One Big Week

>> Sunday, March 14, 2010 – Food + Wine, Life in Madrid, Life in the USA

It’s hard to believe that we’ve been here for a week! We flew out from Des Moines International on March 5 at 5 Am (thanks to Ross for taking us to the airport), and arrived in Madrid at 9 AM on Saturday. It didn’t really seem real that we had just wrapped up a life in the States, and were beginning a new life across the ocean.

First, I want to say thanks to everyone who made it to the going away party! We were amazed at how many people were able to make it, and felt so blessed to have you all there. We truly are lucky to have such great friends – in Ames, in Iowa, and around the country. It was hard to say goodbye, but a fantastic way to spend one of our last nights in the states.

Pint night at Olde Main

This week has been busy, and great. After arriving on Saturday, we spent a little bit of time walking around the city to get our bearings, and then went to bed and slept for 16 hours! It’s amazing what your body needs when you haven’t slept in 48 hours and you experience stress like packing up your life. We took Sunday slow – mostly hanging out in our hotel – and got ready for the week. All week, we’ve had intensive language class in the mornings, followed by going out for lunch, and then a variety of afternoon activities. Monday, we rested a bit more, then went out with one of the other Deere Ex-pats for dinner, Tuesday and Wednesday we went apartment hunting, and Thursday we went to the police station to register for our residency cards. Friday, Brian visited the factory, I did a little shopping, and we went out for a huge dinner.

Finally Arriving in Spain!

I’m sure I could expand on each one of those days and explain a lot more, but for now I’ll keep it brief.

Apartment Hunting – It’s tough! We want to live in the city – more specifically in the Retiro area. Retiro is to Madrid as Central Park is to NYC. A haven in the middle of the city. We need a place that is furnished. Plus we need a place with parking for our car. Plus we want air conditioning. And a balcony. And a pool and a gym would be nice too. BUT…. I think it’s going to be impossible to find this kind of a place. But we’ll try. So far, there are 2 apartments that we like a lot – but each has a couple of fatal flaws. Piso (apartment) No. 1 (code named Sweden – the landlord is Swedish) – doesn’t have AC. But is right across from the park, is stocked with IKEA furniture (did I mention I LOVE IKEA?) and has a great floor plan. Piso No. 2 (code named Boston – the people who live there are relocating to… you guessed it, Boston) doesn’t have parking or a balcony. But it’s on the top floor with lots of natural light and has a great layout. We’ll see if our real estate agent is able to come up with some new places to visit this week. I hope so.

Language Class – It’s going well! Brian definitely has the advantage in the language because of his living in Brazil and speaking Portuguese for 6 months. It’s difficult for him sometimes to not use Portuguese words (for example, he wants to use muito instead of mucho) but he can at least put together whole sentences and communicate what he is thinking. For me, I can understand most of what is said, but when I try to say something, I usually get about 2 words into a sentence and then realize that I don’t know the rest of the words to complete my thought. Our vocabulary is growing quickly, and just being here has helped us to grasp the language quickly.

Class is just the 2 of us - we have one teacher for 2.5 hours and then another for 2.5 hours. We drink a lot of coffee :)

Food - We love food. Sometime I’ll do a post about the timetable here, but not tonight. It’s a LOT different than what we’re used to, but we’re adjusting. For now, I’ll say that we’ve eaten some amazing food, and have loved most of our meals here.

Church – Today we tried a church! Julie & Jesse gave us some great recommendations, and we’re going to make our way through some of the options prior to deciding where to land. Today we tried out Mountainview. It was a 40 minute train ride to the NE of the city, so quite a hike for us. We really didn’t know what to expect. We walked in, got some coffee, awkwardly looked around to see if there was anyone who was going to try to come and talk to the new people, but decided to just take a seat and try to make friends after the service. We quickly realized that the family sitting in front of us was someone who Brian had talked to through work – it was his assigned “buddy” in Spain, who was to help with some of the transitioning! We talked with Dan for a bit before the service, and he quickly alerted us to the fact that there were at least 4 other John Deere couples or families at the service! After the service, we ended up meeting many of them, and then heading out to a huge lunch with them, which was absolutely awesome. One of the couples we sat next to at church was a JD couple from Brazil, and they chose our lunch spot – a Brazilian churrascaria. SO DELICIOUS. Essentially there is a huge salad bar, and then a bunch of guys running around with skewers of meat, cutting off the pieces that you want. We ate a lot.

Getting Chicken Hearts - one of our favorites.

Caiprina, Brazillian Wine, Cocina, & feijoada - All Brazillian Favorites.

Brian would eat at places like this often when he lived in Brazil, and we went out to one in MN with our families a couple of times. We decided that we will definitely be returning there.

Ok, I’m impressed if you made it this far through the post :) Enough for today, I’ll try to be more consistent about posting throughout the week! I think we’re finally getting over our jetlag, but we’re each fighting off a cold, so we are pretty tired at the end of each day. But we like making sure that our friends, family, and adoring fans are kept in the loop of a life in Spain.

In Plaza De Espana this afternoon on a walk.

Buenos Noches!

