some jolie photos, and that good 'ol list

Above: A picture of the most common footwear for a football match. They're white rubber shoes, and atleast once a game a player will lose his shoe while making a big kick.
Below: Watering the field down before the final match of the league game.

I have tons of pictures of random children from Yako, and tons of cute pictures of kids from the orphanage. This little one was at one of the soccer games we went to. The kids love to have their picture taken, and love to see their picture. Even more they love seeing video of themselves- they're astonished by it.

Driving in Africa is a little different than driving back home. This picture (although a little blurry because I took it through the winshield) is a small example. Note the bus on the left is being repaired, while the bus on the right has pigs and motos strapped to the roof.

This is a picture of one of the roads we take often in Yako.

As promised here is my list of February Observations
-When all the lights are out and it’s just the moon and the stars you still have a shadow, you can see people clearly and your shadow is perfect (not like when there’s a bunch of lights on and you have a couple shadows.).It is hard to find the constellations because everything looks different, but it doesn’t matter because there are so many stars to look at anyways. -There are always tons of people hanging around the wells. - You can’t find any real dairy products anywhere. Yogurt and milk are made with powdered milk. -Celine Dion is extraordinarily popular here! -Glass windows don’t seem to exist, just metal shutters. -Tone of voice doesn’t translate well between languages. Sometimes I hear people talking in Mooré and think they’re angry when they’re not because their tone of voice is different. -What we view as culturally normal is different here in terms of how people touch. Couples for example don’t touch at all, even to hold hands (except perhaps in Ouagadougou. They don’t in Yako!). But people of the same gender hold hands, or hug all the time. Grown men will hold hands with each other or lean on each other’s shoulder as an expression of friendship. Although sometimes I still catch myself being a little surprised at this, I recognize that neither the way we do things in North America nor the way they do things here is right nor wrong, simply different. -Many women have fake hair. They keep their real hair short and then put elaborate extensions, braids or put on short wigs. -Women paint their nails, but only the nails on their left hand, because their right hand must be clean for eating. -There’s a sound you can make that means no, a sound for yes and a sound for bad. It’s hard to describe not really a tongue click more sucking air through your lips. Twice is no, once is yes. Blowing air out means something is no good. I struggled with this for a while, but I got the kids to help me and I think now I can make the right sounds. It’s kind of fun. But they told me it’s the ‘lazy’ talk, for when you just are too lazy to say no, you make the sound. -In Yako market day is every 3 days, but in Ouaga it’s everyday. -Everything is done with the right hand because it is the clean hand, but only the palm of the right hand matters apparently. You can shake hands with someone and touch your left hand to their right, so long as the palm of your left touches the back of their right hand- this way their hand is still clean. -I saw someone walking fast on the road one day and realized how out of place that was. Everyone walks at a leisurely pace here, and comments on how fast us Nasaras walk! -The stop signs say ‘STOP’ not ‘ARRET’ as you would expect them to say. -Women don’t speak openly about being pregnant, and are embarrassed if you ask them about it. -A normal handshake is not firm at all. In fact I have been told it is offensive to firmly shake the hand of someone more important than you. They say to never ever, shake the hand of a chef firmly! When you shake hands after shaking you snap your middle against their middle finger. -All the lighting is fluorescent. -Instead of knocking on the door people say ‘kock kock’ or clap a couple of times. I thought this was strange until I went out on home visits and realized a lot of people don’t have doors to knock on. -Locks in Burkina take 2 turns to lock and 2 to unlock. You can mistake it for being locked because it sounds like it locked, and maybe looks like it, but you have to turn the key around another time for it to lock. -A lot of people here have scars on their face. When I asked about it someone explained to me it’s a tribal marking. Each group has their own mark, and so that’s why I see so many different types of scars. The mark identifies you to your village and someone told me can even be used like an identity card for travelling to Cote d’Ivoire. The scars are made by cutting the skin (usually done when still a baby), and then putting hot ashes into the cut. I find it extraordinarily interesting to note the different markings and placement of markings. This was a cultural thing I was not aware of before to Burkina.

