Prayer Request

Just a quick a request tonight...or this morning here.

I could use some prayers for my health. My body seems to be getting into a troublesome cycle with the fibromyalgia. Starting with caving, I feel hard at one point (I've got a great bruise to prove it). The whole thing was apparently a little taxing, which I expected. But I think the physical stress combined with being so tired as set off a flare.

So now I'm having trouble sleeping, which leaves me exhausted, and when this happens I start to hurt. Today my brain was muddled all day and I'm having a really hard time focusing and thinking.

I'm doing great emotionally, which is good. But I'm in a lot of pain, and my body is exhausted by I'm not sleepy, and when I hurt like this, without feeling sleepy, I can't get rest, and then the cycle of exhaustion and pain just spur each other on. 

Please pray that I get some rest, that I can think, and that I don't get grumpy and frustrated meanwhile. Also, please pray that God keeps reminding me of his love and care for me through this--those can be hard to remember when I'm hurting  and can't think sometimes.

Thanks so much for all your support!

Jess

My own Exploration Day

Really quick update because it's late and I'm exhausted and had a big day working on 4 hours of sleep. Which, really, hasn't been quite as bad as I expected. But, I know if I don't update now, it will be another week!

Lots of visitors/teams have been coming in lately! 

Tim came down Friday and left early Saturday. It was good to see him--it's funny because I don't feel like I've been here long, but I feel like I've been gone from Libreville for an eternity. Time, for all its preciseness, is really so relative sometimes.

I was up much to early Saturday because Huyn stayed here so she and her husband Tim (another Tim, apparently, everyone with that name comes to Gabon) drove up to Libreville, from where they are heading on to Cameroon where they will work at the hospital there. They were really cool, I'm sad they have left! 

Friday night I also played a fun game of Settlers of Catan at the Thelander's with Joanna and Keir, Tim Brokopp, and Renee, Carolyn and I. It was really fun. It's a long game though, and we didn't get finished until midnight.

I came back and then was so very excited about the next mornings incredibly awesome activities (don't you wonder what I got into now?) that I couldn't fall asleep till 2 am. But on the bright side there was a nice big storm, so there was lots of amazingly loud claps of thunder to listen to, and the rain, and flashes of lightning to add a lovely visual effect to all the audio. 

Then, I woke up at 5:50, in time to say goodbye to Tim and Huin as they were heading out with their suitcases. 

I couldn't really fall asleep after that, try as I might. But I somehow still managed to be late for my 9am meeting time to go CAVING!

I went with one of the teams that came in recently. Kalle and Olivier were our Gabonese guides, and the funny part was that I was the only of the Americans to know any French. So I got the job of translator. That went stunningly. (At one point I said something that I thought would get my point across, of course, the sentence as a whole made no sense at all. Kalle and Olivier repeated it and cracked up, so I lamented that my French is terrible, I do think I said that correctly at least!) Let me explain.

Our guides were young, and looked like they could probably play sports all day. Our group was night quite so young and spry. Because of the torrential rains last night everything was wet and muddy. Really muddy. Thick slippery mud. So, now imagine a nice group of about 7 Americans walking into this dark slippery cave. The team had brought along bottles of water and paper cups and various odds and ends they thought might be nice. Then they find that this is no Mammoth cave guided tour complete with built in lights and gaurdrails. No, my friend, we were underflashlighted and in the dark, crawling over rocks, crawling past holes, slithering through tunnels and falling left and right. It would have been hysterical I think if I hadn't felt like someone was going to fall and break something. This wouldn't have been so bad except I think I was the main person who felt like we were more likely to leave the cave with someone in a few more pieced than they came. 

Our guides took off, others lagged behind, a few gave in and walked back, another sat down to wait (in the dark with all the bats). A while in people were starting to see things a bit more like me and thinking maybe it was time to go back. Now the trick was telling the guides that we wanted to go back. I don't really know what I said. I tried a lot of things. They all ended in the guides taking off further and further into the cave, which was not exactly what I was trying to suggest.

