This is NOT legal in America.

We went to the zoo.  I think I'm gonna go once a week because I love feeding the chimps and other monkeys.  Here are some fun pics of our recent outing:

When I first walked in, I saw this little guy and thought he was an ugly cat.  He has only been there for three days...

Cute!

Clearly she wants some bananas.

This is my favorite Chimp in the park.  His name is Tally!!!  Isn't that crazy?  He's 26 years old and super sweet.  His favorite game is to go knuckle-to-knuckle in a strength war..  Guess who wins every time?

This little guy was terrified!

Yeah, in America- you couldn't get 20 feet from these guys :)

While this looks like fun and games (which it is!) - it's not all pleasant.  The reason I'm allowed to feed them is because the zoo doesn't make enough money to feed the animals and they only get fed once a day.  TIA.  Animals aren't priority and I get that.  (I have become quite desensitized!)  But I still love animals so I buy bananas.  The banana lady loves me because I buy a lot of her bananas right outside the zoo.  I have a blast feeding the chimps/monkeys and they get a little something extra on the day we come :)

Green Meat & Pimples of Love!

Heads up... This blog post is completely random!  I've been trying to do a better job of remembering the things in daily life that humor us - I have three different stories.  None of them have pictures associated but I have other fun pictures to throw in this blog post..  So yay! :)  Here goes.

Story Number One:

We are eating lunch with the guard at the office.  Every time we go to the office, he always tells us that we are too American and "don't have his time."  So this past Saturday, we decided to head up there for a couple hours and play ping-pong with him.  Well, he decided he would cook us lunch.  At first, Amanda and I were really impressed because here is a guy who cooks.... that is unheard of here.  Well, he gave us our bowls of rice, tomato, onions, carrots and meat.  Then, someone honked so he had to go open the gate.  Amanda and I look at our bowls... and pieces of the meat are GREEN!  Like the edges of the meat chunks are a lime green.  We stare in horror for a minute before I say to Amanda, "I can't eat this."  She says, "Do you have something in your bag that you can put it in?"  I say, "No, but that is a good idea.  I'm gonna put pieces in my bag and just clean it out later."  As I pick out the greenest pieces and walk to my bag, an idea of brilliance flashes through my mind.  We're on the third floor so I decide to chuck the pieces of meat off the side of the balcony into the neighbors yard.  Some animals are really gonna appreciate my generosity.  The guard is still downstairs and Amanda is telling me to hurry up.  I decide to get a few more green pieces and dispose of them and Amanda hands me some of hers.  Then I move the meat around on my bowl so it was not noticeable.  I was having flashbacks of being a kid and the food wars with my parents.  I was soo good at taking food and disposing of it - kitchen, bathroom, pockets.  Those days prepared me well for Africa :)

Story Number Two:

As you can see from some of the pictures below, the roads are absolutely terrible here after the rains.  It will just wipe out pieces of road and there will be huge craters.  You can be driving through a flooded area and have no idea how deep it is or if there is a hole you're about to drive through.  Well, last night, we drove our language teacher home and then were driving to the center because we were meeting a friend for dinner in that area.  It is pitch black and there are no street lights whatsoever.  I'm driving along - doing my best to not flood Ole Blue.  At one point, I'm driving along and there are several cars coming the other direction with their brights on.  This completely blinds me.  I tell Amanda, "I can't see a thing.  I can't see a thing."  At the end of me saying that, Amanda says, "We're going down."  At that exact moment, I hit an edge and we dropped like a foot of into a crater in the road.  I screamed because it scared me..  This doesn't seem as funny written out but it's one of those scenes that one day I'd like to replay in Heaven :)

Story Number Three:

So we're at the friends house mentioned above and we're talking about how the hot season doesn't let us be girly.  Now mind you, I don't consider myself uber girly but you definitely do miss dressing up and looking nice when you can't do it anymore because of the heat and humidity.  So then I mentioned to our friend that the combination of heat/dust/etc gave me pimples too.  So she then informed me that if you have a pimple - it means someone loves you!  That's certainly a different way of looking at it!  Lucky me- I have two! haha!  And Amanda had four!  Our friend only had one.  But now, we call these Pimples of Love! 

