Two Pictures

The Blue Mosque
Just a Street

Ride in the Desert

A little sand storm
A little sand storms ugly sister
Desert Hotal, luckly they always have a vacancy

Local Election

So the elections were last week, and try to guess which of these guys were not canidates.

AL- owner of a stationary supples store, but he is not really happy at the moment. Polls are looking down for him.
Frank and Freddy- Two local gangsters, who control 2 square meters of the city.
Guy with dreadlocks- This guy is some sort of Muslim pilgrim. This guy is huge like over 6’6 and if you ask me if I could vote I would have voted for him because, hey anyone with those clothes, a walking stick and dreadlocks defiantly knows what he is doing.

Turkeys

I do not think there is a turkey hunting season here, but I think that you would have some disgruntle locals to deal with if you shot one on the fat turkeys, sorry dad.

Bread and Tea

Local Dealer
Bread on the Table
Tea by the Kilo

When the Poor really are Poor-

This morning as I biked to the bakery to get my bread I saw one of the saddest sites I have ever seen in my life. There laying on the sidewalk was a cripple beggar laying completely naked. Another man threw a bucket of water over his body, this was the way that he was bathing. The air was crisp and I know that the water was ice cold. As he layed there shaking he tried to rub his body clean. He had nothing to clean himself other then the water. The Lord really convicted me because before I went out to get bread I plugged in my hot water heater so that I could have nice hot water for a shower after breakfast. As I enjoyed the comforts of life, this man was trying to get warmed back up after lying naked on the sidewalk. I know that he would have no warm bread and that he had no home lay his head at night. Over the last few weeks I have slowly quit giving to beggars. And when I do I give very sparingly. My reasoning is that I felt that many of the beggars are just professional beggars and that they should just get a job instead of living off others. I did not intentionally quit giving to beggars, but slowly over time my heart just had become hardened towards them. There are so many and it is not that I do not have the money and it is not that I do not have the time, I just find it annoying. Everywhere I go there is a empty hand asking for money. Instead of taking the time to give them a little bit of money It is easier to say a little phrase like “Sorry” or “May the Lord take care of you”. The truth of the matter is that most of these people on the street are not begging because they are lazy, they are not begging because it is the high life. They are begging because they are at the bottom of life. They have no where else to go, they have no family that will help them, they have no friends, and there is no one to ease the pains of life. As they lay there naked on the sidewalk to take a bath they could barely even find anyone to throw a bucket of cold water on them.

Buying a Burqa-

It is not everyday that you go shopping for a Burqa, so I jumped at the opportunity when a American friend of my asked me to help her buy one. Really you would think that all Burqas are the same. Most people think that a blue sheet is a blue sheet. But this is just not true. Some people think also that all Chinese people look the same and after hiving lived in China this is so far from the truth. Burqas in this city only come in one color that is light blue. I do not understand the history of the Burqa, but I must say that I do not think that it was designed by a woman. The Burqa is quite dangerous. I cannot tell you how many times I have almost seen women get hit by a car because they cannot see anywhere other then straight ahead. As we walked into the Burqa store it was just a sea of blue. The cheaper burqas are in the front and the more expensive ones are in the back of the store. The prices range from $6 to $20. This all depends on the design, the amount of embroidery and the fabric that it is made of. So I was very wrong that they were all the same. I was so surprised how many different options there was. My friend and I looked in many different stores and priced a couple different ones and she was even able to try a few on and find the right height. We ended up buying a high end brown Burqa with lots of embroidery. In this city there is only blue, but in other cities there are other colors like white, brown and green. My friend was leaving to go to a city in the south and decided to buy the brown instead of the blue. For the most fashionable Burqa in brown with lots of embroidery it only cost $15. For all of you that are dying to get the latest fashion for a small fraction of the cost of the latest styles coming off the runway of Paris and New York you can have your very own Burqa Fashion. I am now taking special orders if you would like to have a Burqa of your own.

