DIY

I grew up in a DIY culture.  Not only as I am an American and we tend to have that "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" culture, but also because my mom was a maintenance mechanic for many years and can fix anything.  Her mother's day and Christmas wish list always had tools listed on it.  When we moved to N. CA and bought a small farm, she read up on raising chickens and sheep and we eventually raised pure bred Romneys.  She roofed the barn and the house and she and my step dad did a lot of the work on the addition to the house themselves.  However, she knows her limitations and taught me some valuable lessons over the years.  One, get an expert for electrical stuff and two, sometimes working on a project together with your spouse isn't the best approach.  

Mom also had my brother and I do our own laundry from the time we could reach the knobs on the machine.  We each had our chores and learned to clean our rooms at an early age.  We weren't allowed to go and play until stuff around the house was done and when we moved to the farm, that included feeding chickens and pigs and collecting eggs.  

My dad managed several air conditioning and refrigeration stores in central California and I remember going to them and helping with inventory and hanging out.  I love the smell of a store like that and going to a Home Depot, Lowes or Ace would often remind me of him.

I was excited when my husband and my mom "bonded" over power tools in Target the first Christmas we were married.  That was great.  I knew they would like each other, but it was nice to know that they had something to talk about.  They got talking about saws (my mom has a wood shop now and can make really cool stuff) and a few months later Roy got a Japanese saw in the mail from my mom.  It is really nifty but we didn't have much chance to use it in the US.

When I lived in England there were lots of DIY stores.  Brits loved to putter in their gardens and fix up projects in their home.  I was actually rather surprised at the lack of DIY shops where we live now.  Ace Hardware actually has branches here and most shopping areas have a DIY place that sells basic stuff (there are 3 or 4 in the area closest to us), but it seems that much of their stock is household items like cleaning supplies, auto supplies, kitchen gadgets and such.  They have other things like paint, tools, and hardware, but it doesn't have the same feel to it as did places in the US.

So one day I asked Roy if he would please trim the top of the tree outside our gate.  It was headed toward the electrical wires.  We got out the ladder and the Japanese saw from my mom (glad to finally be able to put it to use).  Roy climbed up and began sawing away.  This attracted the attention of our next door neighbor who came out to watch.  He commented that "you Americans and Europeans sure do love to do things yourself.  We just hire someone."  He's right, here in Asia labor is cheap.  It is much easier to hire someone to do it for you than to do it yourself most of the time.  We do have a guy who comes and trims our postage stamp size lawn and asking him to trim the tree would have been easy (and something I did the next time he came), but there is something about the satisfaction of a job well done and knowing that you did it on your own.  

It's one of the reasons I have struggled with getting house help.  Everyone in our neighborhood has some kind of house-help.  Most have foreign maids who live in and do cleaning and cooking.  The houses here (including ours) have a room in the back which is called the "maid's room"  We turned ours into Roy's office.  Each day you see the maids all sweeping the drive out in front of the house.  I've been doing my own.  My friend Barb used to do her own as well until her neighbors asked her to stop because it made them look bad in front of their maids.  Some people have part time help.  I was surprised at how many people in our church have ayahs (kind of like a nanny/maid) who accompany them everywhere.  When I go shopping it is not uncommon to see a woman and her children and the ayah shopping together (and sometimes grandma too).  These aren't nannys for full time working moms, but for stay at home moms.  When we had church camp, I would guess that there were about 6 or 7 ayahs that came along.  We went to dinner the other night and there was a family at the next table including the ayah.  They are a part of the family.  

So being a part of the culture, it seems odd to many people that Roy and I don't have a maid.  We don't have children and it's just the two of us and I kept thinking that it was silly to hire someone to do what I can do myself.  But as life gets busier and we take on more responsibility, I thought it might be nice to occasionally have someone do the stuff I hate - like bathrooms and floors.  Our whole house is either tile, marble or parquet flooring.  With open windows and windy days, it doesn't take long for them to get dirty and since we go barefoot in the house, they need to stay clean.  

