Praise the Lord for Burger King

Right now Uche and I are sitting in Burger King. Why am I telling you this?? I just had to share how cool Burger King is here. First, you can get whoppers (or in our case, whopper jr.s). Second, you can get free internet, and it's fast. Third, there's a movie playing on the tv hanging from the ceiling. Fourth, they have a woman who walks around and offeres massages while you sit and eat, surf the web, or watch a movie. Seriously, why wouldn't we be at Burger King?!?!

Mostly we're at Burger King cause I'm suffering from an awful case of heat rash and I'm supposed to not sweat for it to get better. Uh, I live in Manila, sweating is the most popular past time here. So, I can't stay home cause I sweat too much there, plus the internet wasn't working. I wanted to go to the school but the internet is having issues there too. SO, we are in a very cool, well air conditioned place enjoying ourselves. Please pray this heat rash goes away soon, it's not fun, and I can't eat Burger King three meals a day....

Missions Fest

Last week our school had our missions fest. We were encouraged to dress in traditional or native clothes during the 3 day event. Being that I dress traditionally American everyday, jeans, T-shirt and flip flops, I decided to wear my Nigerian clothes.

Here's the Nigerian couple. Fortunately we live close to the school because we sure caused more a riot than normal walking down the street in these duds.

I don't know what we're laughing about, but I loved this girl's wig. It's hard to tell from the picture but it's a wig of small braided hair. I need one.

Quite the international group here. The girl in the middle in the purple clothes is our Mongolian neighbor. Her outfit was beautiful. The girl standing next to me is from the southern Philippines and has a heart to reach out to Muslims. You can't see her very well but the green outfit is an Indian sari. I was jealous of her outfit and have decided I must have a sari.

The Community Development department set up a table educating people about the moringa tree. Here in the Philippines it's called mallungay. It's quite an amazing tree; it's even called the miracle tree because of all it's nutrients and uses. We gave out cups of mallungay tea and I made some mallugay bread.

I used a recipe for spinach bread and then cut it into bite size pieces for everybody to try. It turned out pretty well and people enjoyed tasting it.

Happy things

A couple of weeks ago we bought a little electric oven. We went back and forth on the necessity of an oven, but our desire for pot pie and granola won out. Today I made granola again because we gobbled up the first batch. We've loved having the oven and I'm glad we bought it!

One thing I love about Manila is the availibility of American food. There's tons of restaurants from home and the grocery store carries many American products. I'm enjoying this luxury because I know Africa will be much different. Trying to find American products in Nigeria was not easy, and once you did find something it cost an arm and a leg. I once paid over $5 for a generic bottle of syrup. Fortunately I was able to bring back maple flavoring after my visit home and we were able to enjoy homemade syrup for a fraction of the cost. So, as you can see below I had some good food the other day!! I even shared with Uche because that's what a nice wife I am.

Lots and lots of homework!

We have been pretty busy lately with classes and our assignments. During the month of January we added another class that met all day on Saturdays. So, not only have we lost an extra day to do work, but now we have more to do. Fortunately it's a great class and it's been very interesting. Actually, we love all of our classes. We're so grateful for the opportunity we have to be here and learn valuable information from great people. Though assignments can be overwhelming, we're enjoying every minute!

This is Uche's area of homeworking. It also doubles as our dining table. On average I think we have read over a couple hundred pages a week, plus papers, interviews, research, presentations... I need to stop now I'm stressing!!

This is my work area the desk. The laptop you see there doubles as our tv/movie center as well. We've got a lending library exchange thingy happening with our next door neighbor. But have I mentioned we've had a lot to do, so no movies lately!

During our health and development class we learned how to take each other's blood pressure. Learning these kind of skills is not the point of our class, but it was a fun activity. In the class we've been focusing on the concept of wellness in a community. So, we're thinking of the whole person and what it means for them to be healthy in all areas of life. Uche and I will be doing a presentation in this class on HIV/AIDS and how it affects relationships and communities and how it impacts the poor.

After taking each other's blood pressure we worked together to create meals that high nutrition, but are affordable for a low income family. Thinking through this process was pretty interesting. What if you only had a couple dollars a day to feed your entire family, how would you spend it so you can get the most nutrition possible? This is a problem that the people we hope to work with have to deal with on a daily basis.

