What I'll Miss...

We will be in the U.S. in less than two weeks but we'll be leaving here in 7 days. I remember the days when I worried about a 5+ hour plane ride with small children and though I'm not really excited for the traveling process - I'm feeling really fortunate for how we get to go. We take a direct flight from Dushanbe (Tajikistan's capital) at 3:40am next Saturday (we'll leave our apartment in our city at 11:45pm Friday night to get to the airport a couple hours early) and we fly for 5-ish hours to Frankfurt where we will actually just get off the plane and stay with Rees' cousin and her husband in Kahrlsruhe for almost 6 days before getting on another direct flight on the 16th from Frankfurt to Seattle (supposedly lasted 10-ish hours). I can't imagine just taking one flight at a time. It's been so long since we've boarded a plane, flew somewhere and simply got off and didn't have to make a connection or entertain the kids during a layover or whatnot. I have to say - they are excellent travelers. We have certainly had our miserable moments but for how young they were when we started all this traveling stuff - we can really only be thankful for how well they do. Thank the Lord.
But that's all beside the point :). I wanted to just make a list of the things I'll miss while we're away from Tajikistan (although, I think we'll just be so happy to be in the states with many of our loved ones that we won't REALLY miss all these things too acutely):
- inexpensive and yummy fruits and veggies in season (I've been buying summer apples for about 80 cents for a kg - 2.2lbs, cucumbers for about 40 cents a kg)
- not having to heavily schedule everything because the culture is really present-minded
- fresh bread out of the tandoor or oven
- neighbors
- our Tajik family and village - the kids LOVE helping their bobo (grandpa), moma (grandma) and aunties with the chores: milking the cow, digging up potatoes, planting seeds, sweeping the yard, washing dishes and anything else they can find in the outdoor spicket. We usually sit around on their outdoor cot (platform) under the grape vines and talk and laugh at the kids.
- Our dear friend and language helper, Gulzira and her family
- lots of neighborhood kids for the kids to play with and lots of dirt for them to "cook" stuff out of
- our AMAZING team here who have become a second family to us
- the temperate fall evenings when the kids can play outside and the women side outside and chat
- the simplicity of our lives
- the culture of hospitality
- using certain Tajik words and phrases that just seem to fit what I'm trying to say better than English does
- the clear purpose we live with here (not that we can't live with purpose while we're in the U.S. but there's just more things that can crowd it out or make it cloudy)

I'm sure that there are more but those are the ones that come to mind and frankly, I wanted to get them listed before I made a list of what I won't miss :). Or maybe a better way to put it is the things that I'm looking forward to in the states.

The Bem Boy

Since I wrote an entry about Hannah it’s only right that I write one about Emmett too – there’s so much to write about this little fellow! Hannah has come up with a number of names for him over the last 3 years. It started off with “Little Em” then went to “Moyer the Destroyer” and “Baylaylooz is a baylaylooz” (his Tajik name is Behruz) and more recently she’s been calling him “The Bem Boy.” He’s such a cute little guy. One of my favorite things that he does these days is start cracking up for apparently no reason and then he says, “mommy you so funny!” I’m glad I’m making him laugh, I just wish I knew how I was doing that. After a year of on-again-off-again-potty-trainedness he’s finally consistently using the potty for pee pee AND poo poo (which was the difficult one for the last year). I think he must have had a painful experience on the potty at some point because now he sits there and says, “It no hurt to go poo poo in the potty! It feels juuuuuuust right!” His voice is so adorable and the seriousness with which he talks with us is something I wish I could adequately record because we don’t want to forget it. Those big blue eyes earnestly looking at us. He’s been such a snuggler from birth – something that we love. He was such a great sleeper from birth that his first year and a half I rarely held him or rocked him to sleep – just nursed him, burped him, swaddled him and put him down. He’d just look around for a while until he fell asleep – 90% of the time w/o a peep. I know – pretty unbelievable, huh?  Since he is our second child, we knew it had far more to do with his temperament than anything we were doing. I think if he had been our first we would have thought that we had this whole baby thing pretty well figured out J Sometime before he turned two I began to feel like I was missing out on the going-to-sleep snuggle so for the last year and a half I’ve been laying down with him at naptime for a cuddle and it’s one of my favorite parts of the day. Emmett is really sweet but he’s also got a temper. He’s more compliant by nature than Hannah but he can be really naughty too. He can play cars or trains by himself for quite a while – seeming like the most easy-going guy around but he’s also pretty particular in some quirky ways. He loves to build and try to figure out how things work and he may love books just as much as his big sister. He’s always running from one activity or place to another and he kind of reminds us of the little penguin in the movie Happy Feet – he does these little stutter steps as he goes along. One day he walks outside and walks up to a complete stranger and greets them, shaking their hand (which is customary here). Another day he walks outside and slugs the first 4 or 5 boys he finds. The neighbors love it. They say, “Tajik shud!” (“He’s become Tajik!”). He adores his sister and every night when he goes to sleep he eventually kicks Rees and me out and says, “I want to snuggle wit sister.” (They sleep right next to each other on mats on the floor – we all do, actually).  This guy has brought so much joy into our family. I remember when he was a little baby and we were getting ready to move here. I loved to rub my cheek against his fuzzy head and know that I could do that anywhere – in the U.S. and in Central Asia. It was something that was going to remain constant for a while. I still love to rub my cheek on his fuzzy head (particularly fuzzy now since we recently shaved his head) and think about how far we’ve come. I can’t wait for everyone to see our Bem Boy’s smile and get to know him better. I think you’ll really like him – he’s just such an enjoyable little guy to be around.