After a little while I pieced together that we were going towards the exit, our guides were not going to turn around for anything, and I was mostly sure that we would leave the same way we came in. The only remaining troublesome part was whether we would run into our team member who was still sitting in the dark with the bats somewhere. I wasn't sure if I knew the word for "waiting" and our guides seemed to think she had walked out. 

In the end, everything turned out just fine. We eventually found the water that team decided to ditch, and we found our patiently waiting team member. No one broke anything (that I'm aware of) and the caves were beautiful (the cave crickets were not. One I saw had antennae that were (I kid you not) 8 inches long). Kalle pointed out the beginning formations of stalagmites (ground) and we saw huge stalactites. We saw holes, and bats, and little rivulets. It was a great time, I really hope to get to go again sometime. Maybe I'll take my camera next time, but it feels less adventuresome when you're snapping pictures. I'm going to get some hopefully from this team anyway. 

After a quick shower, I helped repackage food from the food order for some missionaries who aren't here right now with Karen, Renee, Carolyn, Joanna, and Sarah. 

This evening I was invited by the caving team to dinner with them. I learned a new card game--Hand and foot--I'm quite good at loosing it. But I think you're a bit at the mercy of the draw (and partner).

Then Mary and Trisha (the ladies on the team) went up to Joanna's for a "girls night out" movie--we were the only one's there, but it was fun. We had tea and popcorn and watched "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." It was great to get to meet the team and see what they are up to on my "day off" today. 

Tomorrow I'm going to the Bongolo Church with Margariet and Huub and Rebecca...they just don't know that yet. But I'll call them in the morning. We walk anyway and they've given me a blanket invitation to tag along with them anytime, so I'm sure it will be fine. But now, I have been awake much too long with far too little sleep, so we'll bring this to a close!

Goodnight! (And feel free to email anytime about anything at all, I love to hear how everyone is doing at home!)

--Jessica

Well Baby Clinic and Reflections

Today was my first day helping out at the well baby clinic. I headed down at about 8:30 this morning, and met up with Karen ( my neighbor, and a nurse who has been here for a long time). She showed me to the clinic, and I met Silvia,

Silvia and me--you can see the baby's medical notebook opened to the growth chart where they can track his/her growth and see if it's normal or not.

 a nurse who would call a baby’s name (from a little booklet that everyone has for their medical records.) The mom would bring in the baby, undress him or her, then I would help place the baby in a little sling that is reminiscent of those plastic baby swings that look like a pair of underware. 

Getting two babies ready for weighing with their moms:

(above)Here's a teeny, tiny baby in the tiniest sling available

Here's a happy little baby also getting ready. I think this one was a boy.

Then we’d hang the baby from the scale—this is the type of scale that you see people stick a slab of steak on in movies to weigh it. And here I was hanging up little babies.

Angry hanging baby. It was kinda hard to smile next to a screaming kid knowing I could take him down if I weren't getting a picture taken. Her mom didn't seem to mind though. The moms loved seeing the pictures of their babies on my camera afterwards too, which was neat.

This is probably my favorite picture from Gabon. This little girl is adorable, and she seems to be having a good time too!

 

I learned how to figure out what the babies weighed and then I’d tell Sylvia in French—cinq kil deux cent (5 kil. 200g). Then she’d write it down and give the notebook to some other nurses who would figure out if the baby was ready for more vaccinations and then they’d notate that in the book.

 

It was fun helping. I’ve never held so many babies in such a short time! Some were big, and probably getting close to one years old, others were as young as just a few weeks. I felt a little awkward about putting the tiny babies into a sling and watching them hang there. They looked uncomfortable. And their little heads would sorta droop over. Since one of the one of the main things that strikes me about babies is the comment “Watch the head! Watch the head!” It felt wrong to not hold their head or something. But they all seemed fine.

 

African babies don’t seem to get a lot of really gentle treatment like many American babies do, this is not to say that they are abused, but their durability and resilience is certainly not under appreciated. They get tied to mom’s back and hauled around, head flopping a bit sometimes. A common game, instead of peek-a-boo is cover the babies face with your hand making loud noises and gently shake the face around. I think I’d be terrified if that were me, but they seemed pretty used to it.

