Adjusting?

Here is a picture of the church we went to on Sunday. The sanctuary was on the second floor and I guess class rooms are higher. It’s all open to the inside, so it gets chilly when the wind blows through and warm when the sun comes out. It's much bigger than this but I couldn't quite get it all from this position.

We are slowly adjusting to the time changes. Today after breakfast the kids and I slep off and on for several hours. Joel went to take care of finances and travel stuff. After lunch we headed off to Nockamutt (sp?). They compare it to a wal-mart and I’d have to agree. You can almost anything there. We found Pringles and Oreos and Dara wanted marshmallows for some reason – so we got that too. Then there was a man selling popcorn so of course we had that too.

Notice the movie advertisement behind Dara that is now playing – "Night at the Museum 2". It’s funny to think that it’s probably still showing back home too.

This was a fruit/vegetable market (I also saw that you could buy boots). We didn’t go through it. It’s amazing how dirty it all is. Some of that is from the dirt that is everywhere, but most of it is from people just dropping their trash on the ground. I told Joel, “We’re not in Kansas anymore”. What I wish I could convey in the pictures is the smell that is everywhere. I’m not sure what it stems from completely (not sure I really want to think on it too long), but Dade has very little discretion in commenting on things – we’ll need to work on that.

This is the majority of what you can see of the Mayfield Guest House which is where we are staying.

There is this gate that is closed unless a car is coming through – people can just walk through the little door in the gate. There is a guard who watches it all the time. We have felt very comfortable letting the kids roam around and play on the play ground. There is also a little play room and then a bigger room with a tv and videos. They seem to have thought of everything. We left our laundry in a bag with a note on it this morning. They were washed by hand and hung to dry on a line. And they just now brought it back - folded! It’s kind of weird to be served so much.

For example, Dade wanted toast this morning (which we had seen yesterday morning) so I got up to get him some. There was no bread by the toaster so I came back and sat down and told Dade there wasn’t any this morning. Next thing I know I looked at the toaster and realized a light was on. So I assumed that someone else asked for bread and I started to get up to make Dade some. One of the gentlemen serving us noticed me getting up and shook his head “no” and motioned for me to stay seated. He had to tell me twice since I wasn’t sure he was motioning at me. Within a minute they had brought Dade some toast. The same thing happened with water. I got up to get some and the shooed me back to my seat and came and served us. As this will take some getting used to, I made sure I learned to say “thank you, very much”.

This is a picture of our room.

It’s a mess but maybe it gives you an idea of what it’s like. We were able to buy a little fan so hopefully it’ll be a bit cooler tonight.

I think that’s it. Except, the flowers here are beautiful. They have bougavilla (sp?) everywhere in many different colors. Hibiscus are also very prevalent.