Frozen Snot

1-19-2010

Today I got to experience my 30 minute walk in the brutality of Almaty weather. I can’t say that I ever remember a time where the snot in my nose froze to my nostrils. It was quite an experience. Cold weather really doesn’t bother me as much as some. An interesting fact about the people of Kazakhstan is that they take the cold very seriously. Women are forcefully cautioned to keep their pelvic region warm or else they will surely never be able to have babies. Also if men don’t keep their neck warm they will have no voice. Living in another country is interesting. It is definitely new and exciting and broadens your views about everything. Culture is a marvel that I don’t really know how to comprehend. Everything we do, everything we think, everything we feel is interpreted by our culture. That is why coming to live in Kazakhstan is so different. Even though there are other humans that work to meet the demands of life just like us their mind is programmed so much different than ours. I recently read a book and it described it as trying to run Mac software on a Windows computer. You get an error message. I was trying to print a guide for the Russian alphabet today and I got an error message. It was in Russian. Every day as I walk through the city and talk with new people, as I buy my groceries from street vendors and ride the frightful buses my mind fills up with error messages. All I can do is click OK and move on. After so many error messages most people will probably give up and just go back to the computer that they are programmed to, but what makes this trip different is that I am good friends with the programmer. Even though it is not easy, the programmer can take me, ordinary Mac software and transform me to run on any operating system. God gives me an incredible amount of strength everyday and I notice more and more prayers being answered. Yes, there are many error messages, but I can click OK all day long.