Coconuts!

Yesterday while I was playing volleyball, a young man came wanting to harvest some coconuts. There are tall coconut trees on either side of the court, loaded with coconuts. So, he set a ladder against the trunk to cover the first twelve or so feet, and then shinnied up the rest of the way. (The trunk did lean a little one way, so that should make it a little easier.) I'd guess the top was about 40 feet off the ground. As one who is scared of heights, I cringed.

He dropped 12-15 coconuts...there were many more, but they must not have been ready or he had what he wanted. He actually only took about 5, leaving the rest with us. When Indonesians have a chance to eat, everything else stops, so we had a snack in the middle of our game.

I was also able to bring a coconut home to enjoy with the family. Here I am opening it with a multi-purpose knife/machete. It took a lot of whacks (or else it would have burst open on falling from 40 feet).


Here I am finishing the delicate part - a little opening in the top without spilling the milk.

Here is the milk that we got out of the coconut (about a pint). Then, on the inner surface there's also some meat that is edible. So we sampled that. None of us were inspired by the flavor of the milk or meat, but we got a cultural lesson. Coconut is a prevalent food ingredient here and the milk is also used medicinally.

My dad ocassionally uses to use the English word "coconut" to refer to the human head, especially in the phrase "bump your coconut." In Indonesian the word for head is "kepala" and the word for coconut is "kelapa." Since they're so close, I often have fun intentionally mixing them up. Indonesians usually laugh, but they never use the word "kelapa" to refer to their "kepala".

The Car - A Toyota KIJANG

At long last, here are pictures! This is a 1995 model. It's worth about $5500, believe it or not. We're hoping that it won't depreciate; most cars in this age range haven't been in the last few years. Some actually appreciate.

Don't let the SUV look fool you. There's only a 1.8L engine under the hood! It is a straight drive. Most cars here are (and I imagine almost 100% this old are).


We did have some body work done after we bought it. There were some areas under the doors on both sides that had rusted through.


It is a little worn, but most importantly, the A/C works great! Actually, I laughed with Beth last night when I commented: this is the first car we've had with keyless entry. We're moving up! (I'm sure this was not a factory installed feature.)

The kids were happy when they learned that we were getting the inboard facing rear seats. These were discontinued in the late 90s.

Learning the way to drive hasn't been as hard as I expected. I've been watching the traffic and others drive for 14 months. I do very frequently turn on the wipers when I mean to signal. And I also always turn to look over the wrong shoulder when backing. Shifting gears with my left hand isn't too bad (the pedals thankfully are the same). We're very thankful for the flexibility that the car is providing.

BROMO!!!

To see the sunrise on Bromo, you have to get an early start. The alarm went off about 3:30 and we were on our way a couple of minutes after 4.
It was dark, raining a bit and foggy. There were a few times we couldn't see anything of where we were going. But our driver had driven the road hundreds of times. (I could do several entries just on our transportation experiences on this trip, but, for now, I'll just make a few comments along the way.)

Here we are, around the time we were supposed to be watching the sun rise (about 5:10 AM). The gray background is fog. The sun came up, but we couldn't prove it!
Here is one of our first glimpses of the ash rising from the volcano. For a while, this would appear and quickly vanish in the clouds.

We were very thankful when the volcano finally appeared. The pictures in the clouds do justice to what we could see then. The low resolution pictures of the (clearer) view don't. The amount of ash pouring from the volcano was amazing.

In the distance to the south, is Semeru, the highest point on Java (12,060 ft). Bromo is at about 7550 ft. Our lookout point was at an elevation of about 8850 ft. (For a better resolution photo of what can look like shortly after sun rise, click here.)

The elevation, dark, wind and dampness made it feel pretty chilly. It was probably somewhere around 50. So, we all bundled up. Here is our whole motley crew.

This isn't our vehicle, but this is the basic idea. It was a little cramped with 8 people (including driver), but it worked since several are still pretty small.

Here we are in the Jeep about 3 hours after we got up. We were awake, warm, and thus, smiling.

Another aside about transportation. We descended to the base of the volcano down the steepest road I've ever seen. It was also full of pot holes, places where it was erroded, and there were a number of places where dirt and rocks from above had partially obstructed it. It was also quite narrow, making passing other vehicles an adventure. I was never frightened, but almost always a bit on edge. The picture doesn't do it justice either. We saw a couple of trucks that weren't four-wheel drive, but I don't know how they could have climbed this road.

Here we are crossing the "sea of sand" to the base of Bromo. In dry season the ground here is white and loose, much more like sand at the beach. Yes, our vehicle was headed the same direction as these Jeeps. We weren't 100% sure this was the best of ideas.

This is as close as we got. Somewhere inside a 1/2 mile. More than 1/4 mile, I think. Usually, you can climb up to and go inside the rim. But it's been much more active since late November, so that part is closed.

I also took a couple of panoramics. The full res versions of these are linked here: up high and down low.

American Girl!

(THREE POSTS TODAY - Keep reading below!)

The girls have been saving (and some family members in the states have been helping at birthdays and such) so that they could buy American Girl dolls. They have also waited a LONG time for someone to be able to bring dolls to them here.

So, here is Moriah, proud owner of "Ruthie." She chose Ruthie because she looked the prettiest. She already started reading the book that came with her doll, "Really Truly Ruthie." She is very happy and can't wait for her friends to come over so they can play with her doll.


And here is Micaiah with "Rebecca." Micaiah likes her because she is so cute. Micaiah especially likes the shawl and hat with its bow. Rebecca also has a spot to hold her hair pick.

Tidbits from Nathanael's birthday

(Two posts today...scroll down to see the other one!)

