Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Making Tea

One of the things that people do for fun around here is make tea. The tea is actually Chinese Gunpowder Tea which is fairly strong. What is so interesting about making tea is the method behind it... There are 3 sets (cups) that are made: the first is very strong and has little sugar, the second is a little less strong and has more sugar and often a little mint, and the third is quite sweet and just delicious. On the night we took this picture David had some trouble with the tea... It was much too strong and we eventually had to quit because we ran out of coals on the fire. It was still a great time and we enjoyed ourselves very much.

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It was a nice night for making tea on the roof. It even got a little cool... Posted by Hello

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David mixing the tea... please forgive the sandals and socks! We will try to keep that from happening again. :) Posted by Hello

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The Attaya Pot... Posted by Hello

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Korite Party At Sy's House

This past November we went to our friend Sy's house for a Korite party. Korite is the big party at the end of Ramadan which is a month of fasting during daylight hours. As it turned out we were the guests of honor at the party. They treated us like kings the whole time we were there and it was truly a wonderful experience. One interesting cultural note; David was always given preferential treatment ahead of Michelle. It was kind of strange but David enjoyed it nonetheless. We have know Sy since 1992 when we were here as students. He has been the night guard at the school for many years now and over that time we have developed a good friendship with him. Our hope is that he will see God's light shining through us everyday. We had a great time at their house and we hope to invite them to our house one day and treat them as our guests of honor.

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The kids with there great aunt. Everyone loved taking pictures and they really thought it was neat that I could show them the pictures on the little screen. Posted by Hello

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The whole family with Michelle. The older lady in the back is an aunt who lives with them. She was very sweet and spoke to us in Pular quite a bit. The only problem is that we don't speak any Pular. Posted by Hello

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Michelle loved the little kids. We are excited to give them all Christmas gifts! Posted by Hello

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The Men having a great time.  Posted by Hello

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This is Michelle with Mrs. Sy. She is a very sweet and beautiful lady. She got all dressed up for the occasion. Posted by Hello

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This is Sy's son... we had a really great time playing with him. Posted by Hello

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Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we went up to a little fishing town called St. Louis for the weekend. What should have been a nice leisurely 3 1/2 drive turned into an all day affair. About 2 hours out of town we had a blow out on the back drivers side tire. We stopped and changed it and took some nice touristy pictures and were on our way again. The spare did not look real great and we were a little worried about but we said that we either needed a lot of faith or a lot of stupidity to continue on (now with no spare). David said he had plenty of stupidity and Vern (our missionary friend) had the faith part covered. Just as we were talking about this (5 minutes after changing the tire) we had a second blowout. Now we had no spare and we were in a bit of a bind. Vern called one of the missionaries who lives near where we broke down. He came out and picked up Vern and our two blown tires and they were off to go get some new tires. While they were gone we waited on the side of the road for about 3 hours. It actually was kind of nice to get to know the people we were traveling with a little better. We finally got everything ready to go and headed off for the second half of the trip. We arrived in St. Louis that night and had a great time grilling out at the beach then we watched a movie and went to bed. The next day we went to a pool for the day and had a great time before leaving that evening for Dakar.

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We had two flat tires on the way to St. Louis... this was the first. Posted by Hello

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This was a little "bus stop" in the middle of nowhere that we sat at while waiting. Suprisingly a number of different people actually came by and caught "buses" into town. Posted by Hello

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We thought this was neat little scene of African life. Posted by Hello

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This was the second flat... Thank God for for shade and cell phones! Posted by Hello

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As we were stopped on the side of the road we took the opportunity to take some nice "touristy" pictures. Posted by Hello

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David with Baobab tree and animals in the background. Posted by Hello

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Tuesday, December 14, 2004


The Baobab Tree is a symbol all over Africa but is very typical in Senegal. It is a very interesting looking tree. The legend is that God became upset one day and turned all these trees upside down leaving the roots sticking up in the air. Posted by Hello

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This was just a typical scene of a street in a one of the towns near Dakar. Posted by Hello

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Saturday, December 11, 2004

iTunes

Today I purchased my first song on iTunes. I know I am little behind on this one... I'm not usually so slow to join in on stuff like this but this time I was hesitant for some reason. Well, I must say that it was very cool. Here I am in Senegal and I just purchased a Christmas single that I probably could not have found at many of the big stores back home. That is pretty great!

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Monday, December 06, 2004

International Fair

Every 2 years Dakar hosts the FIDAK (which stands for International Fair of Dakar). We went to the fair yesterday and had a nice time walking around looking at items for sale from all over the world. The majority of the items for sale are not particularly interesting but there are a few booths that are really fun to look at. We were able to get some gifts for our staff Christmas party which is this Saturday and we think people will be very pleased.

Posted by David & Michelle Walker at 5:50 AM | | Comments