Sorry it has taken me so long to write... Wow has time flown by. I can't believe we have already been here one month. I will attempt to recap from the last time I posted.

November, December, and January i think were three of the more negative months of my life. At every turn of this process it felt as if we were being lied to or abandoned. We were running out of money due to lack of reimbursements, and without our belongings all of which we had been led to believe would have been handled months prior. I don't know how i kept sane (okay maybe i didn't and that is part of the problem). But on top of all of that, we had to say good bye to our families. It was such a gut wrenching experience. I think one component that made it so difficult is the unknown of when we would see everyone again. We and they don't have plans yet as to when we could be together again, which gave it a weird permanent feeling to it all.

Prior to getting our driver, we were nervous getting around. Their public transportation around the city are called TukTuks. I think i have a picture to share but have to get it off of the camera, picture a truck with seats in the bed. But... here is a notation of what is not allowed in their cabs. :)

Our House

We were able to move into our house and I didn't realize what a learning curve it would be - how to run a washing machine or dryer (and then when i did learn they broke), running water seemed to allude us until we realized that the water was shut off in some of the rooms, the dishwasher we had added blew a fuse and taking a shower was a bit of a mystery until we realized you can't shower when the gardener's are here as they use up the water. One of our many guests around the house (besides flies, mosquitos, and geckos) are our toads. Each night we have several that come to hang out.

Food
Buying groceries, making food, ordering out, getting deliveries all started out as challenges, but i think we have overcome these too. Food prices are all over the board. Some items such as bottle water are like a quarter compared to our 1.50 in a 7/11. Items like a small can of salsa is $6, and a can of beets is $3. Meats are about the same price as home, unless you want something crazy such as bags of blood, all types of feet, uterus, etc.

My First Visit with the Expat Women
With everything seemingly going wrong, I thought it would be a splendid idea to go to one of the women's expat groups. However, the stars weren't aligned with that being a positive situation. I went and felt so out of place. Condescending comments were made regarding my age, and my lack of children. And I could tell I was going to struggle to fit in with women that dress up for lunch (linen pant suits and high heals) when my normal attire is yoga pants and a tshirt. In addition, their experience here is different than mine, as I am still working for my company. Anyhoo, long story short - I was devastated that I would never have a friend here and that I wouldn't fit it, or I would have to change in order to do so. To top it off, I didn't feel like I should really talk to Justin, friends or family about how miserable I was because I didn't want to worry anyone.

Turning things around
Okay, enough with the negativity. The end of January saw a turn-around. Money started to get disbursed, a set of our belongings arrived, we went out sight seeing around our town, and I forced myself to return to the women's group. It is amazing what having some money in a back account, a few of your things can do for your outlook. I went back to that women's group and accepted them for who they are, many of them probably wouldn't be my friends out of this situation, but I have met several who are so wonderful and nice.

There are a few things that have gone amazingly perfect with our transition so far 1) our landlord, his staff, and our home are fabulous 2) Shadow was delivered without any problems 3) Kuhn Pearl, she is our relocation person, continues to help us out whenever needed 4) Our driver Lit is wonderful, he is kind, courteous and timely which apparently isn't always the case from the horror stories i have heard from the other ladies 5) we have hot water (apparently not all of the homes here do) 6) we have stable internet (again most ladies say they can go 10 days without.

My next update will be all about our recent trips and I will include some more photos.

And here are what the electrical wires look like around the town. And these aren't even the worst, not by a long shot.