So I’m writing this blog post while in the village! Novel thought! Thank goodness for slow, unreliable, yet still existent email while out in the middle of nowhere!
We’re into our third day here in Hamelengan. The first day we came out was a pretty normal day, for a first day. We had a 6:30 am pick up from our house, took off in the helicopter at about 8am, and got to the village about 9. As we were circling to land, Nathan threw up all over himself, and Kaitlyn and Justin were holding bags ready as they were about to lose it too, and Kaitlyn was screaming because of the pain in her ears as we decended. Fun stuff.
We got to the house and the first item of business is always to clean. It’s amazing how in less than 4 months of being away, how much dirt, dust, dead bugs and cockroach poop can accumulate! I try to give the house a good sweep before we move everything in, and then it takes another sweep or two and a mopping before things are fairly normal again. Then it’s disinfecting all the counters, table and shelves and cupboards so I can put all our dishes out, and our food items away (canned goods, food in tupperwares, etc). The stuff that bugs can get into I keep in rubbermaid containers or action packers. Then it’s time to make up all the beds and get all the mosquito nets shaken out and tucked in.
So there’s not really any time to relax, socialize, etc on the first day or so of being in the village. Another joy of moving in is that all the dust and such makes my allergies get really, really bad. =( So all the while I’m sweeping or scrubbing or making beds, I’m sneezing my brains out and dripping snot everywhere. Fun stuff. Last village stay my allergies stayed bad for the entire 7 weeks. So far (in all 3 days now) I’ve just had 1 really bad day. Hopefully that was the worst of it.
Julianne is in her very own “big girl bed” for the first time out here. She’s sharing a bunkbed with Kaitlyn. So far, for two nights out of two, she’s ended up in our bed before the night was out. For some reason, our kids don’t sleep well here in the village, so after I’ve already gotten up 6 times that night, I’m just too tired to do it anymore and bring her in with me. Hopefully that will get better too, over time.
Despite everyone being pretty exhausted, we had to do a little something for Nathan’s birthday (the day we came out). I had made and frozen some Peanut butter cookies (his request) and so we sang happy birthday and ate those and opened a couple presents we brought out with us.
One thing I do to make things a bit simpler during all the craziness of settling in, is that I cook and freeze several meals for our first two days out. Then I don’t have to do anything besides re-heat for the first two days. Usually for lunches I just bring out some bread, pb and j, and cheese, tomatoes, etc for sandwiches. But since it was Nathan’s birthday, I brought out pizza rolls for our first lunch. Then we had chicken pompoms for dinner on Thursday, cinnamon rolls I had made and froze for breakfast on Friday, sandwiches for lunch and then more chicken pom poms for dinner. Today I have to start cooking again! (we’ll have spaghetti, with re-hydrated spaghetti sauce, and re-hydrated meat).
Now things are mostly clean, unpacked and settling into a routine, so there’s lots more time to do stuff like write blog posts! =)
Where is your post. Whay your post is empity.
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