Dad’s turn to write an entry: Emmett is so fun and loving.  Of course one of his favorite things to do with me is rough house but he also is the sweetest little snuggler. The latest thing he is doing that melts my heart is if I am laying down on the couch, he sneeks up on me, or at least thinks he is and whispers in my ear, “Daddy do you love me?” of course I grab him and look him in the eye and say “I sure do! With all my heart” he smiles and giggles and says he loves me too and then he is off to something more interesting.  Often tears of Joy follow as I reflect on the blessing that my children are.  When we say our goodnight prayers. His go-to prayer right now is, “Lord, touch Troy’s knee cuz you are so mighteeeeeeeeee!!!” sometimes if he is not done praying he will just repeat that prayer 2 or 3 times. For those of you who do not know Troy he is my best friend who has significant and chronic knee pain right now and when my faith is weak to continue to pray, when hundreds of my prayers have gone unanswered, it is my 3 year old son whose persistence inspires me. Thank you Emmett. If you read this some day, I love you so so much. Keep showing your daddy how to pray and believe.

Rees

Opening a present from Nanu on his 3rd birthday. 

Helping daddy wash a friend's car. This is the Tajikistan version of the drivethrough carwash.

No visit to the indoor play place is complete without some lego building.

Super excited about the first grapes of the season.

Going to our Tajik family's house in the village is always a good time.  Alternating playing with water and dirt and drinking a bit of tea in between is a favorite past-time of our kids. 

Hannah Fun Bettinger

Within weeks of Hannah's birth we realized that we struck gold in giving her the middle name Joy. We also quickly realized that we could have appropriately given her "Fun" as a middle name because she's been so fun right from the beginning. I remember when she was just a couple weeks old asking my mom, "is it too early to say that she's an extrovert?" She was flashing huge, drooly grins to anyone who remotely looked at her by 4 weeks old.
I'm full of thankfulness for my little family. They are my favorite people to be around. I was going to an exercise class last night (which deserves a blog all of its own - it's awesome to have a place for women to exercise!) and I realized just before I walked out the door that I already couldn't wait to get home to hang out with them again.
I was sitting with Hannah this afternoon, sipping cold R.C. cola (a special treat for both of us) and playing Princess Go Fish and just feeling nostalgic or something. I tend to think ahead but God just blessed me with a moment of present-mindedness and I looked at that darling pale-skinned, big-blue-eyed, contagious smiling face and felt soooo blessed that I get to have Hannah as a daughter. She's just so fun. We had been swimming this morning at the pool and I was just marveling at her lack of fear and busy-ness. She was constantly alternating between swimming all over the place, jumping in, figuring out new things to do with her floaty toy and searching for treasures (which in this case was composed of various leaves and a dead cockroach she found floating in the pool - yeah, she even wanted to take "him" home). We just played charades with her the other night for the first time and she was so good at it! We briefly told her how to play and she just jumped in. She's always up for a new game (or making up a new one herself), always looking for an adventure, always wanting to create something. She's even old enough to go to the bozor with me or on special visits. She's just so much fun.
I think this is all extra sweet to me because from about age 2 - 3 1/2 parenting her was so darn difficult. I had a number of moments where I truly thought that I wouldn't survive parenting her. That I would never get to enjoy an adult relationship with her because the stress of parenting her would have already done me in. I know it's over-dramatic but if you've ever had a strong-willed toddler/preschooler I'm sure you can relate. If you can't relate, be thankful that your kids are/were on the slightly more compliant end of the spectrum. It seemed that no matter how consistent and loving I was and how conscientious I was to not create power-struggles and such - nothing was working. She'd say, "Can we go outside?" and I say, "sure, let's put on our shoes and go out." She would proceed to scream that she did NOT want to go out and would NOT put on her shoes. It seemed that everything had to be a fight for her and 95% of our requests were met with absolute refusal. I felt some days that all I did that day was deal with discipline. It really wore me out. But something started to happen around 3 1/2 and has continued to happen. If you had told me then what kind of kid she'd be now, I would not have believed it. But she's grown in so many areas (so have I) and she's so helpful and thoughtful and kind. And just so much fun.
Here are a couple pics in honor of my delightful 5 yr old girl.

