Hello Again, I am so glad to be back! This week we had some exciting new developments. Grace and Faith started school. They are thrilled to get to ride a bus to school. I am glad with the wild fast driving here that they have individual seat belts in their bus. I miss them after being with them for man months straight. They are loving meeting new friends and learning some really exciting things.
Faith's class is learning about Japan and Grace's Kenya for International week at the school. Faith has shared about Mt. Fuji and why Japan is called " The Land of the rising Sun". Grace has shared some interesting things that Kenyans drink. Two of them being animal blood and sour milk. And to think I would like to live there someday. Here are my two oldest babies before the crack of dawn before the bus picked them up. The school/work week in Kuwait is Sunday through Thursday. As I type this I look forward to the weekend after a busy week, TGIT(Thursday)!!!!
The other photos were taken on Saturday when our big shipment of HHE arrived. We were so excited for the arrival of our earthly belongings, especially boxes of stuffed animals and toys. Honestly after all the items that were in the shipping containers were loaded into the house I was thanking God for the arrival of the stuffed bears, dogs and cats. If those wouldn't have made it there wouldn't have been a dry eye in the house, mine included. I am now crying for other reasons. The moving company erred on our shipment. At least half of our stuff that we wanted shipped to Kuwait, after diligently going through ever box or item multiple times, is still in northern Virginia in storage. I have loads of plastic containers and boxes that were never supposed to see the light of day for quite awhile, lining all available spaces in hallways and extra rooms. Obviously the next job for me is to get the items that need to go back to storage in D.C. back there. I am going through inventories line by line to understand the mistakes and request the things we wanted here be shipped to us as soon as possible. I am missing all my dishes and most of the boxes from the kitchen. I now understand why one must be so flexible when part of the Foreign Service. Assume things will not go as planned, plan accordingly, assert yourself when there are problems and of course cover it all with prayer.
I mentioned the "wild" driving here. I have been to countries in the past that have wild drivers before. The difference is that this is a great deal of weaving in and out of traffic at HIGH rates of speed. My first thought upon arrival, "I am not driving here!" Over time it became clear that without a car of your own you are trapped, there is no safe public transportation for us to take and taxis are expensive. We rented a car for a week while Kelly worked out buying an older minivan from one of the driver's at the Embassy. Kelly drove at first while I sat in the passenger seat cringing and commonly waiting to feel the impact of another car bearing down on us. I knew Kelly was going to be traveling for work, so I had to suck it up and just do it! I learned that he who hesitates while driving here is not only lost, but hit by the other guy who assumed you drove like all the rest of Kuwait.
After many days driving in our "new" old Chevy Venture minivan I can say that I have scrapped together all my collective grit and pluck to navigate the highways of Kuwait. I am now happy to report I am able to drive without breaking into cold sweats. I had a big near miss the other day and I praise God for protecting us! I had braced myself to hear the scrapping metal against metal, as I was circling the "round about". Amazingly, we missed this guy in his BMW sports car. I knew the Venture could handle a bump, but one would think that he would not want his beautifully iridescent blue chick magnet to remain showy and dent less.
As I watched him so close to my car I realized he never even looked my way or flinched, just kept right on driving.
Please keep up the prayers for us all, we are getting settled and in. This is feeling more and more like "home", our things are arriving, we are making memories and we are back into a more normal pattern of our days. I will be back soon with more photos to give you a taste of what the city looks like. Thanks for being patient with us as we worked out our technical issues. I have missed this outlet very much and am so blessed to have this way to communicate with you all. Have a great night~
