KB's New Black Jacket

KB's new black jacket. He bought it about five months ago in a different city. In this culture you must bargain for your purchases. When he first asked the guy (we'll call him Bob) how much the jacket was, Bob said "$215." KB counter offered with "$14." Bob got offended at the offer so KB walked away. KB was about 50 yards away when Bob came running after him saying "Ok, ok, my friend, I give you great price. Lowest price. You are my friend. $85." Again KB said "$14" and Bob got offended and stormed back to his store. KB walked away. When KB was about 100 yards away, Bob came running after him saying "My friend, please come back, I give you low price. Final offer: $42." KB said "$14." Bob said "$40." KB said "$14." Bob said "$35." KB: "$14." Bob: "$30, or I will not sell it." KB: "$14 or I won't buy it." Bob: "Ok, 25." KB: "$14." Bob: "$20." KB: "$14." Bob: "$17." KB: "$14." By this time Bob had made a huge scene and LB said "give the guy a break and buy it already," so KB got it for $17.  

The baby's room with the old sliding glass doors. This is after the walls were painted but before the air conditioner was installed. 

The new doors and the new air conditioner.  

The baby's wardrobe and crib. 

Our new camera has finally arrived! 

It a common thing to see people hand washing their clothes around here. Many people do not have clothes washers, air conditioners, refrigerators, etc. The guy in this picture washes his clothes in the yellow tub, rinses them off in the silver tub, and then he hangs them up to dry outside. 

We want to give a special shout-out to Kristy for being the first friend to call us internationally. It was great hearing your voice and it meant a lot to us. It made us feel like no time has passed since we last saw you. Thanks!  

We wanted to put a picture of you and LB on the blog but at the moment the only one we have is this pic from prom...nine years ago! Hope you're not embarrassed! 

Baby's Room

Although I am not personally getting to do a lot of the decorating of our baby's room, we have done some things to it in preparation for the baby.  These preparations seemed minor when I was planning them out, but as usual the people I have to count on managed to make it extremely complicated.  It should be noted that all conversations were either in the local language (that we were trying to understand with our limited abilities) or through a translator.

First of all, we needed a closet and dresser (that will double as a changing table) made for the baby.  In fact we just wanted the factory who made our bedroom furniture to make exact copies of my dresser and closet (that they have already made once).  No big deal right?  Of course this time they cut corners and used pieced together wood, that they glued together and charged us the same amount for solid wood. So that has been an adventure to get fixed.  

Also, the furniture factory said they would deliver it on a Friday evening.  I got a translator (who we pay) to come to our apartment.  They did not show up at all.  They then said they would come on Saturday.  I once again paid a translator to come.  They were 3 hours late.

Then through a friend we found a painter to paint the baby's room.  An ill-informed foreigner told us that the paint in this country is different than in the U.S. and that we should pay a professional to do it.  So that is what we did.  Unfortunately the first painter was a slime ball and we quickly got rid of him.  Then our apartment manager told us we had to use the apartment contracted painter or pay a fee.  So we decided to use the apartment contracted painter.  I don't know who the guy was lying to, but if he is truly a professional painter then I am Michelangelo.  They said that the fee we paid covered all painting supplies, labor, including 3 coats of paint.  They showed up and started asking us for rags and other things that would fall under "supplies."  I told them they were not prepared.  Then they took my color swatch and told me it was too dark and they wanted to paint it lighter.  I told them I liked it darker and they said once their color dries it will look darker.  I said if I was not happy with it they would have to fix it.  They agreed.

Then they had a discussion as to whether or not they would paint behind the baby's closet.  Lazy, lazy, lazy. They did not think I could understand them, but I did!  They just did not want to have to move the empty closet out of the room.  I told them to move the closet and paint the room.