This is a video from the fete for the chef i went to back in January. It's a short clip but might give you a feel of the sights and sounds of the celebration. Enjoy

Many Blessings!

Brittany

turn at the lion...

An overview of the Past while:

Saturday the 28th was a long but fun day! Since it was the last Saturday of the month we did our widows distributions. I helped Jean and Winessa prepare the sacks of grain and load them into the truck. The bags are not light at all. I can pick it up and carry it to the truck, but Winessa can pick it up and carry it on her head. I don’t know the exact weight of the bags but i estimate they weigh about 70pounds (give or take). (I think each sack is really a third of a full sack, and a full sack is 100kg... anyways). I neglected to wear sunscreen, which turned out to be a big mistake. It’s not that I didn’t think about it- I did. But I hadn’t put on sunscreen in probably a couple weeks, so I wasn’t worried about it. But I spent a lot of time in direct sunlight and by the time I was back at the house I was bright red all over. After a quick rest, and the chance to get some of the dirt off my face before heading off to a soccer match. Our primary school boys invited us to their game and we were happy to go support them. The game was in sector 4, which you would think would be beside us (sec tor 3) but it’s on the other side of town. It was a good 45 minute walk at the hottest part of the day. By the time we got to the field I was ready to take a nap! I noticed, however, there was no shade to speak of at the field and so was more than a little disappointed... Fortunately the boys decided to warm up near a big tree a bit of a walk from the field, so I sat down for a little rest while they warmed up.As the game started we found a place to watch, and decided to sit down since we were so tired. I thin the heat must make me tiered faster, because it hadn’t been a particularly long day. But soon as we sat down the boys told us we needed back, we were too close to the field. So up we got, and moved back. Then just after sitting down, Achille, one of the boys came to find us, requesting we come sit down by the goal instead of on the sideline.Maybe it’s just me, but cheering by the goal seems to be very African. Or at least I don’t remember people doing it at home like they do here. Huge crowds will cheer by their teams goalie (I would think they’d want to be somewhere else to have a better view of the game, but it’s really the place to be apparently.) The level of skill at this game astonished me. Don’t get me wrong, everyone here can play. But these kids are young, and playing a fabulous game of soccer. When they would head the ball, they would direct it towards a team mate, they would trap the ball with a single foot in the air... I watched amazed. These kids were playing on a dirt field (note the picture above) in bare feet, but they didn’t mind. Our team won 2-0 and each time they scored a goal they would run back to our goal, doing cartwheels and cheering all the way. After the game a huge crowd of children went running through the field and down the street cheering & dancing to celebrate the victory.
Sunday March 1Church was a blast! I chose to sit with one our girls Yolande in the congregation as opposed to my regular seat facing the congregation. It was so much easier to follow along with the songs when she was singing moore loud right beside me. And when all the girls in the row were dancing I followed along and danced like them too. (I figured I could either stand there and look foolish, or dance and look foolish, and at least dancing is more fun! And then too I’m making an effort to do as they do.) In the afternoon the final for the church league soccer game was on. Our church was eliminated the week before, but we decided to go anyways. We knew a lot of our kids would be at the game, and we thought it would be good to be there. The game was a huge deal! There were tents and seats set up for some guests. Liz and I had a seat- which was nice because we got shade! There was on opening ceremony before the game where several people gave speeches, and prayed before the match. Thenthe game started. Before the ceremony started I watched them watering down the field. At first I thought it was kind of funny, but then realized it makes a lot sense. When you play on a dirt field a lot of dust gets stirred up, and so watering it down keeps the dust down. After the match we were invited to dinner at someone’s house. I don’t actually know whose house we ate at, but we had chicken and salad as well as drinks. I felt bad when I knocked over my Fanta, but then I realized no less than 3 Burkinabe had spilled their Fanta too, so I wasn’t so worried. On the walk home from l’Eglise Centrale we saw some street vendors cooking little dough cakes. We stopped and bought a couple and they were so good we bought a couple more from the next one we saw. Each one costs 5cfa (about 0.01$), and they’re served with Puma (a hot powdered spice), and salsa like mixture. We also sat down for a while with one of the street vendors while she grilled up some corn on the cob for us. They grill it without the husk, until the kernels are turning black and then serve it to wrapped in the husk again (50cfa). Delicious!
Tuesday I woke up not feeling well at all. Thus far I have evaded all sickness, but I knew it couldn’t last forever. Fortunately I wasn’t violently ill or anything, just tired, headachy and nauseous. I spent most of the day laying on the couch reading, or journaling. Adiara taught me how to make yogurt, which was fun, and surprisingly easy. Adiara is our new roommate. She’s tons of fun to live with, and she makes great meals. So far we’ve done a combination of us cooking American style food, and her cooking African dishes. She prepared Pommes Frites avec un Sauce aux Tomates (French Fries with tomato sauce- best lunch ever!) and Riz Sauce (rice with peanut sauce). We’ve introduced her to baguette pizza (baguette with vache qui rit, dipped in tomato sauce. It’s our version of pizza when we have limited ingredients.) and a couple other dishes.

