Lots and lots of new things

We've had a lot of adventures lately here at the Carter house. I have begun to get bigger--slowly--and find myself slowing down and starting to let my house help do more of the work. This is an adventure since I write a recipe in French (not my first language) and she reads it in French (which is her third language) and then I usually either end up "fixing it" before its too late (like with yeast bread which I recently found not rising in the oven because it hadn't been kneaded and was still wet) or explaining to my husband what I think might have gone wrong, like with the scalloped potato casserole that turned into mashed potatoes last week. The trick is to figure out what she is good at and have her stick with those things. Like quick bread--she is really good at quick breads.



Ben has had several life changing experiences in the last two weeks. Experience number one was the potty. We started on Friday and by Tuesday discovered that he has an incredible ability to hold his pee pee. Unfortunately he refuses to "go" unless he has a diaper on. So this silly blond boy sits on the potty for over a 1/2 hour needing to go pee pee and holding it because he thinks its bad to go anywhere but in his diaper or training pants. Then, when he can't hold it anymore and it comes squirting out he cries and says "I have pee pee!" Similar situation with poo poo. He was holding it on Monday afternoon and crying and I didn't know what the problem was. He wanted to sit on my lap but we really can't do that anymore since I've got another baby on my lap--and suddenly he poops right onto the floor. Then he steps in it and starts to yell, "I have poo poo, I have poo poo." I couldn't help but laugh. We have cement floors so this is no problem at all. I just pick it up, toss it in the toilette and grab a mop. I'm thrilled to know that when he IS ready to go in the potty I don't need to worry about him peeing in the house. He also learned to wipe, flush, and wash his own hands this week. He is back in diapers however, until we can get him to understand that we want him to pee pee and poo poo in the toilette.



Besides the accomplishment of learning to wash his own hands, Ben has begun to sleep in a big boy bed. I started to think about doing this when I realized that he wouldn't fit in a pack n' play anymore--and since we will be traveling the whole month of August we would either need to stick him in a pack n' play or have him ready for a big boy bed. I figured I could at least give it a try and if it didn't work out I would put him back into his crib.



Day one, I sat on a mattress on the floor of his room at nap time for almost an hour before deciding that he needed to sleep more than he needed to sleep on a mattress. So I put him in his crib and before I could leave the room he climbed out and landed on his head. I was so freaked out (he was fine by the way) that I resolved never ever to put him in his crib ever again. Dave came in and I told him what happened and he was pretty sure Ben had learned his lesson--but I wasn't convinced and gave it another half hour. He fell asleep and didn't budge, didn't fall off the mattress, did just fine. We rigged up a mosquito net at bed time and now he has spent his first full night on the bed. Of course we had to pretend to go to sleep on his bedroom floor before he would close his eyes, but the noise of the rain outside was soothing and the ceiling fan felt pretty good. I was happy for the quiet time.



We've pretended to sleep next to Ben on lots and lots of floors, since he has had eight different bedrooms (qualified by anywhere we've stayed for at least one month) in his 22 months of life. Change is something he is used too, and it seems to get easier and easier but I think we feel like its getting easier because we are so used to helping him transition to new places and new beds. For Ben, changing bedrooms and beds is a one or two day transition process. Changing bath tubs, for some odd reason, can be a two week to two month transition. I'm not looking forward to bath time in August and September. Every time we've moved he has screamed through bath time for at least two weeks if not more!


Along with potty training and the big boy bed I've been asked about giving up the pacifier. As far as I'm conserned, this kid has enough crazy trama in his life. He moves every couple of months, plays with all kinds of different toys since his end up in boxes being shipped all over the world, changes climates and clothes and people and modes of transportation...that pacifier is his one steady object and I don't care if he wants to use it to sleep with until he is 10 years old. I think his next adventure might be wearing shoes--or another attempt at the potty...



And then there is Dave's latest adventure. Actually, since I started writing this blog several days ago, Dave had a huge adventure getting our passports back from a less than honest buisness man who was supposed to be transporting them back to us from Chad, where they were having our long term Chad visas processed. That is an amazing story that I could tell in person but could never do justice in writing. Lets just say that God is good and he will give us the strength to deal with whatever trials come our way.


