Finding Our Way

August 2007

We've got some more pics of our adventures in Malaysia. These are mostly from August... September pictures will be forthcoming...
Other exciting news is that we found an OBGYN and I've had to get out my maternity clothes. :) The hospital is literally just down the street (2 minute drive) so we should have no problem getting there. Some of you need to stop worrying that we're living in some hut in the jungle and I'm going to give birth by squatting down in the rice paddies. It's a first-rate hospital with ultrasounds & anasthetics & everything. The only difference is that I'll have to take a taxi when I go into labor... sounds like a movie in the making. :)
If I had the means I would love to document the lives of taxi drivers here. They are so poor, always supporting a family, usually with the wife working as well (like as a nanny for a foreign family like ours.) We are one of the few American families at church who don't employ a nanny, and really that's only because our finances won't allow it right now. The economy of the working class seems to revolve around either housekeeping jobs or taxi driving, so we are happy to contribute to at least half of those workers. Half of the time we want to yell at the taxi drivers because they are such crooks and try to rip us off (well, foreigners = money, so they see us coming a mile away) but then you remember what their lives are like and we try to negotiate instead. The best advice someone gave me here is: "This is Asia-- everything is negotiable." It's really true. Give someone a fair offer, banter around a bit, and you're likely to strike a bargain. We're still learning that art but hopefully we'll get the hang of things before too long. For that to happen we need more experience with the outdoor markets... I'll write more about these later and post some pics we got of Chinatown last weekend. It definitely deserves its own entry.