Heading across the pond

>> Friday, March 05, 2010 – Life in Madrid, Life in the USA

As I write this, Brian and I sit in the Atlanta airport, having left Ross & Amber’s house at 4 am to catch our way too early flight, arriving in Atlanta with an 11 hour layover. We very productively used our time by sleeping at gate E40 for a couple of hours on the floor, and then proceeded to wrap up all the last minute things that we didn’t have time for this week.

I had planned to use some of this time to update the blog with some photos – so before we packed up our computer, I spent a lot of time transferring files. Unfortunately – I didn’t check to make sure that the files all re-saved correctly: thus – no pictures for this blog post. But we’ll get around to that sooner or later I’m sure. Our computer is now somewhere over the Atlantic (we hope), and we’ll have it once we find a permanent place to live. Until then, we’ll do our best with pictures, and I’ll continue to work on my blogging skillz (I promised I would, right Amber?)

But for now, we wanted to let everyone know that we have moved out of our house, found great renters, stored our furniture near CF and shipped the cool stuff to Spain, said some hard goodbyes to very meaningful people in our lives, and began a very exciting journey in a foreign country. Thanks for coming along for a virtual ride with us – we’ll try our best to keep it enjoyable!

We leave the states in approximately 3.5 hours from now – we’ll arrive in Madrid tomorrow morning, check into our hotel, and crash for a while, I’m sure. Next week we’ll begin our intensive language classes, search for a piso (apartment), and try our best to get a new life set up abroad. Stay tuned!

I’ll leave you with the quote of the week:

(First, let me set the scene – Saturday, we were in CF all day, Sunday, we drove back for church & house cleaning with my mom, Monday, Mom & I traveled to Fort Dodge to see some of my projects and to Rockwell City to see a cousin, and that night we were at Ross & Amber’s to crash at their place, since we have no furniture at our house)

Amber: “So, I can’t even keep track of you guys, what are you doing tomorrow?”
Brian: “Oh, we’re flying to Chicago in the morning at 6, but we’ll be back by 2.” (We had to pick up our visas from the Spanish Consulate, which took all of 10 minutes. We spent our other 3 hours in Chicago hanging out at Millennium Park)
Amber: “Wow! That is SOO Beverly Hills!” (If only I could demonstrate the inflection in her voice – think of a character from the movie Clueless and then say it again in your head. It’s funny at least to us Iowans. And funny after all the travel. And now that I read it all again, maybe it was just funny to those of us who were there. Oh well, I’ll get better at story telling someday.)

We live a crazy life.

A Big Announcement

>> Sunday, February 07, 2010 – Life in Madrid, Life in the USA

Dear Friends and Family,

We have a rather large announcement for everyone.

We're moving to Spain!

b&k last year in Valencia

Now, from every time that we've gotten the chance to tell them this fabulous information, there seems to be a series of questions that arises. I'll make a *small* attempt at getting the biggest questions answered here.

Frequently Asked Questions:

Whha whha Whhat?

We're moving to SPAIN! Brian's company, John Deere, offered him an assignment in Madrid, and we're going to be moving in approximately a month. It's a 24 month commitment at this point, but who knows long it will really last. Could be more than 24 months, could be less! We'll need to be flexible!

Are you guys excited?

We are SO very excited. We have wanted to live overseas for a long time now, and we're pumped to get this opportunity at this point in our lives.

What are you doing with the house?

We're keeping it. We love this house, and it would be hard to say goodbye - especially since after the assignment is done, the intention is for us to come back to Brian's home unit. We are going to try to rent it, and are still looking for renters!

What is Brian going to be doing?

Similar work to what he is doing now. Currently he organizes tests for an entire sprayer, making sure that the project is in great shape before being sold to the customers. In Spain, he'll be working on John Deere mechanical components. He'll be organizing the tests, as well as performing the tests. He will also work as a liaison between the factory in Des Moines & the factory in Madrid.

What is Kate going to be doing?

Good question! I'm still trying to figure that one out. Its pretty difficult to get a work visa in Spain, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to work. I have a bunch of little plans formulating in my head though of ways to keep myself busy. I'm not too worried about it at this time.

Feel free to ask any other questions! I'll try my best to respond. Hopefully, since I'll have some more exciting things to report about as we make the big move, I'll be better about updating the blog :)

We're in the News!

>> Tuesday, December 22, 2009 – Nigeria, Travel

Before we left for Nigeria, I was talking with some coworkers about what we were doing, and they asked if I had contacted the newspaper to tell them our story. I wasn't planning on doing that, but after talking with Andy & Penny some more, they convinced me that people needed to hear good stories these days, and that our story of traveling to Nigeria was a good story that could encourage people. So, Penny wrote up a press release and spoke to the Des Moines Register prior to our departure. Last week, they contacted Brian and I individually and interviewed us over the phone, and here's the product! We're in the news!

D.M. couple helps village provide fish in Nigeria

By MICHAEL MORAIN • mmorain@dmreg.com • December 22, 2009

There's that old adage: Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for day. Teach him how to fish, and he'll eat for a lifetime.

But Brian and Kate did the guy one better. They traveled to Nigeria for 10 days this fall to build a whole fish pond.