Funny things from this week:Liz and I painted the entire baby play area- and for three days later had sore legs from all the up and down/ squatting and standing. However the play area looks great with a new coat of paint. I killed a cockroach. No big deal but I’d never seen one before. I was easy to kill once I trapped it, but hard to trap- those little guys are fast!
Joseph (one of the todders) likes to play this game where he squeezes my nose, and then I say a word. I’ll only talk when he squeezes my nose, and he loves it. Tinbnoma this week, reached up and squeezed my nose and I said something simple like “oui” then she signalled for me to squeeze her nose. She copied what I had said. We played the game for a good while, she copying all the words I’d give her, even attempting to say her own name! After a while she’d even attempt whole phrases like ca c’est un arbe.

Yesterday (Friday) we traveled into Ouagadougou. We’re here for FESPACO (an international film festival) and also just passing through on our way to Kongoussi. So far Ouaga has been an adventure in an of itself, let alone the film festival. Since we took the bus in yesterday morning, we took taxis around for the morning. At one point the taxis that picked us up really only had space for one more person, but picked up Liz and I, which meant I had to sit on Liz’s lap until someone else got out. We went to Marina Market, which sells American food. There we were able to buy cheese, crackers, pita bread (little things that make meals a little more interesting!). When we came out we saw a lady selling strawberries so we stopped to buy a few. We met a friend of Ruth’s, a Burkinabe business man, for lunch at the American Rec centre. He invited us to dinner also, but we declined because we had plans to see a film that evening. He told us he’d set aside the day for us, and couldn’t he at least tour us around Ouaga a bit? We agreed. He took us to his shop, to see his house that is being built, to meet his sister, and out for chicken flambé with a friend of his. It was the funniest tour of a city I’ve ever had, but I felt it was probably very African meeting family and seeing those things. I appreciated very much his kindness in wanting to show us around.
We went to FESPACO last night with a friend of hers from SIM. We had directions there, but one of the things we had watch for was the Lion. “Turn at the lion” they said. So we watched for the lion. Turns out there were roadblocks set up and we had to park the car and get out and walk. So we were walking towards the lion (or so we hoped.). The lion by the way was a statue- just in case any of you were wondering what i was talking about. At first i misheard and thought the instructions were to turn at the LINE and i thought that was a little sketchy, but quickly realized my mistake.
We did make it there. I hadn’t really experienced Ouaga’s nightlife before at all, since I’ve spent very little time in Ouaga. Walking down the road was a funny introduction. The traffic is just as hectic as it is during the day, except you have to watch even more for motos. There were men walking up and down the street selling just about everything, even blow up pools (pre blown up for your convenience!). I saw a blow up chair in the shape of a teletubby even.We saw a film from South Africa (so it was in English- refreshing!). The theatre was outside, which was really interesting. At first I thought we were inside, but then I looked up and saw stars..
We have a busy day planned today. All things going according to plan we will meet with a friend for lunch, see the FESPACO closing ceremonies, and then possibly see another film this evening. Tomorrow we will go to church here in Ouaga and then get on the bus to head out for the town where we’ll be staying to do Operation Christmas Child. I’m really excited for what the week ahead has to bring. However at the same time this coming week is full of unknowns. All I know about this coming week is that we will be working with Samaritan’s purse, and the name of the hotel we are staying at. Everything else is a mystery. I trust God has great plans for this week, but please pray for the week. Pray for safe travel, and if we travel around to surrounding villages that travelling will go well. Pray for good health for me as well as everyone else on the team. Please pray for me as I minister to the children, and show them God’s love. Pray that language would be no barrier when I have the opportunity to tell them about Jesus.

