Category Archives: Amusing Things

Internet Screen Captures

by Rachel

We are very thankful for modern technology and the many benefits that it brings to missionaries – much faster travel times, international calling cards, and especially internet.  In the last couple weeks we’ve bought Christmas presents, borrowed electronic books from libraries in the States, researched recipes, caught up on world news, and video chatted with our parents. All on the internet.

It’s been an especially good couple weeks for internet.  Not all weeks are this good.  In fact, we keep screen captures of some of the more bizarre things that happen to our internet.

 

Failed Ping Test

The cause of most of our internet issues is a very slow connection.  In this test of data being sent from Lilongwe to Nairobi, our connection got an F.

 

Price for High Speed Internet

Could we upgrade from our “128kbps-shared-with-the-neighborhood” plan?  Well, sure, but not at these upgrade prices.  Not when we had 6Mbps for $45 a month when we lived in California.  The 6Mbps option isn’t even available to us, and if it did exist, it would probably cost $1800 a month.  No, thank you.

 

YouTube Upload

(Uploading a 3 minute video to YouTube.)

 

So our internet is slow, if we have internet at all.  We’re writing this post on a WordPress remote poster program that a friend of ours designed specifically for us.  We don’t need to be online to compose any of the post or even add pictures, we just need to have about 3 minutes of internet when we’re ready to post.  Or rather, when we have about 3 minutes of internet, THEN we post.

 

iTunes Update

Often we’ll start downloads at night when we go to bed.  Having a download manager program has helped (we use downthemall, a plug-in for the Firefox browser), because even if the download gets interrupted, it will pick up where it left off.

 

Firefox Download

We liked this one especially, because it thanked us for our patience!  They were a little off on their time estimate, but they were nice about it.

 

Video Blocked

But sometimes things just don’t come through because of where we live.  Like videos, or…

 

Google Malawi without Google Logo

Logos?  Apparently Google Malawi doesn’t get the Google logo.  Oops.

 

Too Many Inbox Messages

And sometimes EVERYTHING comes through, though we’re pretty sure we’ve never had quite that many messages in our inboxes, ever.  So if  you ever wonder why it’s taking us so long to reply to an email you sent us or why we haven’t noticed your Facebook status, we may be buried beneath 4 billion emails, or maybe our internet is down and we’re sitting on our porch enjoying the first rains.  =)  Sometimes our lack of internet is just what we need to remind us to stop and enjoy those moments in the wonderful, mostly-offline place where we live!

Things That Make You Go Hmmmm….

by Rachel

Here’s a few funny things we’ve run into lately:

 

Traffic Light Red and Green

What would you do?  We interpreted it as a green light.  Apparently we weren’t the only ones with a green light, but we all made it through the intersection ok.  Another dilemma we frequently face is traffic lights that don’t work at all.  The first few times, we waited for a very long time. Now, we have a rule of thumb for broken stoplights: “Black is the new green.”

 

Big Beetle

This beetle was kicking around on our front steps the other morning.  Abi really wanted to play with it, but she still studies most things with her mouth, so we just watched it from a distance.

 

Monkey Gland Sauce

Monkey Gland Sauce, no thank you!  We’ve heard it’s pretty good and that it doesn’t come from monkeys, but we still don’t keep it as a staple in our pantry.  Apparently in this regard we are still very American!

 

Borax with Spices

And finally, borax.  Right next to the meat spices.  Not even close to the laundry supplies.  Um, folks, let’s just hope no one gets confused about their spices!

Kitchen Prep

by Rachel

Our biggest team of the summer arrives tomorrow, the 1st of July.  All 26 of them are staying at our house and we’re in charge of food.  Needless to say, our house and kitchen have undergone some major transformations.  Here’s what the kitchen looks like today.

Banana MountainMountains of fruit and vegetables. Something like 80 bananas, 60 apples, 50 pears, 30 clementines, 10 avocados, 10 heads of lettuce, 50 tomatoes… and that will last us until Wednesday, hopefully. We wash it all in filtered water with a little bleach so that it’s safe to eat.

Kitchen CounterThe counter looks almost normal.  Just spaghetti sauce thawing for tomorrow night and 5 large baguettes for garlic bread.  But the cupboards are so full the door won’t close all the way, and the overflow on top of the cupboards is making us a little concerned about whether the cupboards will stay on the wall!  Good thing this team is bringing a carpenter!

Kitchen ChiliNot only are our cupboards and counters full of food, so is our large deep freeze. We leave for the States next Thursday (!) and this team will be here a week without us, so Rachel cooked ahead and froze meals for them after we leave.  The freezer’s so full that we took 6 batches of food over to the Biedebachs’!  But it’s all ready.  The Floreen Bed and Breakfast is back in business!

Have Diesel, Will Travel

by Rachel

We’re going on vacation tomorrow!  After our trip to Zomba last February, we decided that we need to get away for a few days once a year.  There’s a lot of Malawi that we haven’t seen yet, so we’re headed north this time: a rain forest, a lakeshore stop, and the best national park in Malawi.

