June 12, 2008

Ketchup #1- English Camp

Ok, so here is the first of the big June catch up posts. The first was doing English camp for some middle schoolers. The English part of the camp would be boring to all you English speakers out there, but here are some of the highlights of our time there. We had 2 weeks of it, the first was out on a huge island.
It was Isaac's first airplane flight. He did great! Take offs were easy, but I think his ears bothered him a bit on the landings. Still though...he has the makings of a good little traveler.
Since we had some native English speakers fly in from America we gave them a couple days of R&R and orientation before camp started. Justin and Daniela helped us show them a good time. We went out to a beach just a short boat ride away.
Isaac's first boat ride. He doesn't remember much.
There were so many fish!
The family!Isaac's first time in the ocean...the South China Sea! He seemed to not hate it...so we deemed it a success.
I've noticed the bigger Isaac has gotten- meaning he doesn't look like a newborn anymore- locals feel more free just to come up and pick him up. Seriously, they do it everywhere! The little girl was NOT happy that her mom was holding another baby.But he's so cute! We know why they want to pick him up...and squeeze his arms, pinch his cheeks, "sniff" his face, and the fun one- put their arms up to his and compare how fair his skin is compared to theirs.
Camp was fun with a mix of organized chaos and "the hokey pokey"... we all had fun though.
It was a fun week...not to mention we did it in paradise!

June 05, 2008

Got Gas?



So yesterday the Prime Minister informed the nation that the government was lifting the "Petrol" subsidy at midnight. That meant the price of gas would now be at "market" prices. People waited in super long lines to try and get one last tank of gas before the price hike. Here are a couple pictures of some gas stations... these are "out of town" so imagine double or triple the number of cars for the pumps in the city. It was crazy! I can't imagine what it'd be like if the American gov't changed a policy that fast on the American people... there would be riots for sure! Not surprisingly, there have been several protests today around the country. We also learned that our electric costs would be going up 18% because the electric company also loses the subsidy for the gas they use at power stations. Craziness!