She loves climbing rocks.

With friends, Hannah & Nadiyah, a few weeks ago.

We love this expressive face!

She's constantly climbing something. At home, it's the walls and doorframes.

Broom Season and Water Punishment

I must apologize (again and again) for not writing more and not posting more pictures. Life in the developing world just requires a lot of time and the internet requires a lot of time to load and stay connected and all that. It just hasn't made it to the top part of my priority list to use the time I've got for blogging as much as I intended to. That said, while we are in the U.S. I'm hoping to load more pictures of these last years assuming that internet speed is faster. Don't quote me on that, I'm just sharing my intention :)
I realize that we've really adjusted to living here in a lot of ways in that life here is quite different than it is in the U.S. but I actually have to sit and think about what the differences are anymore. There are moments that the differences are difficult to miss, like finally figuring out that there is a broom season here. Just like there is strawberry season, blueberry season, apple season, pumpkin season, there is broom season here. There are people that go around with brooms stacked up on their bikes and they holler out, "Jorub da biyo!" which more or less means, "Come for brooms!" and if you need a broom, you walk out and buy one from the guy. Well, a year and a half ago (fall) I bought two brooms for just over $1 each (5 Tajik somoni each with an exchange rate of about 4.85 Tajik somoni to 1 U.S. dollar). Well, anymore I hear them outside selling the brooms for 14 TS. Inflation makes a bit of a difference but once you see a broom tree you figure out that brooms are seasonal so if you buy them out of season, they are more expensive (just like anything else would be). There really are little trees that grow that get harvested, dried and bound to be sold as brooms. So we have broom season here.
Now another way in which life is quite a bit different here is the focus on the group as opposed to the individual. Most Asian people understand this (if they aren't too far removed from their respective Asian cultures). You reward the group and you punish the group. In the U.S. we highly highly highly value the rights of the individual. You don't really see that here so much. Here's a case in point, about a month ago, the bill collector for city water came around. Apparently many people were in arrears for their water use. He went to every home multiple times and many people balked and sulked and said that the water isn't coming out very well or they don't have any money or it's too expensive or whatnot. Others of us paid for our water usage. Me, the only Westerner in our building, heard the bill collector was here and immediately got my receipt book and wallet and stood in my door, waiting for him to come. We don't have a mail system to speak of and certainly can't use credit cards anywhere so we literally just wait around for bill collectors to come and we pay them when they do. Well, apparently my neighbor (who has been renting his apartment since the fall) was behind like 4 years in paying for water. Of course, he shouldn't have to pay for the water that was used before he moved in so he paid for his own water usage. Others had similar situations or just used the above excuses. I ended up paying for our water usage til August when we will be leaving (practical, right? Why wait around for this guy to show up again when I can take care of all of it now and have records of it). Well, the long and the short of it is, the bill collector tried collecting the money for three weeks, threatening to turn off our water if the money isn't paid. He even posted the names and apartment numbers of every home and how much they owed and posted it at every entrance. Apparently the money wasn't paid so just a day or two after our American guests came to visit, our water was turned out. I mean our whole apartment building's water. Can you imagine how this would go over in Amercia? :) We were totally caught up and even ahead of schedule paying, but we are part of the group so we get a collective punishment. I thought that it would be off until the money was paid but this sweet girl who comes and helps me at home twice a week told me it was just a punishment and that it would be off for a week no matter what. Fortunately for us, we are accustomed to the water going dry on occasion so we had like 30-40 liters stored up and we'd end up with a trickle coming out of the faucets in the middle of the night so we'd fill up our containers all over again. We also have friends who had water so we showered and bathed our kids at their place (thanks Readys and Wilburs!). I still feel a mixture of indignity and hilarity at these kinds of things but they just don't surprise me anymore. So, there you have it - broom season and collective punishment for a few people not paying for their water. The fact that many could have paid for water and didn't is a whole other topic :) We'll see how it goes in a few months when the water collector fellow returns.

