There was once this little baby -- juicy and yummy -- that came to me one morning on November 20th, 2003. We named him

Desmond Paul Jones.

He also goes by Des, Desi, Mr. D, Jonesboy, and Truly Scrumptious.

He was such a baby then, more baby than boy. Just baby – littlelittlelittleinfant. Our first. OH! How the love swirled, family all around us, rejoicing in this newperson. OUR BABY.

This blue-eyed, smile-lover has been with all of us for 5years now. Such a celebration. DPJ coaxed me for months on how he wanted it all to shake down. “Surprise me mom, when I wake up, go and hide and then jump out happy with a box!”

Oh, this boy, this boy. We took him to Pavlodar for a couple of days, stayed in a hotel with a nice hot shower (shower!), ate pizza and Turkish food, went and saw High School Musical 3 (songs and everything in Russian!), took him to a toy store where he picked out a Power Ranger Dinosaur Robot Guy (!?) and really had a fantastic time together. I love my family.

Waking up to a BIRTHDAY display -- a happy ballon ensemble
(Thank you suprise box from NYC friends! Those are your ballons&coloredpaper&Sharpiemarkers!)
with chocolate chip muffincake
(Thankyou Wellings à la Wikles!)

Going a bit crazy with the chocolate -- I also added cut up bits of dried apricots. YUM!

Early morning arrival in Pavlodar -- waiting at the frigid the bus station.

The pizza has arrived! It was sooooo good! (whew)

Our first and consistent friend Rosa, who now lives in Pav, joined us for dinner. It was perfect and they even had Howl’s Moving Castle playing on the nearby television. We felt right at home.

***

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Simkins for the soon to be opened BIRTHDAY BOX (it’s arrived and waiting for us in Astana – we’ll be there on Thursday!)

Thank you Grandma and Grandpa Jones for the BIRTHDAY CARD and all the loving emails. We smiled and smiled and smiled . . .

WE LOVE YOU ALL!!

Once in a blue moon . . . don’t pinch me yet

I have been in a gluttony over post-election media reading. Such soaring, edifying, hopeful analysis. One doesn’t get that very often from the newsy outlets and I’m a girl who loves to find shared, optimistic, happy ideologies in people. I love good news. (Later, later, I will divert reading to the Congo again and mourn for the rest of the world’s people.)

The New York Times published this piece:
Among Young Muslims, Mixed Emotions on Obama
By PAUL VITELLO
Published: November 6, 2008

About a group of students who met recently at NYU to speak of the conflict they felt in supporting Obama because they were Muslim. They wanted to wear the buttons, work for the campaign but wondered if their head scarves or Arabic sounding names would harm the movement and cause spin that would be hurtful to them and the candidate they supported.

We live in a country that has struggled for nearly a decade to delineate and disassociate the ideologies between Islam and terrorism. The students mentioned Colin Powell and what a hero he was when . . .

Answering a question about the candidate’s faith, Mr. Powell said: “Well, the correct answer is [Obama] is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?”

I appreciate how Colin Powell turned that question around – what are you implying by making this a talking topic? Is there something wrong with allowing freedom of worship in this country? Do you fear a person’s faith if it is not your own? (Romney went through a lot of this too. A lot.)

Another paragraph, at the end of the NYTimes article, yields the following:

Mr. McCain’s only supporter in the room, Jameel Merali, a junior studying
hospitality management, said Mr. Obama’s victory was a wonderful thing, though
he still had reservations about his view of economics.

After explaining his understanding of Mr. Obama’s view, and contrasting it with his own [ . . .] Mr. Merali concluded that all in all the system of checks and balances would protect the nation against any intemperate economic decisions the next president might consider.

“That’s the beauty of it,” said Mr. Merali, who was born in Tanzania. “The way it was all set up by our founding fathers.”

Did you catch that? He said OUR founding fathers! We are strangers no more.
(He feels absorbed, he feels represented in this country. This gave me the chills!)

Isn’t it so powerful that one man, one leader, can symbolize so much? And cause such elation across the globe Obama has many things yet address that will likely bring more substance to people – you know, policies and stuff – but right now I feel he’s managed to accomplish something policy makers can hardly aspire to, just by being himself. The margins and the center of the population are standing shoulder to shoulder, we are assessing our future with hope, we are jointly proud of what has been accomplished by this act of democracy. We are eager and empowered to work together to enhance life together.

