Rain!

Last night at about seven o'clock, as we were getting settled around the
dinner table, the wind started howling. The temperature dropped and we
knew we were in for a good rain. It rained. And rained. And rained. And
rained. Most of the night. It stopped for awhile I think and then it
started up again. Today when I woke up it was cloudy. It stayed cloudy
all day and rained off and on all day. It's one of the very very few
days that I ever spent in Africa in which I couldn't see the sun. It
makes me realize how much I really do love sunshine. And here, when it
rains, well there's nothing really to do. All the kids are inside their
rooms, most of them sleeping. And sometimes the electricity goes out
(thankfully not today and we were able to watch a movie!). And
sometimes, well every time it rains it is so loud inside that you can't
have a normal conversation with yourself much less anyone else thanks to
our tin roof. But even if I don't like rainy days I'm so thankful that
it IS raining. Millet is starting to sprout everywhere. The trees are
turning green. There is green stuff that you might mistake for grass
growing along the roadside, until you get up close and realize it’s just
a bunch of weeds. (Sometimes when I draw pictures with the kids, I'll
draw grass on the ground and they always ask me what it is. And they say
"Is that what the ground looks like in America?" and then I have to try
and explain that well. No. We have dirt, but we also have grass. What a
bizarre thing to try and explain.

Due to the rain and not being able to play outside today, I played inside
with Adeline. She started making clothes for a doll out of paper. And I
made a paper doll for her. We sat on the floor in my room and colored
and cut and taped and imagined. She's been asking for a long pretty
skirt because she doesn't have one. And I'm going to have a skirt made
for a wedding coming up in a couple weeks. So we decided that we would get
matching skirts. That’s a big deal here. Everyone wants to match. And
when your shirt and your skirt match it’s just beautiful...so they say.
But really, the African women do look beautiful in them...we Americans
don't look quite so fabulous, but they like it when we try. Anyway,
Adeline got excited about the idea of matching a white person. She told
me about how the people on the street would notice. She liked that idea.
She said we should wear our skirts on Sundays. I said "Sure!"

Jeanette, my baby girl, is doing ok. She is so feisty. She scratches my
face and then laughs. She tries to hit people and then laughs. She gets
fussy easily. But I'm thinking "hey this is better than her being
lethargic" I think it’s because of her attitude that she's still alive.
Sometimes I look at her and cannot believe that this child is almost two
years old. We weigh her every couple of days. She weighed 12 lbs 6 oz.
the first time. The second time it was 12 lbs. The third time it was
back to 12 lbs. 6 oz again...and the today, two days after the third
weigh-in she was more than 13 1/2 lbs! Which doesn't really make sense.
First of all...how do you gain that much in two days when you're eating
the same thing as before. And second I would have noticed that much
weight gain on her. She’s tiny! So we had been weighing her with her
diaper on, and I think from now on we are going to take it off, because
well...we use cloth diapers and they aren't all the same size, so one
might have more material and affect how much she weighs. We don't really
know...but that's what Nichole and I think anyway. So if you think of
her, say a prayer that she'll start gaining weight quickly so she
doesn’t loose any more developmental time (she’s not even crawling...its
amazing that she can even hold her head up) and thank Jesus that she is
still alive.

