Eating!

^ (the night of the dinner)^
So because most of this week has been spent in the toilet, not too much has happened to us that is worth blogging about. So I will tell you about a family here. She is a lady that has a third floor that's empty. We looked at it when we were looking for a house to rent, but the house we decided on is bigger, and in a nicer location. Since then we have continued to be friends with her and she has pretty much adopted us as her third and fourth daughters. It is this family that we went to the village with.
Many of you have heard about our goat leg soup experience, and we told her that we were vegetarians while in India, but she didn't believe us or something, because when we went to their house for dinner they served us Mutton. Just so you know mutton here can mean either sheep, or goat. They asked us if people ate goat in America, to which I said "NO!". They looked at us astonished and then served us some goat and rice. It wasn't near as bad as the goat legs, but eating meat here isn't my favorite thing to do. Another thing I have gotten used to is eating without utensils. For some dishes it's really not that different from the States. Chipattis, are kind of like tortillas, so eating rice and kidney beans isn't that hard a task. When they serve you rice, with a lentil soup type food though, eating with your hands becomes more of an obstacle. I have to admit though, it is fun, and when offered a spoon I always refuse, and say I want to eat with my hands! I haven't quite got the technique down to where I don't get food ALL over my hands, but I am improving, and take quite delight in doing things that I was always told in the States was bad table, or in this case floor manners. (licking your fingers, eating with your hands, making obscene noises at the dinner table, smacking your food) Picture of us after dinner, sitting, talking!

Rested....Finally!

I have finally recovered from Montezuma's Revenge, and my energy is back up to almost normal. Sorry it's been so long for me to update my blog. I'll have pictures of our village trip up soon enough!!
So, because I'm a tourist, I am required to leave the country every 6 months. This is great because it basically means I get to go to Thailand every 6 months. I think I am ready to have a bit of a break and a good Starbucks! Thailand is like America with a bit of Asian culture thrown in there, at least compared to here it's almost like being back in America! They also have really good CHEAP seafood. I will fly out to Thailand on the 25th June. In the meantime, I will be taking the long journey down to the capital on the 5th June, to pick up my momma, who's coming to visist. Everyone here is SO excited to meet her, they keep saying to me "momma is coming on 6th June". After she spends time here with me, she will be going to China to teach ESL. She's such a smart lady. Not only does she have one Maters of Education, but now she is studying for her second Masters in Teaching English as a Second Language! What an accomplished lady!! I miss her, and am excited to see her in a week!!! She is going to absolutely HATE me for posting this picture of her with her "sunflower boyfriend" as she calls it, but this is one of the only pictures I have of her on my computer!! It doesn't really do her justice I must say! Love you momma!

Before...

Our house is almost finished! We are just waiting on a couple more furniture items and for a leak to be fixed. It's really great that my mom is coming soon too, because our landlord keeps saying that everything has to be done before my mom gets here.

He said if it's not complete when she's here, she'll say "you have not been taking care of my daughter." I know a lot of people have been asking me about our new house and want pictures, but I'm going to wait until everything is in its place and we have all our furniture. For now, here are some before pictures. These were taken on the 17th April, 3 days before we were scheduled to move in!These guys worked around the clock to get our house finished. They arrived early in the morning and didn't leave until aroun 10pm at night just to finish on schedule.

Things you don't see everyday.

While walking to the market one day, we saw a lady carrying some things on her head. This is somewhat normal. We see people carrying things on their heads and backs everyday. It was what was tied to her body that was interesting. If you look closely you can see little feet poking from beside her. Her little baby was sound asleep as she continued her daily duties!

Barish ho gaiya...(It's RAINING)

The hottest two months are May and June, and according to the weather widget on my computer, it's over 100 degrees during the day, and then drops to 80 at night. Well we don't have AC in our house, which really hasn't been a problem. Of course we've been a little warm in the day time, but we try to stay inside during the hottest part of the day, and it cools off quite nicely at night. The other benefit of living here is that it seems to rain at least once a week. Yesterday was one of those such days. We even got hail. April and I were so excited to see rain we dragged our neighbors out onto our balcony to play in it. It was such a blessing!!
The rain really helped cool things off, and I think I was cold for the first time in awhile!!

Along came a spider...

So most people know that since I was a little girl I have been deathly afraid of spiders. I blame it on my brother throwing one of his "pet" spiders at me when I was younger. I have been traumatized ever since. Well we have a huge mango tree that hangs over our balcony. Unfortunately, along with the tree, comes tree spiders. Mainly they're just little guys that I don't mind killing with a fly swatter. On this particular evening however, little was far from what we saw.
Firstly we found one that was bigger than my hand in the hallway from the living room to our bedroom. Because my room mate is as afraid as I am of spiders, we threw orange peel at it until April got the bull's eye and it scurried away from the door. She then courageously braved the hallway and unlocked the door so I too could enter. The only problem was that once she entered our bedroom, she found 2 more spiders almost as big as the other one. Once I braved entering the bedroom, we spent around 1 hour shooing the spiders out of our room so we could sleep. By the time they had left, I was EXHAUSTED from the adrenaline that had run through my body! We decided that we would be more careful when opening and closing doors to the outside. Fortunately since that evening we have not had any more "night enemies" as our Land lord calls them in his broken English. I told him next time I would call him to deal with them in the middle of the night!

Prospects!

so I am finally back on the internet and I know many of you have been patiently waiting for blog updates.
Well here you go. Here is our prospective pet. I have discovered that you can buy a donkey for around about $200, however, most of you know that I am also cheap, so here's what I'm thinking. Babies animals are ALWAYS less expensive than the real thing. We have decided that if we buy a baby it'll be cheaper than buying an adult. Maybe we can get a baby donkey for like $50 each!
Or maybewe could just buy a bunny.