This was taken during our Saturday class, Intercultural Communication. We had different glasses on and we were talking about how our culture determines how we see things. Just like the differences in the lenses of each pair of glasses affected how we saw things in the room. These glasses were crazy. The "lenses" are just plastic lines. It was so hard to see out of, and they would've given me a headache if I had to wear them for any amount of time!

We decided as a class the only possible function for these glasses would be to help you keep your eyes on the line you're reading and not lose your place.

Around the town

My brother Gus came to visit us this past week and schools started again after the Christmas break, so it was a bit of a crazy week. Here's some highlights from Gus' visit.



The main reason for the visit was dental work. There are some really good dentists here and they are much more affordable than in the States. Here Gus displays the pieces of a tooth he had to have pulled. There's a closeup picture of the teeth that I will save you from having to view.



Here's Gus trying on some jeans at Greenhills. This mall has a bunch of stalls where you can buy a variety of items from purses to sunglasses to jewelry. This booth sold jeans and when it came time to try them on they whipped out the dressing room curtain.

Here's Gus enjoying some tropical fruits, papaya, mango and pineapple with pandesal (delicious Filipino rolls).

At Powerplant mall in Makati. I love this mall because it's beautiful and quiet. Most of the malls here are loud and crowded, but this place is just relaxing. There are lots of designer stores here, and of course, I can't afford to buy anything here, so I just enjoy it.

This is at the American cemetery in Manila. There are thousands of graves here for men who lost their lives during World War 2. It's a beautiful and serene place.

The landscaping at the cemetery is beautiful and well maintained which makes for a nice background for a picture of us.

We also spent some time in Intramuros (inside the walls). The walls were built by the Spanish hundreds of years ago and we wandered around for a little bit.

We enjoyed a Middle Eastern lunch complete with Lebanese music videos.

Awww, Starbucks. Did we really live before Starbucks...

Happy New Year!

On New Year's Eve we travelled to Tokyo so my sister in law could spend New Year with her parents there. It's a big family holiday for Japanese people. It was fun to see a bit of Tokyo. We didn't get any pictures cause we were in the van the whole time, but it seems to be a pretty cool city. It was really fun to look out the window and watch the crowds.

My sister in law's parents bought some noodles for us to eat. It's a traditional New Year's Eve food, and it was quite tasty!

Fortuantely noodles are easy to eat with chopsticks! I think I got every last one.

Group shot. Nigerians really have far reaching extended families. So, Uche says that my sister in law's parents are his in laws as well as my parents. I guess now I'm related to people from 3 different continents!

This is the area where we rang in 2009. It's kind of hard to see, but there's a ferris wheel in the background that had a clock in the middle. The white dashes in the middle counted the seconds. So, we counted down and rang in the new year in Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan, 17 hours ahead of all you west coast Americans.

It was a little brisk, ok, honestly it was freezing!! I borrowed a coat from my sister in law or I would never have ventured out of the car!

Uche sporting a borrowed coat as well.

The group (minus the guy taking the picture).

On New Year's day we went out visiting. We stopped to see a friend who was dressed in traditional Japanese clothing for work. We got some pictures with her; it was a pretty complex outfit.

How boring do my clothes looked compared to her outfit??

Day trip

The other day we all loaded into the van to take a little road day trip. We left the city and headed for the mountains. We drove along the coast for a while and then started climbing and climbing. We arrived at a summit and pulled over at lookout area to take pictures and see the sights. The views were amazing. We got to see Mt. Fuji and the mountains surrounding it. We also could see Lake Ashi. We then drove down to the town of Hakone and did a short cruise on the lake. It was a gorgeous day with lots of sunshine, but it was COLD, especially on the mountain. We took lots of pictures and they all turned out great, so I will try to post a few to give you an idea of our day out.

View from the lookout point.

Uche holding up the post.

I have no idea what this post says, but the numbers say we are 1011 meters above sea level. I looked up online and that's 3600+ feet. We started at sea level and climbed all the way up in a matter of minutes. It was quite a drive with some great views of the sea.

Welcome! Sarah as tour guide.

During our boat cruise we saw this pirate ship on the lake as well. It was pretty cool looking.

It was a very pretty cruise with lots of photo oppurtunities.

The whole crew. U&S with Uche's brother and his family and a guy from Nigeria with his girlfriend.