Cultural Adaptations - Lawn Mower

Here in Indonesia, we don't have a Craftsman or John Deere to mow our lawn. But we still have a lawn mower....his name is Pak Yono. This is him after "mowing" our neighbors lawn and carrying the grass back to his house (about a 1/2 mile away) to feed his cows. Check out the sickle in his hand. It is very common for people to carry these around with them so that they can cut something down if they see something they want.

Eat your heart out John Deere!

Yo, just bust a move!

Catelyn attends Kindergarten at a mostly-Indonesian school. She is 1 of 6 foreigners that attend there. Of her class of 22 Kindergartners, she was selected to be one of the 5 to represent their school in an all-city dance competition. She was so excited to be a part of it. Here are some pics of our little sweetie bustin' a move and respresenting her school!

What is in a day?

Many of you have asked what a typical day looks like for us, so here's an example of our life learning language in Salatiga.

4:00am - Awaken briefly to the Call to Prayer (lasts about 30 minutes)
5:15am - Corey wakes up reads, gets ready
6:30am - Corey wakes Catelyn up for school
7:00am - Megan & Ella wake up & get ready
7:15am - Corey takes Catelyn to school
7:45am - Corey returns home (has received probably 2-4 text messages from different people requesting different things)
8:00am - Megan begins daily laundry (to be taken over by our househelper when she arrives); Corey begins returning/executing text messages
9:00am - Both begin to work on homework assignment
9:10am - Typical visit from neighbor
9:30am - House helper arrives - we talk with her for a little bit
9:45am - Resume homework assignment
10:00am - Ella is begging for attention, take a break from homework assignment for a bit
10:05am - Realize we don't have an ingredient that our house helper needs - Corey jumps on the motorcycle to head down into the city to get the ingredient
10:40am - Corey returns from store (has received another 2-4 texts); resumes homework assignment
10:50am - Corey leaves to pick up Catelyn from school.
11:00am - Megan completes homework assignment (hopefully)
11:30am - Corey and Catelyn return; Corey resumes homework assignment until complete (hopefully)
11:45am - Lunch time
12:20pm - Clean up; get ready to leave for school
12:45pm - Corey & Megan leave for school
1:00pm - Kids naptime (while house helper is at the house)
3:15pm - Corey & Megan return from school; chats with house helper for a bit
3:30pm - Kids wake up; House helper's husband picks her up - we talk for a while
4:00pm - Visit with our neighbors, or Corey runs errands, or play with kids
4:30pm - Megan begins cooking
5:30pm - Dinnertime
6:15pm - Clean up, do dishes, bathe kids, get stuff ready for school the next day (receives about 2-4 more texts)
7:15pm - Family Bible time
7:45pm - Kids go to bed
8:00pm - Corey & Megan begin homework assignment again, read, watch a movie, skype, email, etc.
10:00/11:00pm - Corey & Megan pass out. :)

**Sporadically insert a few more text messages and a few more visits from neighbors or coworkers throughout the day and it sounds just about right. ;)