quotes

Okay, so here are the quotes collected from team 2 & 2.5:

"Ein 'Gute Fahrt'" -Jessi

"It must be really bad if you have an ouch-fart." -Nate

"This cat is really friendly; he likes to suck my tongue." - Steve

"IT'S NOT A CONTAINER!" -Benjie

"The only guy who can call you 'Mom.'" -Benjie

"Payroll!" -Jessi

"Get off my feet!" -Arsallah

"How did she get the other 7 cows?" -Audree

"What does 'ars' mean?" -Sharon

"Emma's Tea"

"They'll shoot you if you ."

"HA!"

"Dilet biskillet (It's your bicycle)." -Steve

"Grampa Banjo" -Nate

"I hate 5-foot doors!" -Goody

"Shalom." -Bromley

"I have really good throw-up control." -Bromley

"I have skirts!" -Nate

"Yawning's not allowed when people are tired...or Yanni." -Goody

"Is that a ? Oh, no, it's a donkey." -Nate

"I forgot my passport." -Dave

"That mountain looks like Jabba the hut." -Bruce Green

"Man shetur ne'stom (I'm not a camel)." -Nate

"No da (9, 10)" -Dave

"Here comes giggles." -Nate

"Beebies!" -Sharon

"Phoebe Lyddie ear phbth!" -Lyddie

"That's the same donkey with a hair problem." -Sharon

"Oh, I thought you were talking to me." -Goody

"It's the cleanup that takes so long." -Jessi

"I love you, sir." Riza (waitress) to Bromley

"I took a tone with him." -Dave

Back in Fremont

Hi all, Everyone is back in Fremont except Nate who will arrive in 3 hours, thanks for your prayers benjie

in dubai

team 2 is hanging out in the dubai airport waiting for our flights out. thanks for all your prayers, we are looking forward to our own beds, our own showers and telling lots and lots of stories of our adventures in afghanistan.

see y'all sunday~
M@

No worries... We're still alive :)

hello all-

i've gotten a couple of worried emails asking if we are still around and what's going on. sorry!!! We've been traveling and quite busy and we have not had much time to blog.

We are currently hanging out in their office down in Jalalabad. today we were able to head out to one of the far off villages to see what's going on down here. they have two really cool programs going on out here. the first is a cattle/goat program, where they find a poor family, widow or orphan and supply them with one cow or goat free of charge. the only stipulation is when the cow or goat has their first female baby, they are to send the baby back to the organization for another family. from then on, the animal is theirs to keep and any offspring or milk it produces is theirs to own, sell, drink, eat, etc. it has really done wonders for the economic development of the area. in the last few years, these villages have become the best place in the whole area to purchase milk and cheese, and a very desirable place to breed other cows.

the 2nd project out here is a literacy program. in case you didn't know, there are over 50 languages spoken here in afghanistan and many of them do not have a written alphabet. so what they are doing out here is working with the village elders to actually make up an alphabet for a few of the local languages and then help to teach the written language to the community. it is great, because now everyone in the area is learning how to read and write in their own language. it is completely transforming the business community out here.

thanks for all your prayers and encouraging emails and comments.

we are planning to head back to Kabul tomorrow morning. then we will be getting on a plane to come home friday afternoon. please keep us in your prayers as we travel.

we are looking forward to coming home, but wishing our trip was not coming to an end.

we will see you all on Sunday morning!

till then~
Matt B

sick

my mom and i got sick last night from the bolanee. we spent pretty much the whole day in bed. pray for us to be better by tomorrow morning. thanks, jessi

aqcha

Hi all we made it back from Aqcha today and we had such a great time up there. The last night we had up there after all of the excitement of the day we had dinner with the staff of Serve. There were also some local turkmen guys who played some music. Before dinner we prayed that the water from the well at the Serve office in Aqcha would be sweet and not salty(which it was and all the wells in the area are salty). After we left this morning we got a text message telling us that the water had turned sweet!! What a great miracle, the Serve office is planning to put a faucet out on the street so anyone can get water from the well, and now that it is a fresh water well, they really can be a blessing to the community around them just by providing water. Just for those who are wondering the well is a bit deeper than 375 ft. The drive back was pretty much un eventful other than Matt B. deciding to review what he had for lunch cause the ride was a bit too windy/bumpy. He was able to eat dinner and kept that down so that was good. Well I am going on about 4 hours of sleep and a 12 hour car drive, so I am going to cash in, but I am sure that we all will blog more tomorrow morning when we are refreshed!! oh by the way you can read more blogs by going to www.mattgoodness.com

later,

benjie

mon, apr 16

Salaam aleikum!

yesterday and today we did mostly every day things, but of course, it's a little different here. if you want fruit, you go to the fruit place. if you want groceries, you go to a grocery store. well, we went to a couple of grocery stores. if you want fabric, you got to a fabric store. i guess we do that in the states too. i just liked experiencing the day to day "living" here. it's been awfully quiet without the "boys" and sharon here. none of us gals left behind are very talkative. heheheheh!
a lady and her daughters came over yesterday for reading lessons. she wasnt very talkative either! that was a little awkward! we went to her house today for lunch and boy was it good. we had bulani. dont know about the spelling for that, but that's how you say it. bulani is almost like a popover with potato inside and some other stuff. we had two kinds. one with potato and the other with leeks. of course, since i love onions, i liked the one with leeks the best. let me tell you tho, it was GREASY!!!!! they made another dish, too, with meat and lentils. i was so full from the bulani. the bulani were as big as giant pancake! but i thought it would be in bad taste to refuse it. so i ate some with naan.

when we got home it started raining! PRAISE THE LORD!!! and it is thundering like crazy now!!! i LOVE IT!!!! WOO-HOOO!!!!

yesterday, we went up to babur's garden, where Babur's tomb is. it was a very impressive place. the guard who opened the tomb for us wanted me to take his picture. i love it when they want us to do that. i only wish there was a way we could get a copy of the picture back to them.

today, we also went to the fabric bazaar. i dont know if that is what it is called. but there are a zillion fabric stalls all lined up one after another. and there were also guys (yes GUYS!) embroidering with old singer machines on the fabric. we found some shalwar kamiz "sets" that we can sew up ourselves. they are quite nice. i also bought a little bit of fabric to make some more. the fabrics dont come from afghanistan unfortunately. but probably from pakistan. or korea. they tried to tell us it was from the US. i tmay have been but i would prefer to buys something i CANT get at home.

i am 2/3 finished with "Sewing Circles of Herat". altho i learned a lot about the history of Afghanistan, i feel like the title is very misleading in that the author barely mentioned the sewing circles of herat. and by the way, it wasnt really a sewing circle. that was just a coverup for girls to gather and learn about literature and about having ideas and stuff like that, since the girls schools were closed down when the taliban were in charge.

anyway, that's about all that's been happening here. sharon and the guys come home this evening. i hope they will be OK in this rain.

Khoda havez,
audree*