!  Each of them is about 17 pounds, so I'm thankful that my freezer is as large as it is.  (I already dropped off two of the birds).  And I'm also thankful that I have one of the only full-size ovens in town (single ovens, which probably isn't considered full-size by US standards...).  Not sure exactly how I'm going to fit everything in my fridge and bake the thing to other's standards, but hoping that it won't cause too much anxiety in the meantime!  The lack of the built-in thermometer and the size of the birds is making me a bit nervous...

Noah was really excited on the way to the store, as he kept asking to make sure that the bird was really dead.  Sounds strange, but out here, it really was a valid question.  Our friends who have lived here longer originally could only find a live turkey that they had to butcher completely themselves.  (They made the mistake of having the husband go to pick up the turkey, so he made the decision to NOT have the seller chop off its head right there.  The wife was not excited about this decision!)  Another poignant reminder of some of the realities of where we live confronted me even on the way to the import store.  While stopped at a traffic light, I snapped this photo of a horse carcass that was strung up on the back of a truck in front of me.  And a man was actually sitting back there and cutting on it while the car was in motion!  There is a large Kazak population where we live who are known to be horsemen (and horse-eaters, too), so I'm assuming that is who they are marketing to? But I'll admit that it was a bit creepy to me; the visual image of the horse carcass being strung up by the tail was something I just don't see every day.

View from my seat on the flight to TL

Clarification posted in a TL bathroom stall....

Tiger Kingdom

I had planned on getting this post up 2 weeks ago, but we took a trip to Thailand and our return has been much slower than I expected as far as getting back to a routine goes.  While we were in Thailand, we stayed at one of our favorite hotels that is close to the airport.  It is the most simple place as far as accommodations go, but in back of the hotel is this large open field that my kids have grown to love (and makes me nervous because of the number of snakes that I've seen and the larger number that I know reside there--unseen!).  So one of the things that was at the top of their wish list of things to do was to go and pick a coconut from one of the trees and see if Kevin could get it to break open by throwing it really high into the air and letting it fall to the ground.  You can see from the pictures that their mission was accomplished!  We also spent some time at the international hospital there getting different "maintenance" things done that we can't do where we live.  It was such a relief to find out that Noah's ears look good (we were worried that there was a problem with his right ear drum in particular), Karis was able to get some cream for the small bumps she has on her leg, and some spots in my lungs don't seem to be a concern (there's a small chance of me having latent tuberculosis, which is really common in Asia, but nothing needing treatment or anything that's contagious).  So we were so thankful to get all those things taken care of at such a nice and modern facility.

Finding the coconut tree

During our last day in Thailand we had friends take us to Tiger Kingdom, where we got to get up-close to several tigers (we opted out of the expensive option of actually snuggling with the tigers!).  The coolest part was watching two of them rough housing in this really shallow pool.  The sheer size and strength of the animals had us all amazed as we watched them bat at one another and pounce, oftentimes one pushing another under water even.  After that we went hiking at a series of waterfalls that was just beautiful.  It would have been a perfect day if I hadn't blown it at the end!  The kids were off the beaten path (not unusual for them) when they were reprimanded from one of the park workers for climbing up too high.  As they started their descent, Hudson started slipping on the wet rocks, sliding on his bottom toward the drop off which landed on more rocks.  My heart absolutely stopped as everyone around who saw the event gasped.  My immediate reaction was to lunge toward him, which I did, but then realized that there was no way I could make it to him across the shallow pool of water that separated us before he landed on the rocks.  So I tried to then pull backward to keep myself from falling into the water, slipping and falling to my bottom in the process.  When I did so, I managed to pull some of the intercostal muscles (those are the ones in between your ribs) in my upper chest.  Talk about painful!  I knew immediately I'd done something, but was obviously so concerned about Hud and his landing (which ended up being "perfect"; he continued to slide down and land on the rocks below feet-first, then literally bounced back up to a standing position while yelling, "That was AWESOME!"  There were a few tears once he got over to where I was, as he admitted the whole thing really freaked him out.)  So the irony is that I came out of the waterfalls with the most significant injury!  The muscles stayed sore for a few days, but once we returned to China Kevin and I both caught a short-lived fever virus that left me with some chest congestion.  The congestion coupled with the pain in my ribs made coughing and even deep breathing almost unbearable!  I talked with a doctor and he recommended I use Advil and Tylonol, and then bumped it up to taking pain meds, too.  I was so thankful that when my mom came in September she brought a new prescription of just such medication, which Kevin has to use periodically for his back when it goes out.

