Conspiracy Theories Revealed

Consipracy Theory: Teachers do not live outside of their classrooms. (This is why it's weird when we see them in public.)

Praise the Lord for long weekends! Here's what this teacher did on her long weekend.





I was all geared up to splash around in the water, but here's what I ended up doing the whole time :) I didn't even touch the water.



I had a few visitors though.





The best part of it all is it's not over yet! :) More to come (I hope, as long as I remember to take a photo!)

**More exciting fun!**

This is a creambath. It's a fabulous hour of relaxing. Goop that smells good is massaged into your hair. As the goop sets, you receive a nice back and shoulder massage. They rinse it all out, and you have great looking hair :)





This teacher also tries to bake new recipes on her day off. :)



Good book+Good hair+Good food= Great weekend :)

P-A-R-T-Y

That's right, folks, party. This is what our Indonesian friends LOVE to do :) A couple weekends ago we were invited to a "neighborhood fellowship". Our landlord suggested that it would be good for us to get to know our neighbors and vice versa. It was right outside of our gate. Seriously, if we had to leave in our car we would not be able to back out of the driveway without hitting the tent that was set up. We went because we have been hoping for a way to connect with our neighbors and hanging out with them at parties seems like the way to go! :)Some of my favorite things were there: Josh, kids from the neighborhood, and food. We sat through a brief meeting with a question and answer time with our neighborhood leader. Here's some photos:

Lessons Learned

Today we took an unplanned trip to the Big City. This city's name is Jayapura. It takes about an hour or more to get there. We pass on many roads that wind through carved out mountains and jungle. They are paved roads that cross through a few smaller cities. The "Big City" has a store that has some imported items that we can't buy in Sentani. We heard rumors of a great find, so today we stopped in. This is what we saw:



Feast your eye's on that, folks! That's the first time we've EVER seen ANY kind of Dr.Pepper products here (besides t-shirts that kids from Texas wear!). So we bought two to go with our lunch at Kentucky Fried Chicken. By the way, KFC becomes "special" when you live overseas. :)We finished our lunch, came back downstairs to buy more of the "goods", and this is what we saw:



Dr. Pepper habis! Habis is the Indonesian term for "all gone". :) While we were eating, someone came in and bought the rest of them! I heard another rumor that there was the original DP, but someone bought all that they had when they found out. I know who you are, and I might be coming to your house soon. :)

We also saw this for all our Dutch friends and family (Ed, this is for you!):





With the current exchange rate, that wheel of cheese is ONLY $120.51. We didn't buy it, but we thought of you. :)

Lessons learned in SE Asia: Buy those favorite things you NEVER see here within the first five seconds you see them, because they might be HABIS before you can even say the word :)

We're Up and Running!

Since we moved into our house in November 2010 we haven't had a phoneline. If anyone needed us, they just called our cell phones. For internet we were using a 3G wireless modem, which when we first got it was sufficient for our internet usage. When we returned from furlough, we noticed the length of time we could actually be on the internet using the wireless modem slowed waaaaaaaay down to only about 20 minutes a day (I'm not exaggerating!).

Josh had tried to talk to the phone company and was told that all the phone lines were full in our neighborhood. He was given a phone number of the field agent who might be able to help us out. Josh called but when asked how much he (Josh) thought it should cost we got the idea that it probably wasn't going to be the right price for him to come out. We even offered to pay another phone bill that wasn't ours to connect the line to our place.

This past Saturday we contacted our landlord. We explained how we had tried to get a line hooked up to the house and how we felt disconnected from our family. He understood and made a phone call. Sunday we got a message telling Josh to go to the phone office to pay on Monday. By Monday afternoon, we had a phone line running straight from the main road to our house. Tuesday there was a miscommunication and the phone guy returned to install internet, but we were both gone. He returned on Wednesday, and by Wednesday night we have a faster internet connection! It's so fast that we can use skype, check email, update the blog, and see facebook. :)

We are counting our blessings, and hoping to talk to you soon!

First Few Weeks Back

We arrived back in Sentani a few weeks ago. With the help of our househelper, we unpacked our whole house in just a few days. This was great, because once the house was in order, I had to get my classroom in order. The first week of school felt like I was just keeping my head above the water! It's difficult teaching new classes and having a short time to get ready for them. This second week of school seems to going much more smooth.

Here's some photos of our first few weeks here.

This is our first meal that we cooked at home. There's stir-fried veggies, chicken crispers, and (of course) rice. :)







We took a trip to the local mall where the pizza place is. They had a stage set up in the middle of the mall and crowds of people were surrounding the stage. People were lined up around the second floor so they could look down on to the stage. It was a highschool dance team that was doing a pop-and-lock dance (I think that's what it's called).



I watched them dance, and this little one was watching me.


After we got our pizza to take home, the place was empty because two guys started singing karaoke. :)



This first week we did some airport pickups. Some other friends were coming back from America and needed rides from the airport to their house. We picked up two families, but I only took photos of one. I'm sure you'll see some more photos of our friends. :)


One of our favorite things to do is to watch American Idol each week with some friends. We watch it with a couple and then a single gal who works with me at the school. Our group is a bit different than last season, because the couple moved to a different part of Papua, Indonesia. So on our first time together, our friends brought over an Idol cookie cake. :) It was so good. We don't LOVE American Idol, but we like the chance to hang out with people on a steady basis.