My Boys

Well, since I wrote alittle about "my girl" in the last entry, I thought it might be appropriate to talk alittle bit about "my boys" because well, they make my day. every day.
I am in Ouaga for the night. We are picking up a visitor named Sarah from the airport. Nichole and I spent part of the day at a pool (we got sun!) which is just one of the perks of being Ouaga. (The other perk is all the good food!!!) But anyway, back to my boys...while we were swimming we thought about how histarical it would be to bring them to the pool and after I share my story about what happened last night, hopefully you will understand why. (but it may be a story that's not funny unless you know the people...so if you don't think its funny. just trust me. These boys are comedians) Every night Nichole and I pray with our school agers. Adilene, Achielle, Abraham, and Aristede. One of us prays with Adi in the girls room while the other prays with the boys in their room. Last night was my night in the boys room. Earlier this week we had a movie night during which we watched karate kid. ever since you can see kids around the courtyard talking about and pretending to do karate. Its pretty funny. And last night, Aristede was practicing his karate. He told me he was going to pray for himself (he always does) and that was it. (he later added he was going to pray for his parents in america (which he doesn't have) or in france (also which he doesn't have). Abraham and Acheille took their turns saying what they were going to pray for (we have this conversation and then we all pray in our native language moore and english(obviously)) and the entire time Aristede was laying on his mat practicing his karate. These three boys are like the three amigos/stooges...something. They are always together. Always laughing and play fighting. And last night they were correcting one another's french. mid way through his karate chop aristede rolls over and says to achielle "you can't say that!!!!!! that doesn't even make sense?!!!!what does that even mean??!!" And then they all start laughing, because well, none of them speak very good french. he conitnued karate chopping and when we were finally ready to pray, achielle started and aristede sat up and karata chopped his OWN leg. HARD. I have no idea why he did it, but he started laughing and then I started laughing and then the other two boys started laughing. We were all laughing so hard that we couldn't breathe. we managed to get through the rest of our prayers (aristede was praying out loud through mine...im not sure why. he stopped when i hit him on the arm...but a few seconds later he started up again.) but then aristede began laughing again. for no apparent reason. he was laughing so hard he was crying!!! showing emotion is so rare here that when i see these boys laughing with one another so much and making me laugh so much it brings so much joy to my soul!! to see him laugh so hard he was crying was amazing to see..even though im still not sure why he was laughing so hard. so to see the three of them in the pool would be histarical. i wish you all could meet them. they are my favorite!!!
i also have another boy. he's three. his names is eric. he lights up when he sees me...and he loves to kiss me. its pretty fun to cuddle with him, its all he wants to do.
and those are my boys.

Bugs!

Sorry it’s taken me so long to write again! Things are always busy around here and it's hard to find time to sit down and write all that's going on.

We had five people taking the BAC this year. The BAC is a test that you take after the last year of high school. If you don't pass the test, you can't go to college. It’s a big big big deal and very very very few people pass it. It’s incredibly difficult. One of our boys, Etienne took it for the second time and ...PASSED. One of our "ton-tons", Ernest, who is a teacher/translator/helper-with-almost-anything took it for the fourth or fifth time and....PASSED; and Rodrigue, who works with the sponsorship program, took it for the sixth time and....PASSED!!!! AMAZING that three out of five would pass! So now these boys will be able to attend college. The adoptive parents of one of our children have offered to pay for Etienne and Ernest to go all the way through college. WOW. That's an amazing amazing amazing gift for these boys. They are all brilliant and have worked soo hard. We are super proud of them.

This is the season for raisons. No, not raisins like we think of in America, these are round greenish purpleish redish fruits that grow on trees in bunches. They don't taste very good. You don't chew them up. You peel the skin off, while the raison is in your mouth, and then you spit the skin out and then you swallow the fruit whole. It’s bizarre because you don't really taste anything.

Our boys are always up in the trees picking them. Tuesday morning, Achielle was up in a tree and all of the sudden I heard a loud rustling of leaves, and I saw Achielle plummeting to the ground. Then I heard a THUD as he hit the dirt. He was in a lot of pain, but we think he just bruised his tailbone. He's been back to his normal, fun, mischievous self the past two days. So it’s a huge blessing that he wasn't really hurt.

We got a new baby last week. She is severely malnourished. Her name is Jeanette, and she is now affectionately called "my girl" (well, if you aren't me, then you would say "ami's girl") because, well, I LOVE her. We knew she was malnourished when she first came, but her family told us she was nine months old. So she was little but not TOO little. As I began watching her and playing with her I noticed that she was much more advanced than all our other circa nine month olds. We finally looked in her health records (which we had failed to consult before...we just believed the family) and found that she was NINETEEN months old. She will be two in November. Her family was called and confronted. Her father, who is very young, admitted to lying but said he still wanted his child. So we have decided that if he wants her when she is well that he will have to come visit her every Saturday, and he has to find a woman in his family who will come to the orphanage every day to learn how to take care of her (that's why she's here in the first place. Her mom ran off to the Ivory Coast with some guy, and no one in the courtyard knew how or was able to care for her). I have been spending some time with her every day. She really is the most beautiful little girl I've ever seen. When she first arrived she was sad. And it made me sad. But now she is smiling and laughing when I kiss her or try to play with her. It's an amazing miracle to be apart of. She's going to live!!!