So I ended up spending a good part of the week fuzzy-brained because of pain killers.  Moving, lifting, talking for long periods--everything seemed painful!  I thankfully had a good stash of food in the freezer, and I even had several friends bring by meals at different times, so the fact that I was useless in the kitchen didn't leave my family hungry.  In fact, the older two kids even did several meals themselves--lunches in particular.  At one point I asked them to clean off the drying rack where the clean dishes were to make more room and overheard Karis and Eli's conversation.  It went like this:

Kids using Noah as a pillow

Karis:  Gosh, this is a lot of work.  We need to tell Mom thanks more often.
Eli:  No kidding.  Does she do this every day?  Kids are a lot of work.
Karis:  Yeah.  I'm not sure I'm going to have any.

Priceless!  Thankfully I've made it through the worst of it and am down to an occasional Advil for the discomfort.  Three weeks later and I'm still not back to 100%, as I get easily fatigued and have to sit down to rest more than I'd like.  And I've been off of exercising completely, which is a huge loss for me, as that tends to be one of my bigger stress-relievers.  Hopefully this next will be the time....

Welcome back!

Our return from Thailand quickly brought us back to the reality that winter is upon us.  We drove home in major snowfall, with about 6 inches already on the ground!  The kids have had so much fun playing out in in--building snowmen, snow forts, sledding, and having snowball fights.  There's no snow on the ground at the moment, but we've got it in the forecast 3 times over the next week.  And friends keep telling us that winter is not actually here yet!  This is still just fall, and a pretty mild November at that!  I'll admit that it makes me nervous when we walk outside all bundled up, long undies and wool socks on, and I'm thinking, "This is REALLY cold!"  And yet our temps are in the 30s, and we'll drop a good 30 degrees before all is said and done!  Yikes!  Might be pulling out lots of hot chocolate...

Animals--EVERYWHERE!!!

Talk about enculturation!  We are getting it in full doses these days... From holidays to shocking interactions within our neighborhood, we are getting a crash course in how to survive (I think) in this new area.  Here's an overview of the last 3 weeks....

Kurban

Look closely in the tree...

This is the Muslim holiday that comes 70 days after Ramadan (I think I have those details right--but don't quote me).  It's history comes from the Koran's account of Abraham offering his son Ishmael (different from the Biblical account where Abraham offers Isaac) on the altar, but God intervening and providing a ram as a sacrifice instead.  I've heard lots of different perspectives on WHY the Muslim community around us takes this holiday so seriously--everything from the sacrifice actually providing a physical bridge to God in the afterlife, ensuring that every family wants to be diligent to "complete their bridge" by not neglecting the sacrifice) to the judgment that one faces without the sacrifice being offered--but it was obvious to any passerby that there was no shortage of sacrifice going on during that day!  Our community is made up of a minority people group who sort of claim this holiday as their own special one, even more so than Ramadan in which most of the Muslim minority people groups participate.  So the day before the official holiday, we ventured out to what was supposed to be the main animal market in town.  We were slightly disappointed to find out that the markets were not being allowed within the city limits on a large scale (like they have been in previous years), so we would have had to travel a significant distance outside of town to see the masses all crowding in to make their purchases for the sacrifice the following day.  We've heard it's quite a sight to behold--people transporting the poor animals in every mode of transportation you can imagine--being shoved into trunks, carried along by groups of people working together, strapped over motorcycles.  Always a spectacle to behold!  But while we didn't get the full scope of the craziness, we did get a peek at a smaller market where men were coming to make their selection.  I had so many questions that never got answered!  How do they choose their sacrifice?  Does it matter what its outward appearance is like?  Where do they keep the live animal overnight until they kill it the next day?

the table prepared for guests

While I had many unanswered questions, I did feel like it was an amazing learning experience.  Just watching people try to lead the large sheep away was totally comical.  Let me tell ya--sheep are NOT made to be on a leash!  They just don't go forward.  The more you pull, the more they resist.  Most people seemed to know this in advance and were prepared by coming in pairs to get the animal and move it in the right direction--one would pull the rope around the neck and the other would be pushing or hitting it from behind with a stick.  My favorite was watching the kids, who honestly seemed to be better adept at getting a forward motion from the animal than most of the grown-ups!  I'm including several pictures of some of the folks we saw working to get their walking sacrifice back home.