So they shut the bedroom door and they painted.  Afterwards I walked into the room and to my horror they also painted the ceiling.  The yellow was so bright!  The room is filled with yellow.  They said it will be darker tomorrow, and I thought "it better be."  The next morning I looked and it was like a beam of sunlight hit me in the face.  So, we called and said to make it darker.  They did not return for 5 days.  They said since it was raining  outside that they could not paint inside. Then the painter disappeared for awhile.  Finally they said they would come on Friday at 2pm to paint.  At 6 PM they showed up.  They stayed in the room, with the door shut, for 3 hours and afterwards came out announcing that they had put 2 coats on the walls and were now finished. We did not think they put on 2 coats of paint in that time.  They asked me to sign off on their work so they could get paid.  I said I would sign it after the walls had dried.  

The next morning the walls were all streaks, drips, and runoffs!  I could not believe they wanted me to sign off on it.  I told them they would have to come back and fix it.  They were not happy.  They said they would come back at 2 pm on Saturday.  Of course they showed up a 6 PM.  They shut the doors and painted.  The next day I still was not satisfied, but in exhaustion I signed off on it.  The paint color is not what we wanted.  To them yellow is yellow and the shade is irrelevant.  Also now I know that I must specify if I do not want the ceiling painted.

Then I asked when they were going to clean up their mess.  They said they do not clean up their mess, I have to pay someone else to do it.  I told them if they used painter's tape and put something on the floor I would not have to pay someone else to clean up what they should have prevented in the first place.  They could not have cared less.

The apartment manager arranged for a local to come clean at a set hourly rate.  After she cleaned I gave her the money she was to be paid.  Then she said the manager told her that she was getting a higher hourly rate.  K was furious.  We have been forced to make these people do their job in the first place, they have lied to us, and now they were tying to swindle us.  I told K to just pay it.  This seems to be a common thing in this country and the foreigners cannot figure out if they are taking advantage of us or if it happens to the nationals as well.

 

Then we had to get the doors to our balcony replaced.  Our dog was able to open our old doors, and since the doors did not truly close there is no point in installing an air conditioner in the baby's room if we did not get new doors.  That was a 3 week process.  I kept thinking about Home Depot and how fast and efficiently this could have been done in the U.S.

Lastly we purchased an air conditioner for the baby's room on a Monday.  They said they would come install it at 10 AM on Tuesday.  So we waited, and at 3 PM they showed up.  They put down the air conditioner and said someone will come on Wednesday at 10 AM to install it.  At 3 PM on Wednesday some men came to install it.  However the geniuses who built our apartment put the outlet for the air conditioner on a wall that it is impossible to install the air conditioner on.  So what should have been a very short installation took about 3 hours.  Before they drilled new holes in the wall, they taped a bag to the newly painted wall to catch debris.  It ruined that part of the wall.

We counted it up and we spent a total about 56 hours over a 2 week period just waiting at our apartment.  We were unable to leave our apartment because if they try to deliver or come do some work and we are not there, it could be two weeks before we see them again.  So, that is a little taste we wanted to share with you of waiting in a foreign country for people to do the things they are paid to do.  

Next time: Getting our phone line fixed.

So Long!

I should first apologize for letting so much time pass since our last update.  Sometimes I think people don't look at our blog, that is until they start telling me that I need to update it.  I don't have any new photos to add.  My trusty old Kodak digital camera finally died; it was almost 5 years old.  We ordered a new camera last month, and it will arrive this week in the hands of a friend of a friend coming to our city.  So, new and improved photos will soon be on their way!

A lot has happened since I last updated our blog.  First of all, two of our dear female American friends have left our city.  Our group has now worked its way down to just 3 people, and L is the only female among us.  She has been quite desperate for girl talk lately, and poor K has been the recipient of it.  So give her an e-mail, she will probably reply very quickly.

We started back to school in the second week of September.  School is a bit of a challenge for us.  The teaching styles are incredibly different here, and the teachers use criticism as a teaching method.  L has gotten pretty mad at a couple of our teachers before for trying to put us as a husband and wife against each other, saying one is smarter than the other.  Also she probably shouldn't have, but she called out a teacher for talking bad about another student's pronunciation when the student was not even in class that day.  This teacher would have probably been fired in the States for what she said about him.  Furthermore, we feel that of our 5 teachers, only 2 are really qualified to teach international students.  Every career advancement here is done through connections, and we think that is the only way 3 of our teachers even have a job.  Anyways, basically school is a test of our will and patience.

