Sunday, December 23

Jill delivered the Lam's Christmas gifts today. The girls loved the little dolls; TinSay got Sleeping Beauty and ThaZin got Cinderella. ZarZar really liked the shirts and NoSa appreciated the jacket and gloves. ThaZin kept one present wrapped up; apparently she wanted a surprise for later. Jill had written down all the words to say that the gifts were Christmas gifts from the church. However, NoSa had no idea what she said so she had to point out "gifts" and "church" in her translation book so he knew what she was talking about.

They have a dresser now next to the crib, which will be for the baby. The baby also has some stuffed toys already. ZarZar is definitely getting larger, and her baby is due on February 27. She seems to move with ease and sits on the floor and gets up without a problem.

NoSa would definitely like a new job. He is concerned about the rent as they were calculating and he has to work over 100 hours to pay the rent at his $7/hour rate.

They are moving along on the English but there is a long way to go. Jill found some useful material in the back of Zack's old workbook for word repetition and fluency, so they practiced on one sheet and she left it with NoSa to build up speed for when she comes back.

TinSay and ThaZin have had their TB problems cleared up. Jill reviewed those letters today to confirm this. That is good news.

NoSa appears willing to talk about Burma. He told Jill that he used to have to carry heavy loads to make money. 20 kilos gave him 4000 of some kind of currency. He carried them on his back and head. It sounded like he carried rocks or stone, and he may have also been carrying them through rocky mountains (it was a picture of waterfall on large rocks that evoked this memory for him) but whatever it was it was heavy. There were DKB (Democratic Karen Budhist Army) soldiers in the hills ready to fire so there was constant concern there. He said the soldiers were there also on the Burmese side of the river until they crossed safely to Thailand.