Noise in the Bushes!!!

Hello all!

Here we are in West Africa! We've been here for 2 days. It's quite wonderful. We are most definitely the minority. Very few people speak English here. We are going to start our language study soon. We are in orientation for the next 2 weeks. We will head out to the bush soon after that.

The people here are quite wonderful. It's amazing the amount you can understand without knowing any language. I think we often underestimate the power of body language and tone of voice. The laugh and joke a lot. The laugh at us a lot! But it's all good...because we laugh at us too.

We were able to tour the city yesterday with a national and it was a very eye-opening experience. We have all already been proposed to many times. Crystal and I also were able to attend part of a wedding. We sat with the men because the national we were with was the only one who spoke English. It was interesting. We ate our meal out of a giant dish with our hands. We ate rice and sauce. The sauce was a mixture of squash, onions, tomatoes and other veggies with a little bit of meat in it. It was difficult to eat with our hands because it was really hot! I threw rice all over myself and the floor, but everyone just laughed.

As for the noise in the bushes...there a lizzards everywhere! The are probably 6-10 inches long and run everywhere. I'm getting used to them, but when the run through the bushes the make a lot of noise and I jump a lot. It's scary because I'm really scared of snakes and when they are in the bushes you can't see them, you just hear noise.


Well I had better go for now. I'll have internet all day on Saturday, so I'll try to update more then. Until then I love and miss all of you!

Peace,
Krissy