Let's go to the mall!

Mike got behind the wheel finally and we were able to go out and explore.  Sunday traffic was the best, nice and easy.  On the other days it is madness, no order, driving on sidewalks,getting next to a car so close you can write on it with a crayon (my illogical way of showing HOW CLOSE they get) people hopping the medium and running across.  It really is like real life frogger the game.  Then add in people everywhere selling something coming up to the cars winding around them.  Oh and I forgot to mention the animals, horses, goats, cows, chickens.  We even say a bull on the side of the road yesterday.

This is where Obama stayed when he was here last month.

                                         The Sea Plaza mall is right next to the Radisson

This is their food court

                                                      The view from the food court

                                                                     Spaghetti

Burgers and Fries

Fajitas

                                                                     Cheese pizza

The girls found the pet store

And they even had a Playmobil figure, it was Carter's favorite toy growing up.

Boom!

Saturday night around 3:00 am we were woken by the loudest sound I had ever heard.  Mike thought it was an explosion my mind went immediately to a bomb.  It turns out it was a transformer that exploded.  The electric company is on the other side of our wall here at DA.  But I have felt so bad that I instantly thought we were being attacked.  I know that I never would have jumped to that conclusion in the states.  I guess it shows that I still am not completely "home" here, at least not yet :)
Oh and we found out that the transformers will blow several times a year so maybe next time I'll sleep right through it.

Baking

Anyone that knows me knows I love to cook and bake.  Since we have been here I have not been able to use our oven because when it was purchased from the states they didn't send a nozzle for the pilot light.  So we can use the stove but not the oven.  Thankfully we purchased a 220 volt toaster oven from Amazon and brought it with us.  I have been needing to settle in and start baking to make it feel like home for the kids, Mike and I.  Well I needed vanilla.  I have been looking for it at our local store and finally they got some in!  This is it.

I was so excited to get home and start baking.  Unfortunately I don't speak and read French.  This is vanilla flavored powdered cloves.  I guess it's a powder to put into coffee, which we don't drink.  Back on the search for vanilla!

Living in Africa

There are some things here in Africa that we have had to get used to.

1. Always having dirty floors.  While in Japan we got so used to their tradition of not wearing shoes in the house that we don't feel like we are truly home until they come off.  Here with the winds and being so close to the Sierra Desert dust is always in the air and it settles everywhere!  Our feet are filthy every night and we have to sit in bed and clean our feet before we can lay down.

2.  Brushing our teeth while not using any tap water.  Try it, it's hard to do.  We bring a cup in of filtered water and use that to clean brush and rinse your mouth.

3.  Having to filter water.  

These are called candles and we have to scrub them every 2 days.  They are what filter the water.

The pink bucket is for my bleach water.  After I get done washing a dish I dip it in the bleach water solution to kill any germs.

4.  Having patience.  There is a saying here "you might have the watch but the Senegalese have the time".  Nothing is done here quickly.  Mike went to the bank and had to wait for over 4 hours to talk to someone.   And right now we are still waiting to get our internet hooked up, they say it takes a month to get it.  But we are fortunate to have friendly neighbors and they are letting us share with them until it comes.

5.  Having to soak fruit and vegetables in bleach water for 20 minutes and then rinse off with purified water before you can eat it.

6.  Not having a one stop Grocery store.  When you need something, if they have it here to begin with (and that's a big IF) you have to try the American store, French Fry store, Casino,  Orca or many other little stores along the way.

7.  Power outages, they say they are really common, especially when the heat gets up there and everyone puts their air conditioners on.  Right now we have only had a few, some minutes some for hours, but I guess it could stretch for days.

8.  And the biggest thing is the heat!  I had no idea when you see its only 84 degrees you think no big deal, then add almost 100 % humidity.  There is a reason why the saying "it's African hot!" exist.  You just constantly are sweating, and October is supposed to be the worst month of all and could go through to January.  That's why I have the greatest husband, he got me air conditioning for the living room!  It cost too much to run it so it's being saved for the worst of the worst.  Isn't it pretty :-)

These things might sound like complaints but I don't mean them to be, it's just different.  We have only been here 12 days and in those 12 days we have gone from wide eyed wonderment/shell shocked to living the Senegalese lifestyle (with an american twist :) and I think we are doing really well.  Mike got his permission to start driving so we will go out this weekend and explore more of the county and we are all excited by it!  

