Coalinga – Week 1

I don’t even know where to begin. The past few weeks have been such a roller coaster of ups and downs, hope and disappointment. I’ve felt both liberty and bondage, relief and despair. This must be what being an adult is all about.

We moved up to Coalinga on March 18 – so excited, so hopeful. We’d paid our last month’s rent the week before as a sort of deposit so our landlord could do some work on the place before we moved in. We were moving into a little one-bedroom place that was being sectioned off of the main house behind. The doorway to the main house had to be walled in, and the landlord had ripped out a gas wall heater and left the gas stub and the hole in the wall bare. (My aunt used the term “hobbit door” since it’s about 5’7” high. In this photo he’s already worked on one side of it; you used to be able to see all the way through.)  We were eager to be on our own, and I was especially glad to have my own kitchen space so I could be me. I loved staying with my dad’s brother and sister-in-law; they are such awesome people! Sometimes, though, I felt like I couldn’t be myself because – let’s face it – I’m not the world’s neatest person, and with my eyesight being pretty bad, I have a hard time cleaning up messes that other people see. And trying to constantly clean up after a 16-month-old and keep him out of trouble just about did me in. So it was a relief to have settled on our own place.

When we moved up the 18th, we brought a small moving truck, since my aunt & uncle had given us some furniture as a house-warming gift. We made the long drive (six hours by car) in about eight hours. I drove our car, and David followed in the U-Haul. (I have great respect for anyone who has driven a truck, even a small one!) It was a hot journey, as the air conditioning in our car doesn’t work. David, meanwhile, was wearing his jacket in the U-Haul because he didn’t want to take the time to figure out how to turn off the A/C. ;) And we left San Diego around noon, so we hit L.A. during the beginning of rush hour. Yuck. It wasn’t terrible, but it was bad enough that a few times, I thought I’d lost David at a freeway split. I was glad to get to the mountains and know we were together.

We arrived in Coalinga a bit after 20:00, so we drove the last hour or two in the dark. Lots of bugs on the windscreen… We rested that evening and the next day were able to get keys to our new place. We discussed some of the issues, and our landlord said he would definitely get everything taken care of soon.

So Friday we drove the U-Haul over to unload. We had a delay because our landlord’s car was in the driveway, and we couldn’t reach him either by knocking on his door or by phone. So we waited for a few hours, finally got a hold of him, and tried again. We unloaded pretty quickly but were disappointed that no work at all had been done to section off our apartment, the hobbit hole was still wide open with the gas stub sticking out, and our landlord’s stuff was still all over the kitchen. We had to unload so we could return the truck before we got charged extra, but we decided not to move in yet, since my aunt offered to let us stay with them as long as we needed to.

Saturday, I went over for a few hours to get some work done for my job on the Internet. Our laptop can’t connect to my aunt’s wireless network, and we’d been told by our landlord that we could get a good signal from a local wireless hub for free. Right. It wasn’t free, and it isn’t even a good signal, but I figured we’d be here awhile, so I went ahead and signed up for the service. I got my work done, and that was that.

Thus ends our first week in Coalinga.

Looking for teachers

Part of my job is looking for teachers for our school in Nigeria, Hillcrest. We’ve almost got our staff sorted out for the 2009-2010 school year, but there are a few positions still not filled. We’re looking for a fourth grade teacher and a high school math teacher. Hillcrest is a very special school to me, and I want to help find the absolute best teachers there are who fit in with the school’s ministry and needs. If you know of anyone who is looking to teach in a Christian school overseas, and you think Hillcrest might be a fit, please have him or her visit the website or contact me. Spread the word!

Desperate for recipe ideas

Okay, so our whole living situation right now is completely out of control, and I’m going to blog about it soon. I was hoping to wait until it’s over, but that doesn’t seem to be anytime soon, so I’ll have to try to find the humour while still in the midst of the frustration!

Our biggest hurdle right now is that our house has no gas, thanks to our landlord’s not having money to pay the gas bill for March. No hot water, no stove, no oven. Yeah, fun. And it’s not likely to be turned on anytime soon because we decided to move out, so we have no incentive to pay for it.

