Reverse Culture Shock

In terms of reverse culture shock, mine personally has been in the form of flashbacks and snapshots of things I saw and funny things that happened over there, triggered by things people say or things I see here at home. I haven't felt disgust at the developed world for being so materialistic or anything like that, but I've felt terribly humbled and blessed at how much we have. We take many things for granted here at home. We take hot water, showers, and clean toilets for granted. We take our high road rule standards for granted. We take our health for granted. We assume that if we get sick, we have the resources available to treat us, without having to be flown out to another country.

We've been back a few days now, gotten through Christmas and Boxing Day, now hanging out for the New Year, so I thought I'd share some of the bazillion photos with you from our trip as as I reminisce while I'm slowly sorting through my stash, and converting them into jpegs!!! The people living in this country may not have as many material things as we do, and lead much simpler lives, but what they don't have materially has been made up for with awesome scenery. We were all awestruck by the scenery. That scenery alone was a testimony to how great our awesome dad is.

Please click on the really small photos to see the bigger view.


This was an awesome sight during the last part of our van ride over the mountains back towards the capital. This photo really doesn't do it justice in showing how high this mountain was and how majestic it looked!
This shot was taken from the awning of the cafe we stopped at to have lunch, about 3 hours into our 8 hour trip on the way back to the capital.


Chicken anyone??! These guys were multitasking - plucking feathers next to the toilet block while also collecting money from the restaurant patrons who used the conveniences! I kid you not! Also, I'm not convinced that that's chicken, but that's what they said it was!


A lucky shot as I stuck my torso out the window of the van as we were zooming along at 80kph or so...


The lunch table at our meeting place. Our team felt right at home like at cp11. Their meeting time was at 11am too! They made plov for us for our last time there as a farewell lunch.


Cerise chucking a snowball at the van as we passed by. I had my torso stuck out the window, as usual, and she got me, and the camera! Right after this shot, I almost got swiped by a stationary truck as the van drove past, as I recoiled back inside. According to Wongo, I was 10cm away from potentially life ending injuries!


Team CAR as we said goodbye to our friends and our block of apartments.


Part of the team enjoying freshly steamed manty and samsas for lunch while checking out the local bazaar and putting our bargaining skills to the test during some retail therapy.

Our manty man at the bazaar who by the second time we returned (yes, a few of us made the bazaar a daily ritual) would give us all discounts!


Simona and I went on a homestay to Janar's house, in a village 2hours walk outside of town. We were waiting by the side of the road for a mashrootka (van/bus, their form of public transport) to take us back into town. This man was on his way with his sheep to take them out to pasture.

Cows stopping traffic as we headed back into town in the mashrootka.

That's all for now, there will definitely be more photos to come!

Wishing you and yours a very HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Almost home...

Hello!

I just noticed it's been quite some time since the last update. So I might as well do the honours. Unfortunately I have no photos to show you...

Right now I'm sitting in an internet cafe in in Kuala Lumpur, while the rest of the team is enjoying themselves watching 'I Am Legend' at the nearby IMax theatre. We are indeed getting busy with the R&R part of this trip!

The last days in the the capital city in CAR went by very quickly. Everyday was spent doing something different, and the team has had hardly any time (until now) to relax and recuperate. I think for many the highlight would have been the dinners we had with some long term partners there - each sharing their own story about how they ended up where they are. It was also very insightful to hear about what exactly they are up to - taking on holistic point of view in whatever they do. (Please do ask us about this when you see us next!)

It would be impossible to mention everything that happened for the rest of our stay, but some of the 'exciting' highlights include homestays, weddings, getting stopped by police, headless cows, horses & sheep, dental surgery, really good food, really bad food, working with homeless people, singing Vron's music medley six times in one weekend, mucking around in the snow on the side of a highway, fake Russian accents, lovesongs for the single women on our team from local boys, amorous university students... all documented with a million photos. Actually, I'm exagerrating a little - we only took about five thousand photos.

So far Vivian's flu managed to get passed around to almost everyone on the trip. Almost everyone - Matt somehow managed to remain immune, and is still currently flu-free despite our best attempts to cough and sneeze on him. However, he managed to pickup the one thing we were really worried about - food poisoning. Ironically, he didn't pick it up from Central Asia - he got it here in Malaysia instead!

Anyway, my time is up here. We'll all be flying home tommorrow night, and be home in the 24th in the morning. Looking forward to seeing you all on the 25th!

In all things, remember to give thanks!

Hello From KL!

[Part of this post was typed up as we were waiting for our food to come out at the steakhouse, but was only saved as a draft. I'm finally posting this today, 28/12/07... sorry!]

Hello from hot and humid KL, Malaysia, sitting in the Outback Steakhouse (we've just ordered) with free internet access!
This is also a land where KFC is open 24hours a day, and McDonald's does free home delivery with no minimum order! A huge contrast to where we've just been, in freezing cold Central Asia!

