Sunday 9/14/08
Hey there everyone:) Hope all is well for you there. I’m happy because I haven’t seen another large spider now in two days although it hasn’t really rained yet. Today my group and I are supposed to go into Bani and go to the internet center so hopefully I’ll be able to post this. After that we’re going to go to a beach which is supposed to be a tourist beach so it should be really nice. The last beach I went to wasn’t bad but it wasn’t super clean.
The food situation here with my family is better than I could have hoped for! They are super cool about trying to get food that’s familiar to me. I tell them that I like everything they’ve made (I haven’t not liked anything they’ve made but I told them right away that I don’t like the boiled banana bit so that helped) and today they made me pancakes for breakfast. I ate all of them (with jelly which was new for me but good) and then my Dona said she knows I liked it because I actually ate it all. Then she told few people that I ate all my food. I asked her if she doesn’t believe me that I like the food unless I eat it all and she said yes! She doesn’t believe me?! The thing is, lunch is like 4 hours after breakfast during the week but on the weekends breakfast is later and lunch isn’t later. So when lunch comes, I’m not even that hungry and then she thinks I don’t like it. Dinner is at 6 or 7 and breakfast is at 7 or 7:30 so I’m generally hungry for those. Last night for dinner they made me mac n cheese and the night before they gave me an apple with peanut butter and a ton of cookies! Awesome! I don’t think I have to worry about losing weight at this house. They gave me fruit and corn flakes for breakfast yesterday:)
As far as my Spanish, well- it’s still the same. We did the map exercise with the kids in the community and let me tell you, I am GLAD I don’t live in a house with kids. They were crazy! They started fighting and drawing on each other with markers, one stole a marker, and they almost tore the map into pieces! Yikes! Now my focus is on my grammar book- studying a lot- and on my house visits I have to do. I have five to finish my Tuesday or Wednesday and let me tell you- they are painful! I have to ask random people questions like, "When was your last pap? How long did you breastfeed? Do you know how a person gets AIDS? Have you had a child die? When?". My Spanish is not that good for one thing- yesterday when I asked my family these questions I just had to write "Did not understand answer" next two a few of them. After you ask a person three times if they’ve have a child die and you still don’t know what they’re long answer is, you stop asking. So, wish me luck on the other 3.
In other news, my sister was nice enough to take my phone into Bani yesterday when she went to get her hair done because my phone broke already! What a piece of crap! The phone place fixed it for me but then this morning it was broken again. That’s annoying. I’m glad PC is giving me a real phone in October. If I knew how to get a countdown feature on here I would have a countdown till when I get my phone! (5 weeks from tomorrow by the way).
Well, that’s it for now I think. I miss you all tons, and thanks so much again for your encouragement!
Love
Betsy
PS: The longer I’m here the more I realize the necessity of a headlamp so for all you who know where the nearest camping store is and would like to purchase a super bright headlamp… :D
3 comments:
Hey Bets,
First to let u know, Aaron got u a head lamp so hopefully he will send it soon. I sent u a e-mail saying I'm so confused on all the numbers you gave me so if you could write down each number and who it goes to that would be great. I am soooo happy this family is so great. This should help the five weeks go fast. K well I'm gonna try to call ur phone tomorrow at 9p. Hopefully talk to ya then. Love you sooo much
ma
Hmmm...
