Christmas

I'll be the first one to admit that Christmas is a little different out here. Actually, it's a lot different. Other than the things that my friends and I have done, there is no way to actually know that it is the Christmas season out here. There are no lights, trees, Santa Clauses, nothing. It isn't entirely bad though; there isn't any commercialism, going into debt over presents, or little old ladies getting run over at Wal-marts. I guess that it is all what you make of it. The past couple of nights some of us have been getting together to watch Christmas movies. It has actually been really busy out here the past couple of weeks. There have been a lot of events to go to and just stuff going on. We had a big Christmas party at the English Corner at the college this past Tuesday. It was a lot of fun and a good opportunity to share a lot with the people there. A huge group from Singapore came out and put on a lot of the music. On Christmas eve a small group of us got together and had our own little candle light Christmas eve (followed by watching Home Alone 2). I also found out on Tuesday night that I'm headed out to the village. Actually I'm leaving in a couple of hours. One of my local friends out here is from a village several hours away (I've heard anywhere from 5-9 hours by car), and her brother is getting married. It'll be a good cultural experience, however I hear it is COLD there. I think it is somewhere around 10,000-10,500 feet and definitely no heating. Actually there probably aren't even windows on the houses, just holes. So that'll be interesting. Okay, well I've got to go pack.

Thanksgiving

So I took a week off from writing last week in honor of Thanksgiving (which is different from other weeks where I just take a week off because I don't get around to writing). The past couple of week out here have been pretty busy though. Last week we only had a few days of class because of the holiday, but there were a lot of opportunities for me to go out with people.

Last Monday I got a call from a friend about a couple of us going and visiting a guy he met. The guy is a tour guide in town and he invited us over to his house for dinner. It ended up being him, two of his friends, one of his friend's girlfriend, his father, and the three of us. We spent about five hours at his house, which is about how long it takes to really have dinner out here. Being out there made me remember how much I enjoy being out in the village. Life is just a lot different being outside of town and in someone's home. So basically getting invited to dinner out here usually involves sitting around for a couple of hours while dinner is being cooked, eating for an hour, and then sitting around for a couple more hours talking and drinking tea. So that's what we did. It was really nice because one of the guys studied to be a cook and it was seriously the best food I've ever had in a village. After dinner we sat around a fire in the kitchen to keep warm and all talked. One of the guys was pretty educated so we talked to him for a while about philosophy (and another guy was a big fan of Nirvana, so we talked about that for a while too). It was good to get out and meet some new guys. I'm planning on going back out there here in the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday night I went with some local friends up to the gym and talked to the owner for a while. He has been asking a lot of questions and the local guys did a great job of answering them for him. It is pretty amazing to see how much he has been changing over the past few months.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and we had a huge get together. There were probably fifteen adults at our party and TONS of food. There are a few people out here who can really cook and the food was really good. The guys also went out and played a game of football. My team actually won, which is pretty amazing considering the other team had all the athletes. I did get to relive the intramural glory days by throwing four td passes and receiving one. It was definitely different from holidays back home, but still a lot of fun.

Tonight I just got home from working out at the gym. One of my good friends here is also an environmental manager in town and we've been spending a lot of time together. Another of my friends and I talked to him for over an hour tonight in the gym and it was a really good conversation. We are planning on grabbing dinner this weekend and talking a little more.

I'll try and be a little better about posting things over this next month. Christmas time is usually kind of busy, so there should be a lot to write about.