Over that past few days, several of the people we were in training with in Colorado have written blogs or shared articles about the challenges that come with moving to another country. It doesn't matter where you go, it is just hard to assimilate into another world, another culture. When we first got here, everything was exhausting to us. Some stuff still is now. People would always ask us what we did and why we were so tired and some days our answer was as simple as "we went to the grocery store." Of course, it took over 3 hours, but still a trip to the store is not usually so tiring. But it is when it is different. And overwhelming. And you don't quite get how to do the exchange rate so you end up buying over $30 worth of chicken (not that this happened to us or anything!). Everyone looks different than you. Speaks differently (and we live somewhere where English is spoken regularly). They know how the systems work and they move through them with ease. While you as just trying to get by. The newness and cultural overload left us so incredibly tired. Ten hours of sleep a night was not nearly enough. Working short days would feel like you combined 2 days into one. Sometimes just getting in the car and arriving at work was draining.
But now....we do many of these things with a great deal of ease. We have a few grocery stores we frequent and we know where things are and what we like and what we don't. We have a butchery we go to. We can even split up at the store and shop alone to get our list finished a little faster. We can drive to work even when the road we normally travel is unexpectedly closed. We can find our way around town with a little help from a map. All these things make us feel so great most days. There has been such improvement. such transformation since we got here. Just the other day they closed a road and we ended up on some random side road down by the river-a place I am pretty sure we didn't need to be, but once we got back on the main road, I said to Tim, "hey, I didn't even freak out when we were lost!" That is huge improvement! Even with all of this there is so much more to learn. Bargaining is a huge part of buying things here and we have a huge fruits and veggie market down that block, but we haven't gone yet. We just aren't ready to bargain for everything. One thing at a time. It's a marathon, not a sprint.
A typical day for us is getting up, getting ready, and leaving for work. Not unlike in the U.S. we still prefer sleep to breakfast, so I grab some hot tea and we both get some small snack to eat at work. Then we head to work. It takes about 10 minutes to get there which is so great. We have to drive through the outskirts of the slums, so Tim is avoiding people, animals, cars, potholes, etc. I consider it success when we make it to work unscathed. For the past few weeks, we have been sitting in the admin office sorting and processing letters, gifts, and thank you cards. This past Friday, we got our new desks and saw our offices. I am with some great women. One is the head teacher, another is the supervisor of social work and others work for Human Resources. Tim is in the Spiritual Development office. We have yet to sit at our desks and work as we are at home this week waiting for some work to be done in our house. We are having a fundi (or skilled worker, in this case a dude who sews) come to our home and recover our couch cushions. Our couch is a hand-me-down and we really like it, but the covers are very worn so we needed them done and really want them to look like "us". We have spent a good portion of the past 3 days waiting for the fundi to show up (another cultural experience :) But we can't wait to see the end result.
Thanks to those of you who have been constantly praying for our transition. I really think it is grasping a hold of the small things that will give longevity to our lives here. God has been so gracious to us as we have adjusted. It hasn't even been 3 months and we feel so comfortable at work, getting to work, at home, at the store, etc. We are making friends and have been able to easily keep in touch with family and friends who are far away. We are really beginning to feel as though we are developing a new normal. So those prayers for things that don't seem like much have been both answered and huge for us. I can't tell you how great it felt yesterday for us to park on the street and for Tim to go pay a bill and me to head off the opposite way ALONE to shop. Oh, but please don't stop praying for us and our transition. We have only scratched the surface of all there is to learn and to know.
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