Lockdown (with Twins)!

Keira and I started having lunch outside.

April 5, 2020

And then we started doing school outside.

April 6, 2020

And others came and went with their books and computers as the sun would allow.

The yard really was a great place to relax and not feel so cooped up.

 

April 13, 2020

There was one week during quarantine that we came home from the 

grocery story with two trays of eggs.  

(Each tray holds 30 eggs...we eat a lot of eggs).

Anyway...these two particular trays were FULL of twins.  

Maybe on a "normal" week, we wouldn't have gotten so excited about it, 

but during quarantine, the excitement was a little higher than normal as you might imagine.

For example, in the picture below, I only cracked 7 eggs!

I know. I know.  Amazing, right?

April 7, 2020

Also, much like in America, each day the government posted numbers for us to see.

I think our country did an excellent job at first with a quick lockdown and keeping numbers low.

Later in the month , after they loosened restrictions so people could 

celebrate the beginning of Ramadan (April 23), the numbers quickly escalated, 

and then trying to get the number of cases back down again was a hard thing to do.

One of the assignments Keira had to do for the French school was write a message 

for their school page in her own language to "Stay at Home."

April 13, 2020

Aspects of Lockdown

Ten days after starting lock down, a "Stay Home" message appeared in the top left corner of my phone's screen.

I think that's one way to know things are getting serious :)

And what more could we ask for? 

Our oven went kaput during lockdown, and there was no way to get it serviced.

I happened to mention it to our neighbors one day, and they said they had 

an electric one that belonged to their landlord we could use.

What a blessing!!

Our oven didn't get fixed for quite some time.

March 30, 2020

We were so fortunate to live in that house at that time. 

The "green space" that we had in our small front yard was such 

a refreshing thing for us when we couldn't leave our house.  

You will see in later blogs how we took advantage of the space on 

sunny, beautiful days like this one.

March 28, 2020

But on rainy days, like the one we had on the 29th, 

we had to move our roof picnic inside by the fireplace 

(another thing we were thankful for in that house).

 March 29, 2020

Time to do "Stuff

The weather warmed up in May, and it seemed that everyone wanted to be outside.

We celebrated in the park the graduation of two girls we have had to pleasure of watching grow up.

There was cultural dancing

And reuniting with friends I hadn't seen in a while.

Caleb entertained some little ones.

And the girls were happy to be outside with people.

I had an incident with our outside water tap, and got some second degree burns on my toes and leg.

But that didn't hold me back from visiting some friends who flew to Europe to see me!

This sweet lady planned the whole thing as a way to encourage me and love on me.

We had a great time!

 May 14, 2019

We saw a church that has been being built since 1882.  It's still not finished!

Its projected completion date is 2026, but it's still pretty amazing to see what has been done so far.

 May 16, 2019

Every part of the church was designed with meaning and purpose, and as you walk around the outside and stand in the inside, everything you see tells a story.

This is a panoramic view of the inside, and you can see that even the colors of the glass which follow Jesus' birth from a spring evening (blues) to the intensity of his death on a cross (reds) make this building an incredible example of architecture.

Another exciting place for me was standing in the harbor where Edmund Dantes, "The Count of Monte Cristo" would have sailed.  Looking out to sea, I could also catch a glimpse of the Chateau d'If (the small tiny island in the middle) where his fictional prison would have been.

Of course, I was inspired to read the book again, and I started that very night.  It took me all summer to finish.  I'd forgotten how long and in-depth the reading was, but it was so good!

 May 17, 2019

I had never studied much about the tower in Pisa, and I think I imagined it so much larger.

But my favorite part about that location wasn't the leaning tower at all, it was the magnificent church and dome structure built beside it.  It was Sunday, so we didn't get to go inside because there was a service, but the outside was pretty awe-inspiring.

 May 19, 2019

Another favorite was seeing Michelangelo's statue of David.  I wouldn't have thought that a statue would be that "awesome" for me, but I was wrong.  I was really in awe over the sculptor's workmanship and just learning the story of how he created it and under what circumstances.

What a special trip for me, and I was blessed to spend it with such dear ladies who loved on me, laughed with me, and also gave me time to rest, study and have some rejuvenation time.

Mountain Picnic

As the heat increases here (it's already over 100 degrees), it's good to look back at pictures of when it was cooler.

These were taken Easter weekend at a picnic we attended with our teammates and a couple of other families.

Everything was so green.

Almost everyone was eager to hike the mountain, but I stayed behind with Keira and a few.

However, shortly after the group left, Keira ran to catch up with one of the ladies, and they began their ascent.

 When everyone made it back down, we sat down to eat.

After about 15 minutes, two men wondering in the countryside approached us and started playing their instruments.  A squawking horn and a drum.

It was SO loud, and they got louder.

It turns out they wouldn't leave until every man in the group game them money.



I have an 11-second video to show you how loud it was, but it may be too short for YouTube.  It wouldn't let me load it for some reason.

The gang.

This group of kids covers every grade from 4 to 12, plus pre-K.

That's my son looking back :)

Fun day on God's green earth.

The Mountaintop

 

It's always a nice treat to get out of the city, and we've only done it twice in 8 months.  So when someone with a car offered to take us, we were all up for it.

