A good day

Since I can’t afford to spend a lot of time online, I am writing all emails and blog entries on Cat’s computer and saving them to a flash disk to take to the internet cafe. There may be occasions when I won’t get to answer an email for a week or more, and I will probably end up sending multiple emails and posting several blog entries at one time. The moral of the story is, please don’t be put off if updates seem to come in spurts. If you desperately need to contact me, you would be better off calling. If you would like my number or my address here, you can either email me (but we’ve already determined that that’s not the best option in a hurry) or you can get it from my parents, Nikki Hardeman at FBC, Kate O’Rourke, Jamie Barton, or Luda Kwon.

It’s all about the little things in life. I know I’ve already written that once since I’ve been here, and I’m sure that I will write it many more times before June. But that’s just because it’s true. It is not meant to imply that it’s horrible here (because it’s not), but that there are so many little things we take for granted that are unusual here.

A sermon in English, for example. Today a fellow American, Scott Tucker, preached at Living Vine church, translated into Russian by another church member. Until now, the only things I’ve been able to understand are the scriptures, because we can usually discern what book they mean and look it up in our own Bibles. Then the Tuckers invited all the ESI teachers over to their apartment for lunch. We had sweet tea, chicken salad, sandwiches, ICE!!! It was great. Their sons showed us their UGA memorabilia and all their Braves baseball cards (yay for Georgians... they lived in Columbus before they moved here), and I played a very exciting game of chess with the younger one.

Now Cat and I are preparing to go back with laundry... they have a washing machine! I have thus far managed to avoid doing my laundry by hand, but it’s only delaying the inevitable. I actually wouldn’t want to avoid it the entire year even if I could. It’s all a part of the experience. Somehow this even feels like cheating a little bit. But I’ll get over that for right now. I have to teach tomorrow, I don’t have anything but t-shirts left, and it’s raining, which puts a damper in the whole clothes-line plan (quite literally. Oh wow, what a bad pun. Eric Lowery would be so proud... someone should tell him).