Well, I've got a couple of super bright luxon LED headlamps that have 2 brightness settings, to conserve on batteries when possible, and a flashing mode. They run on the same triple "A"'s that I believe we already sent U some of. We could send U one of those if Aaron would like to keep his, or if it uses different batteries. I'll coordinate w/him on it. Ok, just talked to Aaron and of course he did real good. He has already gotten U one that's the same specs. as the ones I have, and used the same AAA batteries that Ur flashlight uses. Plus he's getting U a buttload of AAA & AA batteries as well and shipping U the whole shootin' match! :) Go Aaron! :) A real chip off the old block... By the way, how'd U like Ur flashlight? The headlights I have use the same technology, a bright white long range LED. Also, did U get Ur markers ok too? I really struggled with that one, I thought that I had more around here, but couldn't seem to be able to find them anywhere!?! Were what we sent U ok? Then finally, too bad U're only staying with this family for 5 weeks, they sound like they're really bending over backwards to accommodate U. No more boiled bananas either. Bravo! That just sounds so disgusting. And yes, we're all doing much better out here at the school since the rains finally ceased, we just finished up with the entrails of Ike up here directly after 3 days of heavy rains preceding his arrival. We flooded out pretty bad here at the school, but I have a great set of pumps so was able to keep up with it all, but I will have all of the flooding probs. here properly dealt with shortly. I just won the bid on a hydraulic hose crimper/swager on Ebay last night that I've needed to make all of the hydraulic hoses for my backhoe so I will have it up and running now in a couple of weeks. With that I'm first fixing that infernal Kilmer rd. ditch once and for all, and replacing that open, root bound septic tile from the 50's section of the building to the old septic tank, and that will fix all of the flooding probs here, and in the boiler room, no matter how much rain we get in the future. :) Also Andy & Joey said that the roofing materials that we need to put the new roof on the gym should be in this weekend! :) And that's a real blessing since this last round of record rainfall that we had over this last weekend b/c that'll solve all of the leakage probs in the hall by the office area which is still drying out today. Only lost 1 ceiling tile down there this last session, but still it was a big, smelly, moldy mess to clean up, but we also that handled quite deftly now since Rach picked up a de-humidifier for the office area which we're now running out in the hall there. Also sucked up a couple of tanks of water from the carpet down there yesterday w/one of the steam cleaners I have here. And no more leaks at all in the east section that we did all of the roof repairs on over the corner room & Sarah's storage/math room. High and dry down there now, and this last rain session was a real test. I think we're going to do the gym roof this weekend if the weather cooperates! :) Things are really progressing along down here at a breakneck pace finally and it's so exciting to see things finally coming together. A lot of work still lies ahead, but now it looks very positive like we're going to make it down here with my planned boiler system install b4 the snow flies this year. I've already got the nec. copper tubing to make the fuel supply run to the heat dragon from the big outside tank I have outside in back of the boiler room, and also soon the backhoe functional that I need to move the old gas furnace back into place down in the boiler room as well as install that boiler I have inside of it. I also just picked up 3 furnaces/air handlers that I'm going to use in here, in the office, and in the family room to circulate the air through the condenser units that will flow the hot water from the boiler down in the boiler room! It's finally really happening here Lil' Bets... No more freezing weather inside the school here in the winter anymore! :) Also, I got another really big, badly needed break down here that I hadn't expected... Paul that used to work for me at the shop is buying a grand worth of parts from me that he needs for a job he's working on out there, but his mainstay is actually flying and maintaining a plane for some big auto sales group out in the city there, and he just made me the offer to go out to the airport that he works at and pick up the spent aviation fuel and jet fuel that they take out of the planes when they come in for regular inspections. After they take the fuel from the planes they're not allowed to put it back in them and have been paying to have it picked up and disposed of! The aviation fuel is 100 octane and has no alcohol in it(just like the old gas they used to sell at gas stations), and the jet fuel is basically diesel fuel that I can run in one of my diesel engines to drive the 2 10KW generators I also have here now. Then, no more electric bills! And actually with that much generating ability, I should be getting about a $600.00/mo. check back from Comm. Ed! :) In April this year Il. congress just passed a bill that now requires the electric co. to buy