The "us vs. them"

It's upward 120 degrees in our city right now. There's always a stretch like this every summer. If we're lucky, there's only one or two stretches like this and we're back in the 105-112 range - still hot but at least a tiny bit more bearable.
Annabel likes to be warm so she's faring better than all of us. The hot doesn't seem to phase her. Of course, I don't hang out outside w/ her very much and when I do, it's in the shade and not in the middle of the day.
The heat and having a new baby brings out every manner of advice from locals. It's totally expected to be told what to do w/ the baby from complete strangers. I may go buy some nectarines from the bazaar and the sellers ask about where my baby is and someone from the next aisle over hollers to me some type of scolding ("why do you leave the baby at home when she's so small? you should be with her!") or advice ("if you wash her every morning she'll be very peaceful"). I pretty much just have to expect that every single time I'm ever w/ a local, I'm going to be told what I'm doing wrong and what I should be doing. Just recently, my neighbor (and dear friend, by the way) told me that we (Americans) aren't careful w/ our children and that they (Tajiks) are extra careful w/ their little ones. This same person told me this spring that we pay too much attention to our kids - go figure :) I've been told how Annabel wouldn't cry and would sleep perfectly if I only did things their way - tied her into the Tajik cradle called "gavara" (gah-vah-RAH) and rocked her, that she would always sleep for 5-6 hours at a time. She would also grow up w/ very straight posture. She cries because my milk is bad - not fatty enough or maybe that's why she's so skinny (she's almost 7 weeks and is 4.5 -5 kg, about 10lb) and I need to eat more nuts. Now, someone else will tell me that's why she's crying - the nuts I eat don't benefit her. They really hate letting a baby cry. Like really, really, really can't handle it. You can only imagine how stressed out neighbors get when they get big enough that you allow them to fuss for a bit while it's time to go to sleep. There's any number of things that people believe about raising kids here and pretty much the theme is almost always the same - we do things wrong and they do things right. Now, it's easy to start to feel irate and superior because, well, we have more science and research and overall "enlightenment" on our side - but that's just doing the exact same thing (ie: we're right and they're wrong). Here, as in many Asian countries, it's totally normal to be really direct and forward about certain things - child-rearing being one of them (how much weight you've gained or lost being another thing but that's a different post :)). It takes a lot of self-control and humility to figure out how to respond and to try to see through to the heart of what someone's telling you to do (or stop doing). Some days I find this comes naturally, other days not so much - I get defensive and try to point out why our way is better for us. There's a place for explaining yourself, but most of the time that's not what anyone is interested in. I've found that people who really want to know why we do things the way we do actually ask me why and then listen to my explanation. Some days, I hide. I'm just too wiped out to try to be polite and listen or to try to be defensive.
So here I am. Trying to keep looking in the mirror at the ways that I find myself doing the "us vs. them" before judging them as being judgmental because they're doing the "we're right and you're wrong." Does that make any sense? Now, for a dose of compassion: Most young, married women live w/ their in-laws and are raising their children in the setting of mother-in-law and relatives that are constantly visiting telling them what they need to do - and what they aren't doing well enough. Can you imagine being a first time parent and living w/ people who are constantly doing this? In one sense, this is how people learn to raise children - from the women they live with. Part of that seems really nice. But there's very little room for you to try to use your own intuition because if it at all goes against what the women say, you are endlessly chided for it. I have one friend who has some very strong-willed children and she wants to train them while they're young to listen to mommy, talk respectfully, etc and she has found that using something like "time-out" is helpful. Well, as soon as grandma is around (who, is also a dear friend of ours and has been so helpful and supportive of us since we came here) she sees her little granddaughter or grandson alone in the corner of the room having a fit and she hurries to them, gives them chocolate, tells them how naughty mommy is for putting them there and more or less "rescues" them from their consequence. She tells me, "my heart just can't handle seeing them sad and alone." My friend's intention in training her children is totally undermined and she has no recourse. She's the one left to do the housework and cooking w/ little people running around knowing that they don't have to listen to mommy because grandma will rescue them every time. Yikes, huh? Now, here's where the "us vs. them" can come in again. I completely think that our way of doing things is superior. Children need consequences (and rewards) for their actions and there are things they need to learn along the road to adulthood. There's so much truth to this. But there's something else that's mysterious to me - many of these kids grow up to be good students, love their moms and be helpful and respectful toward them, and even respect people older than them wherever they go. So, apparently the spoiling of these little ones doesn't always lead to disaster. It's so easy to be judgmental but as I tell my local friends, "Everywhere in the whole world, people raise their kids every which way and everywhere in the whole world, many grow up to be healthy, happy, work and have their own families." Of course everywhere in the world, there is every manner of problems too but that usually comes up in other kinds of situations (ie: "In America, you don't have ______, do you?").
All that to say - let's be kind to the new mom you know, the old mom who's raised the white flag and has no idea what to do, even the one who is quite judgmental of others (surely she'll have one of those smack-you-in-the-face experiences one day and that's going to rock her world). We all need validation and encouragement for this one-of-a-kind work of raising children.