I know some of my readers may not agree with my sentiments and perhaps I should qualify all my euphoric remarks with caveats and conditions on performance. But I feel like riding this moment. THIS EXACT MOMENT IN TIME. It feels good and it feels potent.

Sometimes I feel very simple. Sometimes the transcendent element I celebrate, after reason has been engaged, is when people find a way to mutually respect each other, regardless of their point of view. Obama said in Chicago, at his acceptance speech:

As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, "We are not enemies, but friends -- though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection." And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight, but I hear your voices, I need your help, and I will be your president too.

So, this is it – the simplicity I spoke about inmylittleself: I respond to love and I respond to others who feel it toward each other. I love LOVE. And this is why, at this moment in time, I am celebrating the spirit of union in ourcountry and love/hope/faith for a man who will be our president and what that means for us and for those we interact with in the world. They might love us a little better right now too. That’s good, real good.


***

Let's sing . . .

We share the same biology // Regardless of ideology // How can I save my little boy // From Oppenheimer’s deadly toy // There is no monopoly on common sense // On either side of the political fence // Believe me when I say to you // I hope the Russians love their children too.

What might save us me and you // Is if the Russians love their children too.

-Sting

Pardon Me Poetry

Peddling

My thighs rise like bloated
wheat kernels and
I am unsteady.

What seems like a
ready reference skill
eludes my eye/movement
locomotion.

Those mutts still have
their chance at my heels;
but the call to prayer
rings clearer as I
arch forward.

My breath pulls out
in great puffs.
The front tire sandwiches
thin against the patchy
pavement -- more dust
than tar.

This multi-decade body
shuffles through itself,
chronicling my blithely
earned and carelessly
underused life-functions.

To move is to
access self; my
blood pumps unforgettable
rhythms -- and I listen.

Random beautiful

I have this friend in NYC, she works at this swanky bakery on the upperwest side. She speaks French and she LOVES literature. I like that about her.

Her name is Meredith. Isn't that such a lovely name? I love how saying it uses my whole mouth – all these exquisite sounds.

Anyway, the reason I'm posting about her (hope it's ok, Mere) is because I received an email from her this week telling me that she's received a job offer outside of the city and she's decided to take it.
Here's the random beautiful math:

a single white female
+
who is mormon
+
takes new job in a bakery
+
in Beirut, Lebanon

are you gasping for air yet –

BEIRUT, LEBANON!

She's going to move there to work in a cupcake bakery.

Isn't that the random-est, cool-est, beautiful-est thing you've ever heard? [She nearly trumps Obama.]

Hat's off to you Cherie!
Vive Beirut!

When a girl grows up

My grandma recently turned 100 years old. Can you believe it? o-n-e-h-u-n-d-r-e-d! 10x10. Maybe you know people that experienced but it’s always seemed to me like such a rare gift. My grandmother, Grace Bishop Simkins, is our family’s singular gift. I love great matrons. Grandma Grace is the epitome of vivacity in mind and body and will and temperament.

You see, my grandma has this laugh, this delicious laugh. Someone once described mylaugh as needing a chair of its own (I’m paraphrasing without the author’s eloquence) but it made me think of my grandma’s laugh; it tickles and rebounds through the space of a room and ones heart with such joypower. Happy, enlightened, life-living power that just won’t sit still – it RICOCHETS!

My super-duper cousins compiled some of my grandma’s writings into a memoir and titled the collection, “Living with Grace”. Such a lovely double meaning.

We all adore her – wouldn’t it be a comfort to know that later in life you will eventually be adored, revered and celebrated?

Lets all live for it!!
Not just for self-serving purposes.

Here’s an important crux to happy family units:

Because of who Grace Bishop Simkins IS, we are closer to each other -- we all want very much to be in her presence, to care for her, to LOVE her. She is that awesome. She is that powerful. We then discover each other and our common link and how much she is reflected in each of us. I love you because I love her. Love works that way sometimes.

Grandma, I hope you know that we/I feel this way about you. I salute you and all that you’ve lived and struggled and found joy in. I hope that one day I’ll know more about your life and that it will inform me in ways that will be a credit to you. I like that old saying, to be a “credit” to somebody.

I love you myfamily and I wish I was there celebrating with you.

