Who's next!?

A few updates and photos! Hope you enjoy.

In May, we celebrated the daughter of my French tutor, Cynthia's 7th birthday. She was all dressed up and looking one year older!Off in village. How 'bout them cows!
Sunday at church. The people standing up are singing a hymn. I love the colors and the drums!
This "mountain" is called the sleeping lion. Can you tell why?

And then Russell came to visit!!! No one believed me that he is my petit fiere because he's not more "petit" then me. P.S. the italics are comments from Russell.



Shadrack with Russell's hat, and a jet plane. Gotta love his smile! Everyone here loves that hat, some guy on the street even said I looked like a true African.Laundrey day in Dassa! It's a lot of work! Luckily, my neighbors had some mercy on Russell and helped him out a bit.
My neighbors. Love 'em all, they take such good care of me.

The sleeping lion, from a far.
The smelly yet beautiful baubab flower.
Playing with camera colors and the kids next door.
This little guy came out during a rain storm. I caught him in my hand but then thought twice as I didn't know if he was poisonous. Russ was kind enough to point out that unless I licked my hand, I was probably ok.
After a whiffle ball game. Baseball is a bit of a new idea, but they did great! The hardest part was explaining three strikes and you're out. We will work on that for next time. The kids also had a hard time getting the concept of running to more than one base. They would get to one and stop. It just made for more exicitment when you had 3 kids all running home at the same time because inevitably there was confusion around 3rd base.
It's never to early to teach about moto precautions. Jo-jo (the one with the helmet) loves wearing my moto helmet. We just have to make sure he doesn't fall over backwards, it's a little top heavy. I don't think the tin bowl will do much though.

Then a trip to visit the sisiters at St. Emilie's. The ladies in the blue are nurses in training. The first time I meet the sister in the front she told me she was Protestant, joking of course. Right away I knew I would like this place.
Then Russ with the group. Nice face Russ. It's just a baby.... They pulled me over and handed me a naked baby to hold. I've got to say, not a fan of naked babies.
For dinner one night I tried my hand at Chicken noodle soup. It was pretty tasty but we both agreed we were missing the secret ingredient, mom's love. I think the tiny chicken didn't help much either.


Three weeks in Dassa would be a lot, so we did some traveling. First stop a town in the North. To get there we took a bush taxi. About 5 hours into the trip it got a flat. So, they pulled over and an hour later they had a new tire and were ready to go. This taxi is packed modestly to what you normally see. There were no animals tied on to the back or moto's in the trunk or chairs tied to the top. Just a normal load of 8 people. Needless to say, there is no such thing as personal space.


Incase you can't see what is on his hat, it says "Penn State Nittany Lions." I yelled "we are..." but got no response. So, we tracked him down to take a picture. Got to love the things people wear here. May I point out that it was propbaly over 100 degrees that day and we were doing everything we could to not over heat. He had on long sleaves and a winter hat....The things people wear here blow my mind. Ive seen numerous Fargo hats and winter parkas.
Some women in the market. Everything is more colorful up north!


The following weekend we went up north, but on the other side of the country. We got to do a bit of hiking ....


and climbing in trees...This is a Baobob tree. I think it might be softer than pine. I was a good 15 feet off the ground and a knot I was hanging on broke off, luckily I was standing on a branch.
and swimming in the waterfalls... (Uncle Jim, this one's for you... what would playing in water be without a frisbee!) I almost hit everyone but Emily trying to throw that frisbee back to land.


Interesting flower! I'll leave off with this sunset, for the sun to rise on another day.