Many Blessings I’ll leave you with an excerpt from the Lorica. I read it recently and the whole piece is beautiful but the beginning part especially so. Here it is:
“I arise today through God’s strength to pilot me: God’s might to uphold me, God’s wisdom to guide me, God’s eye to look before me, God’s ear to hear me, God’s word to speak for me, God’s hand to huard me. Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise...”

Hey Everyone,
Sheltering Wings does great work with their sponsorhip program here in Burkina. I've mentioned it a couple of times in previous blog posts, but be sure to check out their website for more information. Also if you haven't checked out their website in a while it has a totally new look. Here's the address: http://www.sheltering-wings.org/

Each month there is a new child sponsored on the website. I wanted to put the child and story up on my blog here for you to read through. If you want to sponsor a child there's information on the website about it, or you can email me. I know a lot of you are already commited to sponsoring children through other organizations already, in which case I'd just ask you pray for the children we sponsor or are looking to sponsor. Maybe reading her story will give you some prayer ideas.

Fatimata was born in 1997. She lives in Sector 5 of Yako, Burkina Faso. Fatimata’s father died 4 years ago. Her father had two wives and 12 children. Fatimata lives with her mother.
Fatimata has four siblings who are married. One of Fatimata’s sisters lives with the family- she was married and has three children, but the husband is deceased. Fatimata’s brother lives in the same courtyard with his wife and three children, but they have a separate house. Many of her other siblings live in the Ivory Coast. The home that Fatimata, her mother, her sister and children live in is a very small, mud-brick, one room house. Fatimata has to walk to a nearby community water pump to fetch water for the family as they have no running water.Fatimata attends the Sector 5 School and is in CM 2 (comparable to 6th grade). She likes math and this past trimester, got a 5/10 average (3/10 is needed to pass). She walks to school every day. For fun, Fatimata enjoys playing a game called Marraine- a game similar to hopscotch. At this time, Fatimata is in good health.

