Val's B-day!

Val's birthday was this past weekend. We had a surprise party for her, and were so excited that our friends kept the surprise!!! The girls usually do the cooking and I do the washing afterwards...but I gave it a whirl and tried to bake Val's cake. There were only minor problems, (like a crack across the top and uncooked insides) but thanks to Joy's expertise it turned out GREAT!
Val and Sally
Joy made cheese dip and salad!
After eating and spending time thanking Val's Maker, we played a few rounds of Mafia!

Whatcha Got Cookin???

We've spent alot of time this summer having friends over to teach us how to cook local food, and teaching them how to cook Western food. Last week Val and I went out with our landlord, her husband, and son. They drove us to one of our favorite restaurants, but we were surprised when dishes we had never seen before arrived on the table. One that we couldn't clearly identify was a huge drumstick looking peice of meat of some sort. We were given a plastic glove to put on one hand to pick off the meat from the bone with, and then a straw! We weren't sure what to do with the straw but we watched the landlord's son put it down into the bone and suck up the marrow/cartledge juice! So we gave it a try and followed his lead...it was a little chunky, but it tasted like gravy to me!! As we conversed more with our landlord we finally realized that we were eating DONKEY! Haha! The best part was a few days later when I was telling one of my local friends about it, she said, "I didn't know you could eat donkey!" I assumed everybody here ate it...guess not!

Ice Cream!!!Nacho Libre cupcakes! I forgot to put the "t" in stretchy!

One of our teachers sent her daughter over to learn how to bake a cake.

We found out that it was our teacher's birthday after her daughter came so we tried to see what we could spell on the cake using m and m's. I spelled out "I love you" in the local language, "Wo ai ni."Val's birthday is this weekend, and her mom actually mailed her a cake, along with some Hamburger Helper! So we made some for a friend and then dove into the cake last night...yummy!

Beauty School

I had a friend in the States who taught me real briefly a few different ways to cut hair before moving here. Joy let me experiment on her first...and has let me cut her hair ever since. And I've had a few friends who are kind enough to let me chop around on their heads since then! Val got her haircut recently, so I asked the barber where to get sizzors (since Sally's Beauty hasn't made it here yet). So a friend and I went out one day on a hunt to find them. We finally located the building that the barber told me about, and it turns out to be a 3 story building full of little shops that sell everything you could possibly need to start and supply a barber shop here. So after bargaining for about an hour, I walked away with 2 pairs of sizzors, a carrying case, and a clip all for about 10 bucks!When I got back, Lisa and Sally came over and they let me test out the new sizzors by shapping up their bangs!

Goodbyes

We've been blessed with some really great relationships with our international friends. We had a big feast and said our goodbyes to them a few weeks ago!
Lisa and Sally (above), some of our national friends, will continue to study here!We went ahead and celebrated Val and Ken's birthday a few weeks early...they have the same b-day! The green cake is from their home country.
Alvin and Ken really enjoyed the chocolate cake! They lived upstairs from us.

Our last group photo!