What I will tell you about is Dave's lesson in Chicken prep. I've been taking advantage of my house helper here in Cameroon being a great teacher. I've asked Dada to teach me to do my laundry by hand (which came in handy durring potty training week) and make ech, this lovely flour bassed jello type stuff that the Africains around here eat as often as we eat bread, and other exciting things. I asked Dave to take care of learning to kill and clean a chicken. I told Dada I wanted him to learn and she asked, "what about you?" I just said--I have no interest in that. She seemed to respect that, maybe...

Inalienable Rights

As Americans we believe that we have several inalienable rights. And I'm not talking about life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I've become more aware of these rights since living abroad...and with each new country I live in (I'm on my fourth now) I realize a few more rights I never realized I thought I had. Some of these rights are more serious, while others are less consequential--but the ugly maladie we call culture shock will bring them all to a front in the life of an expatriate, eventually...

As Americans we believe that we have the right to not get ripped off (one that exists in different forms outside the US but generally you need to learn the system of the society you live in for this right to apply to you).

Americans greatly respect the right to be safe from...everything. This right can be good and bad. We have the right to not get hit by a piece of construction equipment but at the same time the passerby also doesn't seem to be responsible for looking out that they don't get hit by a piece of construction equipment.

We have the right--in a lot of American homes, to not live with bugs. We call exterminators or our land lord if we find them inside--it is expected that bugs should live outside and people and their chosen animals should live inside. I miss that right.

Moving down the scale of seriousness ...we enjoy the right to have people show up at the time we asked them to show up, although the appointee doesn't have the right to be seen the moment he or she shows up for an appointment. (a right that does exist in a couple other places I've lived). In our system the social expectation is that all parties are present in the appointed building at the appointed time--not that they are actually conducting business at that time. In many other parts of the world, when all parties are present the appointment takes place, or at the very least a greeting...even if another appointment is already in progress.

We (this one is very important to my Dad,) enjoy the right to sit in silence. Not that this right is never violated, but when it is we have the right to call the police or knock on some one's door to ask them to turn down their music or mussel their dog. I miss this right too.

We have the right to free refills! God bless the birth place of Coca Cola!

And the right that is on my heart today--we have the right to eat peanut butter!

This may surprise you (because it surprised me). Some people, friends of mine, non-Americans, do not consider peanut butter an appropriate food to have in a meal. They consider it a dessert item. Granted, once I'd given this some thought, I realized that it really is a dessert item. We make it into cakes and cookies and frosting and brownies and pies. And then we put it on bread and give it to our children and we are happy, because it is high in protein and cheep and easy. We've made sugar free and fat free and natural versions of the good old peanut butter--but lets face it, they aren't as good.

I've decided that because I am an American and my child is an American I will continue to exercise my right to give peanut butter as a meal to my little boy. Unfortunately for me peanut butter isn't easy anymore. I buy the peanuts in the market, then I grill them and my house helper rubs them all in her hands to get the little skins off. Then she brings them to a mill where they are crushed into a "butter" and we cook the "butter" when it gets home. We do this about once every two weeks. I am thankful, though, that I no longer have to pay as much for it as I did in France. There we ate much less peanut butter because it cost about $1 an oz. Now its so cheep, I'm not sure what I'm paying per oz.

The results I get are more like a sugar free, all natural peanut butter than what I would buy in the states, but that's OK. I've used it in peanut butter cookies and peanut butter cream pie and of course spread on bread or crackers...but our favorite peanut butter treat is a peanut butter and "jelly" muffin. These muffins are basically peanut butter bread with a spoon full of jelly, or a piece of mango, covered by a little more batter over top. Remind you of something mom?

I just thought of a slightly unfortunate right that I miss a lot, especially being pregnant...the right to have ready made food in the house! I'm suddenly hungry and I don't think there is a thing around here to snack on!

Our baby

I know this isn't a very good picture but sometimes you've just got to use what you have on hand when the opportunity comes to write an entry into your blog!

