Last days of Senegal

Our last few days in Senegal flew by all too quickly.  The only reason I wasn't weeping during the last week is because we know that Kari's family is coming to Budapest for Christmas!  It always makes saying good-bye easier when we know the next visit is just months away.  :-)

Alec enjoys lovin' on Yvia, although he lost interest in playing with her in a matter of seconds.  

Yvia became more alert during those 3 short weeks we were there with her.

Alec is very tactile.  That is, he loves to touch and manipulate different textures.  Here, he was supposed to be gluing tissue paper to construction paper with a glue stick but was actually gluing the paper to his fingers!  After a while, he wasn't crazy about the fact that he couldn't get the paper from sticking to his fingers.  It was cute to watch his expressions as he tried to pull the paper off his fingers, only to have the paper stick to other fingers!

Yvia, ever sleeping with hands above her head--like her cousin Jazmine!

Reading Cowboy Bill or Curious George books with Alec was always a pleasure for Glenn and me.

Watching Yvia sleep or playing with her for the few minutes she was awake between "meals" was a blessing to Glenn and me!

Alec talking to Yvia.

Never got tired of holding Yvia.

We have one more precious grandchild, Jazmine, the daughter of Chris (our son) and Kate.  Jazmine will have a little sister in September!  (Our fourth grandchild)

Besides missing being with Kari, Jonathan, Alec and Yvia, I also greatly miss eating all the mangoes and melons I cut each day!  They were in peak season and so delicious!

Well, eventually I had to leave the world of Africa, my daughter's family, mangoes and melons, and vacation time to re-enter the world of work, Budapest and traveling.  We were gone for the shortest month ever!

Glenn and I received this flyer in our mailbox for a new phenomenon in Hungary.  Garage sales!  Truly a new concept.  If you look at the flyer closely, you may notice that they are selling a STOP sign (not something that most families would have in their basement!) and the box of miscellaneous things is marked: 25 cents.  Cents?  Or do you mean forints?  Evidently, this was a piece of American clip art!

We made the mistake of going to Ikea to pick up something (to take to a friend in Serbia next week) while mourning the loss of our daughter's family.  We walked out with a train set for Alec and a table to set it out on when he comes at Christmas.  Hmmm, if we could get Chris and Kate and Jazmine out here for Christmas too, what would we buy for her???

Four days after returning to BP, we left again for Czech Republic to visit our personnel.  We stopped in Brno to participate in a ministry opportunity for 3 days with some friends of ours.  Their church was providing free family portraits to the community taken by 3 volunteer photographers from our company in an effort to introduce people to the various ministries of the church.  Glenn worked with the photographers, and I helped with the cooking for all the volunteers involved in this community outreach.

This is one of about 10 good pictures they took of us.

We had a few minutes one afternoon to run into downtown Brno to see a couple of sights with one of the other volunteers.  We've been to Brno about 5 times, and never seen any of the city sights.  The alligator is the symbol of Brno so it was very fitting for Glenn to have his picture taken with the city mascot.

Our host told us that the graduating high school senior classes always try to find some unique way to display their class pictures in store windows throughout the city.  We found this display to be one of the most unique displays!

Each student had their picture on a beer bottle!

This is another class photo!  Each student is modeling or advertising some item, and their name is in place of the actual item.

And to end on a humorous note ...

We saw this sign on the door to a souvenir shop.  No smoking, no ice cream cones, no talking on cell phones, no eating, no drinks, and the last one is no passing gas and being drunk!  What???

We head to Prague from here, then to Hradec to visit more friends before returning to BP next Thursday.  We love this part of our ministry most of all!

They could be twins except ...

... they were born almost 3 years apart. 

Do you think they look alike?  If the photos weren't labeled, I don't think I could tell one from the other!

The only difference is that Alec was very active and Yvia is so calm and good-natured.  She doesn't really cry, except to give one short lady-like wail to let us know she's hungry.

Alec loves to hold his baby sister.  He holds her for about 20 seconds then loses interest, and if you aren't right there with him PAYING ATTENTION, he'll dump her as he jumps up to go do something else!

She sleeps like her cousin, Jazmine, with her arms over her head with total abandon.  That is, unless she is swaddled, and then her arms are bundled to her side.  When she's swaddled, we call her a baby burrito.

I have a couple of daily rituals with Alec, the first being that he digs through my make-up bag while I'm putting on my face.  I learned the first week to not let him open the mascara wand and now it appears I shouldn't turn my back when he has my eye liner either!  Before I knew it, his face was covered!  Alec & I go through a whole tube of Chapstick in a week or two!

Alec is very tactile.  He loves textures.  He loves to paint, and he loves to paint everything, including his face!

Yvia is beautiful in pink.  She sleeps amazingly well, especially considering Alec is not exactly quiet.  

Of course, she sleeps better when Mimi holds her!

