Day 8—November 2, 2008

OK, so we have found that Aydar is certainly a mischievous little boy. He likes to take things and hide them, or, like we said earlier, play “keep away”. This a.m., when we went to see him, John knelt down to give him a big hug, and he walked right past him to me with a big smile on his face, like “Gotcha!”. He is really catching on to what we want and ask of him. When we ask for “big hugs”, he comes right to us, and then turns around so that we can squeeze him from behind. I don’t know that he has ever given a hug, but he is catching on to that, too.

He has learned more sign language from us showing him pictures of Karis and from reading a cartoon Tarzan book to him. He knows “baby”, “gorilla”, “girl”, and “please” in addition to “mama” and “papa”. He is working on “elephant”, but that one is a tough one. We have to learn the sign for “boy”! It is amazing how quickly he is catching on, and I know it will do him a world of good to be able to communicate back to people, rather than just having everyone direct him. We’re checking with Amy at church to see if she can teach all of us more sign language. It will be a while, with his surgeries and what not, before he will be able to speak English well.

He still loves John’s phone, and likes to take pictures in addition to looking at them. John showed him a video of Karis on the carousel, and he said “sistah” (sp)! We did take a small plastic bowling set to him, and he was really good with it. He set the pins up, and rolled the ball directly to them. He got a kick out of it one time when I had him roll the bigger ball that we got for him yesterday! John went “Hey!”, and he had a big grin on his face J John and he played catch today—as much as you can in a small room-- and the did a great job. He may give Aidan a run for his money in soccer if he is as good at that as he is at “catch”.

Dinner at home is getting to be more difficult for me. We went to the store that we had been going to, but I don’t understand so many labels. I had a hard time trying to find anything else for dinner. I looked for “tuna fish”, but couldn’t read the label. I was hoping to find some soup, but had no luck there, either. Maybe tomorrow we’ll find something at the “Harris Teeter” of the neighborhood. So, we had fish sticks again (note to those of you who don’t know how to cook them: don’t put a paper towel under them—they come out like rocks), and guess what else: pasta. I think I’ve had pasta everyday.

It’s been cloudy since we arrived (I have yet to wear my sunglasses), and today was a bit colder than usual. It also sprinkled today, but not too badly. John will definitely need something warmer to wear if we’re here closer to December. We do laundry almost daily. We’re lucky to have a washer, and we put our clothes on a drying rack on the enclosed porch. We have looked at pans to purchase, but they’re about $25 each. TV isn’t bad. BBC is about the only channel in English, and that can get depressing if we leave it on too long. What is going on in DR Congo is just too sad to watch around the clock. We saw a debate last night on the US presidential election, and the debate took place in Qatar with two representatives from John McCain’s camp and two from Barack Obama’s. We thought that was pretty interesting. We can follow along the National Geographic and the Animal Planet channels, so we stay pretty entertained when we’re not visiting Aydar (we visit him 10:00 – 12:00 and 4:00 – 6:00, although he is sometimes eating when we arrive). We will be going to see a western doctor tomorrow, but I think he will only confirm what we already suspect: Aydar is a healthy four year old with incredible motor skills.