take a bite out of monkeys

You may have noticed that we haven't had many posts about monkeys in a long time. The main reason for this is Chini, our super monkey crime fighting dog. Here is our Super Dog by day, relaxing before her moments of monkey madness. But don't let her peaceful facade fool you. She has learned early on the dangers of the primate, and thinks constantly of how she can fight them off. In what must be one of the many differences between Chini and dogs raised in the States, all we have to say is, "Go get 'em, Chini!" and she darts up to the roof barking and growling, ready to fight off not cats, not strangers, but monkeys.

Today for some reason, the gray monkeys have been going nuts on our roof, and I had the chance to catch Chini in action. Here are some pics of her in between her manic running from one side of the roof to the next.

And here are a few pics of Chini training for her role as Super Dog...

who's the boss?

So much has gone on lately that I really don't know how to begin. I've been putting off blogging because I knew it was going to be incredibly long. So, let me try to hit the high lights and avoid the usual useless chatter: A day and a half after returning from the ladies retreat, husband and I accompanied Anna and Hannah to the town they'll be moving to in April. It was a 10 hour road trip. I think after living in South Asia, we'll be driving all over the States when we get back, because nothing will sound too far. Anyway, their to-be town is gorgeous. Everywhere we looked, we were surrounded by snowy mountains. We were even able to play in snow, and keeping with our love affair of strange animals, we sat on a yak for $.50. The locals really know how to make do with what they have.

Upon returning, our favorite little creatures greeted us by pulling my clothes off the line, dragging them in water and dirt, and leaving them strewn across the terrace, along with little presents for us to enjoy cleaning up later. Why, of course I mean the monkeys. I was at the market when this happened, and husband called me and said, "Pick up some bb's. It's time to teach them who's boss." They must have had some sort of plan that day to terrorize the homo sapiens, because on my way back from the market, a man came running up with a monkey screeching and chasing him. There were about 5 or so women walking around me, and I've never seen a group of strangers simultaneously do an about-face and start speed walking the other way. But we managed to do so, and in sync so amazing, it was nothing short of dance-like. In ballet, there's something called Step of the Cat. Well this coordinated group move I think I'm renaming as Step of the Monkey. Finally one brave woman picked up a couple of rocks and began throwing them at the monkeys, from which the evil ones turned and ran. Then as calm as ever, we all turned around and began walking in the right direction again. The Step of the Monkey, for that day at least, was over.

But believe me, the war has just begun.

top 14 things i love...

...about this city and country. (I couldn't narrow it down to 10) I'd love to see a post or comment of your list! (this goes for my overseas and stateside friends)

14. Morning chai, afternoon chai, and evening chai
13. Even if all I say is "thank you" or "hello", the locals freak out and begin complimenting on how well I speak the language.
12. Hearing a cow moo right outside the window. I'm not sure that will ever fail to make me laugh
11. The stunning views every way you look.
10. The guys at the coffee shop know me by name (what's that you say about coffee addiction?)
9. Being able to have talks about the boss without people immediately jumping on the defense wagon, spouting off about being PC and tolerance
8. When monkeys take your clothes off the line (alright, so that belongs on the hate list)
7. Learning the odd regulations, such as having to sew white cloth around international parcels
6. The shop keepers know what I mean when I ask for stuff like "yellow flour" (translation: cornmeal)
5. A bus ride to just about anywhere costs about a nickel (that's assuming you also love the buses)
4. The locals make a valiant attempt to cater to my "low spice tolerance"; the food goes from chemical burn level to merely lip-numbing
3. Without exception, each movie involves hours of drama, laughter, tears, singing, and best of all, dancing
2. The joy of sharing about the boss to someone who has never heard about him
1. If the shopkeeper has no change, it's not a problem. He just pays me back in gum.

shh...don't tell PETA

This past weekend, husband and I went to mail off two more packages, and while there, an Australian guy asked us where we got our box wrapped. We told him a tailor, and he looked dumbfounded. "You mean they don't do that here?" I laughed and said no. Apparently, the woman at the post office had told him to come back at 3 (the time they stop sending international packages) and he could get the package wrapped there. He stood there slightly arguing with the ladies about what they told him then vs. what they were saying now. I felt for the guy, especially when he said he was leaving on Sunday to go back home and had no way of mailing this package off. We laughed, though, when he dramatically told the women, "You ruined my life and all you have to say is I'm sorry?!" It was a bit over the top. And as bad as it sounds, I was kinda relieved to know we weren't the only ones who didn't get the system.

