· We are staying at the house of a Buddhist couple who also host our contact as well as the English school.
· We live in a “tree house” [minus the tree] behind their house with access to their outside kitchen.
· We have a washing machine at our house. But one day we needed to do laundry, it was broken. So we did our laundry by foot!
· We have durian trees and avocado trees on the property.
· We drive ourselves to ministry in a tuk tuk that we are renting for $10 a day [Ed is the chauffer.].
· It cost $19 to get a new tire, new shocks, and some body work done to said tuk tuk.
· We cross through the airport across the dirt runway to get to market. [Don’t worry; it’s not an active airport…]
· We go to market every day and spend about $16 for an entire day’s worth of meals for six of us.
· Fruits and vegetables are very abundant and just as cheap.
· We eat about a mango per person each a day.
· Rubber trees are so abundant here that the people make their houses, fences, furniture, and such out of the wood and then simply burn the rest of the wood. There is always a huge pile of burning wood.
· The carpenter we are working with gets all of his wood from the burn pile of wood, for free.
· We drive down the street with me playing the ukulele and Michelle ad-libbing lyrics that tell the story of our day.
· It isn’t uncommon to see parts of animals hanging on hooks in the hot blazing sun in the market with the sellers hanging out in their hammocks with their feet in the meat they are trying to sell.
· Everyone wears pajamas all hours of the day.
· Everyone has at least one hammock at their house.
· All the kids know “Hello” but not much else. Some may ask you “What’s your name?” in passing, similar to “What’s up?” on the States.
· When at a party, it isn’t out of place to “make happy” every few minutes while eating (translation: Make Happy = Cheers!).
· We have been asked to not talk or laugh loudly after 7pm because our neighbors go to sleep around then.
· Our contact told us they typically wake up at 4am, have devos at 5am and then clean the house at 6am before starting their day.
· Cleaning up around the house involves sweeping the dirt ground with sticks to collect the fallen leaves.
· The red dirt acts as a natural sunblock, since it becomes caked on every exposed part of your body. (ok, not really, but you do come back 28 shades darker at the end of the day)
· You water the dirt to keep the dust levels down.
· The kids in the village sing the alphabet as such: “A, B, C, D, E, F, E…I, J, K, N, O, P…Q, R, W, X, Y, Z.”
· Drinks come in small plastic bags with handles [think small grocery bags]. Our favorite is a coffee drink that is sold down the street from Sim’s house. It is a concoction of coffee sludge, sweetened condensed milk, and sugar. Mmmm….
· There are at least 4 fish living in the cistern of water that we use for our bucket showers. [we just try not to think about it and pray we don’t scoop one out…]
· There are four dogs living at our house, our favorite, we dubbed “Wrinkle-Face.” [His real name is Boi or, something to that extent…]