While we were away, YAJASI, the Indonesian organization that Josh works for, got a makeover. The process had begun before we left but made a lot of progress while we were away. The man overseeing the project has done an absolutely fantastic job! He has been patient, even when supplies didn't show up. It looks great!





A more recent adventure we had was filling up the car with gas. We have two gas stations in town. One was out of diesel, so we headed to the other one. The line was about six trucks long. We had a bet going about how long it would take. We only waited for about 10 minutes before the attendant allowed us to go into an extra place to bypass the long line.



Hope to share with you more faithfully about live on the other side of the BIG pond :)

-Amber

The Long Road Home

Right now we're in Bali, Indonesia. Our plan was to have a couple days here to recover from jetlag as much as possible before returning to life as "normal" in Papua. So here's some photos from the journey to where we are now. :)

Here's our luggage, just a few things that we'll need for the next couple of years. After carefully weighing all bags, we were sure we would be under the limit for each bag. We ended up checking all the blue bags in Dallas, but were requested in Houston to check one black bag.



Entertainment Centers are a must when crossing the globe!


Our second stop was in Moscow at a chilly 2 degrees Celsius (35 fahrenheit) with snow on the ground and ice on the windows. It was cold outside, but it was quite nice inside. The duty free stores must have sprayed purfume in my face because that's all I remember about Moscow. :) I also remember meeting some friendly people from Texas who were also en route to Indonesia.

Here we are when we land in Moscow:


Here's Moscow when we land:




We stopped in Singapore, but I don't remember much because this is what I did the entire time there.


We arrived in sunny Bali, Indonesia a few hours later.



We breezed through immigration and customs. While we were waiting at baggage claim, there was a man who had a sign with our name on it. I remember mentioning to Josh this trip that I've never had a person at the airport with my name on a sign! Well, that's all changed now! :) Unfortunately, his sign was to tell us that our black bag which was gate check in Houston was not on the airplane and would come later tonight. No big deal, right? Well, Josh waited for the rest of our bags to arrive, but only one was there. We reported it to the right people and were told they didn't know where our bags were. So, we're tired and we're trying NOT to freak out. We go to the hotel, shower, sleep and wake up to receive the black bag. We got word the next day that all of our bags were here and they would reimburse us for the delay. Sweeeeeeet!

Note to self and other travellers: January is the rainy season in Bali! Papua has a "rainy" season, but it's unpredictable when it will happen. In Bali and other parts of Indonesia, it WILL rain. It will rain ALOT. just a heads up. :)




We were soaked after our outting today.



Bali has been a relaxing time for us. We know we'll hit the ground running when we arrive, but we're looking forward to being in our space.

Thanks for reading this. Try to leave a comment either here or on our facebook page to let us know who reads this! :)

December Update

Our time in America is quickly coming to an end. We begin the long journey to our second home on Wednesday. Here's the route: Dallas-Houston-Moscow (I know, right?)-Singapore-Bali-Jayapura. It looks pretty crazy when I write it down, and I can't figure out the path in my head. I trust that the pilots of Singapore Airlines will get us to our destination safely though.

I haven't updated much this month, because we have been really busy. The month of December began with a quick trip to Oklahoma City. Josh participated in a high altitude training course. They put a group of people in a chamber, bring you to 25,000 feet and have you take off your oxygen mask for five minutes while you log your symptoms every minute. This helps the participant recognize what their symptoms of hypoxia look like. They recorded the simulation, and it's pretty funny what the body will do with a lack of oxygen before you pass out. It was a wee bit cold while we there! This is the bucket with the thing to wash the windshield off.


Josh spent a week in Wichita, Kansas at a maintenance training course. He stayed with a really sweet family who took great care of him during his time there. While he was gone, I focused on studying for a state test which would allow me to teach grades 4-8 math in Texas.

We also had a chance to go to a real, live rodeo! It was Josh's first time to see one. Those cowboys have a lot of guts to ride around on a really mad bull or bronco!









A couple weeks later we got to see the Dallas Mavericks win their first game of the season. They're off to a rough start and are in a time of transition, but hopefully they'll be able to defend their championship again this year.


We got to see "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens at the Dallas Theatre. The play is truly meant to be a ghost story, but when it's read to children it's not very scary. The movies aren't scary either, because of the audience it's made for. Well, the Dallas Theatre held NOTHING back! It was a great rendition of a holiday classic. There were a couple times where we jumped and even yelped!

The best part of the entire month was visiting family. It's strange to meet kids who are two or three years old that you've never seen before. We were worn out by the end of Christmas day, because of all the excitment of visiting. Just a few days later we hung out with some good friends to celebrate the New Year. We played a dance game on the Xbox Kinect, and it was a riot! There are some people in the world who can keep a beat and have "moves"- the Harringtons (and friends) are not those people! :) We still had a great time.


I also took the math test for the state of Texas. The morning started off with the whole family sharpening pencils on the front porch. Don't buy cheap pencils! One perk of the day was eating lunch at In-N-Out Burger. :) We haven't heard the results yet, but hope for a passing grade!


We also got to eat at Josh's favorite BBQ place. (We BOTH were stuffed for atleast two days, because of all the meat we ate!)



These next couple of days will be full of packing, saying good-byes/see ya laters, hugs, tears, food, and who knows what else...