Thanksgiving

Last night we joined with the downstairs missionary neighbors and provided dinner for three members of the branch who don’t have a lot.  We pooled our food and served them a nice meal.  We were then asked to speak in Church this Sunday, which gave us only today to prepare, so we will see how it goes!

Some of the vocabulary is quite different than at home.  For example, a flat is an apartment; a signal light is called a robot; the trunk of a car is called the boot; a shopping cart is called a tram; the glove compartment is called a cubby; gymnastics is called monkeynastics,etc.  So even though we speak English, there are lots of things to learn.

We live in a nice part of town.  Some homes are definitely first world plus—those with lots of money, but we don’t have to travel too far to see where the average people live.  For the most part, their homes are about 12 feet by 12 feet, with no running water or inside bathrooms.  They carry water, usually on their heads, from a common location to their home.  They have outhouses, some for individual families and some which it appears are shared between more than one family.  Most do not have a car so one sees people walking long distances along the highways, sometimes carrying hoes or other tools to do their work. 

We have visited three villages about 30 km from our home so far.  They are beautiful areas, some of which of homes which go all the way up hillsides.  Roads are good and well-marked to the center of towns, but many of the village roads are then dirt.  A lot of the roads are unnamed, including one on which our church is located.  With no maps and no road names, it is hard to find one’s way around.  The mission has promised us a GPS, but they have run out of them so we are currently doing without.  I did bring my little hiking GPS.  It has no roads, but if someone takes us to a location, I can at least record our path and then retrace the road at a later time.  That has helped a little.

Our purpose in visiting these three villages was to meet with the branch presidents and assess seminary and institute for the coming year.  The results have varied greatly, depending on the number of youth, distance they need to walk, etc.  Some branches have satellite groups which meet at different areas to deal with the lack of transportation.  We have been very well received by all of the leaders so far.  We will meet with one more branch president on Sunday and then next week we will need to travel about 1.5 hours to visit the last one.

School starts in January, quite different from the states.  They have a 12 grade system as we do, but lack much in their classes.  Typical class size is about 60, and they have no computers or laboratories to study science or any technical things.  They cannot graduate from school until they pass a test successfully.  We met with a young man last night who was 23 and still working to pass his last test.  He then plans on going on a mission.

Our interviews to day have identified about 10 young people who are candidates for help from the Perpetual Education Fund.  We will be getting deeper in our role for the PEF in the near future.

All major buildings, including where we live, have bars on the windows and high walls to protect from intruders.  Most of the high walls or fences have barbed wire, sharp metal spears or electrical wires to further deter intrusion.  It’s amazing to see the variety of barriers used.

The stores seem to have a very good variety of fruits and vegetables.  We are gradually trying a few new things.  Many stores in the cities are very modern and include a large variety of things to buy.  Gasoline is about $1.50 per liter which equates to $5.60 per gallon.   A 14% tax is added automatically to everything one buys.  Since it is generally included in the price, one does not think too much about it.

We were wrong when we told you it was Wednesday when we had our Thursday thanksgiving chats.  We are ten hours ahead of you which means it was also Thursday here when we talked.  We are going to cook thanksgiving dinner, along with the other couple here, for 4 sets of missionaries on Monday (tomorrow).  We will have turkey and some of the usual things like potatoes, gravy, salads, etc.

Today we finished putting screens on the windows.  We must leave the windows open to keep from getting too hot, but they have no screens.  We bought some screen, thumbtacks and tape and improvised as best we could.  Now we are waiting to see if the mosquitoes can still get in.

We have been taking a daily walk for 30-60 minutes to try to keep ourselves in better physical condition.  We do this usually about 7am.  Each day we travel a different part of the neighborhood or walk downtown to get to know our way around a little better.  There are lots of people walking at that time—either going to work or to school.