Allergies and A little more about Christmas

The latest from Same is: Bekah's allergic. To what we're not yet sure. We're in Dili now because we couldn't sleep for the last two nights - Bek because she was scratching her entire body and me because, well, she was scratching her whole entire body - and we needed to see the doc about it and get away from it (both physically and emotionally).

At first we thought it could be the pepper we just bought in Dili. Then maybe a local dish we tried for the first time. Then we narrowed down to the new house we moved into. Now we're pretty sure it's some kind of dust mite or mold that Bek is reacting to, causing small itchy welps to travel around her body. We have medicine now and we're going to figure out what to do about the house.

We have some more pictures from Christmas we wanted to share. First is the calender Bek made. We got the family and any visitor who happened to be there to help us put up a star each day. It made it feel more like the Christmas we're used to.

The second two are of a neat Timorese custom. About a week before Christmas these little shelters were popping up around town along the street. At first we thought they could be future kiosks. Then we noticed they were lining them with real strips of grass and decorating them with palm leaves and then sometimes even lined with strings of lights. And inside was a large nativity scene. Sometimes figures painted on plywood, sometimes 3-D figures and sometimes Santa even made an appearance (once we saw an inflatable Santa.) It really takes lots of effort. These were at a school.

The last picture is Santa himself. He didn't come down any chimney and didn't even come until Christmas afternoon, but he came nontheless. We got a good laugh out of it.