I'm 22 weeks and 4 days pregnant--assuming we are counting from the right day:) Dave and I really wanted to find out if our baby is a boy or a girl but so far no luck. At 20 weeks we went over to the hospital to get a sonogram with our friend and midwife Margit. Margit hasn't worked much with sonograms since in the states there are specific people who do that kind of thing. So we were hoping to have one of the doctors we know do it, but they were both in surgery. The man who works in radiology isn't in the habit of doing sonograms on babies (or so it seems) and couldn't tell us a whole lot at all. So we decided to wait and have a doctor help us later on.

A couple of weeks later we snagged our friend Abbi who is an English surgeon. When I asked her to bring us to the hospital and take a look on a Sunday afternoon (this is a Cameroonian hospital and it closes on the weekends and at night) she told me all she could do was get me the key--and didn't think she would be good for much else. But I dragged her along anyway and she looked at the screen with us while Margit moved the wand around.

When we arrived it took us a couple of minuets to figure out how to turn on the machine. Thankfully it was the same machine that Abbi uses in surgery, and although she wasn't sure, she had a few insights which resulted in it powering up (she suggested plugging it into the wall instead of the dead battery it had been plugged into). We were in a room with a raised padded counter surrounded by a bar with a flowered sheet hanging around it. I hopped on the counter and got ready. Abbi offered to find the "mangiest towel" for me to protect my skirt...thankfully I had brought my own. Dave, Ben, Abbi and Margit all crowded around me and the portable machine. We saw most of the things Margit had on her list to check, like fluid levels and major organs, the parts of the heart and brain etc. Then, Margit in all of her kindness, tried to get a view of the baby's bottom. We looked and looked and looked. I don't know how long we tried but it seemed like forever in that supper hot room. Dave and I saw something but Margit and Abbi thought it might be the umbilical cord hanging down. So in the end we had no conclusive view.

The machine is a small portable ultrasound machine and the baby looked much smaller and fuzzier than Ben looked when we saw him on the inside. All the same, I got to see his or her face and hands and feet and all the organs!:) and I got lots of time with him or her since we needed the extra time to find all the things we were looking for. I'm really grateful for the chance to see baby, and that Ben could see baby too, and if he or she is too big and scrunched up to tell his or her sex by the time we get to Michigan, I guess we will have to wait until he or she decides to come out and meet us to find out what we've got.

Check out my Slide Show!

Waza

Waza is a national wild life preserve in northern Cameroon. It is located a couple of hours south of Chad’s border with Cameroon. Our team decided to go check it out and spend some time together Monday and Tuesday of this week. We headed out on Monday morning and arrived in time to find the hotel and get ourselves signed up for dinner. When we arrived we discovered that around 20 American Embassy workers who had been evacuated from Chad because of the rebel movement in the East, had the same fun idea. So the hotel and park were full of American white people with Chadian license plates.



We purposely went out around the end of the day on Monday. We were told that the best time to go see the animals was the end of the day and the beginning. We had great luck on Monday night. We saw herds and herds of giraffes! They were incredible!



The next morning we were in the park by 6am and we did not have as much luck. But it had rained the night before which made the morning cool and the ride was pretty nice. Since the electricity had gone out we had no fans the night before and couldn’t open the windows in our bungalows, so the cool breeze was welcome. Then we got stuck in the mud! And wow were we stuck. We had 13 people in the car so some of us climbed out in order to reduce the weight in the car. After a few tries we were getting a little nervous, then the Americans came drumming across the savanna. “It’s the embassy workers!” we said. But they kept driving right past us. Margit commented, “I know they said they weren’t going to do any evacuations but this is ridiculous.” It turns out that they wanted to get to solid ground before stopping their trucks. So one of their drivers came back to us and got us out of the ditch.



From there we stayed close to their three land cruisers and didn’t get to see many animals for the rest of the morning. We did come across an iguana and some baboons and a lot of elephant tracks, but never found the elephants.



The ride was bumpy and educational. We know a lot more about off roading than we did before, and most of us had sore muscles in strange places the next couple of days!

