Tuesday, March 11, 2008

corrrections and forgotten thoughts....

Ok, these will be misplaced in timing, but they were too important to not mention at all....

1. The restaurant we went to on campus is not really for the students here (too expensive for every day) but more for the people who live on campus, or in the area of it...including the administrators, employees, professors, and the foreign students (generally of better means than the locals). It was yummy, and inexpensive in comparison to a dinner out in the U.S.

2. Signs of the times.... :) In the airport at G there is a sign in the Mc D's that shows the international symbols for "no photos", next to "no pets" and then "no smoking". But it was the LAST one that caught our attention.....a piece of cake in the circle with a line through it...."NO CAKE???" After sharing it with J2 he figured out it likely meant no outside food...but the way they showed it was so funny :)

OH, AFTER we took the photos in the airport in G, we saw "no photos" signs everywhere.....so although it is one of the most AMAZING structures that I've ever seen, they don't want us to take pictures of it. You may want to google it to get a real gander of the terminal building (and they are expanding!)

You'll often see a sign around here that shows the circle/slash with a trumpet in the center of it....can you take a guess?? "no horns" is close....as it's for no car horns in that area (which are used as common as the brakes around here!).

J and J have gotten to work with a team of people in the area to better translate the signs around the town. Some of the ones that they had seen said things like "slip carefully". It will be fun to see if they've been updated yet....

3. Lucy....a brave girl of maybe 12 or 13 (maybe younger? it's hard to tell) who started a small conversation with me on the bus yesterday. When she boarded, she stood next to me (I was sitting) and I could catch her stealing glances at me...not staring as most people do...but really trying to just get some sort of eye contact to see if I was friendly or not. After several minutes, she asked in fairly good English, "where do you come from?" and I replied "the United States, and the state of Missouri...it's like a province." She smiled and took a deep breath, as though this English she learned in school would really work....and also that maybe I gave her too much to chew on her first try! She asked me SEVERAL minutes later..."do you like it here?" and I said enthusiastically, "YES!!" I then asked her if she learned English in school, and she said "yes" and I complimented her on how well she spoke, and added that my daughter (pointing to J1) went to school here to learn their language....that made her smile. Actually, at the end of every little ditty of conversation she would take a deep breath (as if this was REALLY hard for her to do) and smile. As we moved towards the back of the bus, she followed, and I thought that she might be getting off at the same stop....but she wasn't. She just wanted to come back and say "it was very nice to meet you" and I figured that it might be polite to ask her her name....which she told me "Lucy" (many students, when studying English, will choose an English name) and I gave her mine....to which she repeated several times, as if to etch it in her mind. I could tell that she was going to have quite the story to tell at dinner that evening, or at school the next day, when she told her teachers that she got to use her English speaking to "real Americans." I'll think often of Lucy and her brave spirit, to step out of the comfort zone of the culture and seek out new things.

I really can't get over the number of people that daily (hourly?) come by outside on the street, calling out their services....I have no idea what it is they are selling...but sometimes their calling reminds me of an ice cream truck of childhood days, except instead of the music echoing down the road, it's the person's voice calling out.....in their own little "signature" of a song....
J1's making pancakes for breakfast, and bacon!, much to the pleasure of her husband and Mark. :) It rained a little last night, and the roads look a bit cleaner :) but it's cooler and cloudy out now. We're not sure what direction we'll go in today....so you'll have to check back later!
OH, Mark got up early this morning and wrote his own blog....so I'll post that for him too!
~marina