thank you for your prayers,
God Bless

Them Jolie Pictures

Nazinga, and Other News

The trip I briefly mentioned in my last blog was quite an adventure! Friday morning Liz and I hitched a ride into Ouaga with a missionary that works in Yako, and another girl that would be on the Nazinga trip with us. She dropped us off and right away our group headed off on the four hour drive to the Nazinga Wildlife Park which is near Pô (about 15 minutes from the Ghanaian border). It was a long car ride, especially since three of us had already traveled two hours just to get to Ouaga. But we hoped our time at Nazinga would be worth it. Nazinga was originally started and run by a Canuck, however now is run by Burkina. The park is 91 300hectares- so huge! It meant that we drove 3 hours to the park gate, and another hour just to get to the campsite. Before reaching the campsite we saw a heard of baboons by a watering hole. Some baby baboons were taking a ride on mama`s back and I thought to myself- okay they`re African! We also saw some large black birds (the name of which I don`t know in English) and a monkey sitting in a tree.Once we reached the campsite we found our huts for the night, and then headed out on the afternoon tour. How it works is you pay for a guide and then drive around in your own vehicle. The roads are terrible so I was thankful I wasn`t driving- I was happy just to sit and enjoy without worrying about steering around craters.. On our afternoon tour we saw warthogs (mama with baby), antelope, cabou (i`m sorry I can`t find the English word for this anywhere. It`s another variety of antelope), gazelle (they`re tiny! I expected them to be the size of deer, they`re more like a fawn), baboons, lots of varieties of birds (okay not so exciting, but beautiful none the less!). We didn`t see any elephants so we were a little worried, but our guide assured us the elephants are eating in the evening and your best chance to see them is on the morning tour. Our tour went from 4:30 until dusk (shortly after 6:00). For dinner they serve the catch of the day. And although the only catch Friday was Cabou none of us were disspointed. We wanted to eat some game, and so we did. The cabou was delicious! It`s hard to describe but i`ll try. It`s a tender red meat, maybe most similar to deer, although lots of people compared it to beef. It had a similar consistency to steak but the flavour wasn`t the same and I felt it might be more tender than steak. The electricity at the campsite is on only from the hours of 6:00pm-10:00pm. This is because they run on a generator only. We were all exhausted so we were all in our huts and in bed before the electricity went off, however it meant also the fans went off with it. Everyone in our group struggled to sleep except for me. I must have been really tired or something because I slept like a log!