New house

It has been a long few days here in Cameroon, at least for me it has. Last week our team mates decided it was time to move back to Chad, while Dave and I decided that we would stay here in Cameroon. There are a lot of reasons for them to go, and there are a lot of reasons for us to stay. I won’t go into the details of all these things…. But the result of this change in address for our team mates made us decide to move out of the village and to the hospital compound which makes it possible for me to see more of the team. Living in the village, taking care of Benjamin and being pregnant AND not having a car, has made it difficult for me to see the rest of the team socially. Since we are leaving on home assignment in August I felt it would be good for me to see the team more before they left for Chad. So we asked the hospital grounds coordinator if we could move into an empty house here. They weren’t able to give us a definite yes right away. We had a team get away on Monday the 16th and that morning we found out that we could probably move in on Wednesday but that depended on the situation in Chad. Isn’t that just the way? Everything always depends on the situation in Chad! I’m sure you have no idea what I’m talking about…I mean why the move depended on Chad.




Well, just after our team decided to move back in to Chad the rebels started moving into villages and towns in Eastern Chad. It is always difficult to figure out which reports are true and which are simply “hear” “say” so no one was sure if they were coming into the capital or not. Since the missionaries were so recently evacuated (February of this year) most of the people who are in the capital now would leave before the attack if the rebels tried to take it. Meskine, where we live, is only four hours from N’Djamena (Chad’s capital) and so if missionaries were to evacuate the hospital wanted to make their housing available. And that is why we could “probably” move in on Wednesday. When Wednesday morning did arrive we sat down to breakfast and I asked Dave if we had a positive go yet. He said that he couldn’t call and find out until 8, and then immediately asked me what the packing plan was. I’m sure my tone was tense and stretched when I told him that we could hardly begin packing without knowing if we were moving. So he called, and then texted the man in charge (because the phones weren’t working) and within thirty minuets we had a go. We were packed, the house was clean and we were in the new house by 3 in the afternoon. We are getting very good at relocation!


The situation in Chad has calmed and it isn’t clear if the rebels will move west toward N’Djamena or not. Our team has postponed its departure for about one week, and we are happy to spend more time with them before we go. Ben is having a great time playing with Jocelyn, the youngest McKenzie child, and I’ve already spent a couple hours just hanging out with my friends here. Dave got a call around 8 tonight from someone watching a soccer match and was able to run over to the main gathering house to watch it with some other “football” fans.

Happy Father's Day

Hey Dads, this one is for you two. we took the video several weeks ago but it hasn't been able to up load until today. sometimes the Internet is strong enough to do this, and sometimes we spend a half hour plus trying to get it to up load only to have the whole system shut down before it finishes. we are hoping for success today. happy father's day. we wish we could be there.

Dave in Chad, Rachael has some time on her hands

Dave has gone to Chad to get our team leader and his family who've just come back from a short visit to the US. That's kind of a simple way of putting it. But we are glad they are coming back and excited to see them again.

In the mean time Ben and I are staying at the hospital compound so we won't be out in the village all by ourselves. we might stay out there is we had a car, but we don't, and therefore its best to be near other people. Especially since I've been having a lot of dizzy spells and tiredness lately. Ive had everything you could check checked. My Blood pressure is normal, My blood sugar is normal, I was checked for malaria yesterday. I'm not dehydrated. I just get so tired I have to lay down and can't get up to do anything or else I see spots or my head spins around. Last night I started to feel better when the air cooled down. I was doing great today until the air heated back up, at about 7:30:)

So here we are. Ben is playing with the compound's kitchen set and putting couch protectors over his head, pretending he is wearing a head covering like I do. Its hot but thankfully we have the fans and cold water. About a week ago the electricity went out for four days and we didn't have fans or cold water. It was a very hard time for me. I admit I could have handled the situation better. But I learned a lot, including to decide to have a good attitude when things like that happen, because you have to DECIDE to have a good attitude. You aren't going to just have one. Its too crummy of a situation:)

Here is a video of Ben helping with dinner. its kind of long but worth it. If you would like to see a video of him in the car on the way down to Cameroon check out Margit Moody's blog. the link is on the left side of my page.

living in Cameroon

So, its been a long time again since i've written on here. I moved to Cameroon. A country right next to Chad. We are just four hours south of Chad's capital, N'djamena. So far so good! I feel quite blessed actually. There is a hospital mission here in this village called Meskine. They are renting our team houses until we can get into Chad. The houses are great and much better than anything we could have hoped for (in my opinion). Plus the hospital "people" arranged for us to have house help when we arrived. With out the house help this would have been a totally dificult transition, so I can't complain.