donkeys are busses share the road here

The actual day of the celebration was hard.  Each (extended) family is supposed to make a sacrifice, so you can imagine how many animals that is!  Throughout our courtyard there were rams being killed (they cut their throats), strung up in the trees, and dressed.  The ritual requires that 1/3 of the meat be eaten, 1/3 shared with guests (as the holiday continues for days during which time you are supposed to make the rounds, visiting family and close friends), and the final 1/3 given to the poor (or the mosque, if you don't personally know anyone who qualifies).  The whole neighborhood smelled of slaughtered lambs.  Funny that I know what that smell is; I sure didn't 6 months ago!  And not only that, but I happened to get on a bus the second day of the holiday (when everyone was still eating the animals that had been sacrificed) and the whole thing reeked of lamb.  And not the kind well-seasoned with Lawry's!  As challenging as it was to see and smell those things for those several days, I was so thankful that the kids handled it as well as they did.  The boys, of course, were totally fascinated and loved every part of the vivid imagery around us.  Karis, on the other hand, was not so intrigued, and yet stomached the killing of animals better than I imagined.  She even ate some lamb's meat when she was with an American friend who went to visit neighbors during the festival week and came home to report that as long as she didn't think about where the meat had come from, she really enjoyed eating it!

A smaller market to make the purchase for the sacrifice

The picture of the coffee table set with crystal and treats is common during both Ramadan and this Kurban festival.  People are to be ready for guests at all times, so you keep you table set and prepared with all kinds of sweets so you're ready to entertain when guests come calling.  The table has a specific name, but honestly I can't think of it right now!  You can tell how far my language study has gone at this point... :(

Our Neighbors
During the Kurban festival and another national holiday directly proceeding it, the kids in our community had a full two weeks off of school.  So we had neighborhood kids coming out of the woodwork that we'd never met before!  As I tried to ask and figure out where they'd all been during the summer, the main story I got was that they had been out in the smaller surrounding cities where their extended families lived, which is why they were new to us.  So a group of upper elementary and middle school kids (pretty much all boys, as the girls, as I understand it, are usually inside helping mom with household responsibilities) decided they wanted to befriend my kids.  Well, they had them at "Pepsi"!  They quickly determined that my kids thought playing a game of soccer with the losing team buying the winning team a can or two of Pepsi to split was about the coolest idea ever.  So this became a daily normal around our house.  The neighborhood kids, led by the ringleader Bob who was eager to practice his English, would show up at our door and ask about the boys coming out to play soccer.  The first several times either Kevin or I would go to make sure that this group of kids were trustworthy, but after a week or so we were giving the kids more freedom to go into the courtyard without us being there.

Day one gift--two puppies

Pretty soon the neighborhood boys figured out that my 3 American boys also have an American sister who LOVES animals.  So what did they show up with?  Puppies.  Two of them that were gifts!  Noah and Hud came, each with a puppy in arms, that had been gifted to them by their new friends!  We quickly had them return the puppies, assuring them of their friendship in spite of not being able to receive a few dogs as a symbol of our relationship to them!  But these boys figured out how to lure out Karis to join in their play.  Animals!  The first day it was the two puppies.  The second day it was 5 puppies and 2 hamsters.  The third day it was 3 baby bunnies and 2 puppies (all crammed into one small rabbit cage together--so there actually might have been more critters inside that I couldn't see through all the furballs that were visible!).  The visiting zoo continued throughout the week, and our kids were THRILLED to have so many fun critters to play with, along with new friends (who kept showing up with Pepsi).