Just a disclaimer - I've been ridiculously blessed in who I have as a mom and mother-in-law. Both are incredibly supportive, encouraging and loving. They have never made me feel like they knew everything and I knew nothing and have given me helpful advice at many different junctures. Nothing mentioned here has any relation to them. Hats off to you - Claudie and Nan!

Pics from Thailand

We did a whole loy of swimming in Thailand. Emmett decided he was ready to swim w/o water wings 4 weeks before his 4th birthday. I was swimming in the deep end and saw him throw off his wings, get out of the kiddie pool and take a running start into the big pool. I swam over to him (not very quickly since I was 36 weeks pregnant) and saw him kicking and paddling and barely keeping his nose above the surface. In typical Bettinger-adventurer-style - he was hooked. No more floaties for him!
We got to meet so many wonderful families while we were at The Juniper Tree and were spoiled silly. They cook every meal, do your laundry and ironing, clean your hut every week or so, have cold soda and water at the ready and ice cream. There's also a great pool and fun play areas and gardens all over the property for kids to explore - topped off w/ a mini soccer field. A great place for a family (or anyone for that matter) and a fantastic place to spend my last month of pregnancy and first 4 weeks w/ a new born. There were four of us families there having babies and they ended up being born all w/i 3 weeks of each other - so us ladies had lots to commiserate about: before the babies - "oh my ligaments are killing me! I have to pee AGAIN! etc" and after - "How much sleep did you get last night? You need some more coffee?" A very special and memorable time for all of us.

So much fun.

I loved being in the pool for lots of reasons but one of them was that I could actually carry Hannah and Emmett in the water (when they let me!).

The elephant show. Another must if you're in Thailand. The elephants are just so cool.

Grandma w/ her three youngest grans. What a gift to have her there! There will be an even younger gran in August/September (via my sister, Shannon).

Hannah w/ friends Norah and Sophia (who's mom had her baby a week after Annabel was born). The girls, their dads and some other friends found this cave when they went rock climbing.

When you swim every day, you constantly find new things to do in the pool - like see how long you can stand on daddy's shoulders. That's Emmett in the background.

Emmett and Myles were diving into the deep end w/o any problem after a few weeks of swimming every day.

From left: Brooke w/ Juday (born June 20th), Katherine w/ Khemrin (born June 3rd), me w/ Annabel and Jenny w/ Tanner.

Our most commonly used mode of transportation - the Song Taew

Hannah w/ best buddy, Jiah.

Love this guy. He's so much fun.

Myles at the night safari.

Hannah, Myles and Emmett w/ "big brother" Jonah at the Chiang Mai Night Safari.

Hanging out by the "obstacle course." Of course, the kids did this - I only watched and cheered them on.

Our friend, Karen, from Portland was at the Juniper Tree right around my due date. Great to visit w/ her.

Hannah and I went for pedicures w/ our friends while we were waiting for baby. Of course, Hannah chose rainbow sparkles :)

Couldn't get enough of the tropical fruit!

At the Sunday walking market - a must if you're ever in Chiang Mai.

Jenny and I with dear friend, Jen Sawchenko. We had such a lovely time together, unfortunately neither of us got to have Jen (a former midwife) there for the births of our babies.

