Driving around town

I drive 5 kilometers to take the kids to school. 10 to go there are back. That's 6.2 miles total. You would think this would take, I don't know, 10 minutes or so. I wish. It's about a 15 minute drive one way. We leave the house at about 7:45 and I get to the hospital about 8:30 (as it often takes a few minutes at school with Silas before I can leave). 

Why does it take so long? Because these kind of trucks pull in front of us. Motos fly by. Kids dash out into the road. Donkeys, cows, sheep, goats, dogs, sometimes horses and even camels walk down the road or straight into your car. People selling tomatoes, lettuce, onions, or fish flood into the streets so the path is too small to pass. There is no logic in the traffic either. Rarely ever would a moto stop to allow you to get through. Instead they push their way through as well as the ten behind him so that you cannot move. I have videos of travel through town but they cannot load tonight. Maybe another day...

One nice thing about the travel is that kids don't have to be restrained. Since we only go 10-20 mph around town, we don't make them sit in car seats. And on special days, they can even sit and drive with us (this is more of a Brett thing than me). However the other day I had to take Silas to school and he hadn't been in awhile due to sickness and travel so I let him "drive" to school as special treat so he'd be happy to go. He looked so darn cute with my sunglasses on that I had to snap a picture.

More animals

We have gotten more animals. Sometimes I feel like I live in the zoo, yet I keep accepting more animals so I realize this is all my fault.

But who can resist this? 

Mittens hiding out in the Batcave on one of her first days with us. She is now an outdoor cat.

We came back from our Field Forum to find out that our rabbits had had babies and they had lived! There are five of them. Quite cute. Here is Brett holding four of them (when we thought there were only 4).

We look forward to giving the babies away to our workers and then others. Whether they eat them right away or keep them to have more bunnies it will hopefully be a blessing to them.

Sometimes I know we aren't in Kansas anymore...

Sometimes comments are made around me that just remind me how different our life is than if we lived in America. Here are some examples...

--We were visiting our dear friends who live a few hrs from us. They have just returned from a year in the States and were talking about finding a church. The wife said, "I don't like the church we are going to because there are no backs on the benches, there's no tree to sit under outside to watch the kids and there is a dog there that tries to bite my kids." I couldn't help but laugh as I totally agree that those are valid reasons to try another church! What we look for in a church here is quite different than the States.

--One day the boys were watching "Secret Agent Oso" and he was trying to learn to make his bed. The boys just laughed that he didn't know how to make his bed and Kenan commented that he was too old not to be able to do that to which Dawson replied, "Maybe his worker does it for him."

--Silas went up to Anna and said, "When are you going to be a real teacher?" She said she was but he insisted she wasn't so she asked why she wasn't a real teacher. He said, "You sleep. Real teachers don't sleep. Real teachers are brown. You're not brown. And your name is normal and not like teachers. Teachers' names are Tanti" (Aunt. They call female teachers "Tanti" and then their name and male teachers are "Tonton" which is uncle).  So since Anna is not brown, not a Tanti (well, she is as all the kids call her Aunt Anna but Silas doesn't know they are the same) and she in fact sleeps, I guess there is no hope for her to be a real teacher!