Day two--five puppies

This next part might freak out some readers--so feel free to skip ahead to the next section if the idea of sexual indecency really bothers you--or if you're a grandparent! :)  I debated whether or not to include this, but in the hopes of giving a fuller picture of what it looks like to live cross-culturally and try to navigate those murky waters, I'm going ahead and sharing... In much of Asia, there are really different views on what is appropriate as far as what is considered appropriate in the area of sexual acts.  I won't go into detail, but the end result is that you have a LOT of "sexual issues" that affect kids.  Sexual abuse is rampant, and I know from my days of working with juvenile delinquents back in Texas that the percentage of kids who are abused who then end up sexually abusing others (even kids) is through the roof.  So while I don't want to say that I'm paranoid about the issue, I am extremely aware of the risks involved in my kids engaging with other kids who most likely have been exposed to different things than my kids have--things that most of us Americans would call inappropriate or even abusive.  So one day during the last few weeks while the boys were outside playing with their new friends (mind you, most of whom are somewhat older males), I had a knot form in my stomach and a feeling that I needed to be more aware of any sort of sexual indecency that could be going on.  I stopped what I was doing in the kitchen and went to the window where I could see all the boys playing.  I spent the next 20 minutes just observing, and didn't see anything that looked suspicious, but continued to lift up my requests in my heart as I wrestled with if I was just being paranoid.  That evening at the dinner table as we debriefed their time outside playing with the neighbors, one of the boys offered up that one of their new friends was doing something "very inappropriate."  When I asked what, my heart just about stopped at the response of : "He tried to tickle my private parts."  I will quickly add here that this story ends with as innocuous an ending as possible, and actually had quite a few positive benefits.  It turns out that the neighbor boys were trying to play a game of tag in which they were making tickling motions toward private part areas rather than actually tagging the person.  None of this was done in hiding, no clothes were removed, nothing else happened, but it was certainly enough to freak this mama out!   So we had a really candid conversation at the table about how that kind of thing should be handled and then I informed the boys that I would need to talk directly to their new friends.  Within about 2 minutes, there was a knock at the door and Bob, along with a crew of maybe 6 other boys, were there asking for our boys to come out and continue the game of soccer.  You'd better believe my heart was racing as I searched for the words to clearly and firmly explain that the game they'd tried to play was NOT okay within our culture and within our family (no, the word "penis" is not in my Chinese vocabulary, so there was quite a bit of awkward gesturing and me asking, "Do you understand?").  The boys were only slightly embarrassed (compared to my kids who were literally hiding behind the sofa in embarrassment at their mom's direct confrontation of the situation!), which affirmed what I suspected.  Private parts are not viewed the same across cultures!  As much as we think it's a given that this type of game in any place would be completely inappropriate--it's just not!  In spite of this difference, the boys understood, the message was translated into the different languages so everyone present knew the American's stance and the fact that my boys couldn't play any longer if there was anything like this that happened again, and we were back in good relationship once again!  Crazy as it sounds, I felt so good about how the boys responded and my kids' understanding of what to do in such a scenario again, I was okay continuing to let them play outside with their new friends.

New friends

Uproar Outside
So the delight of the last two weeks all came crashing to a halt this weekend.  I was gone and Kevin had 2 other American dads over keeping watch on all the kids.  Our 4 and 3 others were outside playing with their new friends when a whole group of kids that ours kind of knew showed up "armed."  They had sticks, rocks, and thick plastic pipes in hand, surrounded our kids, and weren't letting them leave.  We're not sure what instigated this--whether it was solely their idea of play (which it honestly could have been; the kids around here play SOOOO rough together that it's not entirely out of the ordinary to see them beating on one another with sticks in play rather than anger) or if they were trying to harm our kids and their new friends, but it turned into a total mess.  The older kids were able to escape the ring of kids who had surrounded them, but the two six year olds (Noah and one other friend) were held in headlocks.  One of the kids ran upstairs to enlist the help of the dads, one of whom came running (Kevin and the other dad were still in the house with the few remaining kids that were inside).  Kevin's friend came upon the group of kids who were bullying our kids (this is after Eli took one punch to the face, which he is quite proud of!), and they then scattered.  Rather than let the culprits get off that easy, our friend grabbed one of the kids by the collar of his shirt and gave he and the other boys a verbal lashing.  The boys took it well we thought, until shortly after when the boy who had been grabbed showed up at our front door with his mother red-hot angry that her son had been "strangled" by the adult foreigner.  She and her son, along with a herd of neighborhood kids, forced their way into our apartment where Kevin, his two friends, and 9 kids were all at the time.  Talk about a cultural lesson.  What ensued could be described as nothing short of total mayhem.  Mom's solution was that she should get to choke one of our kids since the same had happened to her son (according to his story).  Knowing that they "eye for an eye" principle holds true in this culture, our friend tried offering himself as the one to be "strangled" in turn for his supposed offense, but this didn't cut it.  Their solution was financial.  If we would give them the equivalent of about $100, then restitution would be made.  Finally, the guys decided to give in and make the payment, thinking this would end the drama.  It didn't.  At this point, Grandma also showed up, and before they knew it, she was rolling around on our living room floor feigning a faint at the duress that had been caused by us "strangling" her grandson.  Kevin says the wailing noises made by the two women was unlike anything he'd ever heard before.  It was obvious they were trying to get more money--this time to pay for Grandma's medical bills that were sure to come in light of our actions.  And all the while, our kids are hiding in the back bedrooms because Mom is still trying to break through and choke them in revenge!  After almost an hour, Kevin told the ladies and kids that he was leaving to go get the apartment police to let them intervene and determine if our financial restitution was enough to be fair.  This got their attention, so by the time Kevin returned from finding the police officers, the women and kids had cleared out.