Andrey and Jen and their daughter, Ella, live in the Philippines and were able to come hang out w/ us for a whole week. Too much fun! Ella is a little fish too so there was a lot of fun w/ the daddies in the pool

Catching up on the birth of Annabel Luci

I thought I would blog much more while we were in Thailand but surprisingly, our internet connection was pretty poor. The one benefit to that is that our connection now in Tajikistan seems really good to us :)
Before getting too far ahead, I wanted to write a bit about the birth of Annabel Luci (for those who want to know. I'll post pics of our time in Thailand - which was WONDERFUL for the record - in another post.

My mom got to see Annabel within her first hour after birth. She was a real trooper as she arrived in Thailand to find out we were at the hospital and immediately jumped on Grandma duty. No opportunity to be jet-lagged for her!

Jenny and I were across the hall from each other. This is the day after Annabel was born, two days after Tanner was born.

Looks so much like Emmett did as

They continue to be enthralled with their baby sister.

Annabel was due June 3rd and I was expecting her sometime around June 8th-10th (since Hannah & Emmett were both 5 & 6 days "late"). Well, the 10th came and went and so did our dear friends the Sawchenkos (I had hoped Jen would be there for the birth - she's a precious, peaceful friend and former midwife) and no baby. The morning of June 12th, Jenny went into labor and had Tanner Josiah (8lb 4oz - sooo handsome!). I was so proud of her - a quick natural birth. She had been nervous for the no epidural thing and she rocked it (epidurals aren't available for labor pain management in Chiang Mai - only for C-sections). We had to go to the hospital for a non-stress test that day and I'd held it together pretty well for a long time (9 days overdue at that point) but when I heard our little baby's heart beat I just started to cry. It reaffirmed to me that there was really a little person in there who seemed to be doing great but who was just not entering the outside world for some reason. Seeing little Tanner had made me really want to be holding my own baby and I just wasn't even having increasing contractions or anything. Seemed like this little one would be in me forever and that we'd never meet him/her (we didn't know if it was a boy or girl). My doctor stripped my membranes and encouraged me that she thought my baby was waiting for grandma to come (my mom would be arriving on June 13th). She'd said that all along.
During the night I noticed that I was starting to have "real" contractions every 15 minutes - nothing very impressive but at least something to make me hopeful that the baby may actually come out. By 5am I decided I'd walk around outside and try to get my body to get into gear and get the contractions coming closer together. I was feeling like I just wanted to get to 4cm dilated and go to the hospital - that maybe once I was there, away from the kids and the hustle and bustle of where we were staying, maybe I could concentrate on getting labor going (and avoid driving there and taking the busy elevator to the labor floor while in intense pain). In the U.S. I would have avoided going to the hospital early - I would have waited til the contractions were intense and 2-3 min apart so that no one would be trying to rush my labor along but in Chiang Mai, they just get you settled in a really big, nice labor room, check baby and mom every 1-2 hours and pretty much say, "call when you are ready to push" and otherwise leave you alone. We went to the hospital around 6:30 or 7 and I was 4cm dilated and still not having impressive contractions though they were every 5-7 minutes. I walked and walked and walked and they would just space out more. At a couple points, the contractions stopped all together and I took a few naps. By about 2pm, I was getting discouraged that they weren't becoming significantly stronger and closer together. Our friend, Brooke, who was also very pregnant and due 11 days later, came to see us and asked what we needed. I told her to just pray that my body would take over and this labor thing would swing into gear. That was about 4pm. Well, within minutes my