Our morning tour was really not quite at dawn, but a little bit after. 6:30am we were heading out with the truck. Things went slowly at first and we wondered where all the animals were! Then all of a sudden our truck turned a corner and there was an elephant! We stayed and watched him for a while, taking picture and enjoying watching him eat. He moved quite a bit closer to the truck in the time we were there- which was great for us because it meant better pictures. Then all of a sudden the elephant was flaring it`s ears at us and our guide was shouting ``Avance! Go forward Go Forward!`` It took a moment for our driver to get the truck in gear, and a couple of the other girls on the roof with me were shouting ``Quick! Quick!`` I couldn`t help but be taken in a bit by the excitement of it all. The elephant was angry- but it was so cool! And I was pretty sure the truck would get moving by the time the elephant could get to us. Once we were a little further away everyone calmed down, and the smiles all came out. We saw more anteloupe, caboou, birds and baboons. However we didn`t see as many of them as on our afternoon tour so we were grateful we`d opted to do both. On our way back to the campsite we came across three elephants. They were snacking some large trees and walking together. We stopped to take some pictures of them, and just watch them hang out in the natural habitat. Then when they started walking away we sat and waited, thinking they were going to cross the road. They didn`t though, instead they walked a little further down and kept eating. One of them broke a small tree in half as he was eating (I’d been wondering why there were so many broken trees around...) We got back to the campsite around 8:30 and noticed a few elephants were already playing in the water hole in front of the dining hall. There were two splashing around and wrestling a little with their trunks by some large rocks. But wait, were they rocks or..No definitely elephants we decided when we saw some ears and trunks flapping around. Pretty soon about a dozden elephants were all playing around, and more kept coming. We grabbed breakfast and kept watching them as they played, and as more came and tentatively stepped into the cool water. (One guy never even got in! He would walk in a little bit, back out, and then come back again, but never go in further..) By 10:30 the elephants were gone and we were on the road home. We didn`t see any animals on the way out, but we did see some people snapping pictures of us (that`s a change eh). We stopped in Pô to buy avocados and bread. Since Pô is so close the Ghanian border they get true Ghanian bread which is very different from Burkina bread. Our bread is baguettes which are tasty, but it was refreshing to have a loaf that was more bread inside than crust outside... Plus the bread is sweet which never hurts. Lunch was bread and avocados on the road! Mm yum. About twenty minutes or so out of Pô we noticed a man flagging us down. Kristen our driver slowed down a bit, but we couldn`t understand what he was trying to tell us and we passed him. Then all of a sudden, out of the bush, came elephants. A whole heard came running across the road (babies and all, we hadn`t seen any babies at Nazinga). Needless to say it was pretty exciting to see more elephants, and these ones weren`t even part of a wildlife park or anything! We also realized though how fortunate it was that the man flagged us down. Since we were travelling at a reduced speed before the elephants entered the road we were able to stop in plenty of time. They had their space and we had ours. We don`t know whether or not we would have trouble stopping at all if we hadn`t been travelling slower before the elephants came out onto the road. We speculated a little (maybe it just saved us a few moments of panic trying to slow down...maybe..) but then left it as is, because really only God knows. But we all took a moment to say a word of thanks, because we believe God was watching out for us in more than one way. Thanks Lord for the elephants and thanks Lord that we`re safe!
The lead pastor of our church (Assemblé de Dieu Gongene) was recently asked to lead the Assemblé de Dieu L’Eglise Centrale. Sunday morning was the church service/ceremony for his transition. It was a huge service! And a big deal. For big ceremonies or important events they paint the rocks and trees white- this was the first time I was present at an event where this had been done (I made sure to take some pictures!). There were some very important VIPs in attendance: the Chef of Yako, the Deputé of Yako, Pastors from Ouaga, theNational Head of Assemblé de Dieu and more.. I can’t remember attending a service like this one at home so I have nothing to compare it to. But I thought this was really quite special. At one point they called Pastor and his Wife on stage, layed hands on him and prayed over him. There was a giving of keys to the church. Many speeches and prayers. The message was given by Pastor (it only seemed appropriate). The atmosphere was light, people were cracking jokes- it was fun. The choirs performed some beautiful and well rehearsed pieces. I took some video maybe I’ll get it uploaded if I have time when I’m in Ouaga... After the Service we were all given instrucitions on where to exit and how to exit (the church was so full! And there were people outside the church!). Some people were invited into the Pastor’s courtyard for fresh water, and others asked to walk across the field for fresh drinks. We were included in the group invited to the retired Pastor’s courtyard. “Fresh Water” really meant a full meal (salad, chicken, fries, Sprite). After leaving that courtyard we attended a gathering at Pastor’s courtyard. He had invited us prior to the church service, and of course we would have accepted anyways. But now we knew it meant being obliged to eat several meals... Ruth drove one load of people to Pastor’s house (it would be a half hour walk) and then went back to pick up more. I was in the first load so I got out. I sat and talked with some of the children, one of our Tantines, and Adiara. Before Ruth god back food appeared. Tantine Laurentine smiled, got me a plate and started serving me. She asked first if I wanted rice or macaroni and I asked for rice. GASPS were heard from all the women. No one here thinks we nasaras eat rice! I think it’s hilarious because I eat rice at home frequently, but here they find it hilarious when we enjoy eating rice. Laurentine (one of our Tantines) started heaping rice on my plate, I started saying “that’s enough, that’s good, that’s fine.” And she smiled and kept going. Then she started serving me sauce (tomato sauce with cabbage ‘and some other veggies in it.) she started spooning it on and I was saying “that’s good, that’s enough,” but she was smiling and continuing to go... I thought that was all, but it wasn’t. She went for the meat plate and plopped a big chunk on my plate. “Merci. That’s good.” I said. But no, she tossed another one for good measure. Then she said, since I took the rice and not the macaroni, I had to at least try it. So on my plate went several spoonfuls of macaroni. It wasn’t hard to turn down the next plate of macaroni fortunately. I was sitting with Ruth and Liz, who were just being served. But I was still trying to tackle my plate of food, Coke and bag of water... The boy serving offered me macaroni and I just said “I already have food!” he didn’t hesistate, but just continued on. PHEW! Haha. I was too full to even consider a third lunch.
This week has been a busy week at the orphanage. But wonderfullybusy. The French girls finished putting in their library. It’s fully operational and a huge blessing to all our children at the orphanage and the school. Monday and Tuesday they worked on painting projects. Painitng benches, and railings. Monday I got in there and worked on painting too. I was covered in red paint- hands, arms, legs, hair..But it was good. The fresh paint looks really good.
I mentioned briefly in my last post that the water tower went up a while ago. This was a huge task that by any North American standards would require a crane. Here it took upwards of 15 people, 2+ hours, ropes, a truck and some creative thinking. However since that went up it meant Tuesday the group from Friends in Action could come back to finish up the work. They fixed some pipes and worked on putting the pipe down into our well. Our well is 74 metres deep, and the water is perfectly safe to drink- just some interesting facts for you... We were worried for a while when it looked like the electric pump was defective, however blessings upon blessings everything was sorted out. This morning we woke up and the water and had been shut off because of some breaks in the pipes (the pipe you can buy here isn’t the same quality as you can get back home, so the city water pressure caused some breaks). But quickly everything was sorted out and now this afternoon our city water has been completely shut off! We have pump water in the house, and in different areas of our courtyard. Getting to this point has been years in the making, and even though I haven’t been here long I’m so excited to know we’re finally there.