First day of Sept snow!

The effects of this drama have been pretty significant.  Hudson couldn't fall asleep that night, saying he kept envisioning the kids running and the dad who chased them, along with Mom and Grandma ranting and raving in our apartment for almost an hour.  Karis doesn't want to go outside and play with our new friends now, and we're not letting the kids go outside unaccompanied for the time being.  I'm just not sure if Mom and Grandma are going to show up attempting to get even by trying to choke one of the kids again!  So I'm selfishly grieving the fact that I can't send the kids out to get some energy out without me being present.  And the weather is actually bearable right now!  Our temps have just dropped today into the 30s and 40s (other than the one day of snow we had two weeks ago), so I'd love to be taking advantage of our final days of fall to play outside!  Also, everyone in these communities are connected.  So besides Mom and Grandma, I have no idea who else we may have offended by this whole fiasco.  It could be a whole slew of neighbors in our community who are outraged, and we have no idea!  I've been trying to visit with those who I do know better, attempting to feel out if there seems to be any funniness relationally.  But I'll be honest.  I feel so clueless at understanding so much of what is going on around me.  Will I ever know and understand this culture?!

Kids trying to sled--a bit prematurely!

To End On A Positive Note...

Trapper in the running shower!

At least we have Trapper!  I am not a cat person, but this little guy has proved to truly be part of our family. Maybe this is normal for a cat, but the way he plays with the kids absolutely astounds me.  They come up with these games--like keep away or tag--and he figures out what the objective is and rolls with it.  For like an hour at a time!  He has been such a great playmate for everyone of the kids that I'm just overwhelmed with thanksgiving for His provision for our family in this way.  The latest game the boys spent an hour playing with him was one in which they built a barricade in their doorway with different objects in their room.  Then Trapper was supposed to try to get through the barricade and into the room where he would "tag" (swat with an unclawed fist) one of the boys, then run off.  They were hooting and hollering for an hour as Trapper repeated this game, wriggling through or over the barricade and taking turns tagging different boys before scampering away to play again.  It was priceless.  And he's clean.  His favorite thing is to get in the shower when someone else is.  That's right--not like on the edge, but actually IN the running water of the shower!  He loves it, diving right in and getting fully wet before exiting the bathtub/shower to dry himself off on the mat.  And they say cats don't like water!  We're thinking maybe he doesn't know he's a cat...

Stark Contrast

First McDonalds burger in 6 months!

We've just returned from a 10-day trip to the east coast of China, and it certainly made the contrasts between east and west that much more apparent!  Probably the biggest shock to our systems was the open space in WeiHai, the coastal city we went to first.  The sidewalks were wide enough that I could have two kids (usually Noah and Hudson) both holding onto one of my hands while we walked.  And we didn't even have to haul off to one side for others to squeeze past!  The friends who we stayed with have two kids and they rode bikes regularly without fear of knocking over others.  Amazing!  It felt more like San Diego than anywhere else I've ever been in China.  And the buildings were not all stacked on top of each other, but instead there were sections of beach strategically placed in between the high rise hotels and hotels all along the bay, which stretched for miles.  It was just beautiful!  You could even walk on the beach without shoes on, not fearing the usual trash and glass debris that is typical of a Chinese beach.

Waiting for the driver with bikes in tow!

Is this really China???