The Short Bus-

When I was in first grade I was placed in remedial English classes. Being in LD classes really left me with some big scars. I was in a class with people that rode the short bus to school and the school even asked my parents if they thought I should ride the short bus. I was placed in class with lots of students that could not function in society. Everyday I would sit in this class and struggle through spelling and grammar. I wanted so bad to be a normal student. The Lord has given me my thorn in the flesh. I really did not have a problem in any other subject other then English. But each day when ever it was time for English class I would have to excuse myself from my regular class and go to the special classroom. I do not like to tell people about this because it really hurts deep inside. I have asked the Lord many times to take away this disability but he does not. No matter how hard I try I cannot spell very well and grammar for me is a jigsaw puzzle with lots of missing pieces. I write this as an apology to you, because I know for many of you as you read my blog you wonder why I have so many errors in my stories. I know you can probably find at least a dozen in this one if you tried. But if there is anyone out there that has a little extra time and enjoys editing I could use the assistance. I try my very best to edit these stories but no matter how much time I dedicate to it, I still leave so many errors. We all have are short bus areas of are life and they are not things to hide but allow the Lord to work through them. We all need each other and that is just the way the Lord has made us.

My Addiction-

There are two kinds of addictions in the world. There are good addictions and the bad ones.
The bad ones are addictions to drugs, gambling, and alcohol.
The good ones are to chocolate, clipping finger nails and watching bull riding, collecting Star Wars memorabilia or Precious Moments.

So I am addicted to the bread. Like most addictions you do not know how they started they just slip up on you out of no where.

When we had our guest living with us for a week, I would go buy him bread for breakfast and dinner. It is pretty customary to have bread with every meal here. So after eating bread every meal with him for a week I am now in too far. So as I ate bread with every meal, slowly by slowly I have become addicted. Actually now it is really hard for me to have a meal without bread, it is like having a meal without something to drink. To make the situation even worse bread is really cheap. One big piece of bread is only $.08, so I am up to eating three pieces a day. One for each meal and I do not know how to escape from this habit. I am like an alcoholic in a room full of alcoholics; I am in a land of extreme bread eaters. There are bakers everywhere and most people here eat more bread every day then me. I usually only buy a few pieces at a time, but I see people walk away from the bakery with ten or twenty pieces, now those people have an addiction. Good addiction or bad maybe we all need help from time to time, but I do not think that there is anyway of getting out of this one.

Living with a Indian Movie Star-

Two weeks ago M moved in with Q and I. M is from America but his father is from India and he has lived in India for a year or two, so he is Indian and he speaks Hindi. Actually in this country they are obsessed with Indian movies and Indian music. I think that some days as I walk the streets that I am in India because Indian music will be blaring from a little shop, and in another they will have an Indian movie playing. So when M got here most of my friends asked me if he was an Indian movie star at first it made me laugh a little, then as I looked at M I thought you know maybe he is, so M nickname is “becha film” which literally means child of the movies or movie star. Everyone asks me where is the “becha film” I say he is at the office, but don’t worry he will be back latter. So maybe we just might have to make a movie here and cast him as the leading actor. The movie line would be that an Indian man moves to a worn torn land to live with two crazy Americans. It would have to have some part of a love story if it was a true Indian film, plus lots of singing. Q and I cannot sing very well, so we would have to have stand-ins, and all three of us are single with out any potential for finding love, so we would really have to exaggerate the love part of the story. Like M falls in love with the Governors daughter, which would be a huge exaggeration considering you cannot really talk to girls, but let’s say they meet and they fall madly in love, this is where Q and I come in. We become friends with the Governor of the city in an attempt to become a match maker for M and the Governors daughter. War breaks out in the city and we save the Governors life and as a reward for our valiancy he allows M to marry his daughter and the final cut Q and I are riding our bikes down main street singing, followed by a horse drawn cart, as the whole city has gathered to see the heroes that saved the city from destruction.