So my neighbor and I were chatting and she had just fired her maid and sent her back to her country.  She was looking for another solution rather than a live-in.  She hired Merry Maids for a couple of weeks and then found a lady who did free-lance work. I asked if she could just come for a couple of hours and week and we came to an agreement.  

Wow, what a gift from God.  It is amazing how much just those 3 hours matter.  I remember my mom talking about having someone come in and clean once a week when we were kids and how she loved those days when she'd come home and the house would be clean from top to bottom. This lady is wonderful and does a fabulous job.  I still do lots of housework (the floors still get dirty the other days), but it is so great to have some help with stuff that would take me all day to do and frees me up to do other things that I have responsibility for.  Besides she can do in three hours what would take me 8 and it is really inexpensive.  She is a Christian and a single mom from the Philippines whose daughters are in college.  Give thanks to God for her and how she blesses our family through her service to us.

and etc.

I have always found languages fascinating.  I learned some Spanish as a child from my step-father's mother. She mixed Spanish and English and we would laugh when we'd use one of her words and she wouldn't understand us, but she expected us to know what she meant when she used it.  She would call my mother "Cherry baby" (her name is Sherry), but never knew who when meant if we said it.  We called her brand of Spanish/English, Myrick because that was her last name at the time.  

I learned more Spanish in high school, first from a Cuban and then was re-taught much of what I learned the next year by the new teacher who had studied in Spain - there is a huge difference.  Most Spanish speakers consider Cuban spanish as the least refined.  Having lived in Mexico, people from other Spanish speaking regions can tell that I speak Mexican Spanish because of the way I say my "j" and "ll".  It is unique to that region.

In college I took 4 semesters of French rather than one semester of statistics.  I still think it was a good choice.  Then I traveled in Italy, Romania, and Poland picking up words here and there.  All of this helped me to understand the cultures I was visiting much better.  I think everyone should learn at least 10 words for every new country they visit.  

Somewhere in there I moved to the American South and learned a whole new version of English.  Colleagues talked about "mashing" buttons on the phone, spoke with a soft drawl and said y'all a lot.  I picked it up and soon my mother was making fun of me saying "Etlanna" for Atlanta.  But none of my southern friends would have ever mistaken me as someone from the south.  They considered me a Yankee even though I clarified and said I was a California girl.   (yes, my mother had to break me of saying "like" and "you know" all then time as a teenager growing up in the San Fernando Valley).

When I moved to England, I had to learn a whole new vocabulary.  Rubbish for trash, lorry for truck, you "overtake a car" not pass it.  Living in East London I had a hard time understanding the vegetable vendor when he would shout "pound a bowl!"  (meaning 1 british pound for a bowl of veggies).  Most of the teens in the area added "innit" to the end of their sentences.  

So now I live in Asia and have to learn a whole different English.  Roy and I are constantly amazed at how people can make a verb out of any noun.  Instead of the East London "innit" or the Canadian "eh", people here add "lah" onto the end of some sentences.  Not every sentence.  There are specific rules, although we don't know them all.  We do know that you say, "okay, lah" but not "thank you lah".  Our cell group even got Roy a t-shirt with "how to use the lah" on it.  

When you go to a fast food place in the US, they ask you if it is for "here" or "to go".  In the UK, they ask if you are "eating in" or "take away".  Here, they ask if you are "having in."  Our friend asked one evening if he could "follow" us to the restaurant we were all going to after church.  We said sure, thinking he would drive his car behind us, but realized he didn't have a car.  "Follow" here is used when you want to ride in someone's car with them!  You "fetch" people when you agree to pick them up from their home.  Someone might ask you to "off the lights" when they want you to turn them off.  My new favorite was overheard just a couple of nights ago.  Someone was telling a story about driving and said that someone "horned" her.  I thought of "horning in on a conversation" and considered that maybe this guy ran into her, but no, he honked his horn at her!  

