Road to Indonesia-- Shopping

 We went to town last night after work.  Going to town involves having someone getting a car from the school, about 2 blocks away from our house on the campus.  Then they come pick up whomever is ready to go to the store. The town is less than a mile down a big hill. I am getting the feel that there are about 4 or 5 stores that one goes to.  You carry cash with you and sometimes lots of it, because what if meat or cheese is available??? We were too late to get hamburger, but I did get some more frozen chicken breasts.  No cheese. But the lady who is our mentor (answers questions) through the school helped me find powdered sugar, corn starch, tortillas, garbage bags,etc. It is not easy to just find these things because some of them are in boxes which are labeled, but in Indonesian and often pictures do not give enough clues.  I can read more Mandarin than I can Indonesian, which is disconcerting. Starting all over again! We did find the floor fan and alarm clock that we wanted to find. The floor fan cost about $30, the little battery alarm clock cost under $2. The food was very, very reasonable in price as well.  Then we drive back up and unload the SUV with the groceries from the 5 of us. One really could walk the whole thing, it is probably less than 2 miles, but it is up a very, very steep hill....and one would have to carry groceries. I doubt I will ever walk up the hill. I walked down the hill last weekend. The shopping trip took about 2 hours.  I was nasty hot by the end, and had plenty of aches and pains all night from walking and carrying, etc. etc. But it is truly wonderful to have everything so very close and easily accessible.

Finishing a very good first week of school. The principal sent an email just now. She was consulting with the Seniors who are in charge of chapel. They were looking for a speaker and she remembered that I had mentioned during orientation that I could tell the story of "The Other Wiseman", that I had prepped for Christmas chapels in Oregon.  You can probably sneak it in, being close enough to Epiphany which celebrates the arrival of the Wise Men.  Anyway, I guess I am telling a story in HS chapel tomorrow. What fun.