contractions got stronger and became every 2-3 minutes apart. What was crazy was how present-minded I stayed this time around. Usually I've turned into crazy laboring mom and yell and say that I quit (and really mean it and think that that's a legitimate option) and all that stuff but this time I was moaning and groaning and such but not yelling and able to talk to Rees b/w contractions like a rational person. It was only Rees and I in that room and he was soooo supportive and helpful the whole time. I decided to get in the shower on the exercise ball and after a little while found that I was cold and shaking and thought to myself, "this it like transition, but it can't be - I'm too sane and it doesn't hurt enough yet to be transition." A nurse came in and asked if she could check me (they hadn't checked my dilation since I got there that morning) and I consented. I was 9cm and boy was I happily surprised! She asked me if I needed to push and I said "no." At that point, a friend who is a midwife-in-training came in (with a high school student who wants to be a midwife who I had told could come) and I was still talking w/ them between contractions like a "normal" person. My contractions spaced out again and I was saying, "I wish my water would break - maybe then I'd actually feel like pushing." The doctor came in to check on me and I told her that I didn't feel like pushing yet and she told me to just let her know when I did feel like it and left. One or two contractions later my water finally broke and I felt like it was getting time to push. I got on my knees on the bed (holding the exercise ball) and I could feel that the baby was really low. At that point, the doctor and nurses came into the room and it seemed like everyone was talking. I finally felt like pushing and started doing so quietly. I heard people talking to me, telling me to breathe and all that and I could tell that the baby was about to crown and I didn't feel like wasting my breath on talking to everyone. I figured, "well, my bottom is here in plain sight and I'm sure they'll figure out soon enough that this baby is coming out." I heard Rees say, "the head is coming out, honey!" and I thought, "duh, I know that." She was out and crying at 6pm. I immediately tried to get a look at her (since she was behind me) to see if she was a he or she. I couldn't see and I asked Rees, "is it a girl or a boy?" It took a long time for him to answer which I thought was odd (since it's a pretty simple thing to determine) and then I heard, "girl!" Turned out her cord was between her legs and once it was moved, Rees thought her swollen labia were little testicles and was quite worried when he didn't see a penis too :)
Hopefully that's not TMI (well, it is but you could have chosen to stop reading).
She was a tiny peanut - our littlest one. They helped me get comfy and handed her to me and she had so much hair (like Emmett). After a while they measured her - 3.14kg (about 6lb 15oz) and 50cm long (19inches). It ended up being such a peaceful birth and we fell in love with her immediately. Having had three "low intervention" births (ie: no drugs, episiotomy, forceps, etc) I can honestly say that I totally understand why people go for the drugs :) I certainly have no judgements for how people have their babies. It's hard work and it's painful no matter how you do it. If you don't have pain during labor and birth, you still have it afterward. I just prefer to have the pain during labor and birth and be able to get up and move around and pee and all that right afterward - so that's why "natural" is my personal preference and I'm thankful that it's worked out for each baby. There are so many times that things don't go the way we hoped or planned and I feel insanely, tremendously, abundantly blessed that we've ended up w/ three beautiful births and three healthy, beautiful children.
Hannah & Emmett are crazy about Annabel. They kiss her and talk to her all the time. Emmett just told her, "Annabel - you're a rockstar baby!" as I'm writing this. She has reflux pretty bad so we are giving her medicine and doing a lot of pacing and bouncing with her but I think she's got a pretty peaceful temperament and we're all enjoying her a lot.

