Our First Week of Language School & A Mouse in the House

 

Starting off the week well...trying to shew a mouse out of the house. The mouse was quite frightened, as was I. The mouse was jumping in the air, as was I. It was quite the sight to see. Too bad we do not have it on video. So the mouse poison is out - not in the house of course because of the kiddos, but outside. Hopefully this will solve our little problem, as our little problem has already wreaked havoc on my oversized bag of oatmeal!

 

It has been an interesting couple of weeks : we have started language school, John went to his first clinic here in Arequipa, and I went to a doctors appointment where the doctor never showed up!

Language school is going well. It has been quite busy for us though. John goes to classes in the morning and I go in the afternoon. I come home and spend a couple of hours cooking dinner, and then we spend a little "together time" as a family before the kiddos head to bed. After the kiddos head to bed it's homework time! We spend a couple of hours on homework each night. I wash the dishes and the laundry, and then we head to bed. Late nights, early mornings - are we in college again??? Language school is going well, and we are enjoying perfecting our Spanish. Sometimes we are so consumed with Spanish I feel like we are losing our ability to speak English!
 

Here we are enjoying a little family time watching a movie, and eating some popcorn. This is one of the kids favorite things to eat for sure.

  The kids are doing much better this week than the last. They seem to be adjusting a little bit better. Caleb is enjoying all of his toys and Hannah is enjoying all of her stuffed animals. Caleb has started speaking some Spanish as well - not intiated by us - which is kind of cool to hear. Hannah is becoming more vocal as well, saying "UP" for everything! They are growing up so fast. Caleb is adjusting to the idea that he will have a brother soon - not sure if he really understands but he seems excited.   John visited a clinic in Arequipa today. He was able to join another group of doctors and see a few patients in a school that served as a clinic about thirty minutes from here. He is learning many good lessons about patient care and how that differs from back home. He also got to help diagnose a case of placenta previa and help with some minor surgical procedures today as well.  He enjoyed being able to practice medicine again even though that is not our main focus during language school. It is quite important that we speak Spanish well before we can truly help people - minor details huh??   I also went to my 37 wk doctors appointment this week. It was supposed to be at 5 pm. When 6 pm rolled around John and I decided to head out to a "welcome party" some friends were throwing for a few of us newbies. Since there were several people waiting in front of us and the doctor still wasn't there, John and I decided to call it a night. Here appointment times are not really "appointment times", they are suggested times when you might want to see a doctor. Just because your "appointment time" is at 5pm, it does not mean you will see a doctor at 5pm , more like 6:30 or 7pm. Everyone just shows up and it is first come first serve. Not sure what happened at my last "appointment time" but we are assuming she was delivering  a baby. She is the doctor, nurse, secretary, and cashier, so we never got a call telling us why she wasn't there. Oh well. Good thing I am married to a doctor huh? I just hope she is there for the delivery. Be praying for us as I could deliver any time -woohoo!   Saturday is market day for us. We get most of our fruits and veggies that day. The market is only a couple of blocks away so we pack our bags full and head home with our fruits/veggies for the week. It has been such a fun experience for me and the kiddos. I get to use a little bit of my Spanish and get to know the local vendors and Caleb enjoys bringing his basket and helping me carry apples. They have pretty much everything at the market to include huge slices of meat they sell right out of the back of their cars. Definitely a little different than your everyday trip to Target - but hey it's fresh right. Everything has to be sanitized, which usually takes a few hours. We only have one sink and very little counter space so sometimes it can be a little challenging but I think I am starting to get the hang of it. I buy everything in bulk, sanitize it, freeze it, or make bulk quantities of sauces (or other things) so that I do not have to cook as much during the week. Cooking takes quite a while when you have a small stove, you have to boil your water to wash with, and then you have to handwash your dishes. I have never been so grateful for hot water or the dishwasher I had in the States. I think I appreciate that appliance a little more now.

 

We are super excited to pick up a package hopefully this week. Some friends of ours have sent us a little something in the mail, and we cannot wait to pick it up! We just have to coordinate our schedules with the schedule of the post office...not always an easy task.

Praising God for:

(1) John and Caleb took a nasty fall this week into a drainage ditch full of water. Hannah was on John's back as well but she made it without a crash. The only injury we had ended up being a rather large bump on Caleb's head. He is fine, and we are happy everyone is safe. Walking a night can be kind of dangerous with the condition of the sidewalks.

