updates!

August 3

            Here I am sitting in my apartment in AFRICA!!  Sweating my face off, but I’m a happy girl!  We don’t have internet yet though, so I am doing this the old fashioned way and typing it in a word document! 

            Today may have been the longest day of my life!  BUT, God has been reminding me of his faithfulness and provision already!  I got to the San Francisco airport at about 5:30 in the morning.  Checked in with the airline and the lady was telling me that I was going to have to claim my bags in Washington D.C. and re-check them before I got on my flight to Senegal.  She checked again, though, and found out that my bags would be taken care of all the way to Senegal.  She was surprised by this, and also surprised that a boarding pass was printed out for my flight from DC to Senegal. Praise the Lord!

            I didn’t really sleep during either of the flights, on the first flight because I offered to share my cookies with a middle aged lonely man.. biggest mistake ever.  He only took a crumb of a cookie and proceeded to tell me his life story.  If you’re going to tell me your life story, make it more worthwhile than a stinkin crumb of a cookie!  I mean, yes, I ended up with more cookies in the end but I could never have offered him the cookie and he never would have talked to me.  On the second flight, I think I was maybe too excited.  Because even after taking a Benadryl, I didn’t sleep.. but I did have the pleasure of watching Men In Black.  I forgot how good that movie is!  Seriously underrated!  I also watched We Bought a Zoo.. that’s a winner as well. 

            ANYWAY.. I landed in Dakar and still felt like I was just away from home, but not in a different country.  I got off the plane (most people stayed on the plane, their final stop was Johannesburg) and stepped onto a hot sweaty bus.  Luckily, we only drove about 10 feet..okay maybe 100.. but I feel like I could have walked as far as it drove us in the amount of time we waited to actually go.  Then I filled a form out, gave it to the passport checker and he mumbled something I didn’t understand, and he got frustrated when I didn’t know what he was saying!  Too bad for him, speak up man!  Then, I went to get my bags.  Some of the workers kept asking me if I needed help.  Do I look like a weakling? Okay, maybe I do… Once I got my bags, I walked out of the airport and saw Ken and Julie waiting for me on the other side of the gate.  They were within reach, but in order to get to them I had to go in a maze.  Ken told me where to go and said “just don’t let anybody take your bags”  Very reassuring!  So I walk through the maze, trying to look like I know what I’m doing.  I don’t think it worked (probably because I’m WHITE) and these men kept trying to take my bags, get me in their taxi, and sell me phone cards.  It was the most terrifying airport experience ever.  One man grabbed my bag from me and I was so scared he was going to run off with it.. but I punched him and knocked him down.  

            I finally got through the maze and got in the AIR CONDITIONED car!! What a treat.  (yes it was already hot and sticky at 5:30 in the morning).  They took me to the apartment and I got to have first pick of which bedroom I wanted since I was here before Ruthanne.  I feel a little bit guilty for taking the room with the bathroom.. but just a little bit. 

            The first thing I did was blow a fuse on my electric toothbrush charger. : ( I am so sad.. but praying that maybe it will come back to life!! I believe it could happen!!!!!

            I tried to lay down and take a nap because I was exhausted, but I kept thinking I was hearing Ruthanne come in.  Right when I actually fell asleep, the door opened and she was here! 

            We hung out and talked for a while.. and our front door opened and somebody said “bonjour”  The next thing we know there is a lady in our house walking in to the kitchen.  She looked at it and said something in French to Ruthanne and then left.  She was super nice, but I don’t understand why she was there.  Ruthanne seemed to think the whole thing was pretty normal.  Needless to say, I’m going to start locking the door always.

             I took a nap while she unpacked her room, so now she has a cute unpacked room and I have a cluttered, messy room with half of a bed.  But that’s all I need!!

            OH!  Did I mention this part of God’s provision?  There was a HUGE basket of food waiting for us and another HUGE basket of cleaning supplies.  Also, the fridge was stocked with eggs, cheese, ham, bread, and bottled water.  What’s missing from the fridge I ask you?  That’s right.. milk.  Well the funny thing about that is they drink mostly powdered milk.  Which was in our care basket!!! Yum!  Then later, some pretty flowers came for us!! Thank you Lord!