This is SO exciting!

Following the election countdown over the last few hours here in KZ-a-stan has been surreal and super thrilling!!

And I am so excited for our country -- I am about to cry. I love you mycountry and I love our new president-elect and his little family and I pray so hard to our FATHER IN HEAVEN that Mr. Barack Obama will be blessed with goodness and inspiration and meekness and strength and love and compassion and intelligence and temperance and everything that is good.

I love you mycountry, mypeople.
I believe in your goodness.

Thank you -- peace out.


p.s. Dad, it's going to be ok. Trust me.

....and thanks to wnyc.org for such great homepage election coverage!

All because of a boy . . .

How long ago was it? Over 200 years ago? Seeking knowledge has such resounding affects on people, on futures.

I’m thinking of Joseph Smith.

It all seemed so impossibly wonderful that weekend in October, when we were in Astana (capital city of Kazakhstan) sitting in the cozy living room of LeRoy and Anne Welling. They are people we’ve only met one other time, in September, and here we were being retrieved from the train station, sleeping on their floor, sharing their food, using Skype on their uber-sweet computer with flashlightening speed and feeling LOVED.

Soimpossiblywonderful.

We transformed the living room Sunday morning, dressed ourselves as nice as we could (shoeless!) and settled down with Jhanna, who is from Mongolia and the only other member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Astana. We took the sacrament together, we talked of the sacrament, we heard Jhanna’s testimony and challenges, we sang, we prayed and all was translated into Russian for Jhanna. We also read the scriptures and talked about righteous leadership and what can happen when we allow God to influence us. And what happens when we don’t. Read the Book of Mormon, it’s all there. I love the Book of Mormon.

So impossibly wonderful.

But it was possible and all because a boy of 14 decided to pray to a God who would surely answer his prayer.

===

If you're in need of some recreational listening, click over to the following academic conference the Library of Congress held a few years ago, titled "The Worlds of Joseph Smith". If you click over and feel overwhelmed start with Bushman's address (session 1) or Given's (session 2). A word on Givens: the guy is so unbelievably eloquent -- it makes me weak in the knees.

Desi Candor

While pretending: “I’m new. Shake my hand. I crawled out of the wall. Glad to meet you.”

Zoe when we grow up to be real people we’ll be married and you’ll be my wife and I’ll be your . . . FATHER and we’ll have lots of children. Sometimes you can visit my apartment too. Do you want to visit my apartment Zoes? When I’m five you can come to my apartment.

“Does she love me? Does grandmaGrace love me mom?” While looking at pics of our visit last November (’07). My grandmother turns 100yearsold next month! We love you grandmaGrace!

I like seeing Zoe do lots of kinds of funny things.

While kicking wildly and making sharp movements with his arms, Des called out, “Do you see? Am I like tofu mom?” He meant Kung Fu.

You know what I’m thinking about? [Pause] Oh! I need to think about it . . . [Long pause] Ok, I thought about it . . . [In an very mysterious voice] Secrets for everybody in this whole land and the New Yorkans!

Are you happy I gave you a kiss?

My fingers are pretty.

Tomorrow I’m going to learn not to do bad things.

Mom? Can you come to my bed and cuddle and talk about what we’ll do when we get back to New York and Heidi’s place?

“It’s evil that you make me try! I hate it!” On being required to practice wiping his own bum.

Zoe loves me!

I didn’t fall asleep last night – I laid down and transformed.

Are the Holy Ghost and God ever funny?

Is Grandpa as old as this matchbox?

I want to go back to New York tomorrow!

Des: I’m funny right?
Zoe: No! No way Jose!

I don’t know how in the world I got peepee on my pants.

Am I pretty Zoe?

I handed a napkin to Des and directed him to please wipe his ‘mouth’. When I looked over a minute later I found he’d put the napkin inside his mouth and was solemnly wiping it out.

During another bathroom independence session: “No!I don’t want to be like Oliver, he wipes his own bum. I don’t want to wipe my own bum! YOU DO IT!”

I hate when you say ‘NO’. I hate that cute voice.

After a halfhearted attempt to eat DPJ announced,”I’m done with my gas. Food is my gas.”

“Heidi is the one who loves us best!” While chanting and walking around in circles with Zoe.

Mom? Do you know what my earth would be like? STRAWBERRIES AND MANGOES.