There was only one problem.  Diesel.  We’re in the middle of a fuel shortage again, and without diesel, we weren’t going anywhere.  So this morning, Rachel woke up determined to get fuel.

The search started at 7:15am.  No diesel anywhere along the main road through town.  By 10:20, we’d gotten a tip that cars were starting to line up outside one of the gas stations on our side of town.  Matt was busy studying to teach in Sunday School, so Rachel grabbed Abigail and they took off for the diesel adventure.

This cute little munchkin waited so patiently!  We parked our car in line and sat in the shade in front of the BP convenience store, and she played for about an hour and a half, then fell asleep for about an hour.

Finally!  The fuel truck pulls in.  Unfortunately there were so many cars waiting to get fuel that the fuel truck couldn’t get through the parking lot!  That took a bit of sorting out…

And we don’t have a picture of actually getting fuel, because Rachel and Abigail were rescued by our friend Kondi who traded us cars so that Abigail could finish her nap in her own bed.  He waiting another hour and a half while the fuel truck unloaded and the cars in front of us filled up.  What a friend!

So we’re off on vacation!  We have a full tank of diesel and a full 30 liter jerry can as backup.  We don’t know if we’ll find fuel up north, but we’re going to try and see how far we can get!

The Coriolis Effect

by Rachel

Ever wonder if the coriolis effect is true… if water spinning down a drain spins one direction in the northern hemisphere and the other direction in the southern hemisphere?  A few weeks ago friend of ours put us in touch with a girl on one of the Mercy Ships (currently docked in South Africa) to help her with a science project on the coriolis effect.  She was looking for people in the northern and southern hemispheres to help her out and take pictures of which direction the water spins when it drains out of a sink or tub.

Coriolis Effect Counterclockwise

The idea is that it spins one direction in the northern hemisphere, and the other direction in the southern hemisphere.  Well… the picture above is our bathroom sink.  Counterclockwise.

Coriolis Effect Clockwise

And this picture is our kitchen sink.  Clockwise.  I’m afraid we weren’t much help with the science project.  Maybe we’re too close to the equator?  Or maybe the coriolis effect on draining water really is an urban legend…

That Rings a Bell

by Rachel

We’ve needed a bell for church.  We have tea time before church, and it’s difficult to get everyone moving into church on time, so we started looking for a bell.  The only one we could find was about $40, and we decided that was a bit much for a small bell for tea time.  Who knew it could be so hard to find a bell?  Then our friends the Taglieres found this beauty for us:

IBF Bell

Isn’t that great?!  It’s the top half of a wine bottle, and the clapper is the very top part of a soda bottle.  Add a string, a cork, and a little bit of wax to hold it all together, and you have a bell!  We’ll try it this Sunday!

Sunday School is going… to the turkeys!

by Rachel

When we arrived at the African Bible College student center to set up for the adult Sunday School a couple weeks ago, we had to chase an unexpected visitor out of the building before we could start.

Turkey in Sunday School

From our Sunday School to your dining room table – Happy Thanksgiving!

Out with the Old Geyser, in with the New

by Rachel

First of all, it’s pronounced “geezer,” like the disparaging name for an old man.  And secondly, most of you will know it as a water heater… though what you see here probably in no way resembles the water heater you have in your house!

Geyser 1

That’s right, it’s a metal box.  This is our brand new geyser, just waiting to be installed.  It’s to replace the old geyser, which our plumber made by himself – it was 5 sheets of metal welded together.  But this one… it’s state of the art!

Geyser Insulation

It even has insulation!  I kind of feel bad calling this one a geyser now.  The old water heater deserved its nickname, but this one is so nice and new, and it works so well!

It lives in our roof (gravity = water pressure) and I just wish I could have been fast enough with the camera to capture the plumber and his assistant raising it to the roof outside Abigail’s room.  They didn’t bring a rope, so instead they borrowed the most “rope-like” item in our yard to hoist it up – the garden hose.

Waiting for Baby Floreen

by Rachel

As we get closer to Baby Floreen’s due date (August 21) and to the GMI missionary conference (August 15-21), we’re starting to think that it would be nice if Baby Floreen showed up soon.  Today would be good.  Tomorrow is the next best option…  So we’re giving her motivational talks now.  And actions speak louder than words.

Rachel on the TrampolineOh yes she did.  Though jumping on the trampoline was a lot of fun, Rachel’s not convinced that Baby Floreen got the point.  No progress yet, so maybe we’ll just take another long walk.

PBC BulletinWe got a good laugh at the sermon title yesterday at Placerita Baptist Church.  We feel like we’re not the only ones who think that something should be happening any time now!  And thanks for the special music note too – very hopeful!

Matt holding Slias Rachel holding Titus

Meanwhile, we got another chance to practice our parenting skills on the new nephews.  Silas and Titus are just adorable!  They weighed in last week at 6 1/2 and 7 pounds – a reality check for us, because Baby Floreen is probably about that size!
So if you want to give us any name suggestions, you should do it soon!