Here we are, cruising along the bike lane on our electric scooter after having a great time with some of our foreign friends, and out of nowhere another bike is heading towards us! The bike lanes are sometimes small with only room enough for one and a half scooters so you can imagine the fear that puts in someone who isn’t used to it! Don’t worry, we were fine. Just apply the good ole brakes and let them by. People here and even foreigners sometimes drive their scooters the wrong direction on the road!
Outside of the traffic and back into normal life, it couldn’t be any more different. The people here are always willing to help and play the part of a host or helper. The value of “face” is very active here — honor is something they take very seriously. So it is hard for someone like me to adjust to traffic here when the personality of the people outside of traffic are very different. In traffic they can be rude and think only of themselves and then outside of traffic they are nice, helpful, and trying their best to help save “face” and keep others from losing it.
Other than that, I’ve been learning to get used to the culture, language, and city layout here, and it’s been going pretty well. Saphira and I just got back from a company-wide retreat in Malaysia where God really met us and spoke vision and encouragement that we needed for the new semester. Since coming back, we’ve officially started our semester of language study — still getting used to that, too!
Please be praying for our sleep (for some reason our sleep hasn’t been good at all for the past week or more), our progression in language study, our relationship when we’re not allowed to speak in English (turns out, that’s difficult!), and for my (Eragon’s) stomach (I’ve been having some ongoing issues that we’re beginning to look into).