Fortunately though, L has started her 3rd trimester, so she will not be attending school any longer.  She has begun tutoring at home.  We selected her teacher, and it seems to be a great fit for her.  L was getting pretty exhausted going to school each day, and I think the people continually smoking around her would have eventually erupted into a bad situation with L telling them what she thought of them for smoking around a pregnant woman.  We have been told that the attitude towards smoking here is about like it was in the U.S. during the 1950's.  It is not socially accepted for the women to smoke, just the rude men.

L is doing good.  She at 27 weeks and has gained 8-12 pounds.  She did not consistently weight herself before she got pregnant, so we are not exactly sure of how much she has gained.  Our last sonogram showed that the baby's head is facing down and is very healthy.  However so far we have not been able to learn the gender of the baby.  The baby's room is coming along.  L's mom and sister are practically decorating the entire room and shipping it to us.  A baby's room is a strange concept to the people here and what they do have is pretty ugly.  Also this side of the world has poor safety regulations (think lead paint on kids toys), so most of the baby's stuff will be from the U.S.  

Last weekend we left our dirty little city went to a more modern city about 4 hours from here. We stayed in a nice hotel, ate western food, and bought imported stuff to bring back here.  We spent a little over $50 buying just tortillas (1 bag of 6 cost $3.50).  They must have thought we were crazy.  L knows how to make tortillas, but it is exhausting, messy, and it is quite a process.  So, our freezer is full of tortillas now.

The weather started cooling off a couple of weeks ago, and we have not had to run our air conditioner during the day since then.  It has been nice.  In our country, how much water and electricity one uses is public knowledge.  They post our usage on a bulletin board by the apartment offices.  We use more electricity than anyone in our building.  Embarrassing huh?  Our landlord told us we should use less.  Let me put it in perspective though, they don't run their air conditioners much at all.  It can be 100 degrees outside and they won't run their air conditioner.  Maybe we should take a lesson from them.  Nevertheless we rationalize that we have to use the air conditioner because if we open the windows L's allergies go nuts.  

Look for photos soon!

K & L

Baby Shower

Things are done a bit differently around here, and I have certainly never heard of a baby shower in this country. There are just so many babies and not enough money that I think baby showers are not customary. I had just accepted that I would not have a baby shower. This made me sad, but I figured getting my hopes up would just disappoint me.

However, our wonderful American friends knew that a baby needs to be celebrated. So, they threw us a baby shower (a bilingual baby shower)! It was a complete surprise. It was a hot, rainy Sunday afterno

on and my friend lives on the 5th floor, so when we arrived a bit late for what I thought was a get-together I was all apologizes. Then I looked over and saw a pink and blue table with goodies on it and my local friends surrounding it, and behind the table was a sign that said "Welcome Baby Brown." I could not believe it. I was stunned. If you know me, it is not hard to pull one over my head, but I still could not believe that my friends would go through the trouble.

We had pink and blue cupcakes, finger sandwiches, and other goodies. They even filled a basket with baby lotion, diapers, a

nd toys. We played typical baby shower games, including one that has determined that our baby is a girl named Trecarya Heather Brown, has hazel eyes, blonde curly hair and will be a flight attendant scientist.

Today I am at 22 weeks. The baby kicks a lot and has its own schedule for how things are done. I visited the doctor this week and she said the baby is healthy, on schedule, and I am gaining weight as I should be (So please no one tell me I need to gain more weight. I hear it daily from every female who has had a baby or will have a baby and they are everywhere).