By the way, we are very close to purchasing a vehicle, so hopefully soon, we'll be able to leave the city anytime we want.

We went with two other families to hike, picnic, and study the Good Book together in the wide open spaces of His creation.

For my girls, who don't get to run free outside, this was such a fun excursion.

The weather being cool also helped.

Keira is such a trooper and pretty good at hiking, too.

How many people who live in the city never get to see this?

But we can't always live on the mountaintop.  We have to go down below where life is.  Right?

American Birthday with National Style

Some American friends of ours here had a birthday picnic for their daughter.  She has several national friends whom she invited, along with their mothers and siblings.  

In addition to her national friends, her American friends were invited, too.  

People here rarely celebrate birthdays.  In fact, I've talked to some who don't even know their birthdays.  It was like this in Africa, too, because of lack of birth certificates and such, but here, I think it's just because it's not a big deal.

However, the family did the birthday in the style of the picnics they have here.  The only difference was the abundance of the color pink.

I also think that in America if we are invited to a birthday party, we bring a gift, and that's about it.

But here, the girls brought gifts for their friend, and the mothers brought dishes and dishes of food.

My friend, who was hosting the gig, had a ton of food already, but these ladies contributed with even more deserts, a potato dish, a pasta dish, dolma, and an assortment of pastries.

My one big story about the day has to do with Keira.  It was the first time I'd taken her to the park after being potty-trained.

When she needed to go, we walked to the public bathrooms, but she wasn't having it.

One look at the squatty, and she said, "No, Mommy."   Granted, it was pretty nasty, but nothing like I saw in Africa.  So we walked around where I knew there was a Western toilet.  It was pretty sketchy, too.

This girl has never used shady convenience store restrooms in America.  I guess she's used to Buckee's, etc.  Anyway, my one child born in Africa does not like squatties.  She cries even when she sees a clean one (like at a friend's house).

Anyway, in pure country girl fashion, we went behind the bathrooms, and she was completely fine squatting and going in the grass. 

That's about it for excitement.  

I pushed Keira on the swings for a good 30 minutes and visited with a girl from Ghana who is a nanny over here.  Caleb played soccer with some other boys and had a good time; however, you can't tell it by this picture which I snagged of him while waiting for the prayer to be said to start the feasting.

This is what a young boy must feel like at a teenage girl party. :)

"Almost the First Day of Fall" Picnic

On September 20, the week after the sacrifice holiday, four American ladies in my neighborhood (me being one of them), were invited to a picnic.

We thought it was just going to be us and our kids with our neighbor and her kids, so we each prepared a dessert and got our kids ready to go.

RIGHT before we got in vehicles to leave, we got wind of how big this picnic was going to be.

It was my neighbor and her kids; her sisters and their kids; her husband's sister and her kids; her nephew's new wife; her daughter-in-law; her daughter-in-law's sisters and mother; friends; those friends mothers and sisters, etc.

You get the picture.

We were clueless.

Our desserts might have been a little too little.

All the  teenage girls took off for a walk in the park while we ladies visited.

I had met most of them before at other picnics or graduations or teas, but there were also many new faces.  All in all, at the end of the night, there were over 40 ladies there, and even a handful of men showed up for a meal.

Today's language was slow for me.  I couldn't understand some of the ladies well (because I'm probably lacking some key verbs that I don't know yet), but when I was eavesdropping on conversations around me, I could pick up things here and there that I understood.

After telling about my kids and my family, mostly I sat quietly, smiled and listened to those around me.  A lot of them actually talk about you while you are sitting right in front of them, so it's like a game to try to figure out what they are saying about you.  It doesn't bother me.  They don't do it secretively.  They both look at you and smile while they converse about you.

I really think they want me to understand, but sometimes, I just can't.

Believe it or not, my language IS getting better.  My taxi rides are getting more and more communicative.  I can say more at the vegetable stand, and I can now understand how much money they are telling me something costs instead of handing them a wad of cash and just waiting for the correct change.  

It turns out that it wasn't just a dessert party.  We had dolma for dinner, naan, vegetables, and all kinds of things from all the different ladies.

It was kind of like our own personal food festival.

It was hard to get pictures for you because...darkness.  I did however manage to get pictures of what was parked directly in front of me, albeit, not good, quality pictures.

Clean up went quickly with lots of hands. Then we sat around and ate popcorn and nuts.

In the park there are small snack stands and small restaurants scattered throughout.  We happened to be right next to one that had some yard lights and loud music.

The teenagers thought it was a perfect opportunity to get up and dance, and it looks like the little ones joined in, too.

Karis is in a white long-sleeved shirt, looking away; Kylie is the blur third from the left, crammed in between two girls; and Keira is in the foreground, wearing polka dots.
 

 I can't tell you how much it warms my heart that my girls always have a good time at these picnics.  They are usually up for anything.

 Caleb also ran around, played soccer, and then ended up at one of the restaurant tables with some friends playing Yu-gi-oh.  (It's basically a card battle game that I don't understand).

All the Americans left before everyone else because it was a school night, and at this point, the local kids still hadn't started school.

It was a great way to celebrate the start of a new school year and the fact that the summer heat was over and fall had arrived.