A friend of mine tried to encourage me to write more often.
I have had the best of intentions to send pictures, videos and emails in
English and Afrikaans. But in reality an email update in one language, every
few months is more than I can manage right now. So, this kind friend suggested
that I write about what our lives look like, to give an idea of what we do all
day and where my time and energy goes. I spoke to another friend, one who lives
here, about this and she thought we should all make lists of what we actually
do. On those lists would be bizarre things that take incredible amounts of time
while being completely unknown to our friends and family back home. So, over
the next while I will attempt to give you a glimpse of my daily life. Sometimes
I will speak of what Karl is up to, but this will mostly be from my
perspective. In our family the communication aspect is my responsibility, so I
guess our sparse communication will make more sense then if I share about my
life. Also, I am sure that I will sometimes sound whiny. I most probably am.
But, we know that the life we live is our choice and we still find joy in it,
even when it seems very odd and at times overwhelmingly tiring.
Yesterday it was my mission to make chocolate cookies. We
were going to friends’ house and I was taking dessert. I have a fantastic
recipe for Mud Slide Fudge Cookies, which uses egg whites. My fridge is
overflowing with egg whites because my daughter can only eat the yolks and I
have guilt issues with throwing food out. So, I got the egg whites, cocoa and
other ingredients ready, just to find that we are out of honey (one of the few
allowed sweeteners on our diet). I decided to cheat and use brown sugar, which
when you buy it in the market, is about one step away from cane juice. This
would have been a fine idea, if I actually had some ground brown sugar. Turns
out that all that was in my cupboards was a solid block, which is the
traditional way of selling it. So there I was, chopping pieces of brown sugar
off with my cleaver. A simple task turned into an ordeal. All this I was trying
to accomplish with my toddler around my legs, sticking his little fingers in my
cookie dough. In the background my daughter complains that I haven’t played
with her in “days and days” and that she is very bored. The dishes had to wait
until this morning and are still not all done... and now I have to go make
dinner. We have joked about the blocks of sugar since when I first came to
China (it tastes like black Wilson Toffees, by the way), but I didn’t think
then that I would still be hacking away at it thirteen years later.
So much has changed here, gotten easier and more convenient,
but here in the “Wild West with Cell Phones” we still have some progress to
make. All that to say that there are some things that take more time here than
they would back in our home countries (paying the water bill can take a whole
afternoon, and sometimes needs a follow-up trip). It is just how life is. But
it leaves less time for other things, like e-mail and blog updates… and doing
those in two languages. So, if you haven’t heard from us in a while, or are
upset because I only ever write in English these days, please forgive me. I was
hacking away at brown sugar.
