Phrase books and the drunken compass both come in handy
When we were getting ready to leave for the trip, Zach thought gettiing phrase books was a waste of money, and I held off on getting them until the last day because of it. I just thought it was a bad idea to come here without phrase books, even if the people he works with speak English and a lot of people around here speak at least some English. Within hours of arrival, he was asking if I had the phrase book. lol.
On the same note, years ago, Zach got tipsy and asked me for my password to Amazon. I didn’t think much of it until, several days later, a compass arrived in the mail. I was baffled as to why he ordered a compass. We live in Kansas where everything is squared off and you can tell what direction it is just by looking at the roads and the position of the sun. We don’t really hike or do anything where a compass is particularly helpful. I teased him about his “drunken compass buying” for years. When we were packing, he pulled out the compass and asked if he should pack it. I jokingly said “yes…maybe it will finally be useful for something and it doesn’t take up much space”. Well, thank goodness we had it. Just trying to figure out the map that first day so that he could get to work was causing huge amounts of stress because we couldn’t tell from Google maps, initially, which building we were even in. We could see the church, but we couldn’t see enough of it to really understand which way it was setting (now I realize that the second spire is the back of the church and we are behind the church). In the middle of the frustration, I suggested he get out the compass and see which direction we are facing and then orient the map to it. It worked. For once, that dang drunken compass was truly useful.