Jam Session

Little Atomic Pants

Little Levi

Random People Living Here

Q drinking his favorite yogurt drink
Big J- Trying to keep sane behind the wheel
Nem

Say

J and little Grace

Learning language

Q Hanging out praticing language

Q Hitting the Books

J Hitting the Books

M Hitting the Books

Where are the Chinese people -

I have lived in this country for six months now and I have only seen two Chinese people the whole time I have been here. I saw the two ladies walking in the bazaar and I almost died when they walked by me talking Chinese. I thought Chinese were everywhere in the world, but it is not true about here. Maybe in the capital city there are a few, I guess there has to be a few because there is a Chinese restaurant. I really miss speaking Chinese and I catch myself talking to myself every once in awhile. Actually my Chinese has started slipping. It is hard to switch from the local language to Chinese. Every once in awhile I will try to think of a word in Chinese and I cannot pull it out of my brain, but with a little work it will eventually come back. It is a little funny because when I speak the local language I sometimes throw in Chinese words. I wish that there were some Chinese here that I could talk with every once in awhile. I try to listen to the radio in Chinese and that helps some. I guess this is not a tourist hotspot for the Chinese and with all the other countries of the world to do business in there must not be much money to make here for them.

Nothing goes to waste-

In a land where the average person makes a little over a dollar a day, nothing I mean nothing goes to waste. When I throw something in the trash there will be someone who comes to find out what treasures I left behind.
1- Metal- it is collected and sold to shops that reuse it.
2- Food or table scraps- it is collected and given to the animals.
3- Paper and burnable items- are collected to cook with.
4- Plastic items- can be used to hold water or other items
This basically leaves an empty trash can. In America everyone has there own large garbage can that is picked up by a garbage truck. On our street there is one trash can for at least a dozen or more families and I have never seen it full. I once saw two boys collecting pine needles and pine cones from the park they will use them to cook with and even sell some to make money. Clothes even if they are worn out are sold in the bazaar and then can be resold again, until they are nothing but rags then the rags are used to clean with. There is a huge used bazaar and over half of the things barely have any life left in them at all, but they will be sold for next to nothing and used until they are nothing but rubbish, then sold to be recycled. We could learn a few lessons in the west from this country and how not to be so wasteful.

Streets

Two men

Mosque gate in the morning

A picture off our roof

Candy makers

The street in front of our apartment

Babysitter in the third world

So of all my roles in the country one of the most obscure is babysitter. That is right, I watch children. It is harder to believe that there is someone that will actually trust me with their kids. An American couple here has two children ages one and a half and seven. They are good friends of mine and I volunteer every once in awhile to watch their kids so they can have a date night. Well, the night started out well. We were reading Calvin and Hobbs, and G the older sister said that her little brother was a little stinky so I checked and he was clean, not five minutes later I look up to find that our little friend had let off a atomic bomb in his pants. I thought diapers were made to catch accidents like this, but nothing could stop something to this magnitude. He was completely covered, as was the carpet as were his hands as he reached out for me to pick him up. Up to this point I had never changed a diaper. I did not know what to do. I did not even know where the diapers were. Luckily little G came to my rescue, she got me a diaper and some clean clothes. I placed him in the shower stripped him down and cleaned him up the best I could. I then put on my first diaper and put some clean clothes on him. I was relieved to find out after his parents returned that it is not like this every time, but just on special occasions do he set off bombs in his pants. I guess I should be grateful the next time I wrestle a terrorist. It could be easier wrestling terrorist then wrestling a dirty diaper off the butt of a baby.

Biking in the desert-

When I moved to this county I gave up running. I love running so much and knew that this would be one of biggest sacrifices. But I knew that I would start biking and hoped that I could replace the old love in my heart. So I bought a bike and biked. At first it was not the same. It was like being a coffee drinker and having to switch to drinking green tea. So as I sipped on my green tea I dreamed of the good old days of running across Oklahoma, the hundred mile race and the long runs in the rain at Arcadia Lake. But today I finished a 90 km ride. I dragged Q with me in the madness. We had an absolute blast biking singing songs as loud as we could and laughing until are ribs hurt. Q is extremely afraid of dogs and the dogs here weigh more then us and could bite are head off in one bite. So when we came up to a pack of dogs Q was very hesitant about the situation, so I told him it was Ok and not to worry. He did not believe me until I bike within 10 feet of the dogs and parked my bike allowing him to bike past them on the other side of the road. We passed camels, donkeys and hundreds of sheep and goats. We were mostly in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a desert. We were going to ride to the border of a country west of us, but about 30 km from the border and we had to call a friend and have him come and pick us up. We hit the wildest sand storm that I have ever seen. The wind was blowing so hard that we could not even pedal our bikes and we were forced to push them until we could not push them anymore. We were so covered in sand and could hardly even see from sand that caked around our eyes. To say the least I had fallen madly in love with the green tea and hope this is just the start of adventures.

