getting started

I’ve arrived in my city and am getting settled in. I spent a few days in the capital city recovering from the trip and buying a few necessities (a hand phone for example- if you think people rely on them in the States, you haven’t seen anything!) After my visit there, I spent a couple days at the volunteer house. The house is really nice, so those of you who come to work with me will be very comfortable. There’s a real shower; it’s at Asian height though, so you have to lean back to get your hair wet, but it’s still nice and even has hot water!
I moved in with some national workers (believers on the team from this country but not from our area). There are six of us staying in a kind of town house type place called a ruko. I’m pretty sure I’m the only non-Asian in the neighborhood, so I stand out. I definitely got some stares standing on my porch talking on my hand phone. The bedroom I’m sharing is air conditioned, so that’s great.
You probably noticed that I said “hand phone” instead of “cell phone.” That struck me as odd since you hold pretty much all phones in your hand, but hey, when in Rome… They also abbreviate a lot of things here, so hand phone becomes HP, but not as Americans would pronounce it. It comes out ha-pay since that’s the way those letters sound in this alphabet.
More to come later. Forgive me if I don’t update very often - I can only be as consistent as the internet.