We Made It

Forgive the late entry. This one just wouldn't publish when I wrote it. But here it is now.

Many people heard of our plight to get to Thailand to have our third baby and many of you prayed for us to get here. Well, already 2 1/2 weeks have passed and I never got around to posting about how we finally got here.
We had booked tickets to Bangkok via Qatar Air months ago. We carefully read the pregnancy restrictions and printed out the forms we were supposed to have an OB/GYN sign. The website said that I could fly til the end of 35 weeks and then the forms that we had to print out for the doctor to sign said that I couldn't fly past the end of 36 weeks. We picked the earliest flight of the week I reached 35 weeks and didn't think a whole lot more about it. We were actually quite worried about the Tajik Airline, Somon Air, that we'd have to take from Dushanbe to Dubai. They wouldn't allow a pregnant person to fly past 32 weeks - period. I understand this, though, as they give women all kinds of whatnot in the way of due dates. I've known women who were due at a certain time (dated by a Tajik doctor) and baby was born 8 weeks earlier or 6 weeks later. We're not talking the usual give or take 1-2 weeks here. Knowing that I knew for sure what my due date was and knowing how every Tajik system works here - I figured we'd ask some friends if they had any connections with OB/GYNs who could write and stamp a letter for me (and one for Jenny also as they were planning to come to Thailand for the birth of their #3, just 10 days after us). Indeed, a friend of ours knew someone and took us to see her and we apologized profusely for asking her to fudge our dates and assured her of all our due date calculations and did all the tests she asked us to do and she wrote a letter for Somon Air for us. Bless her. Well, we did everything to the T for Qatar Air - no fudging dates or anything there because we were within the rules for flying and understood the nature of their rules. It's pretty darn expensive and inconvenient for an airline to have a woman have a baby on-board and have to land at the closest airport. We also understood that Qater and the UAE are very developed and they do medicine similar to how we do it in the west. I doubt that women are having babies 6-8 weeks before or after their due dates there (unless they're actually premature). Weren't we surprised to get an email just 3 days before our flight saying that I wasn't allowed to fly past that day (April 29th). We weren't allowed to submit our medical paperwork more than 7 days in advance but had to have it submitted no less than 48 hrs prior to the flight. Those 5 days that it was ok to send it landed during two of the airline's days off. Oh boy. We appealed this decision - scanning the rules that we had printed from their medical form, showing that we were flying just 3 days later than they wanted to allow me to, trying to be as respectful but persuasive as possible. Well, it was a no-go. They wouldn't budge.  Now, they were very polite about this, assuring us that they would refund everything but the cancellation charge if "Ms. Bettinger wants to find an alternate travel route" but we spent a whole day feeling quite stressed as you can imagine. We should have assumed a little more. On this side of the world, you state age and time according to what year or month you're in. For example, Emmett is about to turn 4 and once he has his birthday we would say that he's 5 because he's in his 5th year now. In the U.S., we just say he's 4, even just turned 4. We do the same with gestational age. If a pregnant woman asks another pregnant woman how far along she is, she's going to say something like 27 weeks but usually that means she's in her 28th week. Does that make any sense?
Well, praise the Lord, we found another flight for me from Dubai via Colombo to Bangkok on SriLankan Air (really good food, BTW). So we all flew to Dubai together and I went with Rees and the kids to their hotel. Rees kept the kids and our two suitcases and I headed back to the airport that night for my 11:45pm flight with just my purse. We didn't have any way of talking to each other as Rees had our one computer and we both just had Tajik SIM cards in our phones and they would be in the air when I reached Colombo and Bangkok. So we hoped for the best and decided that no news was good news. I was really worried that Rees would sleep through his alarm (he needed to leave for the airport with the kids at 4:30am). I must say that it was very fortunate that we were flying through the Gulf and South Asia. If you have never visited a Muslim country, you may have some pre-conceived ideas about what "those people" are like. I must assure you that if you are pregnant or traveling with children, you probably won't get treated better than you do in a Muslim country. There's such a high value on children. It was pretty hilarious in Dubai because the flight was full and the flight-attendants were trying to get all these men to let them check-in their large carry-ons and these men were passionately arguing why they wouldn't allow this (it was all in Arabic, but you didn't have to know Arabic to know what the conflict was). When it was time to board (it was an hour delayed) they all jumped to their feet and gathered at the gate. Someone said, "families first please" and all these Arab men turned to me, alone and pregnant, and stood back and pushed everyone else back to make a tunnel for me to get through saying, "Please, please, you are a family." The whole way, everyone wanted to make sure I was comfortable and had enough to eat and drink and got a seat on the trams and all that. I was so thankful to finally get to Bangkok and quickly looked for a lounge to crash in. Fortunately, I found an empty lounge with a huge comfy couch and was able to sleep for two hours. I spent the rest of my waking time praying that Rees and the kids were on their way w/o any problems and trying not to make contingency plans but then making them anyway. I saw that their plane had landed and I'll tell you what - that was a very long 20 minutes waiting outside customs for them! I don't remember the last time I felt so relieved as when I saw them all walk through customs. Rees said that the kids were amazing little travelers, that Qatar Air treated them like royalty and that everything had gone without a hitch. Ironically, we went to check in for our little in-country flight to Chiang Mai and it was the first time anyone asked to see my letter from the doctor. We had had it officially translated into English and the airline attendant only wanted to see the words, "flight allowed."
We were exhausted for a few days (and I was sore and swollen) but now we're all doing great. It's hard not to feel pretty good when you don't have to grocery shop, cook, clean or do laundry. The pool and the humidity are helping with my "last few weeks of pregnancy" aches and pains and we are really thankful to be here. The Readys made it here fine also. There are two other pregnant women who are due in June so at any given time, you can find all four of us bobbing around in the pool.
The kids are having a blast. They swim at least once a day and have lots of other kids to play with and plenty of play space. We are really relishing this special time together and looking forward to meeting our little one. Just in case you thought you missed something - we don't know if we're having a boy or a girl. This one is going to be a surprise. We're thinking it's our last one and wanted to know what it was like to be surprised (and I'm hoping that gives me a little extra oomph in labor this last time around).
I'll have to write more about H & E another time. Suffice it to say - they are little fish. Emmett's even swimming without water wing floaties these days. I'll write more about that later though (at least I intend to :))

