A few weeks ago we celebrated my (Emily’s) birthday – the first of our family to have a birthday in Amdu. Celebrating special days here takes some creativity and advanced planning since we are in a pretty remote place. So, I thought I’d share a little about a few of my more unique presents.
– If you read our last post, you know that we returned from our time in town to find that rats/mice had been having a hay-day in our house. Among other things, they chewed into bottles, kitchen utensils and since we got home, some yummy fruit that we mistakenly left out on the counter. Well, it may sound weird but catching those critters and having a rodent free house again was one of my first presents. In all we caught 3 rodents – 2 fairly large jungle mice (they looked more like mice but were the size of rats) and one smaller mouse (maybe he was part of the same family, just a younger member). So, when I awoke on my birthday (and the days following) to find no more evidence of rodents, it was a great present.
– After a rare quiet morning by myself (no school, Bart took the boys on a hike and Micah was sleeping), we packed our lunch and hiked out into the jungle to have a picnic. It was the first time our whole family had all gone a hike since getting here. We sat on what was left of some trees that had been cut down to slab boards for our house and just enjoyed being out together in this beautiful place where we live.
– One of our teammates made dinner for us so I didn’t have to cook. And then later we went over to our other teammates’ house to have cake (that Bart made) all together. So, my family and our teammates made the day special for me.
Since we are in the midst of learning this language and culture, I thought I’d also share a language blunder I made the other day. The Amdu words for hand/arm and teeth are different by only one letter. In attempting to tell some ladies that Micah has two teeth now, I actually told them that he has two hands/arms now!! Well, he does have two hands but he’s had them for quite a while. It’s the two teeth that are new!! Everyone had a good laugh over that one! Please pray for us as we plug away at learning how to live and communicate in this culture that is so very different from our own.