On a more disgusting note, the bugs are here. And it’s gross. They really only come out at night and then it's only for a little while. But they come by the millions and it’s gross. Also, there are these ant things that BITE, and it HURTS for a couple days afterwards. I had one in my hair last week. That was pretty gross and painful. The night after a rain is the worst. These bugs, called termites (but they aren't like termites in America), come out. They have huge wings, and they fly all over and into things (kind of like june bugs). Within an hour, they all lose their wings and then die...and we can't ever really find their bodies. It's bizarre. We don't know where they come from or where they go, and they only come out after it rains. The people here love to eat them. They catch them in water, dry them in the sun, and fry them. So Nichole and I tried one this past Sunday after church. They cooked them especially for us; and while it didn't really taste like anything except for a burned crunchy thing...it was still pretty gross to think about. The thought that I was putting an insect in my mouth made me want to vomit. So needless to say, I haven't eaten any since and don't plan on eating anymore ever.

That’s what’s going on here...I love Africa. The orphanage and all the kids feel like home....

Timothe & Elisee

Sorry it’s been so long since I have written. We have had a busy couple of weeks so there is a lot to say but we didn’t have the most reliable internet connection for about five days, it was hard enough to just check our email.

This week we had to take two of our boys to the village.

Timothe was the first to go. He is a six year old Burkinabe Dennis the Menace. He is adorable. He makes everyone fall in love with him; and then after you’ve fallen in love with him you realize that he loves to make trouble. When his mom died about three years ago her husband’s family said that she could stay with them if she took another husband. She refused and then did not have the means to take care of her children. Two of them stayed with the father’s family (legally children belong to the father in Burkina) Timothe came to stay with us and the baby stayed with mom. It appears that mom is now in a place where she can take care of Timothe. This is fantastic for him. We weren’t sure how he would react to the news; he didn’t know his mother anymore. He could not have been happier!! The morning he found out the first thing I heard from his mouth was “EMI!!!(that’s how they say my name) I’m leaving tomorrow!!” and I said “OHH!! Where?” He said “To my house!! To my village!! With my mom!!!” it was wonderful to see him so excited. The morning of he was a little apprehensive, but five minutes after arriving you could tell that he had a place in that courtyard. He belongs in that family. It was amazing to watch.

Elisee was the second and that one was a little harder for me personally. When I was here for three months in 2004 I taught preschool and Elisee was one of my preschoolers. He is eight years old now. He used to be crazy like Timothe, but he has grown up and is a typical eight year old. He’s hysterical. He pretends to have presents for you when they are really bugs and all sorts of things. He, for whatever reasons that I am unaware of, was not told of his departure until the morning he took him. He had been here for four years, not once been visited by family and never left to visit family. We took him to an aunt who is married to a pastor that he didn’t know. Obviously, he was scared. He packed his clothes and sat down on the terrace as we were getting ready to leave and CRIED. It broke my heart. This has been his home and his family. He hasn’t known anything else. But what is best for him (and for all the kids) is to be placed in homes. So the ride out wasn’t pleasant. We were all a little nervous not knowing what we would find. And what we did find put our hearts and minds at ease. The pastor is a wonderful man. He’s full of joy and life even though he is older. He is kind. He bought Fantas for us all (orange soda) and offered Elisee some. It is not often that an adult will offer a child a treat like that. And he was offering from his own bottle. So, when we left he seemed ok. He was smiling a little bit. He lives next door to the church, across the way from the school, and across the street from a patch of grass (well its “grass” aka weeds for right now) where some local boys play soccer which he has recently gotten into quite a bit. He watched us leave waving big with both hands as we drove all the way down the road. I teared up a little bit, but it doesn’t matter, no, because this is what’s best for him.

The orphanage isn’t the same without those guys…much quieter. For right now they are only there for the summer, but if it goes well (which it seems in both cases it will) they will stay.

On Thursday morning I got a crash course in running the orphanage. Ruth was gone and Nichole was sick. So it was just me. People came needing things and I had to figure out how to get it to them. Luckily Lynn was around, who although she doesn’t know much about the orphanage, was another brain; and she can speak French (I don’t know that I would call what I do speaking.. ha!) so nothing fell apart. Afterwards Nichole said “You’re so brave! If it was me and I had only been here three weeks I would have been like “Sorry I’m staying inside!”

I don’t know if brave is the right word, and it wouldn’t be fair to say that it was fun…but it was an exciting morning!

PS I’ve been gone for four weeks today. That’s so surreal. In some ways I feel as if I’ve been here forever and in others I can’t believe four weeks have gone by so quickly. I guess I have a messed up sense of time J