Recent Photos

Hannah with our dear friend's granddaughter and daughter who got married while we were in the states. The little girls are trying on her "bride hats" or "toqees." Traditionally when you go to visit a new bride, she changes her outfit multiple times, showing the guests the beautiful dresses that her in-laws gave her as part of her dowry. She wears a veil and bows over and over again showing that she's always ready to serve. Because we were with good friends, she got most of the bowing done quickly and we could just visit.

Can you tell these are cacti? We've made a ruling in our house, however. In our house, they are cactuses. Hannah told me, "Mommy, I just REALLY don't like 'cacti'. Saying 'cactuses' is much better." I agree with her. We'll probably refer to octopi as octopuses too.

Hannah is thrilled to have a couple places to climb in our new yard. As you can see, there's a designated space for some animals but we won't be putting anything other than our little monkeys in there for now.

Emmett has lots of room to ride his car. He likes that the driveway slants a bit.

Watching a line of ants bring crumbs to their colony. It just never gets old. I wonder where the crumbs came from :)

They've discovered a bunch of vegetables growing in the yard. Here they are digging out carrots.

Who can resist a fresh batch of play-dough - especially with all the fun tools we brought from America! Hannah made a coral reef (also a subject that never gets old) and Emmett is in a maze phase. He's constantly asking us to make mazes for his cars to go through. Fortunately, his sister is patient (more patient than his mom) and is generally happy to make them for him. It seems that when I make them - they are either way too hard or way too easy and then a lot of whining ensues. The previous phase was building tunnels - Hannah was also better at this too. At least someone around here can get it right :)

Back in the swing of things

They made paper snakes and held them above a heater while learning about how heat rises. The snakes turned around and around - they loved it.

Already green grass growing in the mountains. I even found some mint. The kids love getting out like this.

A walkway in our neighborhood. Perfect for Emmett to drive his car on. His sister does a good job of keeping an eye on him.

