Scissors Cut… Hair

Now that our lives are less turbulent with adjustments, there are more things to look forward to throughout the week. It is a relief to have an increased amount of our schedule be predictable. 

The weeks here are structured differently. Muslims observe Fridays as their holy day and they are treated similarly to Sundays in the United States. Businesses delay their opening or close entirely. The streets are fuller than normal as cars create two additional parking lanes in the roadways. The local call to prayer that is played outside is preceded by a high amount of foot traffic outside the Mosques and Islamic Centers scattered throughout the city. Some Protestant Christian communities here shift their usual Sunday church time to Friday, to align with the majority day of rest, or to Saturdays, to keep Church on the last day of the week.  

Saturdays are the second day of the weekend. The Catholic Christian community here holds the regular Vigil Mass on Saturday evenings and Sunday morning Mass, with a larger number of attendees seemingly favoring the Vigil Mass on Saturday. We have met a few priests here. I am looking forward to one of them coming to our home soon to share dinner with us and bless the apartment.

Sundays here are the first day of the week. Local and international schools and businesses also shift their week to hold the Friday and Saturday weekend schedule. This has taken a few weeks to adjust to, but it is nice on Thursday to feel like our weekends have arrived early.

This week we enjoyed a few dinners out as a family and several trips to the outdoor swimming pool. At one of our outings, a monkey climbed over a nearby wall to watch us eat. The local species of monkeys here are called Wild Rhesus Macaques and they look like small baboons. 

I got to attend a vendor fair. I went with another mom in our community that I have befriended. I was happy to come home with a new rug, a framed piece of art, and some souvenirs for our family. I am looking forward to when all of my stationery arrives so I can resume sending cards. 

I have been enjoying working on a few new creative projects. I am looking for a tailor who can assist me in learning how to sew and soon a new podcast will be available on our family’s website. Additionally, as soon as our crafting supplies arrive, I can resume my journaling scrapbooking projects that I have begun collecting materials for.

I am slowly getting used to the differences on the road. It is still a shock to see how close vehicles and people come to hitting one another. It is equally shocking to see how none of the locals flinch at the many close calls. The condensed traffic means that our car rarely drives faster than 25 miles an hour. At major intersections or in congested traffic, it is common for vendors and those begging for money to walk between cars and knock on windows while peering inside. We have had men, women, and children knock on our car. While we do not open our car doors or roll down our windows to maintain our family’s safety, I have noticed that people who do give money are quickly swarmed by other pedestrians in the road. 

This week, I met our new physician. We receive the typical medical care that we need through Embassy services. There are trusted local pharmacies in the city to order medicine from when necessary. Similar to food, it was surprising to see how little the portioning for medication was. I was shocked to open a box of medication with 10 individually wrapped pills. In order to fill an American-sized bottle of prescription medication, you receive your medication in 5 small boxes, all with each capsule individually wrapped. 

More pedestrians are wearing masks to travel outside with the changing air quality. Some locals seem to mask even in the rainy season. The air quality remains at a moderate level, which means that masks are not strongly recommended yet. 

Most excitingly, our toddler was accepted to the international school that we applied to! After multiple tours and meetings with their administration, we have found a preschool program that seems to be a positive fit for both her and me. The school here seems to be the social hingepoint of our community. I am looking forward to joining the PTA and getting to volunteer in her classroom.

As one of the last steps in their admissions process, we had to go in to meet the school counselor, where our toddler completed a developmental screener. She was shown a series of pictures and had to identify them- a green ball, a girl walking down stairs, and a bird flying in the sky. She was then shown pictures of school supplies. The school counselor got to the image of a pair of scissors and asked, “What are these?” “Scissors”. “Good,” said the counselor. “And what do you do with these?” “Cut”. “Good again. What do scissors cut?” “Well this morning, I cut my hair with my Papa’s scissors in the bathroom”. That’s right- the morning that we had to go to present ourselves to the school, display our family’s functionality and school readiness, our toddler proudly came out of the bathroom with a handful of hair. Behind her she left a trail of brown strands leading to a large pile of hair on the bathroom floor. She keeps us humble and happy.  Miles very promptly found a new hiding place for the scissors.