My thing is that I need to cook for my family without a stove and oven. I have a microwave and a fridge, and a very tight budget. I’d really appreciate any ideas you fine folks might have for microwave meals that are cost-effective.

And I promise I will give the whole story soon. If it weren’t so frustrating, it would definitely be laughable!

Moving

David and I came up to Coalinga with two thoughts in mind. One was to visit my dad's sister and her husband while we were still in California. The other was to scout out if this could possibly be a place for us to live for a few months. David is still hoping to do an accelerated BSN program in August, but there are a few hurdles to jump first (sadly, none that we can jump).

My aunt knows someone who is willing to rent us a cozy little place in town for a fabulous price, so we jumped at the chance. We'll go back down to San Diego tomorrow, pack up our few things, mail our boxes (to ourselves), attend our church one last time, then head back up here next week. We're hoping to visit my mom's sister in greater L.A. on the way up, as well as meet with a medical friend of my dad's to "network." We should be back in Coalinga Tuesday night or Wednesday (in time for choir practice).

It's been wonderful to be here, finally making real plans, getting ready to put down some temporary roots. My aunt's church is such a warm and friendly place, and I'm excited to be part of it for awhile. They have always been another church family for us whenever we've visited and have been extremely supportive of my parents as missionaries. I hope that somehow, I can give back a little to the people who have given us so much.

I do have a job possibility, too, but I'm not sure it's something I'm really qualified to do. It's more in David's field, but there are complications that make it impossible for him to take the job. So, if we decide I need to work a real job, I'll take it. Otherwise, I'll continue with my two jobs that I'm working part-time from home. We should be okay until we figure out David's situation. It's such a relief to finally have made a decision!

And if David gets into the nursing program, we'll be moving to Nebraska later this year... We'll see what happens!

A different silence

Yesterday, my aunt Mary and uncle Martin took David, Timothy, and me to a living history exhibit put on by an organization for the deaf and hearing impaired. It was a silent exhibit, with everyone using writing, gestures, and sign language to communicate. People even got thrown in "jail" for talking or making noises.

There were several sections to the exhibit, and you could visit each section, perform a task, and then get a checkmark from that section. If you then visited all the sections, you could become a "member" of the historical village. Well, I didn't get to do that because David took my paper outwide with Timothy, but I still had an interesting time walking around to the different sections with my aunt, trying to understand. There was a kitchen, museum, library, classroom, judge, boutique, snack bar, fishing area, quilting circle, and storytime area.

I found it frustrating, since I don't understand sign language and certainly can't communicate with it. I can sign the alphabet and my name and a few other things, but generally, I've lost almost all the ASL I used to know. I knew I was doing something wrong when I realised suddenly during a signed lecture that I was watching the lecturer's face instead of her hands. I've never been good at reading lips, and she was showing facial expressions, but still, I had to concentrate on watching her signs to try and fathom anything. My biggest frustration was that since I was at the exhibit, it was almost assumed that I knew ASL, so others would try to communicate with me through signing. But I didn't understand a thing!

It was just like being in Nigeria, surrounded by people who couldn't speak English.

But it was fascinating to watch everyone else actually communicating in ASL. I've never had much exposure to the hearing impaired, so although I learned some sign language in grade school, I've never used it and now have forgotten almost everything. I realised yesterday the different kinds of silence there are. Just because a person is deaf, for example, doesn't mean they can't make any sound! I knew that already, but it really became vivid for me yesterday.

It made me truly grateful that I have no hearing difficulties (listening, maybe, but not hearing!), and that I can express myself through tone of voice, musical notes, stressed syllables, volume, pitch, and all the rest. I'm not a big talker, but I'm grateful for the ability to talk. And to hear! This morning at church, I belted out the songs and thought, What on earth would I do with myself if I suddenly went deaf? How could I cope with not being able to hear music?

In addition, it was cool to learn about the deaf community on Martha's Vineyard in the 19th century. It was a neat program. Quiet and neat.