We've been back in our home in Tajikistan for three weeks now. Jet-lag is a distant memory (thankfully) and we've got a decent schedule going. The weather has been really mild for winter. We've had just as many days in the 60s as we've had in the 40s and pretty good electricity to boot. Hannah enjoys making mud cakes outside as often as she can and Emmett is perfectly happy riding his "car" around. He's funny - he can't stand his hands getting messy or his shirt getting wet but he'll tear through mud puddles on that car, totally disregarding how muddy his pants and feet get.
We've been doing school for the last two weeks and Hannah really loves it. Even Emmett likes to be part of some of the reading, the science and memorizing scripture - otherwise he stays close by, building train tracks and mazes for his cars to go through.
I'm enjoying home-schooling too. I really like the curriculum (Sonlight). It has a lot of reading involved in it and explores all the people of the world. She's already been learning about Ancient Egypt and can find it on the map and sees where things are in relationship to our two homes: Seattle and Tajikistan. After one of the stories we read about two girls returning to India to volunteer, we were supposed to talk about what it's like to go to another country and think about anyone we know who maybe went to another country. Well, I obviously had to modify that discussion subject so that it would be more relevant to her. I asked her what she thinks about going to other countries, if it's scary or exciting or what. She said she liked going to other countries and that it's not scary at all. We talked about what's good about going to other countries and she was quick to point out that we get to learn some other languages when we go somewhere else. I informed her that not every kid her age has been to other countries. She looked confused. I told her, "certainly many of your Tajik friends haven't been to another country but even some of your friends from preschool in America haven't been to another country." Her response was shock, "No! That's IMPOSSIBLE!" I left out the tidbit about it being generally difficult to travel with small children and that most people in their right mind save that for when the kids are a bit older.
Rees presses on with the opening of the new business, Trade 41. This name comes from the well-known Tajik proverb: "Forty skills/trades for a man is still few." They got official permission from the Ministry of Education to begin classes after many months of hard work figuring things out by our coworkers who have been in the country this fall - way to go guys! They start their English classes on Monday and hope to add other classes like Russian, German, accounting, computers, sewing, etc to the mix as they go. Our local friends and acquaintances are still adjusting to the fact that Trade 41 is a totally different business. At this point, there is no option for reduced tuition and stuff like that and the cost for classes, though still a great price, is more expensive than it was when offered by a non-profit. When people ask us why Millenium is gone, we frequently refer to the Chinese Bazaar that had been here for years. It was a huge area of freight containers lined up in rows where textiles were sold - not as crazy and crowded as the big bazaar. It was run primarily by Uyghurs (from Western China) and Uzbeks and, of course, some Tajiks. Well apparently it was still there, business as usual, one day during the fall and suddenly the next day - it was totally gone. Freight cars and all. There's a new bazaar just on the way out of town and there's been all kinds of scandals surrounding getting people to move their business from the old bazaar and Chinese bazaar to the new one (which is owned by a family member of the president). I explain Millenium's closure to the moving of the Chinese Bazaar. "You know how it is, it was there one day and the next it wasn't. If someone with power wants something to be moved or closed, it will be." People immediately understand that. They don't understand the court-case and all that, but they do understand how people in power get to decide how things work (or don't). Another example is the huge, black SUV I saw zooming (totally wrecklessly) up and down the middle of one of the main roads that goes by our apartment. There were some young men driving in it and they'd zip right past a group of four policemen each time. The policemen did nothing. I was out on the sidewalk talking to a neighbor and mentioned that those boys could kill someone and that they were zooming right past a whole group of policemen and why didn't they at least tell them to slow down. She said (translated), "Oh they won't stop a car like that. They know someone important must own it." And so that's they way things go, but I digress...
Our biggest news is that we found a house we'll be moving into in the next few weeks. It's in a great location and we were surprised to find it so quickly. Actually, our handyman found it for us and helped negotiate our lease. We'll post pictures once we take some.
As for me and the bun in the oven - we are doing well. I can't believe how uncomfortable I've gotten so early. This kid is taking up plenty of room inside already and I already have to heave myself up from wherever I'm sitting with some effort. On the positive side - I'm not swollen at all and though I wouldn't say I have a lot of energy - I have energy sufficient for each day. We still plan to go to Chiang Mai, Thailand in early May and have this baby (due June 3rd) there.
Thanks for your faithful prayers, thoughts and encouragement. We love to hear from you too. 