“Well, I don’t see how we can make it better if we can’t use superglue.” He’d torn or broken something, which I can’t remember anymore, that couldn’t possibly have been mended with superglue. He’s of the opinion that superglue is the magic-fixer.

“I was nice and hard working – it was great! I had sweat.” After making a half-dozen superhero collages.

After a little gas escaped his rear-end Des observed, “It sounds like a helicopter.”

Desmond said, in dependable bigbrother fashion on the first day of pottytraining Zoe, “I’m the one who watches over Zoe to make sure she doesn’t poop everywhere.”

Why didn’t Heidi come with us to Russia?

I’m a lovely work of art, right? Or is Jesus a lovely work of art?

Zoe en Voice

Desmond! Choose the right!

I got hurt on my blood.

Do you wuv me?

With a plastic playphone in hand Zoe says, “Hello my little grammy!”

We began potty training during the month of October and during one session in the bathroom she looks up at me and says, “I need privacy”. So I left. I’m so glad we don’t have to go out to the outhouse! People train their babies so early in RU/KZ, usually between 18mos-2yrsold!

One morning while Des was still sleeping, Zoe couldn’t resist his quiet little figure on the bed and she went to him, stood over him and then leaned down and said against his cheek, “Oh, Des! I wuv you so much!”

I went out one evening to get water from the well and as I returned I saw Zoe watching for me from the dom with her little face pressed against the window. Once inside she explained to me, “I look at the moon mom. I talk to the moon. I say, where is mymommy?”

Zoe had pulled a chair over to the fridge and was searching through all the pencils and crafty items we keep on the top. I asked her what she was doing and she replied, “I want smell the glue”

Every morning Zoe is usually the first one awake and her first destination is my bedside. She’ll stand there and gently call to me until I wake then she crawls in beside me and we cuddle and giggle and, yes, she still nurses (morning&night). When she’s sufficiently satisfied with her fill-o-mommy-love, she’ll sit up with that rosy twinkle on her face and say happily, without fail, “How ‘bout we eat kasha and eggs? How about that?” It’s become such a signature saying that we each mimic her regularly.

I want sip of mayonnaise.

At the breakfast table Zoe sighed and asked, “Heidi sit by me one day?”

Zoe had her hands tangled up in my hair, “I play with yours hair – it’s toy”

Snap! Crackle! Pop!

Have you ever taken an 8+ hour daytime train ride with your babes? (Planes count) And after finally reaching your destination with one heavy bag strapped on your back and another in your hand take those steep, perilous steps down to the platform and then . . .

SNAP! CRACKLE! POP!

land oddly, twist your ankle and crash in a heap with a shriek? Did two people ever struggle to pick you up and nearly fall in the process?

Did you ever lean against the side of an old soviet train and shiver and quake and just want to cry&cry&cry&cry for your mother?

Getting ready for the big bad winter

As I’m writing this it’s currently about 60 degrees outside and has been comfortably around that number for over a week. Yippee! Nevertheless, we’re gearing up for a ferocious winter. Ferocious because we’ve never endured a winter in Kazakhstan and we expect it to be bad. Really bad. I mean, we’re about an hour away from Siberia!

A cozy hibernation requires lots of wood and coal. Our neighbors, the Salzberg brothers, are in the business of woodcutting. When Nathan finally caught them on a sober day they loaded up their big truck with logs and rumbled over to our side-gate and unloaded all of this . . .

There are two empty sheds near this pile so we decided to use one of them for wood storage. But first Mr. Jones has to chop all those logs up so that they’ll fit into our stove and he’s sure been busy with that axe! I have to say, I love watching him engaged in all this manual labor about as much as I like the vision of him pouring over books in a library. My new macho man has since decided we need another truck load of wood (he’s broken 2 axes already – Desi calls them ‘oxes’) but truly we really don’t know what we’re doing and expect to burn through a lot of wood. We’d like to feel we can liberally do so without fear of running out in the middle of a deep January freeze and then needing to chop another truck load and perhaps get frost bitten in the process . . . you get the idea.

It took a few more days, but Valya finally busted into our kitchen one morning and said it was time to go get the coal. An hour later Nate arrived with a driver and 7 tons of coal. They dumped it in one big black dusty heap and now hard-worker-Jones gets to shovel it all, bit by bit, into the other empty shed. It’s taking a long time.