In my last blog entry I mentioned one of our babies who struggled to hold his head up. I thought at the time he was nine months old, and turns out he’s actually ten months old. I started to work with Jules on standing up an holding his head up, because he would just slump over. But then we started to watch him more closely. Liz noticed he didn’t eat hardly anything one meal, and the next meal I fed him and he didn’t eat much either. I monitored him drinking his bottle and noted he didn’t swallow most of the milk. He would suck the milk out but then the milk would trickle out of his mouth, down his cheeks and onto his shirt. By the time he was done his bottle his shirt would be soaked. It was no better when I tried to give him milk from a cup, he would spit the milk out and not drink a drop. After monitoring this for a day or two, Ruth talked with our two nurses. They agreed that they thought he’d lost weight since coming to the orphanage and everyone agreed he should be taken to Doctor’ss Without Borders. There it was determined Jules was malnourished, although certainly not suffering from a severe case. He was given a food supplement and has regular visits set up with the doctors there. He eats the food supplement hungrily. Within just days we noticed a remarkable change in his demeanour. He was crawling around, holding his head up, smiling and making lots of noises. Since then he’s continued to improve- he’s a totally different child. Today when he drank his bottle he swallowed almost all of it, and he ate almost all of his lunch. When I put him on his feet, he smiles wide and bounces up and down. I can’t say anything except thank you lord.I don’t believe it at all normal for out children to be malnourished, even though Jules case was not severe I have had no indication it’s normal. Our children here are very well fed.
And although I have encountered cases of malnourishment here it’s not like some people imagine Africa to be. At least what I have seen has not been like some people have made it sound. The food balance is different than I am used to. But people live and grow. I have encountered cases of malnourishment and those times Ruth or Adiara has referred to Doctors Without Borders. There are times when I have seen a child in the street and I’ve wanted to feed them and hug them...But sometimes I know I still things with the eyes of someone that doesn’t really understand. And as much as I understand so much more than I could have ever understood before I came, there are so many things I have yet to learn. I’ve been seeing though the amazing ways God provides. In Burkina most people can’t eat meat on a regular basis because it’s expensive. However peanuts are in abundance here and so God provides protein for the people of Burkina.

Some other exciting news! The toddlers have been talking a little more. Little by little we’ll get them there! I’ve been singing head, shoulders, knees and toes with them in French and some of them can identify the body parts now, and Tebnoma can repeat the words when prompoted. They however hate to perform so they won’t if they feel we’re making them. Each of them has a unique vocabulary but most of them can say words like: Oui, Wabo, Nez, Bleu... One of the babie started walking! Go Emma!Please pray for the new baby we received today. Pray for the time of transition that all will go smoothly and she will adjust well.

May God Keep You and Bless You
Brittany