Sumaya

There are moments in life that you feel the air around you deflate and an otherwise happy or at least neutral moment gets crushed under the weight of reality. They happen to everyone everywhere but I sure feel like they happen a lot more frequently here. Tragedy is just easier to come by in poor countries.
Today we had one of those moments - the kind that will prick sadness inside us whenever we remember. We have been back in Tajikistan for a week now and we headed out to the village to see our Tajik family. For those who are new to this blog - we lived with a local family who knew no English for one month when we first got here. They have become like family to us and we refer to their village as "our village" when we talk about it. They have been so patient with us from the get-go with learning Tajik and learning cultural do's and don'ts. They've also been a great source of counsel when we've needed local advice about situations that have come up in the neighborhood. In our Tajik family's house there is our Tajik mom and dad. We call our mom "Khola-jon" and our dad "Muallim-jon." The kids call them "Moma" and "Bobo" which means grandma and grandpa respectively. We have 5 brothers - the oldest is Rees' age and all except the youngest have kids. The youngest is getting married this spring. There are also two sisters but they live with their husbands and mother-in-laws. The brother Rees is closest with is named Jamshed and he's been a great help with language since we got to Tajikistan, not to mention someone that Rees generally just enjoys hanging out with. His wife's name is Sanovbar and she grew up across the street and hoped she would someday marry Jamshed - isn't that cute? In this household, there are nine kids - not to mention the random nieces and nephews and other grand kids that are over on any given day. When we left for the states - we had four little nieces and nephews that were just barely a year old. We were excited to see all the kids when we arrived today. We knew they'd all grown and I really couldn't wait to see Jamshed's daughter, Sumaya. She's so much like him already - always moving, always taking in her surroundings and just a wiry little thing. I figured she'd probably seem like she'd grown the most and she'd be running around everywhere (she had barely taken her first step when we left). We walked into the gate and kissed all the kids and family and I quickly scanned the ground to see which little ones were running around. I saw the littlest boy, Yakub, and he was walking around no problem. I turned to Sanovbar - still with a smile on my face, happy to see them all again - and asked, "Where's Sumaya? Is she so big now? Is she running around?" and it was like the air froze over.  Sanovbar couldn't say anything and my other sister-in-law said "she left" and made a sign like washing her hands over her face - a sign people make at the end of a prayer and when referring to someone who died. Sanovbar just stood next to me with tears streaming down her face and everyone was frozen - there were no other words to say. All I could do was hold Sanovbar and say, "Oooooooh noooooooo" - I know, no magical, soothing words here, but what can you say when you realize someone's 1 1/2 year old just died? Apparently back in September she got sick like a cold but her mouth turned white and was covered with sores and the cold wouldn't improve. They went to the doctor who gave them a salve for her mouth that helped but told them they needed to have her blood tested. The tests came back showing abnormalities in her white blood cells consistent with leukemia. They took her to the main hospital in Dushanbe (the capital city) and they confirmed the diagnosis and offered some treatment but more or less told them that they just didn't have anything that would cure her. They told them that in America and other countries they are able to do more research and at least offer clinical trials and stuff like that but that there's really nothing much that can be done. The brothers were insistent that there must be a mistake and so they took Sumaya to multiple different doctors but all came back with the same terrible news. They took her home and Moma and Bobo slept right by her all the time. She slowly stopped being able to walk and they kept spoon feeding her water and a little bit of food but she slowly stopped taking it til one day she was just gone. That was just a month ago. There is, as expected, still a great cloud of sadness that hangs over our family and, of course, Rees and I are just now processing all of this. I worked in oncology for 7 years before coming here so I'm acquainted with worst-case-scenarios that happen to good people who are too young, or in their prime, or have just gotten a second chance at life somehow or who are newly retired after working so hard their whole lives and are ready to pursue some new dreams. It's always awful when these things happen and I have to say that you just never get accustomed to it. It's always desperately sad.
I always liked the name "Sumaya" (Soo-mai-YAH) and I remember sitting around talking to my sister-in-laws one day (before Sanovbar was even pregnant with her) and they were asking me what Tajik names I like. I told them for a girl I really like "Sumaya" and for whatever reason they really liked that I liked that name. When she was born, Sanovbar and Jamshed asked the oldest sister-in-law what she should be named and she said, "Sumaya." I definitely didn't hide my approval of that name :). Every child is precious - it's not just a cliche. Sanovbar was so excited to have a daughter and I thought I'd post some pictures of Sumaya here.

Sumaya and her mom, Sanovbar. She was a tiny, fussy, baby - you know the kind that needed to be held and bounced and all that. She was so little, though, that your arms rarely got tired.

I'm trying to get her to fall asleep in my lap so her mom can get some stuff done. This is one of the first times that Hannah came over and kissed a baby just because she wanted to - not because anyone encouraged her too.

Finally starting to fall asleep.

She's just turned one and is still a tiny girl but she's active and makes us all work to get smiles. Holding her made Rees start to want another baby girl.

Emmett holds her every chance he gets. I have another picture where her head is lower than her feet while he's holding her and you can tell she remembers how this guy operates and is unsure.