$ 1, $100, $10,000, $ 1,000,000

I stopped the other morning to get air for my bike tires. Air is free at the little bike shops that cover the city. No one pays for air, but I felt compelled the other morning to give a little money to the guy that kindly added air to my tires. As I gave him some money he gave me a discussed look and said what is this and told me that it was not enough. He said that he could not even buy a piece of bread with the. So I gave him more money after having a good laugh. As I biked around the city that morning I thought a lot about how ungrateful I was. I thought about how our world is plagued with ungrateful people. I was reminded of a conversation that I had with a man who sold household goods off the street. He told me that if he had a $100 dollars then he would be happy and his life would then be complete. As he stood there talking to me a beggar came by and his eyes said if I just had a $1 then I would be happy. Later that day I was talking to a friend of mine who owned a fruit stand. He told me how hard his life was and then proceeded to tell me that his life would be content if he had $10,000. The week before my friend who has one of the nicest furniture shops in the city confined in me that if only he had $1,000,000 all his dreams would come true and he would truly be happy. If we had $1, we would dream of $100, then $10,000, then $1,000,000. We forget that God is the greatest treasure and it has nothing to do with money. Happiness is not in money, but in finding happiness in what ever the Lord has given us. The maker has blessed us all with more blessings then we could ever count and the only thing we can think about is the how happy we would be if we only had a little more money. Really we all deserve nothing, but when God gives us a little money, we complain to God that we cannot even buy a piece of bread with what He has given to us.

Christmas in August

There I sat on my bed surrounded by cookies, peanut butter, books, a bike computer, a harmonica, a dozens cards from friends and family. Q when he came here he brought half a bag of stuff just for me. I was sitting on my bed and thinking back how this reminded me of Christmas morning. It is funny I live where I live but I still have kool aid to drink and granola bars, I forgot for a moment where I was at. Q also brought me a cool sleeping back, rechargeable batteries, lychee and body treatment kit from my sister, one that has lotion, special soap and Chap Stick. I guess she knew that I needed a little fixing up. I want to thank you all for remembering me, thanks for making Christmas in August possible it was very sweet of you.

Clouds

Do you remember as a kid looking up at the clouds trying to make out shapes of animals and faces. I love clouds, some days when the sun is pounding down upon the earth there can seem to be no release then the Lord blesses us with a few clouds. I have not seen clouds in 4 months. Well not until just a few days ago. I was sitting in language class and it got dark out side, I thought it was more possible that the sun was falling from the sky before we would had clouds, but there they were. I dropped my book and walked out of my classroom, just to stare up at the sky. I stood there for a moment forgetting where I was at and what I was doing. Finally I returned from the heavens, but as I sat in class I could not quit staring out the door. They were so white and fluffy; the sky was a blue as the ocean. That night there was not rain, but the sky was filled with lighting. It had to be one of the most beautiful sights. The power of the Lord is amazing; it is the little details that make life so sweet.