Also on Saturday, husband figured out a way to scare off the monkeys. Someone gave us a walking stick, and so he held it up like it was a rifle, and they slowly scattered. I still think a bb gun would work wonders. One week of that, and we'd be rid of them forever.

here we go again

I posted on Saturday that husband and I tried to take our packages to the post office and were told we missed the mail truck by 10 minutes. After getting back from the hospital, I tried again. I took 3 packages this time, and showed them to the worker. He told me that actually, international parcels had to be sent from the main post office of our town, that no other post office had the customs labels. I asked him why he didn't tell me that on Saturday, since we had shown him our boxes and told him we were sending them air mail to the States. He just kept nodding and saying, "Yes, I remember you." So, for the second time in 3 days, I walked back home with the packages. You should have seem husband's face when I walked in the house with those packages.

Today, I stuffed 2 of the packages in a bag, and headed up to the main post office, a 40 minute walk from my house. Halfway there, I suddenly became surrounded by monkeys. I cautiously crossed the road, careful to not look at them directly. A woman walking toward me grabbed me and said, "You have a bag, be careful!" I suddenly felt like a spy in Cold War Russia. I nodded, took a step, and stopped. The monkeys were all over the road, and weren't budging. The woman and her husband stopped walking and blocked my way to protect me from what I'm convinced are God's most vile creation. We stood still for about a minute, just eyeing the monkeys and waiting for them to leave, which they didn't. Instead, they actually started coming closer to us. We ended up crossing the road at one point, the two very kind strangers still instructing me on how to behave. I've never seen monkeys like this. A group of about 20 of us walkers were huddled together, waiting to be able to walk again. The monkeys slowly scattered, and the husband of the couple looked at me and said, "Go!" ("here's your chance, defect! defect!") Ugh they really ruin my walk to the market.

I got the post office without anymore primate encounters. It was 3:11. I was so excited to get rid of some of these boxes! I showed the boxes to the woman worker, who promptly told me that the international parcel pickup is at 3pm, and I couldn't drop it off today. She also informed me that all international parcels must be taken to a tailor and had a white cloth sewn over them, otherwise the postal system would not mail them. I am glad she told me this; otherwise, the next time I take those darn boxes back to the post office, I would've been told to go back home for the 4th time. There's gotta be something in Proverbs 31 about this.

The silver lining to all this is that lugging those boxes around have got to be toning my arms a bit. And husband's dumbfounded reactions everytime I walk back home with the yet unmailed boxes are priceless.

attack of the monkeys

Here is a picture of the big grocery store. It's blurry and doesn't have the best view, but I didn't feel comfortable taking a picture of the grocery store, so someone else took it, and I'm not brave enough to go back and take another one.

Oh by the way, I was nearly attacked by two monkeys today. They were all over the place today, and had me so jittery, even before the big attack. There were 3 coworkers in town, doing some sightseeing, and we took them to one place, and on the way there, there was this family of about 7 monkeys on the side of the sidewalk. I was holding onto the back of husband, knowing that if baby monkeys are around, mama monkey is being very protective. As husband passes by, a monkey on each side of us started hissing, looking at us straight in the eye. Eye contact is not a friendly gesture in monkey body language. I froze, while the two monkeys put me on their target list, and started hissing and coming at me. I backed away slowly, and they finally, after what seemed like an eternity (it was probably only 30 seconds), got bored with me and turned their attentions elsewhere. I had visions of rabies shots in my head, and was so scared, I even had tears in my eyes. After it was over, I looked behind me, and there was this crowd of about 50 people bunched together about 30 feet behind me, all waiting for it to be over with. When I saw them, they all started laughing. Laughs of released tension, I'm pretending. Sometimes, it's just not fun being the crazy white woman.

dominant species

Today I was studying language in a coffee shop (it seriously may be the best idea I've ever had), and I looked out the window and saw these two monkeys. One of them grabbed what looked like some sort of plastic container of orange jello, and stuck the whole thing in his mouth, plastic and all. He sat for awhile and chewed and chewed, probably wondering why it was taking so long to swallow. But instead of spitting it out, he just kept chewing. And it made me think, some people actually think we evolved from them? I mean, my dog (ahem, I mean my parents' dog) at home wouldn't even do that. Granted, he went through his scared-of-ice phase, but everybody has irrational fears. And if evolution turned monkeys into humans, why are those annoying creatures still around?

