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Fun Friday post

Ran into this picture on the ol’ intranets this week, and wanted to pass along the joy I got from seeing at this amazing Halloween costume.  Definitely a win.

posted by: caleb

Protected: two week’ish update

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Introducing the newest beautiful feet…

… belonging to Isla Marie!

Born screaming on October 18 at 11:55 am.  Weighing in at 3.6 kilos (about 8 lbs, 2oz) and 49 cm (19 inches)

(Today at 6 days old)

We thank God for the incredible blessing of our little Isla! :)

Should I open the door?

Living cross-culturally has it’s challenges (which is part of what makes it so exciting!).  One is that often you are living life by different rules – how to dress, speak, interact with others, the list goes on and on.  The difficulty here in Lebanon is that it seems like there are several sets of rules all being followed at the same time, depending on the context and on the people we are with.  There is a very Middle Eastern set of rules, but there is also a huge Western influence… a little French, a little American.  This mix is very uniquely Lebanese.  But sometimes it makes it hard to know which rules we need to follow at any given moment!

Last night Caleb was up at a conference and I was home by myself when the doorbell rang.  I looked through the peep-hole and the plumber who fixed our hot water heater this weekend was at the door to drop off a receipt.  Now I hadn’t actually met him or had any interaction with him – I was busy when he was here fixing the water – so I wasn’t sure what kind of person he was, or what set of rules I should expect him to follow.

I quickly, mentally ran through my options.  I could pretend no one was home.  But that seemed so rude, especially because Caleb was expecting him to come by that day with the receipt.  Second option, I could just open the door and greet him.  But if he is a very traditional or conservative man, this could be a bad idea, me being a woman at home alone.  It could be inappropriate or offensive or shameful or any number of things.  The last option I thought of very quickly would be to shout out “who is it?” and tell him through the closed door that Caleb wasn’t home so I wouldn’t open the door.  But if he wasn’t super traditional, and he knows we are foreigners, that could be offensive to him, especially since he came out of his way to bring us a receipt which is not necessarily common.

So in that split second I decided to just open the door.  I cracked it just a bit, and when he saw me he got this shocked look on his face and took two steps back away from the door.  Stink, I might have made the wrong choice.  But he was very polite, explained who he was, asked how the hot water was working, gave me the receipt, asked me to give my greetings to “Mr. Kable,” and left.  I have no idea if I should have opened the door or not.  Not sure if I will ever know what the rules of the game were in that particular moment and if I played correctly or not…  but I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure it out!  Ah, the joys and confusion of cross-cultural life!

posted by: nicolette

Another bump pic… hopefully for the last time! :)

This is at nearly 39 weeks.  Officially massive.  :)

posted by: nicolette

Protected: About 6′4″…

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Baby birthday contest!

So I’m definitely in count-down mode for this baby to arrive, and thought it would be fun to have a little contest!

Baby H is due sometime between Oct 18-24…

At my last appointment two weeks ago, the doctor estimated that she weighed about 3 kilos/6lbs, 9oz…

So, leave a comment with the date and time you think she will be born…. and her weight for a tie-breaker…  and the winner will get a fun little prize from Lebanon! :)

posted by: nicolette

P.S. If you are reading this on Facebook, please go to the blog to leave your comment in order to keep all the guesses in one place! :)

Life with a generator

One of the things that we didn’t really appreciate about our old apartment until now was that it was on the same power grid as the Bank of Lebanon, which meant that we very rarely lost electricity.  Now in our new place, we experience the rolling brown-outs with the rest of Beirut.  Basically, the power is cut off every day for three hours.  It’s on a schedule, so we know when it is going to happen, and it’s only between the hours of 6am and 6pm.

Most buildings, including ours, have a generator, and for a monthly fee you can opt in to using it while the electricity is off.  In our building at least, you can choose how many amps you want from the generator, which dictates how much you pay as well as how many electronic devices you can use at once.  We are definitely having to get used to life on the generator.  For example, the hot water heater takes up too many amps, so we have to make sure it is turned off before we go on generator power.  If I want to run a load of laundry I need to make sure it will be finished before the generator turns on, or it will stop in the middle of the cycle.  Or, if we want to use the microwave, we have to make sure any A/C units are turned off.

It’s not a huge problem when we forget, it just trips the breaker.  Unfortunately the breaker box is in a locked room downstairs that we have to get the concierge to open for us.  Which stinks for him at 6am!

So for now, we have lots of conversations consisting of, “Hey, do you have the A/C on back there?  Can you turn it off so I can use the microwave?” or “Did we remember to turn off the hot water heater before we left the house today?”

I wonder if it is something that we will ever completely be used to, or if our poor concierge will just have to deal with us knocking on his door and apologetically asking him to flip the breaker back on for us.  :)  Ah, that’s life in Beirut!

posted by: nicolette

Help us stay in touch better!

It’s been almost two years since we started this blog, since we started sending out newsletters, and a year since we’ve been in Beirut.  We’re trying to re-evaluate our communication strategy so that we can stay in touch as effectively as possible.  We’d appreciate your help by answering a few questions about our communication.  Shouldn’t take longer than 5 minutes…. really, it’s only 4 little questions! :)

Take the survey here!

Thanks so much for your help!

posted by: nicolette