            I have been so thirsty and drinking a LOT of water.. the bottled water is delicious.  Once we run out of the bottled water, we will start using our filter.. which is two buckets stacked on top of each other.  They are connected to each other so the top bucket drips down to the bottom bucket.  There are 3 ceramic things that somehow filter the water.. I don’t understand how it works but I had some of that kind of water at dinner and haven’t gotten sick yet! It tastes kinda funky.. but welcome to Africa I suppose?

            After I woke up from my nap, I still felt tired but we decided to take a little walk.. first ever roommate adventure!! We went to the school, met some people, and then went to a little supermarket called Casino.  Turns out they do have razors here.. but I’m still glad we stopped for those anyway : )

            We came back to the apartment, Ruthanne taught me a little French (oui oui!)  and then there was a knock at our door.  It was the director of the school coming to welcome us and give us an advance on our paycheck so we could have some money for our tour of town tomorrow (thanks once again God!)

            Then, Ken came to pick us up for dinner and we went to the Vaughans and had rice with this yummy shredded meat (maybe chicken) with peanut sauce topped with tomatoes and pineapple, bread and green beans!  The bread and green beans were separate.. not with the tomatoes and pineapple. I mean I guess we could have put them on top of our meat, but yuck!

            Desert was ice cream and some yummy apple crisp!  I almost fell asleep a few different times at the table, but I kept my eyes open.  Barely. 

            Speaking of keeping eyes open, its time for this sleepy girl to get some shut eye!  We have a tour of the town tomorrow, can’t wait!

            Okay.. this was long and I don’t know if there are too many details or what!! But you better enjoy the details while you can get them, because I have a feeling once school starts, I will have much less time for all the details!

August 4, 2012

            I thought I would have a hard time sleeping last night, but it wasn’t too bad with the fan pointing right at my face.  People keep telling me that I just have to get through the next 3 months because they are the hottest, and then it will cool down.  Also, it is supposed to get hotter than it is now which I don’t really want to think about, but apparently the hotter it gets the more the power goes out.  Ruthanne said this was because people use more power so the power plant runs out, but I just hope it doesn’t go out in the middle of the night.  If it happens, I have a plan to go sleep in my shower with the cold water running over me the whole night.. take that power plant!

            I tried the powdered milk with my cereal this morning… I don’t want to complain, so that’s all I’ll say about that…

            We had a tour of Dakar today, so I now know my way around the city.. NOT!  It is so confusing.. no street names (not that that would probably help direction-senseless me) and people just kinda drive wherever they want to, whether there is a road there or not.  But I do know I don’t have any desire to drive in this city! In the course of 3 hours, we saw two accidents.. both involving motorcycles.  I mentioned something about not wanting to drive here and the man who was driving the van said “it’s not too bad.. you just have to realize two things: people are going to cut you off, and you have to cut people off.” Sounds like a bunch of rudies driving around to me!! But anyway.. we stopped at this yummy bakery and had some treats.. my first purchase in Senegal was a chocolate croissant. It will also probably be my best purchase ever. Delicioso! 

            We ate lunch at a little restaurant right by the ocean.  There was also a hotel right next door with a swimming pool.  The pool looked sooo nice and I just wanted to jump out the window right into the pool but I resisted the urge.  I’m trying to make friends so I don’t want to bring out the crazy too soon.  I have the timing down to a science from my many years of experience.

            It was raining a lot during the tour, which I was a little bit sad that we were in the van and couldn’t get out and play in it.. but just a little bit because we had air conditioning in the van!

            When we got back, I learned the lesson to not leave anything by an open window.. because sometimes when things get wet, they get ruined.  Luckily, it was a journal that I hadn’t written in yet and its drying by the fan now, so I don’t think too much damage was done.  Ruthanne and I went up to the roof to check it out and there’s a beautiful view up there!  (Pictures to come!) You can even see a little bit of the ocean from up there.  We have a pretty good view from our apartment as well, just no ocean!  We are going to eat dinner up on the roof tonight with the other newbies and some oldbies too.  I’m nervous for when the time comes that people stop cooking (and basically doing everything else) for us.  We have been so spoiled!!  The food here is a lot harder to make because its literally all from scratch.  For example, if you want spaghetti, you have to hand make the noodles.  Ok. That’s a lie, but its pretty scratchy!  I guess some people hire cooks, which sounds crazy because I would just feel like a richy mc richerson if I had a personal cook.  And, I think we are already going to hire a lady to clean for us.  A lot of the missionaries here do it not only to save them time but also as an outreach to the community.