Please God, not Africa!

Today is Sunday, September 16th...and it's been quite a day! Last night, as we were putting the kids to bed, I noticed that Teddy felt a bit warm.  But he hopped into bed and was asleep in no time. Before midnight, I heard the dreaded cough.  Croup.  He started hacking and coughing and sounding like a seal and I knew we were in for a long night. I know croup.  All of our five kids have had it multiple times, so when that first cough rings out in the night, we know exactly what we're dealing with. Except that this time we're in Africa. Typically, croup happens in the winter for our family.   The cure is simple.  You wrap the sick child in a nice warm blanket, sit on the front porch and let the cold night air do it's thing.  There have been a couple of times when we've had to take one of the kids to the ER for it, but that's been pretty rare.  The other thing that can work to clear it up is to run a nice hot shower, and the steam will help...

It's been a whole month since we left for Togo!  So hard to believe that we've survived an entire month in Africa!! This post is just pictures and snippets of life here: Saying goodbye stinks!  Here are four of the five Penny girls.  We missed having Christine 'cause she was working. Friends and family gathering at my parents to say goodbye and see us off. Goodbye to cousins! All the cousins together one last time!! This is our luggage on my parents driveway the morning we left.  Seven people's stuff for two whole years  fitting into 10 rubbermaid containers and several bags & backpacks. This is Teddy wanting to eat the M&M's that Mr. Prevett gave us! Nate walking the airport with the kids -- Teddy loved his little carry on luggage that he could ride when he got tired! They are preparing our flight!!  The kids watched from the windows. Jack fast asleep on...

Dear Monsieur Mathieu, Monsieur Roy, Monsieur Wallman and Madame Plaunt, This is a letter of apology.  And regret. I don't regularly go down the Path of IF-ONLY, but these days, I've trudged down a few times. If only I had listened in French class. If only I had cared about the conjugation of 'les verbes'. If only. Monsieur Mathieu and Monsieur Roy, I was very young in your French classes and hadn't quite hit my full out rebellious-I'll-never-use-that-in-the-real-world phase, so to you, I only apologize for not quite giving my all. But, for real.  For REALLY real, I need to apologize to dear Monsieur Wallman and Madame Plaunt. (Some background information:  I went to a private Christian school and in my highschool French class, there were 4 students including myself.) Wally Wallman (that's not his real name, just what we called him), I remember sadly how we would misbehave in your class and you would just tolerate us.  I remember how we wo...

It's time for me to show you where we live! I find it helpful to picture someone else's life when I can picture their environment, so here we go. This is our street. The first night we pulled in, Cindy, who was driving us, was giving us "the tour" and she said, "and here's your street!" I thought,  "I don't see a street. I see a path."  In Mango, this is a street. And this is our house from outside our gate. The local kids bang on the metal door so it isn't hard to know when they are there.  You can also see the tree (on the left side)  that they sit in and look over our fence at us.  It's funny to see four or five kids in that little tree. And here's our house from inside the wall: Sorry about all the laundry blocking the view, but it's almost always there.  The laundry is continual here just like it was at home!   The green grass you see is unheard of here.  The missionary couple who lived here befor...

Okay...you need to know some stuff before I write the actual content of this post. First of all, we live in a fenced compound.  Not really a compound but it's big concrete wall around our house.  Inside the wall is a small yard, our home, and an outbuilding (which I have not dared to go into). Our 'street' (and I use that term very loosely....think dirt path) has many many children on it and they sit in the tree beside our wall and look down on us, yelling thing to us.  Nice things.  I'll come out onto the porch and I'll hear a few sing-songy voices holler "Bonjour, Madame!"  It's not irritating...it's kinda cute.  They want our kids to come out and play with them and our kids have totally embraced them.  Our guys are out there playing soccer and kick-ball and run-down-the-road-pushing-an-old-tire (I even tried that one but I'm much slower than the locals.) The missionaries here say that the children on our corner are the most aggressive ...

Just a spoonful of Nutella makes the malaria pills go down....  (sing it with me!) Here's three little doses of malaria pills all crushed up for three little people. And here's three malaria pills hidden a spoonful of Nutella -- goes down smooth and sweet! Nothin' says fun like malaria in the morning!!

So I just got internet this morning and am so very excited to be connected with friends and family again.  The last week has been a whirlwind.  I have so much to tell and so little time to do it this morning.  I'll do a few posts working through the last week so I've got record of all the craziness.  But the good news is we're here.  We're alive.  And we're adjusting....sort of. Come with me, back in time, to a week ago today.... We were at my parent's house the night before we left and stayed overnight because we had officially moved out of our un-rented house in Coldstream.  The morning we left was difficult.  Really difficult.  Our Robert Q ride to the airport was booked to show up at 10:45 am.  At about 9:30 am people started arriving at my parent's house to say goodbye and see us off.  My mom, sweet hostess that she is, had a small table set up by the driveway with coffee and kleenex available to anyone who need either. ...