October 18, 2010

• It’s monday again. I’m not sure why Monday seems to be the day for blogging. However, i feel like my task list for these next two weeks is so gargantuan that i dont have the luxury of long blogging. So, my challenge for today is to list off what’s going on in 5 minutes or less…

  -the house formerly known as the Slaubaugh’s (let’s call it #5 from now on, since “the house formerly known as the Slaubaugh’s” is too long a title and the house is in fact #5 – we’re #3) will be occupied again at the beginning of December by a bunch of guys who work for Canadian Flyers. They are (non-Christian) pilots and a mechanic who are flying for the Canadian mine(s) on the East coast of Madagascar. Currently they have a house/flat in Ivandry (otherwise known as the American district, think higher rent, more accessibility to shops and restaurants). Ivandry is about 45 minutes (if you’re lucky) drive from the airport (we’re 5 minutes away). So they are interested in living closer to the airport and i reckon living in a quiet compound with Canadian neighbours is probably an added bonus. Anyway, they’re moving in and have somewhat of a higher standard of living than missionaries who take what they can get. They took a look through the house and, apart from the obvious damages that the proprietor will repair, they asked if we couldnt give the house a fresh coat of paint and replace (supply where non existent) the hardware and fix up what needed to be. This job has fallen into my lap. Well, not really fallen, i’m the housing coordinator for MAF which means it’s in my job description i guess. It’s stressing me out mostly because a) i cant just call up some company from the yellow pages and ask them please to come and do all the necessary stuff because my language skills arent up to that and you never know what you’ll get as far as quality work from an unknown person. b) i dont know where to find the paint that this compound’s proprietor uses – the stuff they used for our house is good and i want to use it again for #5, but the painter whom the Lady in charge said i should ask has yet to reappear (he’s supposed to come back to our house to fix our water damaged walls). So, we’ve got a timeline to work within but i feel as though i havent any helpful resources. Gah! I’ve got that nauseous feeling i used to get at jobs where i knew i had to do something but didnt know how to go about doing it. yuck. Usually i’d ask Josh to sort of help me plough through these kinds of problems, but…

  - Josh is VERY busy flying. The other pilot, Patrick, is out of country (again, the poor guy) on a seminar or training or something and Josh is therefore the only guy around to fly the plane. We are also currently being audited by MAF for Safety and Quality (although there isnt a Safety officer around > Patrick; and the pilot and plane are out every day all day).

  - Judah is in school for today and tomorrow yet and then it’s Spring Break or “Vacance de Toussaint” (All Saint’s Day[s] – Here in this country where the dead play such a huge roll in the lives of the living you can imagine there’s a lot of ‘stuff’ going on at this time of year). Judah is back in school on the 3rd of November. After that there’s only one more month until his grandparents get here and soon after his uncles and aunts and cousins. The first few days of holidays i’m hoping that Josh will take off as duty days and we can go downtown to look at the Lac Anosi Jacarandas and go for ice cream at the patisserie at Colbert Hotel. Yum!

  - Asher is currently pushing out his eye teeth and is a bear most days. He poops more than 5 times a day and last week had such terrible diaper rash he screamed when i touched it. poor guy. he’s sleeping better though, which is a huge gift. His walking continues to get more stable, although he still walks with his arm up in the air as though he’ll lasso you at any moment. ha.

  - Because the family arrives in 6ish weeks i’m also thinking about how to prepare my house (and myself. ha) to host 6 extra adults for a month. It’s great to have everyone come at once because Josh cant take much more holidays than what he’s taking and it’s nice (and financially possible) to be able to go to the tourist places once rather than every time. But it’ll be full in our house when we’re here (and not at the hotels), which isnt so bad considering the size of our house – but anyway, i don’t think my family has ever spent as much concentrated time together in one place for that long. I’ve already started praying about it. I was really hoping the Canadian Fliers wouldn’t take #5 house so that i could put the overflow in there, but alas, they insisted on helping MAF out by paying the rent during the year’s wait we have until the new MAF family arrives.

  Ok, that was more like 25 minutes than 5. Gah! I’ll post photos soon… maybe. if i get all my jobs done.

  • 2:52 am
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