Headed Home: A normal week!

Yes, it's true--this is Mallory's little homework book. She is in preschool and they teach drawing, numbers and letters and this is her notebook the teacher is sending home so she can practice drawing.

Aaron and I both have a pattern of making severe situations more depressing. The day Emma Shae got diagnosed with a blood disorder, we had a date night and watched The Book of Eli at the movies--in case you don't know, it's post-nuclear U.S. and while a good movie is not the choice if you are already in a crisis.

So, we are in the full throws of culture shock and in the first few days of moving to Kabale--a unique and overwhelming time of feeling helpless on every level. No problem--to be expected. We have just moved from being high functioning in our own society to low functioning in our new culture. Fine. Well, I was looking around for something to read and spotted The More with Less Cookbook. A GREAT cookbook. I made the mistake of reading the introduction written in the 1980's about how we in the U.S. are over consuming and about obesity and how we live in excess as a lifestyle--totally depressing. I've just moved to a developing country and I am further exposed as a westerner AND I can see with my own eyes the poverty and destruction. If this was true in the '80's, how much more true is it now? Great.

I do like the term "deconsumerism" Now that I am burning my own trash, I am trying to get into it! In the U.S., I can put things in the trash and these nice people come every week to take it away and it entertains my children and I can make a little pre-school lesson out of it. The kids are still entertained by the burning of the trash, but I can't wrap my mind around this.

So, coming out of some severe culture shock, we had a very good week. Not that circumstances have changed per se. Something inside of me has changed, which is nice. Is this acceptance? Power outages, water outages, making from scratch, waiting on furniture to be built to organize our lives... fine. Trying to live my life anyway and enjoy things! Aaron started work this week at the hospital. I enjoy Aaron going to work :)--it encourages me greatly to have a routine and to see him reviewing medical notes and journals. To pray for and support him in what he does brings me joy.

I also like fresh food!!! Wow, this week, Precious who helps us in the house came with a load from the market. She can get better prices than me and after I scoped out what they have I can send her in like a secret weapon. Score. Secondly, there are a couple of nice people who come around to your house selling vegetables that appeal to westerners--herbs, lettuce, etc. I have never been so happy to eat lettuce and salad and he gave me some swiss chard for free. I am a recipe girl all the way, but this week, I successfully adapted chicken pot pie and pizza sauce--from scratch!! So, we had real meals this week. We also had a Subway night with chips :). Bread like we are used to is harder to get in Uganda. There is a bakery in town that sells western type baked goods, which is nice although it doesn't always taste like you think it will. So, we spotted a baguette last week and came home with it to make subs, since we also found salami. Precious got a big kick out of it--it is quite a long baguette--she said, "Is that a walking stick?" ha!

One thing that is great is having Precious because she can do a lot of the work that is harder for me--deboning a chicken :)--and I was chopping some fresh green beans and to my surprise, she came over and did some karate moves and within minutes had the whole kilo "processed" by hand, including removing some kind of hard stem, which I didn't even notice. I have a lot to learn and I hope Micah, Mallory and Emma Shae can pick up some of these skills. We do have to soak the lettuce in bleach to kill the unwelcome critters and I just do the rest too, out of habit from staying in Kenya. Not everyone does this.

Here is a happy site--drying veggies.