Another huge difference was in the warmth of the people we encountered.  After spending the weekend in the coastal city we took an overnight train back to Tianjin, the city where we used to live.  We spent the week there visiting old friends, and I got more Mandarin practice in there in 4 days than I do in a month living where we do!  I think this is partly because so many of the people where we live speak one of the minority languages, but also there is a huge difference in the friendliness of the two locations.  Everywhere we went on the east people were wanting to engage with us, asking all kinds of questions about the kids, our work, how old I am to have 4 kids already, how much money we make--in other words, all the typical questions that are culturally appropriate in this country!  It took me several days to get used to the transition of being asked so many questions and not be so suspicious of why.  It made me realize just how closed off the people are where we are, something my mom also noticed during her visit her a few weeks ago.  There is a general level of suspicion toward outsiders, and foreigners in particular.  I think the assumption is that we could be spying for our home government, or trying to perpetuate some sort of thinking that could be harmful to the community.  That and the general feeling of oppression that many of the minority people groups out here feel lead to a general sense of distrust that you can feel just when you walk down the street.  I regularly jog around our apartment community in the mornings and there is a woman who I see out walking literally every time I am out.  I noticed her the second month we were here, and particularly noticed her harsh demeanor.  I've since made it my mission to get the woman to smile at me!  I make an idiot of myself trying to crane my head around to catch her eye as we pass, I blurt out louder than appropriate "zao shang hao" ("good morning") greetings, and smile with as much gusto as I can.  I finally won her over this past month--after 4 months of pursuing that smile!  (She has bad teeth, but I was so thrilled to come home and tell the rest of my family that I'd finally gotten her to respond that they too rejoiced over her bad teeth!)  All this to illustrate my point--it's hard to win them over out here!

Yes it is, as proven by the number of people photographing our kids as they play!

Bday cake for Eli on the beach w friends

Noah's new best friend, Bumpy.

Being away from our present city and situation also made some of our circumstances more obviously challenging.  As our dear friends from our former city peppered us with questions regarding our new life out west, we were really saddened to have as few positive things to report as we did.  We've seen the Father do amazing things, for sure; but the reality is that our normal at this point is really hard most days.  The contrast between what we had and what we currently have was so much more apparent by our trip.  So now the question is, is this just because we are still settling in and adjusting to what is still so unfamiliar?  Or is this just the new normal that we need to accept and learn how to embrace with joy?  I'll be honest.  Getting on that plane to return to the west was hard.  I even shed a few tears as I hugged dear friends good bye, friends who had loved and served me so well over the 4 days we were there, friends who I left feeling refreshed and encouraged by.  I fully anticipated having a rough first few days back in the desert, but have been incredibly surprised at how okay I've been!  I've had sweet time reading and reflecting on His goodness in spite of what feels so hard and so lonely so much of the time.  I've felt encouraged and honored that He allows us the privilege of following Him to a place that not many want to go, where the things we are without are felt.  (Part of my doing so okay might be the fact that I'm still flying high from my purchases while on the east coast!  I must confess hitting up the import store where I stocked up on mac and cheese, powdered sugar, and even 2 boxes of cereal.  We're living large!  Oh, and the kids got Pop Tarts, which are their new favorite food.  They even made a chart to make sure that no one took more than their allotted amount.  We also made it to the European sporting good store that has great quality stuff at really good prices, so the boys are now all wearing tennis shoes that don't have their socks poking through! And Eli got a new soccer ball, which is being used at the moment with the neighborhood kids.)

Before the race with Barb, our dear friend from TJ

Post-race selfie at the finish line!