There are no mailboxes here, so you have to go to the post office to mail anything. We went for the first time last week, and it was an experience. Since there are so many people here, everyone gets assigned pretty much only one task at their work, and so we went through a few people at the post office. Just to mail 3 letters, we had to go through paying for postage, pasting on the stamp (literally...the guy pulled out old timey paste and wiped it thoroughly on each stamp), then I had to watch the guy put the letters in a box, and then someone else gave me a receipt. They would not let us leave until we had that receipt. Each letter cost 15, which is the equivalent of about 33 cents. Nice! I went back today on my own with 2 more letters, went through the same process, except this time, no receipt. I wonder why it wasn't important this time. Also, the price went up from 15 to 24. I asked why it increased, and she told me because they both weighed more than 20 grams or something like that. I was about to argue when I realized that I was going to complain about mailing something air mail overseas for 50 cents. A regular stamp in the US almost costs that much. An example of something that's just not worth fighting over.

Priya is so close to coming to know the truth. Please remember to send her money. She is to the point where she realizes how empty her life is, which is when I came to personally know the boss, and I'm hoping she will meet him soon as well.

isn't that our towel?

I should have mentioned yesterday the funniest thing that happened to us. I had hung up to dry the towels that we used to clean the bathroom. Wait, I'll stop and explain something really quick. The bathrooms here are obviously not like in the states. Our "shower" is a small corner area of the bathroom with a drain, a faucet, and a new shower head. Here, they don't use shower heads, they use buckets to shower. That's another discussion for another day. Anyway, there is no blocked off area for the water to go, and even though we have the privilege of a shower curtain, it doesn't keep the water from getting all over the bathroom floor. So until we bought a squeegie last week to push the water to the drain, we had to use towels. So there, that was quick right? I'm trying, guys! So anyway, we had hung up the towels on the roof on the line to dry. There were 2 of them, along with some small hand towels. Being the slight airhead I am, I didn't notice that there was only one towel to take back in the house when they were dried. Husband and I were on the terrace later, and he pointed to a tree with one of our new towels hanging in it..."Isn't that our towel?" The monkeys had gotten ahold of it! Oh we had a good laugh, and I breathed a sigh of thanks that it wasn't one of the lush towels my mom had given us before we left. Mom, the towels here just aren't the same!

So my meal lesson today was great! Although, I wonder if I'll be able to do it without Priya's help. She left some dough for me to practice frying tonight. Let me tell you, she gets that dough on the rolling board and rolls it out into a perfect little circle in seconds. I tried it, and the dough kept sticking to the rolling pin! So today should be pretty entertaining to see the little oblong pieces of bread I'll be making.

I think I've learned how to attach pictures to the blogs, so I'm attaching a picture of the towel that is just out of reach from receiving in the trees. Notice all the pollen - it's awful! I just went up to the terrace to take the picture, and my husband is up there studying his language (he's so good - he's going to catch up to me at the rate he's going, even though I've had a helper longer than him) and his glasses had pollen all over them for just the hour that he's been up there! The second picture is of the water purifier and water heater. Sister-in-Law, this is for you! You said my geyser story confused you. The purifier is the white thing above the sink, and the metal thing above the purifier (you can't see much of it...it's just a little bigger than the purifier) is the geyser. Anyway, it shares the plug with the purifier and it eventually heats up the water. Or is supposed to, but like I said, ours is a bit quirky.

I need someone to send me money so that I can be motivated to go out into the community and practice my language. It takes guts to walk up to someone and say, "let me tell you what I learned today." Husband does it just fine. (I'm sure no one is surprised! :) but the evil is influencing me from going to practice. I have the head knowledge that these people find it so entertaining, and not annoying, when a foreigner does this, but I can't get my heart to commit to it. And without using what I've learned, I won't retain it. Thanks for all you do!