Meanwhile after each session he comes in coated with coal dust. This is a big change for a guy who’s used to city life with thebabes and moonlighting libraries and classrooms! He has the marks to show it too. Our first lighting up of the stove was very exciting – Valya did the honors while we watched and took notes. It’s going to take some practice to get it as hot as he did. I may have the hydraulics a little skewed, but the way I see it is the heat rises to the attic where there is a tank of water which is heated and pumped via external pipes and radiators throughout the house. It works! I love that I can hang wet laundry on the pipes in the winter and have them dry there. All of our winter things and other miscellany arrived from Russia last month. We are not going back for that last hoped for month. We did end up getting our Russian visas (for 1month) but we are out of time.

Nathan Jones also fixed the old fashioned washing machine in the banya. One side is a spinner, which I was always able to use, but the other side it turned out only needed a little squirt of oil and now it’s rotating like new (it’s maybe a 50year old machine). I’m happy to have things simplified a little – though I still have to remove the clothes, ringing each of them in the process, and then rinse them manually and give them each another cursory ring, then place them in the spinner for a real professional job. They dry more quickly this way, of course. All this still takes about 3hours, non-stop action, but the weather’s been great and I’m still getting my kicks out of it. It’s nice to be so easily pleased.

Also, we decided to buy a used bike at the local rynick. It’s been a bit of a trial and we’re regretting it. My very first go at riding a bike again took me by surprise – it’s hard!! And it wasn't long before I fell and skinned my knee – tearing one of my 4 pairs of pants. Ugh! The fall messed up the right peddle too. And then the tires went flat. Nate was able to replace the peddle after a series of frustrating attempts and then the pump I bought turned out to be a real ‘light-weight” not doing the job properly. We borrowed Valya’s pump but after a week it went flat again! And again! I bought the bike to make life easier, I must say.

Lament over. Here are a few more pictures:

It’s BLAZIN’!!

A nice box of freshly chopped wood.

This is my borst cooking on the wood burning stove – love it!

Desmond P. Jones has his first chore: gathering kindling for the fire

I’m a hard working guy.

Zoe and I taking a moment to cuddle and kiss.

Milestones

There are certain hazzards
to opening a cereal box with ones teeth . . .

A loose TOOTH!

A few days later Desmond P. Jones had a transformed smile.

And a chain reaction – now the neighboring tooth is loose too!!

Whoops! There it went! Pretty fly for a toothless guy.

[If I hadn't seen cuteMargaret's recent pics on her first day of kindergarten, I think I would have been freaking out! DPJ turns 5 next month!]

Making lists, counting blessings

I'm a big listmaker – always loved dumping out what's in my brain on paper. All things become alive, validated by its visual nature. Sometimes I even find it hard to depart with my lists, esp. the grocery lists. I usually have several old ones hanging around the kitchen for quick reference.

I recently read a talk by Elder Maxwell that said this (thanks Miggy!):

Occasionally I see individuals who are meeting life's challenges reasonably well but who unfortunately fail to appreciate the general adequacy of their response. They let the seeming ordinariness of life dampen their spirits. Though actually coping and growing, some lack the quiet inner-soul satisfaction which can steady them. Instead they seem to experience a lingering sense that there is something more important they should be doing or that their chores are somehow not quite what was expected, as if what is quietly achieved in righteous individual living or in parenthood is not sufficiently spectacular.

Grounded, Rooted, Established, and Settled (Ephesians 3:17, 1 Peter 5:10)
NEAL A. MAXWELL
(the link is in my sidebar, under the other inspirational talks i love list)

It hasn't always been easy to adjust to this simplicity around me; the shrinking of my social circle, the struggle with my emotions, the dearth of activities, my lonely mono-lingual universe, surrendering more of myself to my children . . . and over and above all, the steady feeling that I'm not appreciating this time enough – that there are hidden treasures here I still haven't brought into being, or that I'm deliberately snuffing, as Elder Maxwell put it for me, the "quiet inner-soul satisfaction which can steady [me]. "

While walking home one night from the library, I started making another list, simply called. . .

