Hello! This blog contains some of my thoughts, and experiences through the last 3 weeks or so. It's been really good and quite frustrating as well. Enjoy :)

 Thanks for your support!!!

5/27/11 So it's been about a week with my new family. I live with Ann (26) Eli (I don't know) and Aliema ( 21). I don't live with any kids but there are lots of neighbor kids who live right near by to play with. My family sells clothes at the market. I help sell clothes and just sit and visit with people who stop by. What’s funny is that most of the people who come into the shop are family members and friends. Not to many strangers come in to buy something. It's kind of like another house or hang out spot for friends to stop by and visit and rest while they're at the market. I really love the shop. We sell traditional African clothes and then shirts dresses and some sewn things my sister makes. My sister Ann told me she is going to teach me how to sew so I can make shirts to sell. This should be interesting. So if I'm not busy doing something else I usually stop by the shop and hang out in the market.

 5/30/11 I'm still trying to start this chicken project at the orphanage. I wanted to be the one who finally gets it started since it's been sitting around for 2 years without any chicks. This is inpart due to funds and in part due to mis communication. The problem is we found termites in the chicken coup. So it's slow going but I think eventually I can get it started and get some income for the orphanage.

5/30/11 So today I went and spent the morning at the pastors house. I got to play with his three month old baby and go to the market with his wife. It was a crazy day at the market! I was dodging and walking very fast to try and keep up with Madame pastuer. She is like a market machine she just gets the job done. She has a lot of mouths to feed so for good reason. They invited me to eat lunch with them ( which always happens if you stay during lunch or dinner hours) I ate in one big communal bowl ingames and sauce. She walked me home after lunch and it was just nice ot spend some quality time with her.

 In my new home I always eat with my right hand while sharing a bowl with someone else. You never eat with your left hand!

I don't have a refrigerator anymore...dang it.

 My family has me do chores in the morning like sweep the house out or go get bread at the boutique. This makes me really happy that I can help in some way.

 I help get water from the well which we use for bucket baths( buckets of water you use to wash yourself every morning and night.) flushing the toilet, washing dishes, and drinking water ect.

 I wash my clothes by hand and then hang them to dry on this huge brick pile in front of our house. It's crazy how just by washing my clothes for an hour how sore I get in my legs and arms! It is definitely a work out.

 Eli, my uncle, has a fiancée and is going to get married soon!( who knows how long that's actually going to be) but he gave me the phone when he was talking to her. It was sweet. I asked him all the details about getting married here in Africa. He said you need to have lots of money first! lol of course He said later that in about three months he's getting married! I said I would play guitar and sing for his wedding.

5/29/11 During church today the Sunday school came in and did a couple songs! It was SO freaking cute! My sister Aliema and I walk different places a lot together. I teach her English while she teaches me French. It's pretty great. She is getting ready for a huge exam called the BAC that if you don't pass you can't move on to college. She has to learn a lot of English in this year. It's perfect that I'm here to help her.

My other sister Ann is the mom of the house. Even though she isn't a mom. She works at the clothes shop and also part time at the hospital. She's really sweet but very in charge and bossy when she wants to be. She works so hard. She's bent on teaching me chimbara ( the local language) and French. I miss my family in Korhogo a lot. And my family in the U.S. Gosh to many people to miss you know.

6/1/11 Everyone came down from Korhogo to surprise Stephanie for her 23rd birthday! It was awesome. We hung out and had a really funny dress up dinner. It was good to see people from Korhogo if only for a few days. Stephanie was definitely surprised!

 6/5/11 On Sunday it rained all the night before and the whole morning. Ann my big sister sent me out to go buy bread for breakfast. It started raining SO hard about half way to the boutique. By the time I finally got bread back to my house I was soked from head to toe. I was bummed because I was all dressed up to go to church already. I changed out of my wet clothes and put on another out fit. We had to wait another hour and a half for the rain to let up enough to go church, which is about a mile away. On the way to church we had to walk up stream through a river. Again, I got all muddy and wet. My little family had a great time laughing at me obviously not having a good morning which drove me crazy! Some how my two sisters and my brother know how to walk in a way where they didn't get wet or muddy at all. geesh. The service that day ended up being really good. I just think it was to bad that I was not into it that morning. Guess you are just going to have those days.

6/6/11 So my schedule for right now is going, on my bike, to Ecole Baptist and working on my animal husbandry project( more on this later) and to help with anything else that needs to be done. Every week looks a little different. I go visit friends that I've made during the evenings and also go to small groups from my church on Tuesday and Friday nights. I've been put in charge of the food at Ecole Baptist when everyone comes for seminars. This means I see that 12 people are fed three times a day plus snacks. I work with Sara, Tenana and Benjamin the workers who are the ones who buy the supplies and cook the food. I make sure people get their favorite things to eat when we are all together. Since we are kind of low on leaders for Journey Corps right now some of us get different jobs to do to keep it running. So I got put in charge of the food.

Alright well. That's about it. I love my new family in Bouake. It's a whole different experience about what it's like living in this culture day to day. I've learned so much more French already from them. They do a lot of things differently then my last family, but some things are always the same. For example rice and sauce. lol

One last thing I want to apologize about the lack of pictures from me lately. I'm just so lazy about putting them up because it takes so stinking long and I have limited time whenever I do get on the internet. But soon I'll try and post some of my new home and new family.

 Prayer requests

Learning more French

That things will begin to work out with the orphanage in starting the chicken raising.

 My new family in Bouake as they go to work, school, and making wedding arrangements!

My family in Korhogo. I'll go visit them probably in a couple weeks. My mom there has a skin rash of some kind. It is bothering her a lot. Pray that she is healed.

As of my last blog I'm still praying and thinking about staying longer then a year. Yeah, it's a really hard decision that needs more time.