 

Lastly, as you can probably tell from the photos, I cut

 my hair.  All the baby books told me not to do anything drastic to my hair, that it won't make me look like I am not pregnant or feel better about myself.  I did not listen, and I thought I was the exception for the rule.  Turns out a new haircut will not make you feel less pregnant or make you feel better about yourself.  Also, the hair stylist here have a inability to cut one side of the hair at the same length as the other.  So, I have now 

gotten 3 haircuts in the past month (none of the above photos show the most recent one - it is shorter now) in efforts to correct the attempts by the previous genius who whacked at it.  I am probably going to grow it out since my longer hair was a lot less stressful to maintain then this, but I guess I needed to learn the lesson for myself.

We miss you all.  KB and L

Busy Month

We love receiving boxes, especially big ones!!!  One of KB's good friends from college got some of her friends together to send us the biggest box we have ever received.  Unfortunately Toby also enjoyed one of the delicious gravy packets, resulting in the included bath photo.

We have been trying to be busy getting ready for the baby.  We start school next week and so we want to get most everything done before that begins.  It did not look like much would get done though since things either move really fast here or extremely slow.  Well just last night, we got a call that a painter was available to paint the baby's room (It is like a putty paint that you smear onto the walls with a spatula, something that other foreigners have encouraged us to not consider doing on our own).  Then also last night the carpenter came by to measure for new doors in the baby's room (Toby is able to open the sliding doors himself, so I have reason to believer our kid could do it too).  Most amazingly, the factory that has been building the furniture we ordered in JANUARY called and said they wanted to deliver our furniture last night.  Everything is happening all at once.  

We still have a lot to do, and order, and make, and let other's make, but it is nice to see something happening in the future baby's room other than just a baby bed.  

On a sad note, a couple of our foreign friends who have been here since before we arrived are leaving our city in the next couple of weeks.  There will be no foreign ladies here at all after they leave, and they were really special to us.  

A Couple More Shots...

We love this photo and are considering making it our Christmas card! This bumper sticker is stuck to an air conditioner at a Tex Mex place down south. They even had Dr. Pepper there! (The bumper sticker says "Someone in Texas Loves Me!)



Lastly, we had to go to a big city to purchase our airline tickets to Thailand and to get our teeth cleaned. So, as usual we tried to go the cheap route on the hotels (we prefer to spend our money at western restaurants). This hotel was not the worst we have stayed in, but it had the worst view though. Below is a picture of what we saw when we looked out our window- used toilets.

Traveling Again

We went down south and now we are back. We had a great time, and I don't think we ate anything but foreign food for an entire week. It was awesome!
Thank you for thinking of us during this time. The bus rides were not the best, but L managed to make it both there and back on the bus. However, she has asked to not make her do it again. The good new is that our next scheduled trip is on the way to Thailand to have our baby, and that flight has already been booked. We can't believe that we will be heading to Thailand in less than 4 months!

We took some photos of some things we looked at along the way.
This was on a boat ride down a water canal.

Giant water lilies.

Since coming to this part of the world, L's biggest indulgence is pedicures. She has only gotten a few, but she really likes them. Because the regulations on cleaning the tools for manicures and pedicures are not established where we live, she has to get them at nicer places - usually called spas. They are still relatively cheap, and she feels extra special while getting them.

Fans of "The Office"

This is for all you fans of "The Office." If you are not an Office fan or have never see this episode, this photo will look very strange to you. Yesterday K went into the bathroom for a much needed shave. When he came out I noticed that his face was only 1/2 shaved. I asked him what happened. He said that I had called him to lunch so he stopped immediately. I thought that was a bit strange, but if you know me, you probably know it is really easy to tell me something and I will believe you. I had no reason to believe he purposely left his face looking as it did. However, hours later when I noticed his face was still half shaved I asked when he would shave it, and he would just ask why he needed to shave it. K tends to take people in circles when asked with questions he does not want to answer, so finally I just told him that he looked like Moes off of "The Office." He laughed. When our friend arrived for the party, KB told both of us to turn around. KB went into the bedroom, did something, came out and turned on some scary music and began talking to us about fear. Our friend and I both being Office fans immediately knew what he was doing. However, we did not expect what we saw when we turned around. KB looked like Moes!!! It was so funny. Later on he gave us a quiz on himself to see who could eat first. It was just like Dwight's quiz about Michael; both our guest and I failed

