It's durian season. Which means you can find it sold by the truckloads on the side of the road. And sooo many people here are excited. What is durian, you ask? It's the king of the fruits, I'm told. And people either love it or hate it. Some might say it's dangerous. It gets it's name from [...]
Category: Our First Year
A Diet of Worms
I remember learning about Martin Luther’s trial at the Diet of Worms and thinking that was such an odd name for a trial. But now that I live here, I see it is quite a fitting name for certain trials… especially trials with worms. Worms are a common thing here. As Nancy, our helper, puts [...]
Fried Stuff
Fried rice, fried noodles, fried chicken, fried fish, fried bananas... it's tough to find a meal here that hasn't been fried in one way or another. I suppose it makes sense. Refrigerators and ovens are luxuries many people here cannot afford. So giving a meal a good frying... or re-frying... is a great way to kill anything that [...]
White Sand Beach 1km –>
Rumor had it there was a secluded white beach not too far away, and we wanted to find it! At first it was one of our planned Advent activities... you know, searching for a bit of a "white Christmas" but it wasn't until a bit after Christmas that we had time to sneak away, explore [...]
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!… kind of…
If we're honest, we had mixed feelings about this Christmas season. On the one hand, we got to spend it with new friends, in a new context, sharing new experiences. But on the other hand, it's our very first Christmas away from family. And that brought tears to my eyes. Somehow it just didn't feel like [...]
Up, Up and Away!
Evie thinks that Papa and Lala (Josh's parents) live in an airplane. They recently came to visit, but when we explained that they got on an airplane to go back to America, she seems to think that they never got off the plane. Now, each time she hears a plane fly over our house she says, [...]
Cicaks and Tokeks
We share our home with a bunch of lizards. Some we like more than others... Like this cicak (pronounced "CHEE-chack"). Completely harmless and even a little cute, they scale our walls and scurry about our house helping us keep the mosquito population under control. Evie thinks they're fascinating and since her first week here, every [...]
Lotus Birth, Laki-Laki & Long Johns: Raising a baby in a new culture
Babies are precious--in every culture. Having a baby on the other side of the world has given us fun opportunities to learn how babies are perceived, cared for and raised here. Here are a few of the things we've learned about babies in the culture around us: - Lotus birth: While preparing for our homebirth, [...]
Overjoyed & in Awe: She’s here!
Tho we had to wait about a week and a half longer than we expected, our baby girl is finally here! Selah Rae was born on Friday, October 18th at 1:15pm in our little home in SE Asia. The labor was so quick, the midwives barely had the birthing pool ready to go before it [...]
Keeping Track of Zeros
In addition to our language blunders, a source of much laughter at our silly mistakes is found when handling local money. Of course, we had to learn numbers early on in our language instruction. But that isn't normally where the confusion comes. The confusion comes from having to keep track of so many zeros! At [...]
The Joy is in the Journey 