(2) That we did not burn our kitchen down, after discovering a charred plastic and cardboard box underneath our oven. Apparently some pieces to the oven were in the bottom drawer of the oven, which gets incredibly hot, and all this time I thought I was smelling "new oven" - um no that is burnt plastic! The oven gets so hot when I cook that even I cannot touch the outside of the oven. Good thing we taught the kids not to touch the oven.

We Have MOVED In!

 

We are so excited to announce that we have moved into our apartment here in Arequipa. We have been a little busy trying to make this place look more like a home so we have been off the grid for a while. Our internet, which we got a few days ago works wonderfully - which is super exciting for us and our families :)
 

 

The house is coming along. We have couches, a table, a refrigerator, a stove, a washing machine (they do not really do dryers here in Peru and they do not need to because it is so arid here), a mircowave (!!) and we all have beds. The most important things of course. Actually buying all of those objects was quite interesting - each item (including all three beds) were bought at different stores. This might sound like no big deal but it has proven quite exhausting, especially for the pregnant woman (me). We feel so blessed though to have all that we do and most missionaries in other countries probably do not have all of the items listed above. In some ways we feel quite spoiled and in other ways well we just need to suck it up and take it :) It was an adventure buying each item and seeing how we would get it home. For example, our dining room table with 6 chairs went sort of like this in our subaru taxi - 6 chairs in back of the car, which is where I actually road home, and the kids twin mattresses on top of the subaru, with the actual dining room table on top of the mattresses, and of course John road in the front seat to direct the taxi driver to our apartment. Needless to say with every turn we took I cringed at the thought of seeing our table in the middle of the street. The table made it home safely and so did we. I only wish we had taken our camera!!

 

Another totally typical scene around here.

 

 

Our microwave did just stop working today but apparently it is quite normal for things not to work. So John tried to return it. They told us they do not exchange but they will fix it with their technicians and call us back within 15 days. We will see how that goes.

 

Currently, John is glueing together a computer desk for us. We bought it as a kit, here at a store similiar to Home Depot back home. John is laughing at the fact that he has to glue it together with "assembly glue" also known as Elmers Glue!
 

 We have been busy filling the house with all of our stuff as well. It has been a fun week of unpacking all of the bins we brought. The kids have had a great time with all of their "new" toys - to them it seems like Christmas. We have all of the bins unpacked and mostly everything in its allotted place. It has been interesting putting things in our house since we have NO dressers?! I find this a bit different but hey I guess built in closets in all of the rooms works too right? Everything fits but my room feels odd with no dresser. I am sure I will get over it :)

 

We do have hot water in our showers, but this is the only place we have hot water. So for dishes everyday I boil LOTS of water to wash with. Cooking here takes 5 times as long, and washing the dishes takes even longer. I do not have a double sink so I think this lengthens the process as well, but we are making adjustmenst to make this cooking thing easier. John is willing to do whatever it takes so that I cook for him :)

 

John and I also celebrated our 5 year anniversary at the end of May. We just spent the day in the city without the children - it was definitely refreshing. To top of the day we walked home in the beautiful Arequipa weather only to hear a trash truck playing the Fur Elise as it picked up everyone's trash in the street. Yes, the trash trucks here play the funniest tunes - even The Little Mermaids "Under the Sea". We defnitely took video because we just could not help it!

 

We had a freak wind storm this week. Tin was blowing off of peoples houses, and schools were closed. Our laundry room is actually open to the air so tons of dirt/cement blew in and clogged up our sink for our laundry - which led to the washer overflowing with water. The weather has been quite strange here lately - EVEN RAINING!
 

 

Well it has been a long day, so this post is not going to get proofread - sorry guys :). The kids are having fun but are having a difficult time with the move and us being away so often. Pray for an easy adjustment for them as we will start language school next week. We are also having some troubles applying for the kids visas so pray that that goes smoothly and that John does not have to make yet another flight to Lima. We also have a doctors appointment coming up on Friday, so we will keep you posted.

 

On that note, we were looking at baby toys and some of the same brands they have in the States cost $50.00 or more. For BABY TOYS! John and I thought we would be able to find lots of cheaper Peruvian versions here but for some reason we cannot seem to find much. Aparently most of the time the little babies are across their mother's backs while they work/sell things, so there appears to not really be time for toys. When they get to be Caleb's age (2-3) they start preschool full time here. Not sure I am ready to part with my boy for preschool, although we are thinking about putting him in a jardin (kindergarten) just so he will learn Spanish. Pray that God gives us direction on this!