So the main reason we went to the east coast to begin with was to participate in a sprint triathlon.  Kevin and I both competed this year and it was such a great experience!  We've recognized that our mental health is so much better when we're working out regularly and when we have measurable goals, which are hard to find living this type of life overseas.  So we loved the training part, but the race was maybe just as much fun.  Besides our nerves, the biggest challenge was the inclimate weather.  A thunderstorm started right when our race did, so as soon as we entered the water we were facing much bigger ocean waves than we would have.  The other frustration for me during the swim was the number of swimmers wearing floaties.  I know, "What?!"  They were competing in a triathlon but had these oval-shaped orange floaties attached to a belt by a string around their waist.  Besides the strings being an obstacle, the floaties also looked just like the buoys  that were used to mark the course.  So when you turn your head to quickly catch a breath and spot your course, it was so difficult to tell what was another one of the floaties and what was the buoy.  Talk about frustrating!  So my swim was not as fast as I thought it would be due to the crazy route that I'm sure was longer than it should have been as I chased floaties around the bay!  And then with the rain, the mountain course for the bike portion was treacherous.  The course is known to be the most difficult in China because of the hills and the sharp turns.  There were actually 27 accidents during our race, which I think is quite a lot for a tri, especially with the number of participants being as few as there were (not sure the total number, but there were about 30 in my heat [same age bracket and gender] and about 50 in Kevin's; there were our two heats and an additional 5 going at the same time).  While on the bike course I had several people pass me with blood streaming down from their elbows and knees, and one woman was taken to the hospital with quite a few broken bones from her fall!  So the wet and slippery roads made both Kevin and me a bit more cautious than I think we would have otherwise been, but thankfully we both were able to stay upright on our bikes for the entire race!  (This was my biggest fear--falling, most likely at the very end when I was dismounting my bike, because of wearing clip-in shoes that I wasn't really well-practiced in!)  And Kevin's back not only survived through the whole race, but actually feels better now than it has in months!  We think triathlons might be the answer to his back pain that he's managed all these years.  Who would have guessed it?!

Celebratory dinner at Papa John's

Overnight train ride (stacked 3 levels) to TJ

So our experience in the race was fantastic.  Neither Kevin nor I placed as high as we would have liked (what can I say, we're probably more competitive than we should be), but we both did well enough to feel good about our races and to know that we'd like to train for another.  We're certainly thankful for any sort of stress outlet that we can find, and this race in particular is coupled with the benefit of being in the same city as dear friends (Some of our best friends moved from Tianjin to the coastal city for work, so we got to stay with them while there.  It was such a blessing to our whole family!  Their home is about a one-minute walk across the street from the beach, and they took the kids on all sorts of fun adventures, like the aquarium, while Kevin and I were doing registration and other necessary grunt work for the race.  And being with them lifted our spirits in such a sweet way, providing lots of laughter and also heart-sharing moments.)

Kids at TIS, their old school (wearing new shoes!)

Also visited our favorite swimming lake

One other highlight of our time in Tianjin was connecting with old friends.  We got to spend part of a day at the international school where the kids went and Kevin and I taught.  This was one week into our time away from home, and I loved Noah's report to one of the teachers there when he asked Noah how he was doing.  Noah replied with the following:  "We just keep moving around.  We get on a train and then in a taxi and then on a plane...."  Ha.  Pretty well summarizes our life... :)  We also got to see our former Ayi, the woman who worked in our home for 5 years, and had a sweet time catching up with her.  We had dinner at our favorite restaurants with local friends and went (twice) to our favorite Tex Mex place, too.  My best buddy, Natalie, and I went for a pedicure, which should be counted as a highlight except that it turned into an hour and forty minutes of torture!  The ladies working there literally would not let us up from the chairs, and they spent that entire time scrubbing our feet.  No kidding.  The entire time.  We didn't even have them paint our toenails because we were so worn out and exhausted just watching them work.  Oh, and we each had two women working on us at the same time!  I can't even imagine how sore they were when they went home that night.  We think they scrubbed two shoe sizes off our feet in the process.  Don't think I'll go for another pedicure any time in the near future...

final goodbyes before heading to the airport

I'm sure I'll be putting out another post sometime soon.  This week is a big one here for us.  There is a celebration called Kurban that is a religious holiday celebrated by a lot of the minority peoples where we live.  I'll be honest--I'm a bit nervous.  The main day of the holiday is on Thursday, and on that day every household is supposed to sacrifice an animal, usually a sheep.  Of course we are living in high rise apartments in a city center, so there's not a lot of area open for slaughtering animals, so the courtyards end up being the main locale for the event.  Supposedly you can't really go out without seeing the process, which can be really gross and bloody.  I'm contemplating taking the kids to the open animal market tomorrow (Wednesday) where they sell many of the animals that are to be used as sacrifices, but not sure if we're up for it or not.  Security is really tight right now, so the streets are crowded with more armed police than normal and traffic seems to be moving at a snail's pace.  Will have to feel out what tomorrow brings and go from there, but certain to never be a dull moment!

Natalie still smiling 1 1/2 hours into getting scrubbed