Three Diapers at a time... and Let's Go for a Ride!!!!!

Things are strange here, no doubt about that! There are times you go to a restaurant or grocery store, and they will give you back your change in money (tenge) but sometimes if they're a little short, they'll give you gum, matches, or the best one to date: Winston got 3 calcium pills as change at the pharmacy today!!!! How funny is that???

But one of the earliest and funniest things I noticed in Kaz is the thing I like to call "Three diapers at a time" situation. Oh, let's take anything you would buy in America in bulk for example. A PACK of cigarettes (I don't recommend these, but they are popular). Well, here you can buy ONE cigarette at a time! Okay, let's take Tide. I seriously think I buy a 64 load bottle or box of Tide at home. The good news is, they DO have Tide here. The bad news is, you must buy a teeny tiny box of it. It does three loads of laundry. Then down to the store you go again to buy more. Diapers. Here, nearly everyone refers to them as Pampers. Doesn't matter the brand, it's always Pampers. So why on earth would one buy a box at a time? I think I've bought as many as 104 at a time (the newborn size). Here, it's very very common to buy one or two diapers at a time. When you buy them, you ask for the size, say Pampers and tell them how many you want. In our case, we went crazy! We didn't just get one or two, but THREE diapers at a time!!! Woah! We're rebels!

And finally, I must share a few photos with you all. Our friends, Brad and Steph, and Jenn and all of us went to the zoo today. Any one of you who knows our daughter Jasmine knows that she is crazy about the zoo. I took her and Martina the week before we left for Kaz and she has told nearly everyone she's met in Shymkent about all the animals she saw there. Not just about one or two, but all of them! lol So anyhow, we're heading out to the zoo with our driver/translator/coordinator and she is NOT a good driver. That is important to note not so much for this story but in the general sense that if we make it back in one piece, it's nothing less than a miracle. And so the story goes... We had 9 people, including the driver/translator/coordinator girl, and three kids ages 3 and under. (By the way no car seats are used here! Grrrr) The car is nice, but not huge by any means. SO, Brad volunteered to ride in the back all the way from our apartment to the zoo!!! I laughed so hard. So here are a few pictures to let you in on the fun. Please note the photo of the caged bear.... note any similarities?? I'm just sayin'. ;-)