Things I like:

Old barns
Clothes on the line
Cows coming home
My daughter in black
Borst
Sunshine
My son’s conversation
Buying garden/farm fresh food
Children bestowing hugs
Walking
Banya night
Me with my glasses on
Church with myfamily in our home
The smell of wood/fire/burning
My laptop and internet (even though it’s dial-up!)
Working in tandem with Nathan
Quiet houses with gardens
The call to prayer
Flying kites
Reading
Cold ‘fizzy’ water
My children playing and sleeping
Haribo gummies
Contact with family and friends
Horses
Time to myself

[Note to Picasa album followers: I finally upload all 100+ photos from August – see link in sidebar)

Pardon Me Poetry: a personal reprise

Sharbakti Afternoon

We took our stroller
out onto the dusty streets
noses still crusty, paint stains
on his jeans. They are both
wearing their snowboots.

The playground is freshly painted
in primary colors.
The trees are losing their leaves
but the small sour apples
still cling.

The wind is trying to tell me
something – Oh! my daughter
needs to poop!
(potty training, 2nd week)
Too late for the
pink-starred panties.

I take her across the street
trying to obscure ourselves
behind a small facilities building.
It is quiet but for
the wind and my grumbling.

Maybe it's time for some pictures

This is the humble Saturday morning rynick in Sharbakti.

I love Saturday mornings because of this. All these (mostly) women bring garden&dairy goods from their farms and it's such a thrill to buy their hand-churned butter and fresh morning eggs and milk. I love the squash and the only little woman selling dried beans. Our goal is to eat as many veggies as we can because soon it will all be gone and the only thing we'll likely find will be cabbage and potatoes.

I love borst.
The babes are still working on it. This will be our lifeline through the winter I suspect. A favorite potato and cabbage dish for Russians.

This is us at the top of that big mountain.
In Almaty we climbed all 900+ steps -- well some of us did.

Here's the Catholic Church in glorious bloom.
It's one of our favorite places to go and play in Sharbakti.

Discovering a great park in Almaty
with lovely flower gardens, cotton candy, a carnival and a zoo!

The Russian Orthodox Church in Almaty

Zoe in her preferred elevated position

Des and Zoe outside one of the rynicks in Almaty

It's also called the Green Market

I loved it! One doesn't see such abundance in our village. I haven't seen one ear of corn yet, maybe later this month.

Banya babes!
We are beginning to ask the question: What will be do in the winter when it's 40 below? It's not likely we can trapse out to the banya and back or even get it hot enough. There are no other alternatives for getting clean!!

~

Stay tuned to the sidebar for 90+ more pictures from August. Picasa is working overtime for me and my dialup connection. Bless them! [Completed 10.12.08]

Taking a moment to remember. . .

I love Nathan P. Jones. That’s why I married him. It was fifteen years ago and I was 21. People may often here me grumbling or laughing a bit about him. It’s easy because he’s naturally self-depreciating and creates this farcical target of himself. I enjoy laughing at him actually. I find him quite funny. So much so that I remember early on because I laughed too much, he began to question my sense of humor, as if I didn’t really have one because I overused it or something. He laughs at me too and I don’t think I always find the mutual humor either.

The day after we got back from Almaty, Nate turned around and went back to Pavlodar to drop off our passports for another attempt at getting Russian visas. The babes and I stayed behind at the dom in Sharbakti. Because we’d been away for over a week, we needed to make a trip to the marketplace to replenish our food and supplies. I was tired and weak, but I packed up thebabes and we took our 25minute walk to the center. First stop was the bank as Nate had taken all the money we had for his quick trip to Pav. I always worry about the one ATM in the village being out of service at the time when we desperately need money. It’s happened before – but I was prompted the last time I withdrew money to get extra to tuck away in case that happened. I didn’t have extra tenge this time and sure enough, the bank had changed locations and wasn’t quite up to full function yet. UGH!!! Immediately the anti-Natee thoughts started (I wasn’t laughing) In Semey, as we were walking past a bank with an ATM, I asked him whether we needed to withdraw money. He said no.

I checked the coin zipper of my wallet and found that I had a little over 500tenge (1USD=120T) so I went to the little renyck where a few local women sale things from their farm/garden and purchased 8 eggs (150T) and 1 liter of milk (75T) and then to the nearby store to get two loaves of bread (110T) and then we stopped at the ‘halfway market', which is on the way home, to get four liters of fizzy water (200T). We made eggs sprinkled with fresh dill (I bought dill in Almaty) and ate bread. I still had root veggies (potatoes & beets) around and cabbage in the fridge so I made borst later that afternoon.