back the electricity that anyone produces at the same rate that they sell it to us at, and not at their cost to produce it which was the previous law on the books. What a break. The aviation fuel will run all of our gas cars and tractors down here just fine. This is really great b/c it's been costing me about $80.00 in gas just to cut the grass down here each time I have to. He's calling me back either today or tomorrow to let me know how much they have down there, but he believes that there's somewhere between 1000-1500 gallons of aviation fuel and as much as 3000 gals. of jet fuel down there right now! All I have to do is drive out there and pick it up for free! Which will be no problem now that I've repaired the AssVan, just yesterday, and I have all of those poly storage tanks that Uncle Greg got me. With the AssVan and my red trailer I should be able to pick up about 2000gals/trip. And I've now got 4 12V high volume fuel pumps running and ready to rock, and a new alternator and battery in the AssVan to run them. Today it's finally nice and sunny out here so I've got the styrene's down and the black solar panels up with a fan blowing over them to warm things up a bit, it's been real cold out here too and I've had to run the woodburner the last several days. Which is fine b/c I've got over 20 tons of firewood out back right now with about 1/2 of it already processed and ready to burn. I also just picked up a real nice big heavy duty log splitter that mounts to and runs off of the tractor. With that I can easily split the logs at about 10 times the rate that Kyle and I could previously do with the sledge hammers and wedges and malls, and with far less effort. Oh ya, also, about a week ago, I picked up a real nice, almost brand new western 8' snow plow for my big red Dodge 4WD dual axle flat bed logging truck for only $100.00! So now I'll be able to plow the snow from the parking lots in a fraction of the time it used to take me with the tractor with the snow blower on it, but I still have all that and now a really large front bucket for it too, instead of that old manure shovel that's been on it that I've been using this whole time. Also I grabbed about 1200lbs of tractor weights for it from Sammy's when we were cleaning up his place this last couple of weeks that will solve all of the traction control problems in the snow that I've had in the past. The "boys" were out again last night, til about 2:30 this morn., and we got the first 5 gal. pail of copper sulfate doped paint up on the cinder block walls in the gutted east wing. Next session with them we're putting up the 2nd coat and then painting the cement floors in there with some of the alcylid oil based floor enamel I have here. We've had 2 high powered ozone generators running down there now for several weeks... No more mold! :) Very soon now we'll begin the reconstruction phase with electrical, furring strips, styrene insulation panels, and finally drywall and paint. :) Sorry to have been so long winded here on U again, but I'm so excited about all of the progress down here and wanted to keep U abreast. It'll all be here, up and running when U get back... For Ur enjoyment too! :)
Love,
BaTTered/Dad! :)
Hey you! Sorry I haven't been commenting...I've been too busy talking to you on the phone lol :) So in case you didn't get it all here's the cookie recipe and instructions:
3/4 tazas de azúcar marrón claro
3/4 tazas de azúcar
2 palos mantequilla
2 huevos
1 cucharadita de vainilla
2 1/4 tazas de harina
1 cucharadita de bicarbonato de soda
1 cucharadita de sal
1/2 tazas de chips de chocolate
1)mezcla de color marrón claro de azúcar, azúcar, mantequilla y hasta la luz y esponjoso
2) Combine los huevos y la vainilla con el azúcar y mezcla la mantequilla.
3) Añadir la harina, el bicarbonato de soda y la sal y mezclar hasta que la masa formas.
4) añadir el chocolate chips
5) la caída de cucharadita de pleno en una hoja de hornear y hornee a 350 grados durante 9 minutos.
Here's the site that translates:
http://www.spanishdict.com/translation
I sent you a package on the 12th so you should get it sometime today. It's got your mac'n cheese so no more starvation...for a day or so :) Also, I bought 30 blank DVD's and covers and gave them to Aaron to copy all your movies for you. He said he'd send some out this week.
Have you checked out some of your friends on myspace? Mikki's getting married, Deanna is having a baby, and Lisa Farmer wrote on my facebook wall! Weird huh! I'll be sending you're next package on Friday the 19. WOW you've been been gone an entire month! That's crazy! Oh ya, and in case you didn't get my txt I went over my minutes this month a crap ton...257 minutes! I've only gone over 2 other months since I got a cell 4 years ago and it was never by much. This next bill is gonna kill me! The point is that I can't call ya till Thursday. I'll txt ya then with a time but if ur free at night like around 8ish that's work for me. Hey, sorry again for keeping ma the other day. I was really late with dinner :( I hope you still got to talk to her sometime. Well, I should go now that I've written you a book, but hey I had some catch'n up to do. Luv ya lots!
~Rach
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