Apologies for no further posts or photos since the last lot, but in all honesty, there's not been much time! The last couple of weeks have just whizzed by and it's quite amazing to look back on the journey we've been on and the friendships we've all made. There's so much to share with everyone back home that there's no time here during a quick meal before we go to the IMax at Times Square here to be able to tell you everything! Suffice it to say though, that our forced stopover here has been a nice relaxing break before we get home to our so-called normal lives! We've been shopping and shopping and oh, did I mention shopping? And eating and eating, a bit of sightseeing and swimming. We've been to the Petronus Twin Towers (made famous in Entrapment), shouted to dinner by relatives of one of our pastors, some of us relaxed sitting by the waterfall in the pergoda at the butterfly farm, and some also went to the Batu Caves with a dodgey taxi driver.

We're having a heap of fun, but leave to go home tomorrow night! I'm sure I can safely speak for the team that we've all missed home but at the same time, as a team, we all still get along even after all this time; we've all shared something unique; and we've all felt that He has taught us so much on this trip that a small part of us doesn't want to go home either. We look forward to sharing over 5000 photos and stories that go with them with you when we get back! I'll try and post up more photos here too, for those of you overseas and can't get to our sharing nights!

See you all on Christmas Day!

In the country

We were very warmly welcomed at the weekly meeting place for brothers and sisters on Sunday. The whole team were choking back tears during an emotional meeting. Never have we sung songs so much from the heart, and when the locals sang a song they prepared for us, we truly experienced the unity of the body.

Later we wandered through the town in pairs, guided by warm local friends. They showed us the sights such as local parks, hospitals, the music school, swimming pools and the bazaar - the local market place where you can buy absolutely anything!


Manti for afternoon tea during our walking tour around town
The bazaar is an amazing place though; we were able to learn a lot about the culture by just walking around and observing how people do things. Most of us stopped at cafes and tried out the local cuisine like manti (large dumplings with meat, onion and potato in them) and drank lots of tea!

On Monday three of us were at the kindergarten, while the rest of were shopping, handwashing our clothes in the kitchen sink with no plug, transporting hot water from the bathroom in a kettle, making scones for our Australia seminar (we decided on that instead of subjecting the youth here to vegemite!!!) and finally getting to the internet café to do some emailing, but it would've cost too much and taken too long to post this!!!


sunrise from mine and Viv's bedroom window



Some sights around town. More photos in our next update!

Our journey to the country

We are now in our rural town, 7 hours drive from the capital. This is a stunning but treacherous road trip through high mountain passes above the level of the clouds! At times we were immersed in a blanket of white – the skies, the ground, and the road! Our drivers were extremely skilful drivers, who negotiated dangerous hairpin snow/ice covered roads without snow chains, at an altitude of 3200m.

We are now at 1300m. It is cold! Last night it was -8 degrees, and 2 Christmases ago it reached -30! But the scenery is stunning, as we live at the foothills of snowcapped ranges.

It started snowing in the capital during breakfast, as we were about to head to the country!




One of the chefs in the cafe that we stopped at half way through our 7 hour drive

The first night we arrived in town, we had dinner at Colin and Maureen's place

Life in the capital

We started off in the capital, which is surprisingly cosmopolitan! The Zum Plaza is the place to get all manner of things, such as the latest phones and clothes. Matt has fallen in love with Rosa, who is the extremely attentive Central Asian bombshell working at the Mobicard phone store! We’ve been to see her about 3 times so far.

We also had dinner at the Beirut Pectopah with some Aussie partners, who are a great inspiration. On the streets we learnt that manholes here aren’t covered, so we need torches to avoid falling into them!

On Friday, we had a full day of orientation about the local history and culture, and ate the best tasting plov on record! We learnt that it is inappropriate for guys to approach girls on the street. But on the way there, we made our first cultural mistake – we had lost our way there, so Wongo accosted an unknown startled girl and held our phone to her ear!


The best plov on record so far

The awesome lady who made the plov

The team at orientation
That night, we met many of the ex-pat youth at their weekly meeting where we got to know each other by playing typical youth group games.


Wongo teaching everyone how to play Bzzt

We arrived!

Greetings from Central Asia! We have endured 24 hours of flying, including spending time in a smoky post-Soviet departure hall at 4:30am! We arrived on Thursday morning and have been stuck right into meeting heaps of new people, awestruck by the scenery, and admiring the toilets and their stench!! This was only slightly worse than a flatulent passenger on our flight!

The team as we said goodbye at the airport

The awesome sunset on our way to KL, Malaysia

Everyone crammed into the back of a van with our loads of luggage when we got picked up from the airport

We stopped by the side of the road on the way from the airport, then the van wouldn't start, so the boys had to jump out and give it a push... the driver suggested they push backwards, and it worked!!!

We stopped by a bazaar for fruit on our way to our accommodation

...and some naan (bread).

One of the shopkeepers at the bazaar