While I was walking home from the center marketplace with my few items (you should have seen how long my shopping list was!) my feelings toward Nate evened out a bit. He was in Pavlodar after all, returning later that afternoon, and I could email him to get extra money there. Really, all these emotions began roiling the night before when, at 8pm, we finally got home from our week and a half trip to southern KZ and we couldn’t get the front door to our dom open. There was an auxiliary lock we hadn’t known about. It was raining lightly and Nathan had to hurry over to Valya’s, cutting through the potato fields to the street behind us, for help. Valya was at work but eventually his wife Sveta came over with the key and opened it up for us. Nathan stepped inside first and called out a sympathetic warning, “Prepare yourself!” As I moved into the kitchen I saw that all the kitchen cupboards & countertops had been gutted and all our stuff deposited on the nearby table. What!? I hit rock bottom. Who removes the cupboards, unannounced, in a functioning kitchen? I was soooo looking forward to getting back into ‘mykitchen’ and cooking all the abundant, gorgeous veggies we’d been seeing as we traveled about – it’s harvest time!! As we walked throughout the house we discovered that two other pieces of furniture had been removed and our stuff left lying about. Arghhhh!!! I was really upset. Nate was great and had jumped right in to clean up and unpack. We had Russian equivalent ramen noodles for dinner.

A couple days before, as we were checking into the hotel in Semey, Nathan began chatting with another traveler. He was German and so Nathan reverted into that language to communicate and share travel stories, all the while transitioning into Russian to reply to the woman checking us into the hotel. It was athletic! My lingual universe is starkly mono. Des asked some sort of question about what Nate was saying and I began to explain how his daddy spoke German as well as Russian, and then I went on to have one of those conversations where one brazenly, because there is love, exults.

The other night over pizza we were chatting with Des about school and intelligence. I said to Des that his daddy was very smart, and Nathan of course, corrected me quickly, “I’m not smart – I just try really hard and don’t give up.”

That’s perhaps the most decent thing I’ve heard him say about himself. And I was glad Des and Zoe were sitting right there to hear it.

This week marked 6months for us, so far from all of you. Booohooohooo . . .

It’s nice to get something accomplished

All this visa talk must be pretty boring to read about. I’m a bit tired of it myself. Last week in Almaty a miraculous thing happened. Good old Stan Tours of Central Asia (which gets a positive mention in the Lonely Planet – David is the MAN!) came through with a great tour company recommendation, an efficient little business run by some friendly Koreans. These competent folks took our passports one morning last week and only about $800 of our dollars (the price was much lower than quoted by David) and said come back tonight and we’ll have your 6-month, multi-entry Kazakh visas ready for you . What? Could it be? We desperately hoped we weren’t being toyed with like we are currently with this outfit in Pavlodar (we’ve handed over to them $2K for our Russian visas and still nothing three months later!) So, 5pm comes and Nathan heads over there with DPJ and those wonderful people had our passports all neatly stacked and inside all 4 of them was that glorious visa stamp and all the proper documentation!! They had even made copies of all the visas and relevant pages for nosy police officers (I had an incident a week before here in Sharbakti) Three cheers for the Happy Tours company in Almaty!!

We also had the chance to go to church for the first time in over 5months – there is a small little branch with four sets of missionaries. The senior couple told us that currently no more missionaries are being called to Russia and those that have callings in the MTC are being sent to other places. All this is due to the messed up visa situation. So sad. It has got to change – c’mon Putin, er, Medevev!!! Anyway, what I find so great about little branches, that I want to implement wherever I am, is the instant reception by people when they see a new face and the invitations to get-together that follow introductions. We were invited to dinner that afternoon with the senior couple missionaries (The Vincents) and then for the following day a playdate at another expat family’s home. I love that and it meant soooo much!! I want to do that for people – instantly open up myself, my place to them. . . silent hopes and notes taking.

Nate also met with the State Department Fulbright representative at the U.S. Embassy. That was a great meeting and she was very helpful with a lot of suggestions and it even seemed cool with her that we were hoping to return to Russia for a month, and stay a bit past our targeted KZ return.