KB's Birthday

Yesterday was KB's 27th birthday. Only one of our American friends was in the city with us, so it was a very small birthday party. Nevertheless we had a good time. L spent the day making sure that KB had all of his favorite foods. This should go without saying, but all of this food was 100% homemade - including the tortillas. He had biscuits, gravy and eggs for breakfast. For lunch we ate chicken barbecue pizza. For dinner we ate chicken soft tacos, with queso and lime cilantro rice. For his birthday cake we had brownies, with ice cream and homemade chocolate sauce. We were quite full and satisfied!




I think this picture looks like we are two good future parents in training, but the truth is that our dog is scared to death of balloons. They completely freak him out, so we are trying to introduce him to the balloon (by the way look at the scary picture on the balloon). For the rest of the evening he sat still and stared at the balloon, and if you have ever met him you know that sitting still is a miracle in an of itself.


Although L has still 3.5 pounds to gain before she even gets back to her pre-pregnancy weight (she lost 5 pounds as soon as she found out she was pregnant), somehow she is beginning to show. Tomorrow she will be at 16 weeks.


Tomorrow we have to board a bus for a 7 hour trip down south. This is potentially a very bad trip for L. Right now she is visiting the bathroom every hour, and is incredibly thirsty all of the time. The bus will probably only stop one time in the 7 hours. Also, people smoke on the bus, so she will probably have to wear a hot mask the entire time. Lastly, she is having a lot of trouble with headaches. If the trip is really bad, we will have to pay to fly her back for the return trip. Since this will be out of our own pocket, please think of L and hope that she will be able to enjoy the bus trip and be able to return on the bus as well.

We love you all, K & L

June and July Fun

We finished school for this semester on June 20th. That evening we boarded a train to our capital city to eat and shop. It was a lot of fun. Getting home with all the stuff we bought for the baby was a different story though, essentially we almost missed our train home.





Right now we are relaxing and getting the house prepared for a baby. L just entered into her second trimester, but she is not really showing yet. Her clothes are getting pretty tight though. All the locals stare at us anyways, but she is especially self conscious now thinking they believe she is becoming just another fat foreigner.



We had a 4th of July party at our place, and two other Americans attended (a good turnout considering there are only 2 other Americans here anyways). We had all the great food necessary for a 4th of July party, but we really wish we also had a pool. It has been really hot lately.



Recently we found a wonderful thing at the local supermarket - Dryers Ice Cream! All that was available before was Nestles (which is truly awful), and Nestles is only slightly better than the local stuff. Anyways, for $10 USD we get a little less than 2 pints of ice cream, so we have to really ration it.



In early December we will be heading to Thailand for L to spend the remainder of her pregnancy there and will deliver sometime around January 10th. L's mom will be coming to stay will us soon after Christmas, but if anyone wants to come visit us before she comes, we will gladly offer you our sofa!

This is a bag of cherry flavored candy.

About 6 weeks ago we took Toby to get his hair cut.




About 2 weeks ago we noticed the hair around his eyes grew back faster than anywhere else.

Mountain Climbing!

Yesterday we went with some friends to climb a local mountain. Since most of the mountains we have seen in this country seemed overrated (in this country's defense we have only seen 1 other mountain), we thought it would be no problem...especially since we were told the entire climb would be up stairs. It took us about 8 hard hours to climb that stinking mountain! These are not normal stairs. They are narrow and very steep. Since L is pregnant we tried to stop and rest often, but even our non pregnant friends needed just as many rests as well. The view from the top of the mountain was well worth everything, but more than once I think everyone wondered if we would survive the mountain. L's knee hurt really bad towards the end, and K thought he may have to carry her down.

This is a photo of us at the beginning - nice and fresh looking!

