Minority Village

The girls and I had the chance to travel for the past couple of weeks, and one of the places we got to visit is a huge minority exhibition. Minority usually has a derogatory connotation, but it's the word used here to distinguish the different people groups of East Asia. On a normal day you probably couldn't make too much of a distinction b/w someone who is a minority and someone who is not. But these different groups have their own distinct languages, traditional housing, clothes, ceremonies, and beliefs that set them apart. So at this minority exhibition they have people from the different groups come to this one place to live for around 6 months out of the year. Each group has their own village inside of the exhibition that shows what life is like for their people. It was a really cool experience for us, since living in the big city we never see anything but fast-paced development.This post has pics of the differnt styles of homes. More pics of the people coming soon :)Farming hats!This was my favorite home, it's a tree house!We got to end the day by taking the zip line across a big lake!

Domestication

This is just a quick post to thank my roomies for joining in the task to help domesticate me! I've been vigorously taking mental notes watching them do everything from cooking to taking care of me over the past year...and I decided it was time to give back! I made cookies from scratch for the first time in my life! Like, all by myself, the girls weren't even on supervision duty in the kitchen! And most of the cookies had little to no burn marks on them :) So I'm gonna share the recipe with ya:

Banana Oatmeal Cookies
1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 tbsp butter, very soft
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup mashed banana (1 small/medium)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups oats
1 cup chocolate chips
**Preheat oven to 350F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
**In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
**In a large bowl, cream together the butter and the sugars. Beat in egg and banana, followed by the vanilla extract. Gradually, on low speed or by hand, add in the flour mixture. Stir in the oats (either whole rolled oats or "quick cooking") and chocolate chips.
**Drop dough by tablespoonfuls onto prepared baking sheet.
**Bake for 11-14 minutes at 350F, until set and lightly browned.
**Let cookies cool for about 5 minutes on the pan before transfering them to a wire rack to cool completely.
(Makes 2 dozen cookies.)

Thank you SO much to those who've been a part of sending many of these ingredients our way!

And a big thanks to ALL you Pr0v3rbs 31 wives, mothers, and diligent women in my life...who've poured your lives into mine! I'm blessed by knowing yall and watching yall treasure Him!!!

Ok, so I'm gonna go learn to sow now! :)

Sports Meet

Classes were cancelled for a few days for teachers and students to participate in the school-wide Sports Meet! I was pretty impressed when I saw how high the hurdles were...but had a big surprise when the race started and the runners went under, not over the hurdles!

The jump-roping was pretty impressive too!

I thought it was funny how the runners were wearing everything from spandex to blue-jeans!My beautiful classmate and I!Long Jump!High Jump!The infamous star-athlete came up to me and asked if we could take a picture together!More classmates!

Down by the River

While spending time with friends last week, one of them asked me if I'd ever been to the infamous river that runs through the city. I had to admit that while I'd crossed it numerous times by bridge I'd never been close enough to put my hands in it! So we decided to change that.It was a nice day so lots of people were out enjoying it! These little girls were so cute and they even let us borrow their kite!People love playing cards here, so there were lots of card games going on on the rocks.This kid was making some pretty large rocks skip across the water.And I actually put my hands in the river!

(and sanitized them afterwards :) )

Thank You!!!

I had a big surprise when I came home from school today! The biggest package I've ever seen was waiting on me, SO big that I had to get a security guard to help me carry it up to our apartment b/c of the weight! I've got to say a HUGE thanks to my Grandma & Nana, along with all their friends at Club Central! These sweet ladies threw me a "kitchen shower" through the mail! I could probably open an import store with all the gifts you sent our way! I'm overwhelmed at your generosity and love! What a blessing you precious servants are!

Greater Things

This past week I had the privilege of traveling with a friend to an area that overlooks the hub of our city! We set out at dusk and reached the lookout spot on the mountain just as darkness fell over the city.It was overwhelming to think about the multitudes of people, represented through the buildings, cars, and boats, that our eyes could behold from this one spot.Cat and I.And as we chatted with the One about the city, I was reminded of the lyrics to a new song.

Greater things have yet to come

and greater things are still to be done

in this CITY!

The Road Less Traveled

Joy and I found ourselves on a little adventure as we headed to school today! We usually take some form of public transportation to get from our neighborhood to our school, which is around 2 kilometers in distance. But when we hoped on the bus today we found ourselves in one of the biggest traffic jams I've ever seen. So after idling on the bus for 5 minutes inhaling exhuast and seeing no hopes of movement in sight...we decided we'd be better off walking. So we embarked on our first ever trip of walking to school!

But instead of sticking to the main road we tried out a new path! :) And that new path lead us through a muddy little field! It was crazy going from our skyrise apartments (that you can see in the haze behind us) to what seemed like the middle of the countryside! After telling our teacher about our journey to school, it turns out this little patch of country we treked through is a landfill for our district...haha...gross!

Here's a few of our more common sights...

Card playing!Construction workers!Mini-tables and mini-stools outside the restaurants!Meals on wheels (a.k.a.- street food)! Great going in, terrible coming out! ;)Fresh fruit!Side-walk sale of pets! You can buy a bunny, turtle, or fish right off the street!