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Wednesday, 30 December 2009

  • Partial Furnishing

    Our apartment is partially furnished now. Well, I suppose that's an exaggeration. We have a stove, a dish drainer, some cups, and a comforter thrown down on the floor to serve as a bed when we move in (only until we get a real bed). It's a fun-looking comforter, full of vivid blues and greens. The gas stove is tiny, but seems good. They showed us at the fair that it works. Of course, we had to go out and buy the pieces necessary to hook it up to our own place, but the stove came out to 30,000 CLP (about US $60). By the way, henceforth I will write currency the way Chileans do-- with a dot instead of a comma. So: the stove cost us 30.000 CLP.

    That reminds me! I did a technical drawing today. I drew two pieces: the thing-a-ma-jig that leads to the gas tank, and the thing-a-ma-bob that hooks up to the stove. I know that sounds super technical for all you newbies, but I am, after all, an expert at such things (if "such things" means baloney). We were looking for the right size hose to connect the two pieces. It worked, too! The man we went to buy the piece from took one look at the drawing and said, "That'll take 7/8 connection on one side and a 1/2 connection on the other. I have just the hose you're looking for." And he handed it to us.

    I have to admit, I was a little skeptical, but we bought it, took it home, and tried it. The 7/8 side goes in just right. The other side, well, we haven't found out yet. It's so rusted that while attempting to unscrew the piece the man said was unnecessary, I broke it. We're planning to get a wrench and (maybe?) some kind DW-40-like product. We'll see how that goes.

    Anyway, we ended up walking around the feria all day, purchasing various items. We did take a break and crash at the apartment for a while (on our improvised bed). I'm exhausted. I can hardly wait until we move into our apartment for good. Until then, I have internet! Yay!

    God is good. He has blessed us and shown us His love and His children worldwide. I love Him.

Tuesday, 29 December 2009

  • Skqueeky Clean

    Mike and I spent the day cleaning the apartment. We left shortly after 1:00 PM, and went to a supermarket to buy cleaning supplies. We then took these to our apartment and began scrubbing the bathtub, the sinks, the shelves, even the walls and ceiling.

    Upon returning, we got to see an "araña de rincón," which is in English called a Chilean recluse spider. From what we read afterwards, the Chilean recluse is more poisonous than the American variety. I guess it's a good thing we killed it.

Monday, 28 December 2009

  • ~..apt. deco..~

    I have been busy lately. Since we got the apartment, we went out to buy a few things for it. I know it doesn't seem like very much at all, but I insisted on starting with the bathroom. We bought a trash basket, soap dish, towels, hand towels, and a shower curtain for it, all in blue or green. I hadn't remembered, but the tiles in the bathroom turned out to be blue, which matched the theme perfectly! As I said, it doesn't do much for the whole house, but it was (to me) a little step toward finishing the whole house.

    Tia Nancy and her husband, Pancho, offered us a set of living room chairs and a refrigerator for 100,000 pesos (around US $200), if we can afford it. They're willing to negotiate.

    We found out that the street market (la feria) near our apartment is huge! It spans over six blocks and opens three days a week. They sell everything from clothing, to used items, dishes, to washing machines. The people here buy a dolly or a dolly-shaped cart, which they use to carry the items that they buy at the feria. We bought one (sans the basket) so that we can join the many people who are serious feria shoppers.

    I've been exhausted lately, dizzy, lightheaded, and my stomach isn't feeling too good. Of course, the typical "are you pregnant" jokes have been cracked. Tia Nancy, however, has decided that I must be very ill and has prescribed me with bed-rest and lots of water. After I cooked a cake today and had lunch, she chased me upstairs to the bedroom, where I slept for a full three hours. I must have been tired.

    Ah, and you must be wondering why I baked a cake. Today was Cecily's birthday. We have been conspiring to throw her a surprise birthday party since last week. There ended up being eight guests (ourselves included). One of them had said that he had to go to work. Secretly, however, he managed to get a couple of hours off so that he could come back in time to celebrate Cecily's birthday. It was a very tender moment, when she walked in, saw the balloons, and saw her boyfriend whom she had thought she wouldn't see all day.

    I ended up making a chocolate cake with cream cheese frosting. I was a little at a loss with how to decorate it, so I traced a heart in the frosting and put colored sprinkles in the heart, leaving the rest white. Cecily gave me a little bit of trouble, because I kept having to hide the thing when she would come around to ask a question about some thing or other.

    We plan to fully move into the apartment on Friday (or possibly Thursday). From that point on, I will not have reliable internet. Updates will probably become even more scarce until we can get internet into the house. We've been told that it takes companies a long time to get things done here, so it may take up to two months. Let's hope it's not that long!

    So that's about it for now. There are all kinds of plans and delightful things going on. Keep us in your prayers. May God bless you all richly.

Tuesday, 22 December 2009

  • All Kinds of Exciting News

    Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Oh, boy! Have I got exciting news for you!