Ben helping our house helper with the

laundry.

There is still a lot of work to do of course. I bake all the bread we eat. There isn't a lot of food avalible here in the village so we have to go to a near by larger city for it. When we go there its kind of a stressfull setting. You go through stands in 100 + degrees, hoping to find what you are looking for. With a slightly stressful situation like that its not suprising that in the three weeks we've been here we've had to keep going back. I feel like I've got a ton of stuff when we leave, but turns out thats just because it felt like a ton of stuff. Really I only had like three meals worth! I'm getting better at it though. I also don't have a concept of how much I need of certain things. turns out that when you make everything from scratch you go through a lot more salt, sugar, flour and oil than normal. I think I've gone through a gallon of oil in the last three weeks. In France I went through a gallon of oil a year, maybe less. I never realized you had to use it in bread, in your bread pan, to cook all your veggies, for meat (since the meat dosn't really have much fat in it) etc.

I'll attach a couple picts and call this good. I hope I can come up with something a little more interesting for my next blog! sorry everyone. I think that stress is hampering my creativity!

Ben playing with the kids who share the same yard as us.

for the staff at 1300

I know that there is an office full of people who wait to see Ben do fun stuff. So this post is for you.

When my mom came to visit in February we went to Lyon for the day. One of our favorite things to do in Lyon is eat at Subway because we don't have one in Chambery. After finishing his supper Ben tried to run it off in La Place de Terraux.

Since the last time

It's been a good while since the last time I wrote on this blog. For anyone who reads this on a regular basis I'm really sorry. To bring you up to date, this is what's happened since February...



I went to school full time in January and part of February. I was supposed to be in school only until the end of the second week of February, but a coup in Chad changed that a little bit. Yes, there was a coup d'etat in Chad, and our team mates, the McKenzies, were evacuated from the capital. After they came back to France our area leader came for a week to discuss the future with us. Once that was over I went back to school for a week and then took a french test. I'm happy to report I passed my test and I finished school with a B2. I know that means almost nothing to most people, sorry. The important thing is that it was my goal and I reached it.



If you'd like to learn more about what happened to the Mckenzies in Chad you should check out Steve and Kirsen's blogs.

Now what? well now we wait. Originally we planed to leave for Chad at the end of March, but we are still here and are not in the process of packing. Right now we are waiting to hear from our leadership to see if we can move into Chad. As that looks less and less likely we are wondering what the other options might be. Our apartment has been promised to another couple coming to learn French, and so we will be leaving here soon. We don't know where we are going however. It could be the States, it could be Cameroon and it could be Chad.

We've been in a lot of up in the air situations, but I've never been in a situation like this before. I know that any day we are going to move, and we don't know where too. This is very strange. But I have a great sence of peace about it. That could be because of all the times we've moved, and all the times we've moved with uncertainty. Its becoming more and more normal to me.

If You want me to--a new year

Most days its cloudy in Chambery...like today. On a cloudy day you can walk around and see little bitty mountains. But when the sun comes out you can see the big ones. The "White Beauties," as Dave calls them. I was out today trying to clear my head. For me the best way to clear my head is to stick head phones in my ears and blast something good from the ipod, mp3 player, or whatever I happen to have with me. I was sitting under an overhang on our building because it was raining, and I was listening to some new music. After a half hour or so I thought to walk around and find some pretty mountains instead of looking at the ugly cheep apartment building that faces mine.

I headed to the river and walked towards town. When I crossed a bridge and turned back towards home I was facing one of our snow capped foot hills. Funny how its big but small at the same time. I think life is mainly filled with cloudy days--or years as the case might be. I don't mean in the traditional sense of clouds--depression, sadness, etc. I mean cloudy days that keep us from seeing the big mountains. (the big mountains are the Swiss Alps by the way).

For me life seems to continue to be broken up into sections like it was when I was in school. There was elementary school, then junior high, then high school (oh the horror), and then college. But after college came four years of growing. wow, it went fast. Lord please let it be over. For the last four years I've been in the clouds.

