INTERNET!!!!

Finally, our internet is somewhat setup and working. It was truly a
team effort! My cousin Ashot drove, my cousin Vram translated, I
paid, our apartment owner, Serop, dad signed the release, Serop
rewired the house phone which randomly disconnected for a whole day
during the modem set up time, and I have been trying to set up the
modem and routers for the last day. Can I just say, everything is
much easier in America. I hope to increase the modem upload speed so
that our vonage phone (fresno number) will work. For now you can
leave messages there, that we get as email attachments, and we can
call you back, with skype (VOIP - voice over internet protocol).
So while our phone was out for one day, our water also turned off for
the better part of the day. Needless to say we were unprepared (a
little thirsty with a stinky bathroom). We have since filled a large
jug for drinking water, and have a bucket full of water to flush the
toilet. Good thing because the water went out again for a couple of
hours the next day.
We are adjusting, to the time schedule and everyone is feeling much
better. I've taken Jonelle and the kids out for a walk the last
couple of days. We receive many stares and strange looks, one boy
walking the opposite direction stopped and watched us until we were
out of sight.
We have made good friends with the small grocery store owners, they
are very gracious with our poor language skills and american
measurements. Every thing is behind the counter and you have to ask
for things by name and say how much of it you want, usually in
kilograms or grams. Not only are we not use to dealing with metric
weights, the system of saying how much you want, and even not being
able to get things yourself is taking some getting used to. It is also
funny how in one store you might pay three or four different people,
when you buy something out of their section. I have only seen one
store (downtown) that they have a central cashier and they use a
scanner to read barcodes. Needless to say this "Nareg" household
supply store (600 sqft Target?) is my favorite place to shop.
Thank you all again so much for your prayers and encouragement. We
are doing much better now as we are adjusting in so many ways. We
look forward to buying a car this weekend at the bazar, (car swap
meet?), I can only guess...

-Kalem