We decided to brave the mud and go Fabric shopping..  Trish was laughing because every time I held up the camera to snap a picture, someone walked in front of me!

We go a little insane buying fabric.  This lady gave us a good deal!  

Road near our house - it didn't flood bad where we live but it wipes out roads!

The neighborhood right across the street from us :(

Our friend's baby cousin.

Close-up of the amulet necklace she had on.

As we're walking outside, a guy let us hold his baby sheep!  They are the most precious things ever!

He insisted that Amanda hold and take a picture too even though she is so-so about animals.

Late night hangout :)  Lookin' good!

Truckin' along!

So.. I haven't written a blog in a VERY long time!  The reason for that is two-fold:  a) until recently, we've been extremely busy with teams/meetings/etc and b) [the real reason] We're just truckin' along!  As crazy as it sounds, living here has become normal so that the oddities of life that I used to post about no longer seem crazy to me and therefore I don't think about writing about them.  I don't know whether to be happy with or mortified by that thought... :)

Soooo... for starters, I'll try to catch up a little bit about what is going on recently.. then later on down, post some fun pics from the summer!

It's our first rainy season here.  To me, the rain is a welcome temporary relief from the heat.  But for most of the people here, it's dreaded.  Two days during registration last week for class, we were without power at the center because the concrete tunnels they built for electricity lines were flooded (or so we were told that was the reason).  Several people in the area we work in died to due houses collapsing.  In GY, the houses are like a mini-compound... so you walk in to an open space and there are different rooms all around that center opening for bedrooms, etc.  As we drove by, we could see people standing in that open space with huge buckets just scooping buckets full of water from out of their flooded compounds.  It was really sad.  It also prompted a riot one day because apparently, every year this happens, people get flooded/mad, and they want the government to do something (what? I don't know).  So there was some tire burning action but memory here is SUPER short-term so as soon as the rain goes away, everyone forgets and gets back on with life.

Flooding...

All the stuff that people throw out cause of damage...

So, as you can tell...  the combination of water, sand, sewage and trash are definitely NOT helping the aesthetic view of the city... :)

In other news, we just finished the month of fasting here - Ramadan.  It was a new experience for us and one that we didn't really care too much for.  People don't do anything!  Which I can't blame them - if I was not drinking water during these temperatures - I would be as useless as mud too!  But it was just a stretch for us to continue visiting people.  So we "broke the fast" at nighttime with some of friends.  One night, we were served fish balls.  Yes.  Fish. Balls.  As in meatballs, but with fish.  Can I please tell you...  I've come A LONG way to liking fish as much as I do - but fish balls are not good.  

Some people praying at the end of Ramadan holiday!

Classes have started back up this week at one of the centers!  I really do love teaching!  It's so fun to see the students get it and sharing stories at the end of class is a great way for them to practice and hear the great story!  

Alright... here are some pictures from the summer...  :)

Mel and I being goofballs....  or maybe just me?

This is one of my favorite things about the ropes course- a zip line in a boat.. :)

Zipline!!  

One day, Mel and I went to Goree Island...  We get on the ferry to come back and decide to sit in the front, outside.  So then about 5 schoolgirls sit down next to us.  The next thing we know, we are literally packed in like sardines with a school class...  It was hilarious!

These girls were cracking me up.. each of them had a plastic bottle that they had collected sand and sea water with little crabs, etc.. and they each had to show me theirs!

Mel playing the rock game with some kids outside our friends house!

Tons of children dancing and hearing stories!

Okay...  I think that is enough for now..  I'm going *to try* to be better about updating more often!  After seeing all that fun, who wants to come visit?? :)