Updated pic of us

Just thought I'd add an updated picture of all of us. . You can see how big the kids are getting and how much older Rees and I are getting :) I hope you can also see the lovely amounts of time we get to spend with each other and the bonding effects on us of our adventures in a developing country :) Actually, in this picture both Emmett and I have pink eye, we all have colds and the kids are exhausted but we kept them up because our friend was on his way over to take our picture. Isn't that the way things go?
We just got to spend a weekend up in the capital city, Dushanbe, at a Peace Making training. It was really cute because the capital city is noticeably more developed than the city we live in and Hannah told me before we went up there that "Dushanbe" in English is "America" and that in Tajik it's called "Dushanbe." I tried to clarify that Dushanbe wasn't really America and that when we actually go to America (Tajiks refer to the U.S. as America) we will go on a plane for a REALLY long time. Well, she really didn't get that and when we arrived in Dushanbe she asked when she would get to see Nanu and Grandma. I know you are probably doing one of those "oooh" things right now - I did. But kids are resilient and we told her that she would get to see Nanu and Grandma when we go to the real America in August - when it gets so so so hot. She was happy with that answer.
We have a lot to look forward to the next few months. I like having events to punctuate the day-to-day of life. Our Swiss coworker is returning in a few days and will be here for a few months before returning to Switzerland so it will be nice to catch up with him. Our other Swiss friends have been talking about putting on a Swiss Night with him when he gets here.  We will be going up to a place we really enjoy in the mountains with a bunch of other families at the end of April. We get to welcome some friends from our home church in Portland at the beginning of May. We are sooo looking forward to seeing them and having them interact with our lives here. At the end of May (the 26th for those who are interested in knowing) the Ready's will return to the states for the summer. We aren't looking forward to their being gone but it will be a good time for them and we will try to catch up with them stateside in August before they return to T-stan. We also have Hannah turning 5 on April 10th and Emmett turning 3 on May 30th. We know that time will just fly right by before we are seeing everyone this fall in the states. Summer always seems to vacillate from manic to lethargic and back again and we are going to be enjoying our local friends and neighbors and our dear ex-pat friends here as much as possible before leaving for 4-5 months.
Well, it's time to play Princess Go-Fish with Hannah (we have to time it for when Emmett is asleep so he doesn't take the cards and throw them in the bathtub).

Not Quite Spring...

Last year it seemed we only had a couple weeks of winter in January and then another week or two in March. This year, we've had winter since the beginning of November right up until present. We've had a couple warm days here and there and have definitely taken advantage of them. Soon enough - possibly even next week - it will be spring and spring moves quickly into summer and by mid-summer winter will be far from our memories ('cuz it gets HOT here). I thought I'd try to post a few winter pics before spring is officially upon us.
By the way - we bought our tickets and we'll be back in the U.S. on August 16th, staying through the holidays. We'll actually leave T-stan on August 11th and spend 5 days with Rees' cousin Luci and her family in Germany before leaving for the states.

I'm sure there's a lot of anecdotes to share about life here the last few months but I'm turning up blank (almost). It's been a long, cold winter and though it's no more cold than any of the last winters in the Pacific NW (so we hear), not having consistent electricity definitely makes a difference. That and the fact that every time the snow and ice outside have melted, everything turns into a mud pit. So every day when I take the kids outside, I'm signing up for more muddy laundry and probably washing Emmett's jacket again. Now, I'm not an anal child-dresser. I'm the mom who used the same burp-cloth or bib until it just wasn't absorbing anything anymore it was so wet. I shake the dust of my kids' clothes in the summer and if they look ok and aren't creating too many more dust clouds, I let them wear the same clothes again the next day (unless they need to actually look nice for something, of course). They're kids, they play hard and subsequently get really messy all the time. You should see Emmett's winter jacket. He can hardly take 3 steps outside w/o belly flopping in a huge mud puddle. His jacket is black so he usually has a huge dried-mud beige patch all over the front and down at least one sleeve. It's a Chinese imitation of North Face and has 'North Fac' written on it. The seem is coming out along one side and today he came home from their teacher's house with a 6 inch hole burned in it. So much for passing this one on :) All I have to say is that no matter how poor a country you're living in - it is totally worth it to figure out some way to have an automatic washing machine. So many of my friends marvel that I don't fight with my kids while they're playing outside (since they get dirty out there). I always tell them, "I have an automatic washing machine, so it doesn't take me any time to wash their clothes." A funny aside - here, most daughter-in-laws/wives are the household servant - doing most of the chores, washing, cooking, etc. A local friend of mine who doesn't live with her mother-in-law has an automatic washing machine and she calls it her daughter-in-law. She tells people, "my daughter-in-law washes all their (her children's) clothes." I loved that.
I was outside chatting with some neighbors the other day. We were all wearing a bunch of layers and scarves and all that. I told them that I thought I was used to living here but that I'm so cold and depressed this winter. I explained that the weather was not much different than the winter weather in my home city in America and they said, "but there's one thing that's very different." I said, "what?" They laughed and said, "You have electricity in America!" I started laughing too - that makes a big difference. Even when it's cold and dark outside, in the states we can still be inside in a warm, light room. Add to that the number of coffee shops, indoor play areas, the gym (with child care), etc, etc and the winter just isn't so bad (unless you've moved to the Pac NW from a sunny place - that's another story). So there's my random ramblings for right now. We don't have anything super exciting to report. Enjoy a nice, hot cup of good coffee for us and we'll drink extra tea for you.