Monday, Wednesday and Friday I take Alec to preschool down the street.  Five families have hired an  African woman to do a preschool class for their 2-3 year olds 3 days a week from 9 am to 12 noon.  Because Alec wants to sweep the front walkway of the apartment building (to help Tonton Baba, the maintenance man), because he loves to squish all the ants crawling on the ground between his place and the home where "school" is held, and because he knows all the security guards and greets every one of them along the way, it takes us 15 minutes to go the one or two blocks to his "school".

Isn't he adorable?

Last week was they had "school photos", taken in their matching shirts/dress.  Unfortunately, Elvira was absent that week so Kari will have to photoshop her into the picture.  They couldn't postpone the photo shoot because Lily, on the right, is moving back to the U.S. this Sunday!

One morning Jonathan went to Yum Yum's to get us some delicious donuts!  They weren't Krispy Kreme, but they were pretty darn good!

One day we went to a small restaurant on the beach for Kari and Yvia's first outing.  Yvia slept through most of it with Kari and me under the pavilion, while Alec, Jonathan and Glenn played down at the water's edge.  Most of the Dakar coastline is rocky, covered with cooled black lava.

Jonathan and Alec look closely at some sea creatures.

Kari, Yvia and I stayed cool in the shade while the boys played in the sun.

First family outing photo

After we got back from the "beach", Alec got a shower, a dry diaper and a fresh change of clothes.  The next thing I know, he's taken off his clean clothes, ditched the diaper in his bedroom, and was in a tub of cold water in the laundry room that the housekeeper was using.  I tell you what!  You can't close your eyes for a minute with that young man!

I get to hold Yvia quite a bit, especially when Alec is napping or playing with someone else.  

One day when I was using Kari's hair dryer, Alec was playing with the jars and bottles in her toiletries closet, and before I knew it, he was hollering, "Crash!  Crash! I make them crash!"  I looked to see what he meant, and he had effectively tilted almost every bottle to the side!!  I thought it was hilarious!  What kid thinks to do this???  He wasn't knocking them over.  He was tilting them over!

Jonathan took the week of Yvia's birth off from work, but otherwise is gone all day except for lunch.  Glenn and I have both been able to have osteopathic appointments at the house, which I so appreciate!  My neck always feels so much better after Jonathan stretches or loosens those muscles for me!  He also checked out my rotator cuff.  

Besides keeping the ice trays dumped and refilled, walking Alec to preschool, holding Yvia, playing with Alec,  helping with laundry, and working on lunches and dinners, I also made head and arm covers for a Lazy Boy chair Kari had recovered with African wax print fabric.

Once a week Kari has an African woman named Jamie (I doubt that is her African name!) prepare and deliver an African meal to the apartment.  Today, she made Thiebou Yap, which is sometimes called Riz au Gras, or greasy rice.  It is delicious!  I ate so much that I thought I was going to make myself sick!  

We woke today to the mooing of a cow tethered to the wall in front of Kari's apartment building.  We've heard him mooing all day.  The house directly across the street from us is being renovated with workers galore, banging, hammering and mixing cement all day and way into the night, in order to be finished by this Saturday in time for the owners' wedding.  The wedding ceremony will happen there at the house, with the celebrations probably lasting all day and night, and the cow will be killed (in the street?  In our courtyard?) and grilled for the guests at the ceremony.  Not exactly a scene you see every day, is it?  I can't wait to "see" the event from our balcony!

Today was Labor Day, a national holiday here even though there are very few who have jobs.  We went to a beach where some enterprising young men had sectioned off parts of the beach with small rock walls to make some "private" areas for beach-goers.  They stuck umbrellas in the middle of each  private area and laid down one or two plastic beach mats, and rent the "cabana" for $4 a day.  We arrived about 11 am, the first clients for the day, so we got to choose from the 20 or so places.  When we left two hours later, there was one other family there.  Is there any public beach in America as private as this one was???

Kari and I hung out under the umbrella most of the time with Yvia while Glenn, Jonathan and Alec played in the sand and water.

The waves were 4-5 feet high, and there's quite a strong undertow here in Dakar, so we had to keep a close eye on Alec.  He loved chasing the water as it receded and running from it when it crashed on the shore.

Always running and laughing!

Enjoying a sandwich in one hand and holding Yvia with the other.

There's nothing like being at the beach.  See how relaxed Glenn looks?  By the way, he's grown his beard and mustache back, for which I am grateful.  I never really got used to the new look.

A rare moment when Alec is still and in the mood to be cuddled.  :-)

He is so tall!  

I've read 4 books while the kids nap.  I love holding Yvia and reading while she sleeps, with Coke Zero at arms length.  Ahhh!  Does it get much better than this?  Grandchildren, books and Coke Zero!

We have another week here.  These past three weeks have flown by.  I've been to the market to buy fabric once, the grocery store twice, the corner boutique 4 or 5 times, the beach twice, a garage sale, and accompanied Alec to preschool numerous times.  It's been so much fun!

Time flies when you're having fun!