The Des Moines couple was part of a team of 11 volunteers who spent 10 days in the West African jungle, figuring out the best way to build a sustainable fish farm for local villagers. They had traveled before - to Nepal, to Papua New Guinea - but this trip was different.

"We didn't really know what we were getting ourselves into," Kate said.

Brian and Kate were students at Iowa State University - Brian in agricultural engineering, Kate in architecture - when they poked around the Internet and discovered a nonprofit called Engineering Ministries International. It's an ecumenical program, kind of like Habitat for Humanity, but most of its volunteers are professional architects, engineers and surveyors. They've designed more than 800 orphanages, clinics, schools and clean-water projects in 80 countries since the organization began in 1982.

The group's mission intrigued the students, but the timing wasn't right until a few years later, after they'd graduated, married and found jobs. Brian develops new equipment at the John Deere factory in Ankeny. Kate is an intern architect at a design firm in Urbandale.

They were official grown-ups now, but they wanted a new adventure. So they reconsidered EMI, saved up some money and vacation days, and contacted the group's headquarters in Colorado Springs at the end of the summer.

The phone call came a few weeks later: Hey, how about a trip to Nigeria?

When they arrived at the site, after a flight to Lagos and another to Calabar near the southern coast, it was hard to tell who was more surprised, the Nigerians or the new arrivals.

"The local people get told a lot. They get a lot of promises made to them, but not everything always comes through," Brian said. "They'd been talking about this project for a year, but when the van pulled in and a bunch of white people got out, they were caught off guard . . . . It was a promise kept, in a place where that's not always the case."

The volunteers were caught off guard, too. A snag with housing plans meant Brian and Kate had to stay in a building nearby. And by "building," they mean a slab of concrete, some boards and a tarp. It was still under construction.

"It looked like a chicken coop made of plastic," Kate said.

There were mealtime surprises, too, like the breakfast of fried lizard and the starchy cassava roots that didn't agree with Brian's stomach.

But that was part of the adventure they wanted.

"Sleeping on a concrete floor and taking a bucket shower and eating weird food - for us, that's awesome," Brian said.

The biggest surprise involved the assignment itself. The site they had been told was a 30-acre L-shape was actually a 9-acre hourglass, overgrown with jungle. The surveyors had their work cut out for them.

In the meantime, the rest of the team set up their laptops and set to work on a master plan for:

- A pump that would divert part of the water from the nearby river into a cascading series of man-made ponds, stocked with tilapia.

- Another set of ponds for hydroponic gardening, where vegetables can grow with only a fraction of the water required to irrigate a traditional plot in the ground.

- A chicken coop (like the one where they slept, only better).

- A few small buildings to keep the production running - a training center, a dorm, a dining hall and so on.

Since the team wanted the operation to be sustainable, both in terms of economics and the environment, they designed a closed-loop system. Here's how it works: The pump circulates fresh water through the fish ponds, then through a filter that collects the fish's poop (more on this in a moment) and finally through the vegetable ponds. The plants' roots, which cling to an underwater net, replenish the water with nutrients before it circulates back to the fish.

The fish poop, combined with droppings from the chicken coop, goes into a contraption that converts the matter's methane gas into electricity to fuel the water pump.

The result: Locals will be able to improve their diets with high-protein fish and fresh vegetables with enough left over to sell for profit. Nigerians from other parts of the country can come to the site's training center and learn how to replicate the project in their own communities.

Since the end of the trip, when the volunteers returned to their homes in the United States and Great Britain, they've been circulating e-mails a few times a week to tweak the plans. They hope to finish the design in the spring, which means construction could begin a few months later.

"It all works on paper," said project manager Rex Barber, an architect who works full-time for EMI and has contributed to more than two dozen projects over the years.

He's particularly interested in the eco-friendly aspects of the operation in Nigeria.

"I'm so excited," he said. "I'm going to do one of these in my basement."

For the volunteers, the project was a way to stretch their talents.

"It's very empowering," Brian said. "No, we're not saving the world. But we're trying to make a difference and using the skills we already have in our everyday lives."

They helped in less formal ways, too. They passed out soccer balls one of the volunteers had collected back home. They chipped in to buy a woman a second-hand sewing machine and hung out with some of the local kids who had never seen a white person except on TV.

"Their whole world consists of the 10 square miles they can walk to," Brian said.

Kate made a connection with an 18-year-old girl who wants to be a lawyer even though Nigerian women are generally discouraged from working outside the home.

"We talked a lot about education, about dreams and desires," Kate said. "She asked a lot of interesting questions about the United States, and I tried to explain that not everybody drives a Mercedes and looks like Angelina Jolie."

But the learning went both ways - and it's still sinking in. Brian and Kate stopped in Paris for a few days on the way back to Des Moines and saw the city in a different way than if they had traveled there directly. They wondered what makes cultures so different, why building a fish pond is a struggle in some places while others produce a Notre Dame.

And they developed a new appreciation for home.

"We get upset when the Internet doesn't work or when we get stuck in traffic," Brian said. "Over there, people have cell phones but have to walk two miles for clean water. It definitely gives you some perspective. We have it pretty good here."