Often when you ask someone if they can do something, they will say, "Can, lah" or "Cannot, lah".  Tak boleh, lah is "cannot lah" in the local language and one of my favorite phrases.  

Many people ask us if we will learn the local language and we do want to.  We have learned quite a few vocabulary words - probably about 150 by now. But first I think we need to learn the local English!  

PS:  Regarding the title of this entry, many people here use "and, etc." in their written correspondence not realizing that it is repetitive.  

Home Economics

Our friends Ian and Darlene home school their four children.  They wanted the older girls to have some home ec classes and Darlene can do some of that at home, but I have an oven (not a standard option in most houses here).  So, I volunteered to teach the girls baking.  

Our first class was chocolate chip cookies and sugar cookies (including decorating).  Never take on two different types of cookies when you are teaching kids - stick with something simple.  One thing at a time. Lesson learned.  The cookies turned out great even if it took two or three times as long.  

Our second lesson was dinner for the family.  We set up a system where the girls would come twice a month and do baking one week and then on the other week make dinner for their family.  We decided to do breakfast for dinner and made scrambled eggs, pancakes, and bacon.  

I let the girls choose a tablecloth, napkins and place mats for everyone.  We picked out which dishes to use and talked about forks and knives and where they go on a table.  Roy showed them how to fold napkins.  The table looked lovely.  The girls got proficient at cracking eggs and flipping pancakes.  Here are a couple of photos.   

A few weeks later it was one of the girls' birthday.  She is taking ballet so I told her we'd do a ballet shoes cake.  I had seen one in a cake book.  I cut out the shape and then let her do the decorating herself.  It turned out pretty nice!  (although we both ended up with pink food coloring all over our hands and the counter!)

Of course their youngest sister wanted to help with this too, but since she is just four, it seemed prudent to wait on her formal lessons.  But I did buy a cookie mix that just needed water and the next time I babysat just her, she and I "made" cookies.  She had a blast and it was quite simple to show her how to scoop the batter onto the cookie sheet.  They weren't quite as good as from scratch but she had fun and felt like she was like the older girls.  She keeps asking about when we can make cookies again.  

Roy and I love being Aunty and Uncle to these kids.  It can be overwhelming sometimes (4 at once) but we do enjoy them and hope to build good lasting relationships with each one.  

Seasons

My mom asked me about seasons - does it ever change or is it always the same?  What about the sun rising and setting?  Surely there is some change because of the rotation of the earth's axis, etc.  

So I did some research and discovered the following:

The official sunrise in June is 7:06 a.m. and in December it is 7:15 a.m!  The longest day is 12 hours and 18 minutes and the shortest day is 11 hours and 56 minutes.  The temperature is always between 88 and 91 for the high and 73 to 75 for the low (this doesn't include the heat index or what it really feels like).  It was 90 the other day and felt like 103 but there was a breeze and we didn't turn on the air con until about 2:00 p.m. because we had the ceiling fans going.  

The rainiest months are November and April with over 11 inches.  October is pretty high too.  "Cool" weather comes in November and December (we're talking 88 instead of 90).  March is the warmest month.  

But for the most part things stay the same day to day.  

We were in the US recently and got to see a bit of the leaves changing color.  That was very cool.  I think I miss fall the most.  I like waking up with that crisp feeling in the air.  But, I'm glad we are here too and I can always crank up the air con and make it feel really cold.  

Eid

Today is the beginning of Eid, or Hari Raya as it is called here.  September has been the month of fasting - or Ramadan for Muslims.  They begin their fast about 5:30 each morning after an early breakfast and then don't take water or food again until the evening - generally about 7:15 in our area, although it changed a bit each day.  About 60% of the population are Muslim, so you noticed the difference when you went out at lunch time.  The restaurants were usually only filled with Chinese, Indians and Westerners like us.  Occasionally there were Muslim mothers with children since those under 12 usually don't fast.  Dinner was an interesting experience.  You needed to get to a restaurant and order before 7ish in order to get your food in a timely fashion.  The Muslim families would come and pre-order and then their food was delivered right at the time when they could break the fast.  Restaurants often provided complementary dates and a refreshing drink which is how the fast is broken.  If you came too late to a restaurant, you run the risk of a) not getting a table and/or b) not getting your food until every Muslim in the restaurant had been served.  They had been fasting and therefore were a priority customer.

