Just Say . . . no?

That's a popular slogan at home, where it is actually quite easy and normal to just come right out and say no to people. Here . . . it's not so easy! Here's what I mean . ..

Let's say you're in a restaurant and the waiter asks you if you want more tea. What's the correct answer? "Thank you." Actually it becomes a series of several thank you's (said in different ways) all put together.

Or if asked by your hostess if you want something to drink instead of saying no or thank you, you might say a word that means "there isn't any" - confused yet?

And if those don't come to mind, you can just use the negative verb form which means "I'm not doing whatever it is you just asked me if I want to do." Still, the word "no" is not technically in the sentence.

And then tonight we learned another from some friends . . . imagine you're talking to a loved one or friend and you ask or say something that the other person disagrees with or disapproves of. He/she might just look at you, raise their eyebrows, tilt their head back slightly, and click their tongue at you - all at the same time. No words necessary but a little more complicated than our head shake!! Actually I do remember them telling us that the head shake comes before the other things.

After I've said all of that . . . there is a word for no, but it is used sparingly and very casually - it's not something to just be thrown around and said to just anyone - at least if you don't want to offend them when they're offering something to you.

So, there you have it, there really is a fine line between no and thank you. And we're trying not to cross it!!

What's happening to my brain?

While attempting to learn a foreign language, I've noticed a few strange things happening in my mind . . .

1. I sometimes dream in this foreign language. Weird, huh?
2. I often can't think of words I know I've learned in this foreign language.
3. I sometimes can't think of words in English.
4. I sometmes can't think of what a word would translate into English, even when it looks and sounds basically the same as its English counterpart.

Let me give you an example of number 4 . . . Today I received an email from a new local friend (in her native language, of course). I tried and tried to translate this little one and a half line message, and I got stuck on one sentence. I couldn't find the words in the dictionary, so I decided to call an English-speaking friend to help. When I called there happened to be 4 English speakers at her house (and 3 out of the four also know this foreign language). I read the sentence to her and she repeated it for the others. They translated most of the words, but there was one word that no one could figure out. We all discussed it, and the only thing they could come up with was that it was the name of a specific place downtown my friend wanted to meet at. Well, after several minutes of discussion, it dawned on me that the word is an abbreviation of the word internet. Now, how many English-speakers should it take to figure that out?! It was so obvious!!

So there you go . . . I guess these brains of ours can only hold so much before they start to sift out the old to make room for the new!!

The Chronicles of Titus

Several people have asked about Titus and how he's doing these days, so we thought it would be fun to devote an entry to just that . . . he's really given my (Melissa's) parents an education in "obedience training," if you know what I mean!!

Where to begin?! I suppose the first thing that pops into my mind is that Titus has taken on the reputation of Houdini. Not long after we moved overseas, it seemed that things were going along very smoothly for Titus until . . . one day my dad came home to find Titus loose in the yard. He soon discovered that Titus has somehow found a few weak links in the kennel panel and had successfully pushed the panel up 2-3 feet so that he had enough room to escape. My dad found some wire and repaired the weak area, only to come home the following day and find Titus out again!! Well, thankfully, a few pieces of plywood later, Titus has not escaped again . . . at least not from the kennel . . .

My parents have a camper, which Titus LOVES to stay in, and they decided that before they took their Christmas trip to the beach they would try to train him to ride in the cab of the truck without his pet carrier. My dad went to PetSmart and bought a harness to fit him, hooked Titus up to the seat belt, and took him on a few short trips around the neighborhood. He did great!! He was ready for his trip! (Mark and I had tried to train him to ride in our car without his pet carrier, but he freaked out everytime. We're so proud of them for getting him to do this so well!) On the morning of their trip to the beach, I called them to see how Titus was doing with the harness. My mom told me that he was trying to take it off and chew off the wooly stuff attached to make it soft on his chest. I asked how far they had gotten . . . she told me they were barely out of their neighborhood!! And can you believe that while I was talking to her, he actually escaped from that thing?!!!! Unbelievable!! No one knows for sure how he managed to get it off, but he did. I guess he has something against wool because after getting out of it, he started gnawing off all of the wooly stuff. Fortunately, he did great the rest of the trip, even without the harness. Houdini again!!

Here he is chewing all of the wolly stuff off of the harness after he escaped from it.

Remember the kennel incident? Well, one day when my dad was walking Titus out in the yard, a neighbor came by with her 4 dogs for her daily walk. Titus was trying his best to get to those dogs, and my dad was trying his best to keep Titus from getting to the dogs. The lady finally told my dad that it was OK and that her dogs and Titus had met before. Of course, my dad was trying to figure out when since either he or my mom are always with Titus if he's outside. Have you figured out when they met?! You got it . . . on one of his Houdini days she came by with her dogs and Titus ran out to greet them. For any of you who know Titus you're probably wondering how that went. She said he was very "gentlemanly" and never left the yard. He sniffed, they sniffed, and all was well. My dad was able to stand and talk while Titus visited with the other dogs for 20 minutes or so. Amazing!!

Titus has also learned how to weasle his way into my dad's lap - apparently, all it takes is an apple.

This is after Titus helped my dad finish off an apple. He says Titus tries to "sneak" into his lap, but how in the world does a 70 pound dog really "sneak"?

Just what do you imagine he's thinking here?!

Maybe . . . "Could I have a Scooby-sized snack to go?"

And just what does any puppy dog want to do at the end of a long, hard day? That's right . . . a nice long nap on the bed! You know . . . it's hard playing Houdini and being so doggone cute!

Well, that's all of the chronicles of Titus for now . . . Stay tuned for more in the coming weeks!!!

Another "first"

Well, today I made up my mind I was ready to have my first international haircut. Mark's had several - of course, all he does is buzz his with his Braun! For me, it seemed to be a little intimidating. However, it needed to be done, and there's no time like the present to get it done, right?! That's what I thought, too!

I had spent the morning cleaning up around the house, reading, sorting through receipts, etc., so I was ready to get out of the house. The sun was shining - it looked beautiful outside!! As I was finishing getting dressed my doorbell rang. It was my friend "across the hall" inviting me to go with her to the outdoor bazaar. I told her that I wanted to get my haircut, and she said OK, we'll go to the bazaar, then, we'll go get your hair cut. (Or something like that - I only caught about every 3rd or 4th word!) What a blessing!! Off we went . . .

We stopped by a friend's apartment to meet her, and we all walked through the bazaar together. Again, someone was showing me the ropes. (I bought a shirt for $1!! We'll see how long it lasts, huh?) After walking through the bazaar, we started to make our way to the beauty salon - we walked up, up, up, uphill for a long time only to run into one of the guys that works at the shop and find out they couldn't do it today. Then we walked halfway back down the hill to check out another place - all full there, too. Then we ran into another guy from the first salon, and he said he could cut my hair. Back up the hill we went!!

Well, the haricut experience itself was not so bad. My friends gave me a book to look through, which helped with explaining what I wanted. However, what can you choose when all of the choices look like they came from the latest sci-fi movie?! At last I found a normal looking one, all the while wondering how they could possibly make it look sci-fi-ish. One guy washed, conditioned, and brushed my hair. Another guy cut my hair. Another guy dried/styled my hair. And what do you know . . . by the time he was finished I looked pretty wind-blown!! At least it wasn't sci-fi though! After walking around in the cold air for a while it settled down into a nice looking hairdo. We'll see what I can make of it tomorrow morning!!

Oh yeah, it cost less than $10 AND they served hot tea during my hair cut!! The guy even stopped cutting every now and then so that I could take a sip. Any of you ladies ever had an experience quite like that before?! I suppose it's one worth repeating!

What's Happening?

Well, that's a loaded question! The stories below consist of events that I consider to be a series of little victories that, when all bundled together, make for a very successful week!

1 - I finally was able to host a coffee/tea at our home!! It took the women getting together and deciding what day and time they wanted to come. They practically invited themselves - all 13 of them!! It turned out to be a great time. Two of my friends made the coffee and tea, helped answer the door, made sure all the guests were comfortable seated, etc. They did a great job showing me the ropes!! The next time around, I'll probably have a bigger responsibility, but I bet I'll still get some help. The women all live in our apartment complex, and they all pitched in to purchase a couple of really nice housewarming gifts for us. Of course, it seems every story has a little glitch - this one is no different. I thought I had ruined my cookie recipe the night before. Well, it was 10:30 when I started the cookies - for two hours before I was making muffins! Anyway. . .when I looked at the recipe I saw baking soda and 2 tsp., so I added 2 tsp. of baking soda. When I looked back at the recipe I noticed that it was 2 tsp. of baking powder and 1/4 tsp. of baking soda!! And I had doubled the recipe already!!! I didn't know if the cookies would flop or harden, so I decided to try at least one batch. They got really fluffy and soft - like a tea cake. The women loved them! Even our mistakes can result in success when in the right Hands!!

2 - Mark and I bought an "assemble it yourself" chair a few weeks ago when we traveled to a city a few hours away. When we put two of the pieces together the wood splintered. We could sit in it, but we had to be extra careful, so we decided we would try to exchange the chair for a new one - there's the same store an hour or so away. Yesterday we ventured out to see if we could get it done. It all started with getting the car filled with gas. Well, it snowed some last week, so we decided that after filling up with gas we would get the car washed in an automatic washer thing. Mark pulled up to it, got out to put money in the machine, and he found that the thing doesn't accept money. He went inside the gas station and got the man to come help. It took 3 men and opening the electrical box on the side of the washer to get it started, but start it did! (I started feeling a little claustrophobic watching the big brush things rolling over the windshield, but nothing came crashing through the window!) We made it on to the nearby city only to realize that I couldn't remember how to get to the shopping center (I had been there once before - but in my defense I was on a bus the first time and didn't have a clear sense of where we were). Mark got off the freeway and wound us through some back alleys. Somehow we made it back to a main road and we stopped at a gas station to ask for directions. The man told us that it was on that same road about 5 km. away. We could hardly believe it - we had wound our way around to the exact road we needed!! We had no map either. We made it to the store, exchanged the chair without incident, and were able to enjoy a nice long walk around the mall. We went into a book store so Mark could look for a map - although we made it to the shopping center, we weren't entirely sure how to get back to the road that leads to home! Of course, they had maps of every other major city in the country, but not for the one we were actually in!! So off we went on another side trip down a few back roads and made our way back to the right road - without a map!

3 - And I'm still trying to "rewrite" recipes so that they work here! My mom makes a delicious Mexican cornbread recipe. I had a taste for it, so I asked her to send the recipe to me. The only thing is that the recipe uses cornmeal, and I can only find corn flour. The batter was extra soupy, so I was scared to see what was going to happen when I baked it - I was convinced it would never solidify! Well, I was surprised to find that it did solidify. It was not cornbread (maybe casserole consistency), but it was very tasty. I'm going to experiment with a couple of changes and see how it works.

OK - that's all the little victories I can think to write about for now. Hope you'll find joy in the little victories in your life today, too!

Several Stories from the other "M"

There are several stories I want to share with you. The first one is that I had an opportunity to snow ski several weeks ago. I went with a few of my co-workers. I haven't skied in several years - not to mention I am not very good - I am okay skiing in NC & VA but when it comes to real mountains like we have here I think the next time I go - I might have to invest in a helmet and extra padding. On the very first hill (which by the way was really steep) I almost fell off the mountain because my foot was coming out of my snow boot - not a good thing when you are trying to ski. Any way the guys went down first and I came later - I thought I was doing pretty good until I wiped out big time. We got down to the bottom of the hill and my friends mentioned that my nose was bleeding (obviously from when I crashed into the snow face first). I had a wonderful time though - even though I was wondering what in the world was I doing on top of these ginormous (huge) mountain. When we got back home I was doing pretty good except for several days I could not raise my right arm above my head because my right shoulder had too much pain - obvious from one of my many crashes.

Story number Two ~ How do we get around our country when we drive? Well I use google earth a whole lot to get some sort of idea where I am going. We had to drive to another city by ourselves for business reasons and you know the day we had to do this - it was snowing. In fact it snowed two days last week. Driving here is somewhat of a defensive sport. They have places where you can pass - but you really don't know if it is your turn to pass or the cars in the opposite direction. The people here are very nice but when they get behind the wheel of a car it's like they become a whole different person. They become impatient and these are some of the most easy going folks I have ever met. So remember us in our travels. Thank you.

I invited a friend of mine to come over this past weekend for a visit. I sent him a text message and I talked to him on the phone in his language (that was pretty fun - he obviously understood what I was saying because he came at the time I had invited him). We ate lunch and dinner together. When you invite folks over to your house for a visit you need to be prepared for a very long visit (like 5-8 hours worth {thanks mom for the help with the correction - I did mean hours}) ~ this is the culture and we love it but remember us to have strength for these visits. During these visits we talk about a lot of different things - it creates opportunities to deepen our relationships with our friends here in this country.

As we have mentioned before I have a friend who owns a furniture store who I go to visit on a regular basis to practice my language. There is a lady that cooks for all the workers of this store and several of the partner stores downtown. When I am there - I am just part of the big family that eats with everyone. I can't really tell you what I have eaten - I just eat it. Most of it is really good. The other day they made this drink out of yogurt, water, and salt. I am not very fond of this particular drink but I can usually get one glass down. Evidently I got my one glass down too quickly because they filled it back up with another one. So I drank that one as well. Needless to say I get fed pretty well.

Merry Christmas = Happy New Year Here

(from the other "m") Merry Christmas equals Happy New Year here in our country. When we celebrate Christmas here in our country the people recognize it as Noel (not Christmas). It was quite interesting to see how the people celebrated the New Year. They had Santa Claus hats, Santa Claus dolls, Christmas trees with lights to ring in the New Year. What a festival of sorts. We just thought we share that bit of information with you.