    1. We have a potential place to rent! It's a second-floor apartment with two bedrooms, a spacious living room, and moderate sizes for the rest of the house. The owner is Christian and very eager to get the place off of his hands. He's so eager, in fact, to get it off his hands that he's still showing it to other people before we get there today. We're going today to try to sign off on it and pay our first month's rent. We have been praying that if this is not the place that God has in mind for us for now, that the owner will have rented it out by the time we get there today. Otherwise, we will have a place to call home.

    2. We have cellphones! They're not the latest and greatest, but with the Chilean phone rates, it's a wonderful deal. It has regular rates to home phones and cellphones, but we can call each other for free. The phones also come with 10,000 minutes. We paid 24.000 CLP, which is about $47.50. Anyway, so we have our own phones now. Mine is red.


    So those are my two big news for the day. Please pray:

    ~ That God will show us whether or not He thinks this apartment is a good place for us.

    ~ That God will provide help and finances when we get to the "furnishing" stage of having an apartment.

    ~ That we would find ways to shine his light here in Chile.


    On that note, here is a little thought for you to carry with you today. Regarding the dangerous situation in Cuernavaca right now, Mike prayed for my Mom and family the following prayer: "May they use their darkest times to be the brightest light."

Sunday, 20 December 2009

  • -Po

    There is a curious expression in Chile that makes me chuckle every time I hear it . . . and I hear it a lot. It seems to be a derivative of the word "pues," which in this case means "then," as in, "You go ahead and do that, then." The expression they use is "po," and they like to use it as emphasis, however mild. The more excited they get, the more often they use it. The correct place to put it is at the end of words. Almost, it seems to function as a fill-in word for silences, as well. They pause ever so slightly before they tack it onto the end of a word. So, translated, I end up hearing things something like this:

    "Yes-po! You need to use the corn-po if you want to make it good."
    "No-po. You just don't understand. The parking lot-po is too small-po. We can't have the whole group here-po."
    "Hey-po! What are you doing-po?"

    Or, my most amusing experience with it so far:

    Tia Nancy was singing along with an impassioned song about Christ saving us and us not being about to live without Him. She got so much into the music that I heard her sing, "I wouldn't be able to live without you-po!"

    Love it. This may, of course, be an expression particular to the types of people with whom I'm spending time. The richer areas of town probably wouldn't be caught dead tacking a -po onto their words. And people outside of Santiago may not use it either. I'm not sure if it'll stick to my way of speaking, given enough time, but it sure amuses me for now.

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MK_culture_shock

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    • Name: Mrs. Kitty
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    • Member Since: 7/9/2004

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  • Deep or not, it's me you've got, so come and see the freak in me. Poet, author, playwrite, star... missed the normal point by far. Dare you come? Adventuresome? Come explore infinity, in the mystic depths... of me.

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Chatboard (10)

  • jesjos
    i still can not see anything but yoiur picture and mine....i don´t know what is wrong. i couldn´t even see your message...
    • Posted 4/16/2008 8:43 PM
    • by jesjos
  • MK_culture_shock
    It took me a while to notice it there, and then I forgot to answer.
  • MK_culture_shock
    Mike does better when he gets surrounded by Spanish. It's not perfect, but it's very usable. He has preached several sermons in Spanish, and (especially when he's in Chile) he talks very energetically with people. He gets a little out of practice when he doesn't use Spanish, but that's ok. He
  • jesjos
    i`d like an answer....it wasn´t a rethorical question....
    • Posted 2/29/2008 1:03 PM
    • by jesjos
  • jesjos
    con respecto a lo de la mision a Chile...me pregunto como hace Mike con el Castellano...le enseñaste un poco mas? porque recuerdo que cuando nos vimos, alla lejos y hace tiempo, el podia entender poquito lo que hablabamos...debe ser muy divertido!!!
    • Posted 2/27/2008 5:02 PM
    • by jesjos
  • jesjos
    oh! thank you, thank you, thank you so much!!!!!!!!! here´s the link: http://www.blogthings.com/whatsyournameshiddenmeaningquiz/
    • Posted 1/29/2008 5:31 PM
    • by jesjos
  • MK_culture_shock
    There you go, Jesica. Send me the link so that I can try it.
  • jesjos
    I must apologize....I tried to do something nice for you but it turned out a mess....neither of them pasted correctly. I AM REALLY SORRY. delete all of them please....
    • Posted 1/28/2008 1:04 PM
    • by jesjos
  • jesjos
    jeeeeee when I read ¨I´m waiting!!¨I thought I had read ¨I´m awaiting!!!¨and right or wrong I thought you were pregnant too!!!!!!!! may be it´s a different kind of ¨baby¨right!? good luck on that!
    • Posted 1/23/2008 11:39 AM
    • by jesjos
  • MK_culture_shock
    There's a chatboard, how cool is that?!