So, fasting ended last night and we heard fireworks late in the evening as people celebrated.  There were special prayers at the mosques and the PM gave a speech on the television.  Ramadan begins and ends with the sighting of the new moon, so there was official confirmation of the sighting on TV as well.

Today begins a long holiday weekend.  The tradition is for everyone to go to their home town and visit family.  All month long people have been buying new clothes and decorating their homes.  There are special cookies to be baked and also charity to give.  It is said that there is a special blessing to give during Ramadan.  

The roads were almost empty tonight when we went out to dinner. It was like Christmas Day or Thanksgiving.  Lots of shops are closed and of course the post office and banks.  Tomorrow will be the same.  Some folks will be off on Friday as well.  So it is a really long weekend.  Most of our friends have gone to see family and many of the students as well.  

It is interesting to observe the traditions and holidays.  I'm so used to not having a big holiday until November and December.  But here there is Ramadan and then Diwali will be at the end of October (Indian festival of lights).  There will be another Eid in 70 days which is right after the Hajj in Mecca.  Christmas isn't really a big holiday, but Chinese New Year will be in late January and that is always a big celebration.  More on these as we experience them!   

BBQ and Birthday Bash

As I mentioned in the other post - we celebrated Roy's birthday with our community group from church and combined it with other birthdays and the Chinese Mid-Autumn festival.  The See family who host our community group each week had 3 birthdays in September as well, so it was quite a fun evening.  Mr. See fired up the grill and we BBQd chicken wings and sausages.  People brought all kinds of good food - fried rice (not like what you get at a Chinese take away shop in the US!), fried noodles, a japanese soup, salads, fresh fruit and satay with spicy peanut sauce.  

We hung up lanterns with little candles insides.  One caught on fire, but was quickly put out!  

We sang happy birthday to Roy, Aaron, Sue Ann, Jen Ann, and Aunty...

And then we played games.  Our CG loves to play games and Roy and I have a bunch that we brought with us from the US.  Previously, we tried Cranium with the group, but ran into problems with too many cultural references that others didn't get.  Like when Roy had to imitate someone and I was the only one who understood, "And that's the way it is." (said in a gruff voice like a news anchor). Unfortunately for Roy, I was on the other team.  So this night we brought some other games - like Set, Apples to Apples and Catch Phrase.  Oh wow!  We had a blast.  It was so much fun.  It is a great blessing to have such a wonderful group of friends here.  

Roy's Birthday Cake

Roy's birthday is September 13 which this year fell on the same weekend as the Mid-Autumn Festival/Lantern Festival/Mooncake Festival in the Chinese calendar.  September is also a big birthday month for our community group, so the group decided to have a big BBQ to celebrate everything at once.  (see other blog for more on that).  So, my friend Hannah and I got to talking and decided to combine forces to make a spectacular birthday cake.  She has been taking a cake decorating class and wanted to try her hand at fondant (thick paste of sugar and water that covers cakes and makes them look smooth). I would make the cake.  We met and my house about 11 a.m. and started the work. It took 6 hours!  It was lot of fun and I learned a lot - especially to be very appreciative of those bakers who do this for a living.  Here are some photos of the process!  

Making the daisies:

Daisies drying:
Buttercream frosting first to make a good contact area for the fondant:
We used the leftover cake batter to make cupcakes for each birthday person (there were 7!)  We colored the buttercream frosting yellow to match the fondant on the cake.
Hannah rolling out the fondant.  The cake was two layers and each one is done separately.
Attaching the daisies with gum paste.
Ta Da!  The finished product: