Joyeux Noel

We had a Christmas party at our apartment.  About 15 girls came which was really exciting.  Most of them were Becky's friends/current & former students.  Amanda and I invited two girls that we've become friends with at the shop that sells American products.


So, three days before Christmas, we put decorations up. 

As I look at this now, it seems pathetic.  But it really did feel Christmas-y.

Amanda and I with our two new friends! :)

When people first started arriving, it was a tad bit awkward.  Or maybe more than a tad.  So what do I talk about?  How bad my Wolof is.  That usually makes people laugh.  Becky finished cooking and we served dinner.  We had fajita style mexican-y food..  white rice, black beans, grilled peppers and onions with beef.  Did anyone actually like it?  Maybe 1 or 2 girls out of 15.  It's really funny to watch them move the food around much like we do when we go to their houses.  There is a huge difference, however.  They don't eat hardly any of it and didn't mind telling us that they didn't like it.  We could NEVER do that in their house.  We seriously get force-fed til our insides are going to explode and then get told we didn't eat anything.  So I had a good time last night telling them to "eat" which they didn't do at all. 

Becky read the Christmas story in Wolof to them and there were no cries of outrage (always a good thing).  They all took it well, in fact.  We then made a chain by writing things we were thankful for and introducing ourselves and reading out loud.  Overall, the evening turned out pretty good! 




We went to a nearby village for Christmas where our friend Sherrill lives.  It was a nice relaxing time for the most part.  Lots of laying around and eating :)  My kind of time!  haha...  The food we had was delicious!  Fresh green beans are coming into season here now so we had the first of them..  along with homemade mashed potatoes, chicken, my corn casserole (that I saved my one box of Jiffy and creamed corn for), etc...   The only not so good thing was that none of us slept very well because our cousins decided to chant literally all night long to make their presence known..  Monday night, I slept for 12 hours straight after not sleeping much over the holiday. 

Here's a pic of us eating our Christmas meal together:

On Monday on our way home, we stopped to go to Acrobaobab.  It was phenomenal!!!  It's a ropes course through Baobab trees.  Seriously cannot wait to go back and do it again!  Amanda, on the other hand, would be happy if she never got in another tree again.  So she took our pictures!

Here is Acrobaobab...  just kidding!  Playing in a litle kids playground.  I'm training ;)

Aren't the trees just gorgeous? 

This is the very last thing you do after you've completed the course you get to zip line down!

After the ropes course, you could rock climb the tree if you wanted to.. when your arms were like jello. 

You can barely see but I made it almost all the way up!

Finally, as a closing treat.  Amanda and I decided to buy these as Christmas presents to ourselves because we laughed so hard when we found them. Even better is the look on any African's face when they see us in them...

Our love/hate relationship with appliances...

First off, before I even let you read on, let me just tell you that I am really appreciative of our appliances.  Seriously.  It's nice to come to the apartment and it's about as westernized as you are going to find in West Africa.  We love our appliances.  For real.  But there are just times when when you laugh about phrases spoken in relation to the appliances.  We wanted to share some of those with you here.


From least ridiculous to most ridiculous.

First up: the water filter.

Gone are the days of water directly out of the fridge or sink for that matter. Who knows what tiny microrganisms lie waiting to destroy us.  So this beast cranks out clean water.  We just have to pour it in there ever day or so.  Do not underestimate it's power.  When we stayed with the host family, they had one and the top layer of water before it was filterered was BROWN.  It came out clear at the bottom.  And we drank it with no sickness to show.  So mad props to the water filter!

Here is our water heater.  To save electricity money, we unplug and plug in the water heater (sometimes).  I'm thankful for hot water! (Now that it's getting cooler it is nice to have.)  I was on the phone with a friend one night and asked Amanda if she could "plug in the shower."  That's a sentence I've never said before :)

The dishwasher! Bahahahaha...

