We are still alive!

There is a lot to write about this week. Sorry I didn’t write last week, it has been kind of crazy. This will be a long one, but it has been over two weeks since I have emailed anything. We have been really busy and internet access has been hard. However, they were running wires for our house today, so hopefully we will have internet tomorrow (which means we will be lucky to have it by the end of the week.)

The big news since I last wrote is that we have moved into our houses. We have been here a week now and are still working on moving in and making it feel like home. We are getting more comfortable every day, but I really had mixed feelings about our place at first. On the one hand, our places are really nice and in a lot of ways too much for just the two of us. There are two living/sitting areas, a kitchen, a dining room, four bedrooms, an office, and a roof patio. WAY too much for just the two of us. On the other hand, it isn’t really our style and since there is tile EVERYWHERE it is hard to make it feel like home. Also, the plumbing in this place looks like I did it. So far we have had a big leak in the kitchen sink (twice), a broken dishwasher, a leaky shower, a leaky bathroom sink, a washing machine that wasn’t hooked up right and no hot water. Beyond the plumbing problems there have been a handful of other things that have made living here difficult. Jon is quickly becoming known as the MacGyver of the compound. The maintainence crew also came out and fixed everything….but then Jon has gone around and “re-fixed” everything after they left. Everyone is really grateful he is here.

Yesterday a member of the ward took us out to a wholesale nursery on the border of town. It was a lot of fun and great to see so much green all in one place. We could have bought the whole place—but settled on a tree for the house, a plant for the house, an aloe vera plant, a bogenvia (sp?) and a pot for each. It was really inexpensive—the plants were really healthy, they potted everything for us (we didn’t have to buy any soil or fertilizer) and they delivered for free (which was a HUGE plus.) Everything only cost us 420 Riyals which is about $115.00. We could have done it even cheaper, but the tree we got is imported and we got two ceramic pots. I thought it was a pretty good deal, especially since nothing green grows here naturally.

After the nursery we came back to the house and cleaned up a bit and did some more unpacking and rearranging. For dinner we went out with several families in the ward to a place called Turkey Central. The food was really good and it was really cheap. Jon loved the food and it was fun to see people out of church. It was so funny. Around 1:00 PM people in the ward just started sending text messages around saying, “Turkey Central. 6:00 PM Pass it on.” I was amazed that 40 plus people showed up. In our old ward that would be a pretty good turnout for a planned ward activity that they announced for 5 weeks! The ward here is really friendly and does a lot together. It is really nice. There are a lot of really amazing people here from all over. Even though everyone is so different, everyone reaches out to each other to make you feel welcome and comfortable. It really is a great example of what a ward should be. We feel like we have a ton of friends already.

Jon and I spoke in church a week ago. They asked us to speak on the Second Coming and the Millennium. We were a bit overwhelmed—it would have been nice to have something easy like “keeping the Sabbath day holy.” Jon thinks that it was our hazing into the new ward. It went well though and I think it was good for us. Not having access to the internet and not having a million resources available to us made us rely on the scriptures more. We are glad to have it over though.

Jon’s favorite new discovery this week is the cafeteria at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The University has a design school next to the Qatar Foundation main offices. The food is REALLY good, there is a lot of it and we both can eat for around 20 Riyals (about $5.50.) Jon is in heaven! When we can, we eat there for lunch and that is our main meal for the day. After that we don’t really need much for dinner. They usually have two kinds of meat (chicken and beef something), rice, potatoes, salad, hummus, fruit, and a few other things.

Jon, Marya and I have also started taking Arabic classes at VCU. They are one night a week and will cover just the basics. So far we are getting pretty good at the greetings, directions for taxis and all the general polite phrases. It is really nice to be doing it together. We practice on each other and on taxi drivers whenever we can.

Jon is networking with everyone here to try to find a job. Now that we are moved into our place and we have an extension on our visas it will be easier. Everyone has been really helpful and we are crossing our fingers that something will come through soon. Finding a job here will be NO problem, but he really wants to hold out for something related to medicine.

(The picture to the right is a view from our roof)

I keep putting off sending this email until I can finish writing about a few things, but I am afraid it will never happen. I will send this now and send more pictures and updates later.

We love you all! Em and Jon