Four years ago this week, or maybe next, I said good bye to the life I had, and started to get ready for the life that I was going to have. I didn't know that at the time of course. I though I'd arrived at the big adventure, moving to Amman, Jordan. WRONG.

My parents and brother and sister brought me to Detroit, the international terminal. We passed men on prayer rugs in the corner of the terminal praying towards Mecca and mobs of women dressed in black from head to toe. I checked in. They came with me to the bottom of an escalator that they couldn't come up because they weren't passengers. I got on the escalator, turned around, and watched them get smaller and smaller as I was carried up to security. It was dramatic to say the least. And the fact that my plane was delayed and I went back down a half hour later really ruined the climax of my departure. (they didn't leave till I took off, Detroit is kind of far away from Grand Rapids if the plane was canceled and I had to go back home).

The next six months were probably the most difficult I'd had up to that point. Its all well recorded in the e-mails my mom printed off and put in a binder. But I'll never read them...especially since I married someone I'm not sure I thought much of at that time. Who knows what kind of terrible things I might have said! Things got better, and I learned to follow God without knowing where we were going. I started dating David Carter--and was pretty sure I was going to marry him after praying very seriously that God would lead me to break up with this man who being in a relationship with made me very vulnerable and nervous. (its scary to date in the middle east without your friends or family to comfort you in the event of a break up). But God didn't lead me to break up with him. So there you have it. logically I married him. I also fell in love with him. And since Dave is the type of person who likes to be really sure of something before he moves on it--once he decided he was going to marry me, things went very fast. One day we were walking around after a weekly dinner together (dating in the middle east is difficult. we didn't see each other much. the first time we were ever alone together was about four weeks before we were engaged.) and he told me he loved me. we moved back to the states about a month later, and he proposed a month after that.

I went back to the states, found a job as an assistant in a law office (how strange is that), surprise! got pregnant, had a baby, moved to France (with a two month old baby--good thing I can't have a redo on that move), learned french. Listing the events hardly does justice to the vitess of the roller coaster. At times I could hardly breath. And now? Now here we are at the real thing. we are looking at bags and scrambling for visas--we are moving to Chad. This is the real adventure. I hope.

So what is the break? what makes this section of my life a new begining instead of just a continuation of what was before?

I had a "theme song" of sorts before I left..Ginny Owens, "If you want me to"

The path way is broken and the signs are unclear
and I don't know the reason why you brought me here
but just because you love me the way that you do
I'm going to walk through the valley if you want me to

cuz I'm not who I was when I took my first step
and I'm clinging to the promise, you're not through with me yet
so if all of these trials bring me closer to you
I will go through the fire if you want me to.

It might not be the way I would have chosen
when you lead me through a world that's not my home
but you never said it would be easy
you only said I'd never go alone

so when the whole world turns against me
and I'm all by my self
and I can't hear you answer my cries for help
I will remember the suffering your love put you through
and I will go through the valley if you want me to.

I was so willing to do anything--no matter how dangerous it might be. Now I find myself saying, all the time, that the dangers wouldn't bother me if it was just me. Four years ago I had nothing. Now I have everything. I have a wonderful husband, and a great son. I've lost my willingness to go through the valley. I'm at step 4587 out of 1,000,001 of learning to follow God when we don't know where we are going: give him everything that is precious, since its his anyway--and keep moving.

I have always been good at being alone. my worst qualities include not opening up to others (I dont really think I have anything to say most of the time) and not working well with others (i don't like to "run things by" other people. I'd much rather just do what I think is a good thing to do). But now I find myself needing the people around me, and putting them dangerously close to the head of my list of priorities.

I've got a new theme song, although I reserve the right to change it by the end of 2008.

How many roads did I travel
Before I walked down one that led me to You?
How many dream did unravel
Before I believed in a hope that was true?
How long? How far?
What was meant to fulfill only emptied me still
And all You ever wanted…
Only me on my knees
Singing holy, holy
And somehow
All that matters now is
You are holy, holy
How many deaths did I die
Before I was awakened to new life again?
How many half truths did bear witness to
‘Til the proof was disproved in the end?
How long? How far?
What was meant to illuminate shadowed me still
And all You ever wanted…

Its a great one to blast in your head phones.