Before leaving town we spent a couple of nights up in the lofty mountains near Almaty. We stayed in the utilitarian hotel meant for athletes – there is a large ‘olympic’ stadium up there, the price was a lot better than down in the city (Almaty is so expensive, I think ranked #44 on expensive cities in the world). The backdrop to the stadium is an immense mountain and some brave souls created nearly 900 steps to take to the top. Nate challenged us by saying, “Wouldn’t it be great to accomplish something like that?” Gasp! We decided to take it one step at a time. Zoe faltered at about 20-steps and chose to take the rest atop Nathan’s shoulders. Des, on the other hand, found the steps a little under-challenging and climbed onto the railing and scaled himself up using all fours. A budding rock climber!! After shashliks we returned to the bottom via the road route and just outside the stadium, we spotted some horses and so Des&I went on a 15minute ride. I love horses!! Ideally I love the notion of getting off the road and away from cars speeding down the hill . . . but, as I tell Des everyday, I’m trying to be grateful for what I get.

The train ride to Almaty was from one end of the country to the other (north-south) it took us 2nights and one never ending day to get there. We were only able to find top bunks, just two, and so we sat a top and stood in the little narrow hallway from time-to-time. The babes didn’t sleep during the day like I hoped they would. They played and complained and met one or two other rowdy kids and ran and chased each other from compartment to compartment. We watched a couple of videos too and, ultimately, we made it. Unbelievable. For the return trip back up to Sharbakti we decided to try a different route – boarding at 2pm and sleeping one night (we had bottom bunks this time!) and then arriving at a city called Semey at 11:30 the next morning. Nate talked Semey up and so we decided to stay the night and catch a 5hour bus ride to Pavlodar and then from Pav a 1hour bus ride to Sharbakti. Whatever – the bus ride was long, not comfortable. But I liked Semey and I want to go back soon and see the Dostoevsky museum!!!

Oh, and another thing about Almaty and Semey I love was the internet efficiency!! I uploaded about half a dozen videos to our Youtube gallery and tons of pictures from May-July. See sidebar on the right for links. I managed to engineer two, 3-hour sessions at icafes while Nate&babes went out and did something fun amongst themselves. And in Semey, I was finally able to fulfill my dream to hook up via my own laptop at an icafe. I think, secretly, this was the activity I was most looking forward to, that and going to the big western-style grocery store (in Almaty) and finding things like peanut butter and ‘pizza’ spices. They even had salsa!! Hooray for big cosmopolitan cities.


p.s. A follow up on the well situation – it was about two weeks before we finally had water again. For several days we had to go next door to our neighbors and draw water from their well. We’re very happy to have a fully functioning pump again!

Zoe en Voice

Me grow up big kid too!

A cough in my mouth – I found it.

While Desi was sleeping one morning, she walked over to the side of the bed and gently said, "Hello little guy!"

"I want an armbar." Nathan has included her in the little wrestling matches he and Des have regularly – though she said this to me, out of the blue.

Zoe: Me thinkin' . . .Oh yeah?
Me: What are you thinkin' about?
Zoe: Uhhhhh . . . . pizza!

I'm an animal!

There was a big fly buzzing over our heads. Zoe makes the little Spiderman hand action and says, "Me spins web that bug."

After watching me receive a big hug and kiss from Desi, she noted with alarm that he was turning to do the same to her and she shouted fiercely, " No! Not me!" and pushed him away.

Me grow up, drive car and see Africa – how about that?

I'm a big little girl.

I want gum to chew outside, my dear.

"I'm boom-bing." She was making "boomboomboom" sounds.

After putting a cap on her head she says, "Go back to New York, show Neibaur my cute hat – Neibaur hat."

While Zoe and I were happily intertwined on the bed she sighs, "This mommy, this baby cuddle."

"Me swimming with the grown-ups." She was on the bed pretending.

Please, pretty please, pretty please with please on top!

Zoe took my chin softly one morning and said with a little twinkle in her eye, "Little chicken."

Me go outside – I meet my grammy, grammy's house.

Zoe was helping me make my bed one morning and observed, "Me nice guy"

"I have bubblebeard on." She and Desi have been doing a lot of bubble blowing with straws and soapy water in cups.

I want to eat food.

We happy guys?

"I kissed Desmond because I wuv him." She's recently started saying "Desmond," and seems to prefer it over "Des" or "Desi". His name sounds so cute in her little voice.