It's hard to believe that Nathanael is already 12! Here he is on his birthday about to blow out the candles on his carrot cake. His Nana would have been proud of that choice. She made the best carrot cakes.

Apparently turning 12 isn't too bad!!!

Micaiah was the entertainment for the night - putting on a puppet show. She used a bunch of Disney character puppets which were left here in the house by the owners.

All the kids enjoyed the party.

Nathanael also got an indoor basketball hoop and ball. This is perfect for our house because the room is very large big and the ceiling very high you can take really long shots. It's a little hard to control the little, light-weight ball well when shooting long jumpers.

Nathanael also had a couple of friends for a sleepover a few days before his birthday. It just happened there was a good holiday that worked out for them to be able to come earlier. Those boys had a great time playing together, too.

Crafty kids

(Two posts again today...please scroll down to see the other one.)


One frequent Sunday morning activity is a sewing or craft activity for the girls. This week, they made dolls (bunnies, actually) out of a mop head.



Here is the finished product!

Noises in the dark

Last weekend, Beth woke me up about 3 in the morning. She was in near hysterics - "There's a rat in here!" 'Here' being in our bathroom. There's a sort of skylight at the edge of the room, but it has a screen instead of glass. The rat had fallen through the screen.

We have an adolescent cat which has only caught lizards so far, so I thought this was a good opportunity for a lesson. I ran to the garage and returned promptly with the cat. The rat didn't have much of anywhere to hide, so it climbed behind the hot water heater cover.

The cat tried to get it out, and we tried turning on the hot water (an in-line gas contraption; no tank). This wasn't too effective.

Don't be deceived by the picture. The cat didn't kill the rat. The cat got bitten and was subsequently scared of the rat. So, we cranked the flame on the hot water heater until he got singed and emerged. Then, I (David) smacked him with a broom. UGH!

Here is the injured rat. Nice, huh?
As you can imagine, that wasn't one of our better night's sleep recently! But, most importantly, the hot water heater wasn't damaged.

At play in August

He's a small sampling of the things going on in our house.

One of our recent family activities has been to go out in front of the house and ride bikes. This has allowed us to meet a neighbor. The ideal time to ride is right around 5pm. The air has cooled by then. It's still light. And, most importantly, the gate at one end of the street gets closed, so there's almost no traffic.

Moriah now has a bike, too. Here she is on it.

Here is the bike that Nathanael has had for a while. One of the neighbors here GAVE it to him. What a blessing!
Micaiah is slowly growing stronger and more confident.

Elijah is not a biker, yet. He loves to go out and push his stroller around. Sometimes he tries to run into me. (See the mischeif in his eyes?)

Elijah is potty training. He has his good and bad days. After success, he sometimes gets a treat. This time, his treat turned his mouth completely blue!

We recently used an iTunes gift card to download Bob and Larry Sing the 70s. It got pretty funky in our house. Here is Elijah dancing to the Funkytown. This is basically the same motion that he uses to 'jump.' (Hope the video works...I'm not sure it uploaded correctly. Let me know if not.)

Micaiah turns 7

A birthday surprise
We bought a bike from our neighbors for Micaiah's birthday. For now, she has training wheels to help her legs get strong and coordinated. But, I don't think it'll take long to get the hang of things. She was excited about this birthday surprise.

A party with friends
Micaiah was excited when it was time for her friends to arrive.

Evidence that the party was well attended.

Micaiah chose to have a carrot cake. Her Nana would have been proud.

I'm not sure I've ever seen someone open so many presents in a row.

The girls played a lot of games centered around caterpillars and butterflies. This theme started because of the balloons we got. Beth demonstrated how to balance the caterpillar balloon. We had a relay race where the girls had to balance the balloons on their palms.

Micaiah also invited our helpers' children. They were too shy to join in most of the activities. Shyness is common characteristic of the people here.

Micaiah wanted these noise-makers as one of the party favors. 18 of those with eighteen young mouths to put them in certainly made plenty of noise.

Elijah found a great place to hide from all the girls and do puzzles. Us boys (both of us; Nathanael abandoned the fort) were outnumbered by a ratio of about 12:1.

One of the games was to pull a prize (necklace or bracelet) out of a container of rice.

Micaiah had a great time, but Elijah had a good time too.

To the big city

After a quiet July 4th here, we headed for a nice hotel in the big city for a few days. We were thankful for an opportunity for a change of scenery. They even had sausage and orange juice for breakfast every morning at the hotel!

As you can see from these pictures, we also really enjoyed the pool there a couple of afternoons.

Before coming overseas, we really enjoyed going to the zoo. So we were glad for an opportunity to visit a zoo here.

Beth and Elijah, looking at the monkeys:

Here is Micaiah, holding some peanuts. We bought these as we were going in to feed the monkeys. (This was our first mistake.)

We also fed the elephants one of these peanuts...next mistake. After Micaiah had given an elephant a peanut, I (David) turned away to give another child a peanut. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the elephant's trunk begin prodding at Micaiah. Then, it grabbed the bottom of her dress, pinching it with the end of it's trunk. It was able to pick her up a bit - her dress lifting her legs. Then, she flipped down and popped her forhead on the concrete floor. Both she and I were very alarmed; I scooped my screaming girl up and we got away from that cage.

These elephants were behind bars, but there was no secondary fence to keep you from getting as close as you wanted. Apparently we were too close. After Elijah's recent head whack, we weren't too worried about real damage because her knot wasn't nearly as bad as that, but Micaiah was sore for several days after. We are thankful that God is watching over us through all of these incidents. They're more frequent than we'd like!