 

After the babies had been weighed the stacked up all the notebooks and called them in again by name—this time for vaccinations—there was something funny, in a sense, about watching those little babies sitting on their mommy’s laps, smiling and laughing and looking around, totally clueless of what was about to happen to them. Some would cry as soon as the cottonball soaked in some kind of cleaner touched their skin, others wouldn’t cry until the needle poked them, and others waited until the injection. Only one baby didn’t cry at all for one vaccination, but when he got the second he started wailing.

 

I noticed how they had different screams and cries—but the message was always the same—they were not happy and this should not have happened. The funny thing is that it is good, and that they will be better off with that little poke than with the diseases they could get otherwise.

 

It made me think of how we will sit and talk to God, happy as pie, but sometimes when something happens that we can’t understand, something that seems awful and painful and like it shouldn’t happen we scream just like those babies. We know God, just like those babies know their mothers, and we know that He wouldn’t let something happen for us unless there was a good reason for it, but when pain strikes and feel that poke we always get upset and forget how good he has been to us. Of course, the hardest part is probably in the times that we can’t see the good. Those babies aren’t going to understand that they are getting protection from all kinds of worse dangers. They will never understand why that happened (except maybe a long, long ways down the road when they’re grown up). That’s the same for us, there are some things we’re just never going to understand at all. We look at the situation and think, this is painful, this is hard, and there is nothing good about it at all, but if we remember who our God is—a loving caring God, who has only the very best in mind for us—and if we remember all the times when we’ve seen what looks like a bad situation turn into a good one, then we can rest assured that our God who loved us yesterday and made our bad days turn into good ones will do the exact same thing today, and we can count Him to do it again tomorrow. And one day, maybe we will understand, maybe he’ll show us somewhere down the road in this life or the next. But since we know Him, we know it’s always for a reason, and that makes everything a little bit easier to swallow, even if it’s bitter medicine.

--Jessica

P.S. Plus, at home in Lima, mom and dad got a new puppy! Isn't he cute?

new puppy, Dad and Silver (who is sick and could use your prayers)

Snakes

Today, Luke handed me a little book about snakes to read. I explained that he and Sarah already know how to speak snake, so we didn't need to read that one.

Then they recanted, and said that they were wrong, and that they don't know how to speak snake.

So we read the book. Once we saw the snakes forked tongue, and I added in the parts the book skipped about their Jacobson's organ and smelling with their tongue, they suddenly lit up and started making hissing noises and saying that this was how snakes speak.

So I just thought I should right that little bit of potential confusion: Snakes do not sound like some sort of barber quartet song, they actually hiss, just like everyone thought all along.

(Also, they apparently saw a snake today. It was a dead snake. They are very excited to show it to me tomorrow. While on the topic, I saw a dead one myself about a week back on the road, covered in flies. It was tiny though, and had a white belly, and was on it's back. I couldn't get it to flip over, and there were to many flies to make a concerted effort. At some point I mentioned here  that my dad had pet snakes and that we once had one when I was little and I am now the snake expert. Who knew?)

P.S. Katie, this is a short post just for you. It was really hard, but I limited myself. :-)

School, Fish, Crockpot and Sunsets.

Today was my first day teaching. Joanna is homeschooling Luke and Sarah and ever Wednesday they have “Exploration Day.” This is my day to teach. I have a little sheet with a few activities, and a science book that we look at a two page spread in. Today we did a little bit from two days. So we learned about seeds and about trees. We did bark rubbings from trees, collected all kinds of seeds to look at (including a funny little red fuzzy berry that grows on a palm tree, an avocado, little spinner things and a pinecone), made dye by mashing up a flower and sticking a coffee filter in it to see the color, and started soaking beans that we’re going to let start growing and take apart to journal their different stages of development. I had also found instructions for growing a popcorn plant from  popcorn kernels. The kids are really excited about this one, and not having to buy popcorn kernels because they’ll be able to grow them. It was a lot of fun. I, being a good English major from a liberal arts school, was careful to make sure that this was more than just a science day. So I added a few activities. I have some art books that Joanna gave me; it shows a painting and then has some questions and a little information about the artist and background of the painting. Today one of the next paintings was by Henri Rousseau, and it was of a jungle. This fit perfectly with our tree and plant observation, so we discussed the painting of trees. So we had some art appreciation. Then we read a neat poem by e.e. cummings about a Christmas tree. I would read a stanza and then ask a question to make sure they were following since, lets face it, poetry can be a little abstract sometimes, but Luke was all over the poem. He understood it quite well; I was really impressed. After reading the poem I explained that we were going to write our own tree poem together. So we put together this little poem:

 

My Christmas Tree

By Luke and Sarah Thelander (with a tiny bit of help by Jessica Fox)

 

My Christmas tree is big and happy,

Under it the presents take a nappy.

My Christmas tree is big and tall,

But we celebrate Jesus who was small.

 

I was very proud of them. They wanted to write about a christmas tree, I guess e.e. cummings inspired them. After writing the poem, I wrote it on two little pieces of paper which they decorated with markers and glitter. Then we went outside and collected pine needles (which were huge, they were 9-12 in. long, I’ve never seen pine needles this long!) And made little frames for our poem by connecting four bunches of pine needles in the corner with red and green pipe cleaners. It was very Christmas-y, which wasn’t quite the goal, it’s a little early, but it’s fine. So then we got in our literature and fine arts.

Here's a few pictures:

Luke and Sarah on the porch at the school with the frames

 Luke hard at work trimming his frame Sarah and her frame all finished except for trimming the ends a bit

They seemed to have a great time with it all. After this we ate snack, which was funny, because we sorta forgot about it till then end, and then it was hard to get them to leave the school to come to my house where we were going to eat lunch. But we made it eventually.

 

At my house Luke and Sarah dissected the seeds on my porch while I got lunch together. Sarah got bored and ended up helping me make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches while Luke drew pictures of the seeds to go with his bark rubbings. Then they both helped mix up some juice and we had lunch. Then they decided that everything in my house was a hole (strange but true, or so they told me). This was based on a discussion on which Luke decided there was a snake in my house, and I said the door was shut so they couldn’t get in. But he saw a tiny hole in my door, and decided it would come in there, and then found imaginary holes all over until my whole house was a hole. Then they decided to speak snake, which nearly drove me in sane. For your information, snakes say something like “doopy de do.” They do not hiss; that is a common misperception. After confining them to speak in only the French or English language, we walked back to their house. Bearing all the fruits of the day—bark rubbings and seed drawings, poems and frames, the beginnings of a pop corn plant, and a pine cone, avocado pit, and apple seeds ready for planting in the Thelander’s yard. 

I think on a whole it was a fantastic day. They were pretty excited about everything and seemed to have a lot of fun. I know I had a great time. I’m looking forward to next Wednesday already which is on clouds and rain and evaporation. It should be pretty applicable too, seeing as how rainy season is certainly upon us (we’re having a torrential downpour right now).

 

Another exciting part of today:

 

Joanna gave me whole fish! I now have 6-8 whole Capitane fish sitting in a trashbag in my freezer. I think I have a basic understanding of how to filet and pan-fry them. Now I just have to figure out how to get them apart without having to thaw them all so I can try one someday soon.

 

Joanna also gave me a crock-pot which I really couldn’t be more excited about. It’s probably the world’s coolest crock-pot ever. It’s a casserole dish shape around, but taller; however, the lid can be used as a casserole dish in the oven and then placed on the crock pot to keep warm, or you can remove the pot and lid to use the eating surface as a cooking surface for eggs, sandwiches and hamburgers. I’m really in awe of this crock-pot. It will also be handy because it gives me a way to cook my whole chicken. I’d heard that basically all the meat you could get here was whole chickens from Joanna. But then when we were in Lebamba shopping yesterday and I asked about meat, Joanna asked if I wanted, and I quote, “Chicken or scary meat.” I said I’d try both. So I got a chicken, and I ended up not getting scary meat this trip. Well, I did get sausage that she was not so sure about. I opted not to get the hamburger with a staple stuck inside the package. I also didn’t get any of the random cut meats that just sit unwrapped in the freezer. You can’t tell exactly what they are or really anything about them. So they are nicknamed “scary meat.” I was going to get fish, but Joanna happened to have the Capitaines in her freezer and said she’d give them to me. She was very excited to get them out of her freezer and I am very happy to have them in mine.