After about 5 hours of climbing stairs up the side of the mountain, we finally made it!!!













K taking in the view.














This is a photo of L "hanging" off of the side of the mountain.

















All in all, it was an exhausting but rewarding day. We started climbing the stairs about 8:30 am, and we finished around 4:30 pm. We thought the stairs up the mountain were never ending, but then we thought the same thing about the stairs down the mountain.

This is a bicycle repair “wagon,” since they don’t have bike repair shops here. People bring their bikes here when they get a flat tire, etc. There are many of these little wagons around the city. I am pretty sure they stole the KFC umbrella.

Big News!

So, in case you don't yet know, we are pregnant. In our simple little city they do not actually print off sonogram photos, so this is a digital photo of the computer screen. Also, they do not do blood pregnancy tests, so seeing this 3 weeks ago confirmed our pregnancy. It came as a bit of a surprise, but we are really excited. The baby is due in January 2009.













Recently we took a village trip. This photo of L is a good example of how much we stand out in this country...we don't blend in.













We wanted to post a bunch of other photos, but our internet is not moving too fast. We will try to update again in a couple of days. K & L

Parvo Puppy

Our precious little puppy, Toby, contracted Parvo a few weeks ago. We thought he was a little down and noticed he was throwing up and having diarrhea a little, so we assumed he maybe ate some grass or something. However, at the advice of a friend we took him to the local vet the same day he started acting like this. This turned out to be one of the most important things we did for him in all his treatment. Only dogs who begin treatment during the first day or so of symptoms survive. They did a test and told us he had Parvo. We did not really know what it was since we never had to deal with it in the States, but after going home and getting online, we realized how dangerous of a sickness our little puppy had. We were told that Toby had received all his shots, but the well-intentioned guy who we bought Toby from did not realize he only gave Toby 1 shot of Parvo out of a 3 shot series.

For his treatment the vets put him on a rusty table of which the top is made of wide weaved bands (These photos were taken on the first day of treatment; on all the following days I brought enough clean towels to create a barrier between him and that nasty table). They pulled each of his legs through and tied them with a strap to the bottom of the table. This was very uncomfortable for Toby. They shaved both of his front legs, and he received alternating IV's in each leg. For the first 5 days of his treatment he did not even flinch when he received his treatment, and we knew he was getting better when he started putting up a bit of a fight after 6 days.

It was a very stressful week for us. One of us slept in the living room with him each night to help him through his sickness (vomit and diarrhea). Then each morning we took him to the vet to receive a 1 hour treatment of medication and fluids. We then took him back each afternoon for the same treatment. Toby only moved from his bed to go vomit or to use the bathroom (which was in large quantities). Sometimes he was even too weak to move and threw-up or used the restroom on himself. He went down from 9 pounds to 7 pounds, and that is a lot for a little guy like him. We were constantly bleaching everything from our floor, to his toys and everything else he liked to touch.

It was a really emotional week for us. We were not sure he was going to make it through the 3rd night of his treatment. K stayed up almost the whole night as he was afraid if he fell a sleep that he would never see Toby alive again. Nevertheless, Toby made it!!! After a full week of treatment he finally began to eat and drink a little again. His personality has almost completely restored back to normal. He is still contagious to other dogs for 2 more months, so for 2 months he cannot leave our apartment. Furthermore, he will start receive his shots to guard him against contracting Parvo again in June, and he will not be fully inoculated until September. Therefore we have to continually clean everything with bleach - our shoes, our floors, his toys, and all the other things he touches.

After brainstorming and reading everything we could, we came to the conclusion that he probably was exposed to Parvo through something we brought in on our shoes. He had not been outside to play in more than 2 weeks, and he had gotten his hair cut just a few days before - not enough time for him to get sick. This explains our need to clean.

Three other dogs were receiving the Parvo treatment with Toby, and 2 of those dogs died. Toby was a very prayed for and a very lucky dog. Parvo is bad. Make sure your puppy has all their shots!