{"id":794,"date":"2014-11-02T17:55:17","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T01:55:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/asmaraanyan.wordpress.com\/?p=794"},"modified":"2014-11-02T17:55:17","modified_gmt":"2014-11-03T01:55:17","slug":"simplify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/2014\/11\/02\/simplify\/","title":{"rendered":"SIMPLIFY"},"content":{"rendered":"

Practical = “of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory or ideas.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Our class in Practical Skills<\/em> did just that. Turned the “some-day-you-might-have-to-deal-with-this” into “do-it-now.” And what may those practical skills be? Well, let me show you:<\/p>\n

1. Knowing how to find your way with a compass. Sounds easy. But it isn’t.<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5689\"<\/a><\/p>\n

2. Using a GPS. Again, sounds easy. But it’s not (we found that out the hard way during a 4-hour scavenger hunt through the woods).<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0150\"<\/a><\/p>\n

3. Scratch cooking! We had to cook everything from scratch for two weeks, which was fun and prompted me to experiment in the kitchen a bit: I made pasta and tortillas for the first time ever!<\/p>\n

\"DSCN5702\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"IMG_8749\"<\/a><\/p>\n

4. Lots of other very practical skills: How to use a pressure cooker, how to meal plan overseas, what kitchen tools to bring, how to fight cockroaches in your home (those things are NASTY in case you’ve never researched them), the basics of building a house, how to safely use LP gas, the basics of hydrodynamics, plumbing, car repairs…<\/p>\n

5. How to live with limited electricity and limited\u00a0running water. Have you ever tried making a cup of coffee without using any electric appliances? Makes you appreciate that cup of coffee a lot more!! It really got challenging when we happened to host 16 adults and 3 kids the day that we got assigned “dry season” (= no running water at all). Ha!<\/p>\n

6. OUTDOOR LIVING!<\/strong> A big part of the class was a 4-day outing:<\/p>\n

We used our compasses to hike to the campsites, having to carry most of what we needed on our backs (including our kids)<\/p>\n

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Ready for the hike<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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My precious cargo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Each family got 2 tarps and rope and had to build a waterproof shelter:<\/p>\n

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Home, sweet home!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We cooked our food over the fire and had to improvise\u00a0when we realized\u00a0that our lunch meat and cheese was still frozen:<\/p>\n

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Camping microwave!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We were blessed with beautiful, warm weather! It still got chilly\u00a0in the mornings, so Elias was all bundled up in a full-body snowsuit \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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My little red snowman<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We had classes out in the woods, including chicken butchering (sorry, my PETA-loving friends), small engine repair, battery wiring, chainsaw class, star orientation class (fascinating!)…<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0161\"<\/a>
Judah was quite fascinated with Daddy and the dead chicken…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We went on an all-afternoon scavenger hunt hike with our team! The goal of the hike was to find our dinner for that night \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

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Climbing trees with Daddy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Men at work<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And we eventually did find it (after getting lost a couple of times)!<\/p>\n

\"IMG_0175\"<\/a>
Yum! It was worth the hunt \ud83d\ude42<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The whole camping trip was challenging at first (like\u00a0sleeping in a self-made tent with two kids who keep on waking up and one that’s puking) but turned out to be a really fun and rewarding time as a family and as a\u00a0“village” (=our small group from campus).<\/p>\n

\"Judah<\/a>
Judah had so much fun sword-fighting with Mr.Jeb<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The small group ladies!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Elias<\/a>
Elias giggling with Daddy<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did we take away from this class besides all the practical skills?<\/p>\n

SIMPLIFY!<\/p>\n

Thanks for reading \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Practical = “of or concerned with the actual doing or use of something rather than with theory or ideas.” Our class in Practical Skills did just that. Turned the “some-day-you-might-have-to-deal-with-this” into “do-it-now.” And what may those practical skills be? Well, let me show you: 1. Knowing how to find your way with a compass. Sounds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1077,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=794"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/794\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=794"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=794"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/john-anyan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=794"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}