Grocery Store

This is a little grocery store about 2 blocks from DA.

DA is completely enclosed and has several guards posted around.  They are very sweet.  Mike was introduced to one the first day and now when he walks by the guard will yell Hi to him across the field.  And today I met him and he got all excited that I'm Mike's wife.So there you have it, The US might not "get" Mike but the West Africans love him! :-)

First day of school at Dakar Academy!

I took some pictures before all the kids arrived.  We have been having some rain so we actually have some grass that's sprouted in the dirt.  Everyone says to not get used to the grass, it's about to go once the "hot season" gets here.

Monroe even made some new best friends!

We're here!!!

We finally made it to Dakar Senegal!  After a bumpy and long flight we got here and we're immediately blasted by hot hot air.  And this is their spring season!  (FYI: I'm trying to talk Mike into getting an air conditioner for one room, we'll see how far that goes ;-) Ha!

Besides the heat our sleepiness took over for the first two days, but today was the third day and we had a great time at church and then got a tour of Dakar, their really nice shopping mall with a food court, and a really nice grocery store.  They weren't kidding about everything costing a lot here, I wanted to get some paper plates like you can find at the dollar store and they cost $10.00, a can of beans is $4.00.   But we were able to get the items we needed and then came home and finally unpacked and the girls made a new friend and Mike and Carter  planned lacrosse and softball with others.  Today was a great day!  We are finally starting to get over our jet lag and starting to make it a home here.  I am so sorry I forgot to bring my camera today while we were out and about.  I will include the pictures I took tonight outside our front door and will take some of campus in the morning.  But I just wanted to pop in and say we are here and doing good.  The first two days were a culture shock, but today actually felt like this is home.  Life is good!

Last day in the States!

It's crazy how busy things get right at the time of a big event.  I've had months of planning and packing but everything feels like it explodes right when you think you have it all planned out.  I'm mostly talking about my packing.  At the in-laws everything showed the allowed weight, 50 pounds.  I use my sisters scale and everything shows 55 pounds.  That would mean $200.00 each for overweight luggage. I take things out and the scale goes down, put it right back on and it's goes up 3 pounds.  God has been so incredible with this whole journey (selling house, garage sale, family excited for us) that this is my last thing to stress about and I should just trust God that it will be okay.   

On another note, I was talking to my sister about how everything has shown us this is the path that God is leading us down and she mentioned the lady at our church that just showed up and now we will be working with her and her church to help out a village in Senegal.  And I realized I never even put that in the blog!  It was at the end of June, me and the kids were in California and Mike was back in Omaha.  He had been going to different churches that we are connected to to raise money but that Sunday he went back to our church.  I guess as Mike walked in our Pastor Chris jumped up and ran over to him and said Mike had to meet the lady he was talking to. now we hadn't been able to attend this church for over a month and Mike was not expected to be there that day.  But as it turns out there was a lady there from Springfield Mo. visiting and as she was talking to our pastor she just happens to mention her church sponsors a village in Senegal!  What are the chances of that happening?  Only one=God!  We are now in the planning stage of helping their church and since they only get out there twice a year Mike is planning on going around once a month and speaking with them, thru an interpreter, and giving a sermon.  That is just one more assurance we are doing Gods work.

And remember the girl that Mike and I were going to talk to that just got back from DA?  She was absolutely adorable and answered all (yes ALL) my questions. Her name is Lauren.   Poor girl I didn't give her time to eat I kept asking more and more questions, and when I took a breath Mike dove in with his own ?'s.   She absolutely loved her time over there.    She had us even more excited about going.
One last thing about this.  I know, I know enough of all the "signs". But Mike is back in Omaha for his Doctorates residential program where everyone in the program had to be there for a week and it was made known to people that Mike is about to go off to Senegal.  A guy came up to him and gave him his Business card and said his best friend, an ex marine, is in charge of the security there at the US Embassy in Dakar and absolutely loves it!  That made us excited because when we go to Dakar we want to make sure we get out into the town a lot and experience Senegal as a whole and not just what is around the Academy.  So that's nice to know we have one more connection there.

We have had such an amazing time here in California.


Carter got to help out at his Grandparents Church doing the food pantry all summer long!  He really liked working with Ray and everyone there, he'll miss you guys!

The cousins got so close they call themselves "sisouns" half sister/half cousin

The girls even tried on Grandma James' wedding dress.