The oven and the thermometer.  And can everyone see the tiny hole in the middle where you stick a match in?  First, you turn the gas on.  Stick the lit match into the gas encased oven.  Turn knob and wait for fire to spread out over the bottom.  Tons of fun.  LOVE doing this every time! :)


Last but not least, who of you gets to say that every time you do a load of laundry, you get to hold the washing machine in place?  We do! :)  You can wash about 3 pieces of clothing at a time and when it gets to the spin cycle, it seriously sounds like a rocket about to blast off into outer space.  We don't want our washing machine zooming into outer space (or across the bathroom floor) so we hold it in place.  Sometimes it takes more than one person.  This time in the video below it was pretty calm.  (Sorry, it is sideways...)

Random Snippets of Life

Well, I know I haven't blogged in a while.. that's mostly because life has settled into a routine here (that word is used VERY loosely).  I decided I should just post about random odd and end things that happen here so you can be informed..

First of all, Amanda and I are doing the near impossible: cooking.  I have figured out the stove/oven.  Yes, we have advanced past the microwave. Amanda refuses to be in the kitchen with me when I light it because you stick a match into this tiny hole at the bottom of the oven (all the while the gas is ON)..  so I'm poised to run at any point in time should it decide to explode.  I really don't like fire.  Learning to cook has not been without it's injuries..  Case in point, the chebu-legumes of death.  I tried one day to cook rice and veggies on the stove like the local people.. only to learn the hard way that pouring water in hot oil doesn't work well.   We lost a pan lid in the explosion as well as burning my left hand.  Luckily, the local remedy seemed to clear it up just fine: toothpaste.  Amanda turned the gas off before even worse damage could be done.  All that to sum up, we have mastered: french toast, pancakes, eggs and cookies.  Diet of champions.  One day, we'll attempt an actual meal.  If you have any supererty duper easy recipes, send 'em our way! 

I don't think I took a picture of the final product but our homemade sugar cookies were delish!  As I made them a second time, I chuckled as I thought to myself that in America, homemade cookies wouldn't have even crossed my mind..  as in, why in the world would you do that?  The only way to make cookies it to buy already made dough! :) 

Next up on this random blog post:  African clothing.  There will be a blog post in the future about the fact that we went a little bit crazy buying fabric and getting outfits made.  I only have a few pictures for you to see for now. 

The internet is an absolutely marvelous thing.  We were able to take Christmas pictures this year.  I wanted to do a completely ironic card (as in, the desert) but when I saw that these people had put so much effort into decorating this street corner, I couldn't resist taking pictures here.  The cards were expensive so we didn't send too many out but basically, it's about 90 degrees the day we took these pictures.  As you can see, the decor is pretty extravagent.  We were like a freak show and random people stood around us to watch, some of which you can see in the pictures.  At first, they weren't going to let us on the sleigh because "the corner wasn't finished" but we just stood there talking long enough that eventually they let us in :)

This one didn't make it to the card but is an honorable mention! :)



Here's the winner! 

We went to the MOST amazing restaurant here:  The Thailand Garden.  I felt like I had been transported to Asia which made me super happy.  As Becky and I are discussing how delicious the food was on the ride home, I'm concerned that I'm turning into Becky (who's always gushing after she's eaten something good).  Amanda's response?  "I'm just thinking about the fact that I just dropped fourteen dollars and it doesn't even phase me."  Yep.  It's expensive.  But worth every penny.

It's like a rainforest-y Asian decor heaven in there :)

Fried rice with chicken...  not as good as Bali's but still delicious! :)



Last but not least, the internet can only entertain for so long and who in the world wants to learn Wolof?? (kidding)  Thanks to a new friend in the city, we are stocked up on movies to watch for a while.  Neither Amanda nor I are huge movie buffs and in the states neither one of us watch very many.  But here?  Why, yes, thank you.  I'll watch anything.  We're going to get caught up on all these "classics" that neither of us has ever seen. 



First up on our check off list.  I now understand the quote "My name is Inigo Montoya, you killed my father, prepare to die."

Our ingenious home theater!

Gearing up for the movie!  Amanda has joined my league of Wolof notecards on the wall.

Hard to even imagine that blankets are needed!  This blanket is from Morocco.. lol... bought it at the international fair that was just held here. 

That's all for now folks!