The Mountains Speak

The streets here are filled with what I believed some of the most interesting people in the world. These people have seen more things in a few years than most people see in there life time. Most people look about 20 years older then what they actually are. I was tested in language this week by one of the worlds wonders. The old man was my father’s age but he looked as old as the mountains of this country. He has seen the country change leadership at least half a dozen times. He is actually from the far north east of the country. He lives in a small town with nothing but mountains he said. He spoke only a dozen words of English, but loved to tell stories in the local language, it did not matter if I understood them all. He has lived with Q and I in are apartment for a week. He will talk for hours about the history, culture of this country. I have learned more about the country then if I had read a dozen books. I tried to get him to live with me for good, but he has family in the north east of the country. The man lost his wife 8 years ago, after the death of his wife he raised all 5 of his children by himself. The youngest at the time was 5 years old.
At night he would teach me how to cook local food and talk about his small town and life in this wonderful country. This is the closest I have had to having a father here. We talked late, drinking tea and eating fresh bread. Every morning he eats one piece of bread with hot tea and sugar. Lunch he eats at the office and at night we cook dinner together. He does not drive and is afraid of riding a bike, He walks every where. He is about 5’4 and weighs about 120 pounds. He lives such a simple life, with so little worries. In his eyes you can see this country; you can see pain, struggle, victory and humanity. He has taught me to be grateful for what I have. He is appreciative of everything and has such a sweet spirit. I wonder how many old men are on the street just like this man, so full of stories, so full of goodness. When we break bread together life is seen through the eyes of others. If only I could show the world the heart of this man. All the prejudices that we hold against this county and all the ideas of terrorist and fundamentalist bent on destroying the world would be swept away. It is in the eyes of the soul that we see truth of a man, not by some news station with a agenda to sell news.

Tour Bus full of Tourist (or should I call them crazies)-

As I sat on the street with my friends like I do almost everyday I saw a sight that I never thought that I would see and I have seen a lot of crazy stuff. I have seen fully armed vehicles loaded with machine guns and testosterone filled men with weapons that could plow down a crowd of people in a few seconds. But when a tour bus full of grey headed Europeans with there cameras, sunscreen, and crazy looking clothing I just about lost it. I can deal with the nuts in the armored vehicles, but not with a tour bus full of people way past retirement. It would have seemed more normal if a space ship landed there and a few aliens walked out. What is this world coming to when one of the most unstable countries in the world becomes a travel destination? What happen to the Florida Keys, or Paris? I wanted to go have a talk with them and asked when they were released from the insane asylum. Yes, I do think that this country has changed a lot in the last few years and I feel that this is a safe place to visit. But when the tour bus pulls up that is a little too much, these people are crazier then me.

Bike for Two

Well, one of my best friends (Q) in the whole world just moved here. Now my apartment does not seem as empty and there is someone to cook meals with and stay up late with discussing the ways to solve all the problems of the world. But the best thing is I now have someone to take under my wing. Up to this point most foreigners in the city thought I was crazy. I do a lot of outlandish things and eat things that I should not eat and go places that I should not go to and talk to people that I probably should not talk to but this is my life and I love it. The great thing about my good friend is that he is almost as crazy as me and he likes the things that I do and thinks I am cool for doing them. So as his God Father in this madness I have taken him to the bazaar helped he find a few things and tried my hardest to get him sick, but I guess it has only been a week so I have time. But are first major test was getting him his very own Chinese bike. This was quite an ordeal, but since I have done it a couple of times now I now how to watch out for the sharks. Actually we road my bike together for awhile, but we did not have much success. We were coming home from a friend’s house, I sitting on the back rack and Q was driving. It was late and there were no lights to see the huge pothole that we hit. We bent my wheel and tore off one of the back brake pads, this left me with a sore butt, but neither of us sustained any real damage. Actually this is when I encouraged him to get his own bike. I did not want to go to heaven ringing my bell of my bike as we get plowed over by a taxi. So we bought a bike for Q and got every thing working best as possible. But one problem we again only had one bike to get home. So Q suggested that we ride back together. I was a little hesitant but thought that we must enjoy life while we are young. As we ride into on coming traffic I tried to adjust a little to get a little better position, this actually caused us to fall over in the middle of road with the on coming traffic heading straight towards us. But lucky they made the right discussion and decided not to run over us. One major problem followed this one as we fell over Q handle bars became lose but he did not realize this until he tried to get around another bike and the bike just kept going straight, hitting the other bike. Actually I was on the back of the bike this time to. I think that we might set a record for looking like the biggest fools in the city that day. One bad thing about understanding the language is that you hear all the not so wonderful commits that people make. But since that day we each take our own bikes when we travel together and hopefully we will live a lot longer for it.