 

Tomorrow will be a bit of a quieter day. I’m going to go work on the library a little bit, normally I will go work at the baby clinic, but because everyone just got back from meetings in Libreville we’re going to let them get back into the swing of things before I start that.

 

However, after talking with Joanna Monday night, I mentioned that I was interested in medical missions, and she said that I’d have to sit in and watch some surgeries and maybe shadow different people at the hospital some. I’m incredibly excited about this. Then today Keir said that Monday I can come down to the hospital, meet all the PAACS residents and follow them around on rounds. Then I’ll get a tour of the hospital. I’m really incredibly excited about this! I can’t wait to get to see it all.

 Here's a picture of the sunset from  from Monday night, this is a view from my porch:

Tonight we watched the Sunset. The Sun was a bright red ball in the blue sky. I've never seen anything like it. We watched it sink behind the horizon in literally one minute. It was amazing. I've never seen the sun visibly sink like that.  

Jessica

P.S. I almost just died (well, that might be a little extreme...) walking down into my livingroom/kitchen to get peanut butter (I'm hungry). I stepped into the middle of the room and almost fell when I slipped on a huge puddle. Further inspection has shown that despite the fact that I closed the Knockles on my window, the rain got in over the top and leaked all over my livingroom floor. Luckily, it's all dried up now, and I needed to mop in there anyway. So, no problem. But very exciting for the few second when I thought I might break something!

Housemates and Photos

Here they are--my housemates:

Eliot

here's an updated photo, since he came out of his hiding spot tonight:

He's a bit of a recluse sometimes. He lives behind my toilet paper holder. Occasionally he comes out, but I think he's a bit skittish. I know that he is a good spider who eats bugs, so he's going to live as long as I don't feel threatened by him. If he starts to corner me I may have to lash out, simply because I don't like spiders. They scare me. I think I'm being pretty good and tolerant to let one live with me. Joanna said that this kind doesn't bite and it eats bugs though. Sounds like the best kind of spider. 

Chaucer

-

I took another of Chaucer too, so he doesn't feel left out. Here you can see how he's kinda standing up more...doesn't look so flat too me.

Alright...this is the creepy one. I'm not sure that he's a good spider. I was told the "good" ones are flat and the bad ones are hairy and stand up. Sometimes Chaucer kinda stands up. I'm not sure if he's hairy because I don't really like to get close to him (or Eliot). Chaucer really likes the shower. Which means he must be a little stupid. He almost drowned the other day, he curled up in a little ball just like they do after you kill them. I thought he was dead. I felt sorta bad and wondered if I should've moved him. But I was a little glad too. Which I sorta felt bad about, but at least I hadn't quite intentionally killed him. But, then later he uncurled and walked around again. So he lived. Today he tried to drown in the shower again, but then he crawled on my little squeegee thing (you have to sorta sweep the water towards the drain when your done because the floor isn't sloped towards the drain. And I got him out, so now he's in his new place, but he keeps getting closer to the shower again. It would be ok if he could crawl up 

the tile, but he can't seem too. 

Here is a picture of Bongolo. I think it's a pretty place. All those buildings are the hospital building. I live at the top of this hill (and over a little), but I walk past here on the way to the Thelander's.

Here are some pretty flowers I took pictures of:

individual flower (above)

flowers still on the tree (below)

Flowers in front of a palm tree. These are near my house, they're just outside the pool, and you walk past the pool, turn the corner, and there's where I live.

And saving the best for last--a sunset from outside the Thelander's house Wednesday evening:

A New Month, a New Location

A few days ago after a noisy airplane ride and a stop-over in Moila, I arrived with my traveling buddies in Mouila. After climbing down the rickety stare case from the plane (which I nearly fell down because I was carrying someone else’s bag and couldn’t see the steps...) we got our bags and loaded up in an SUV. There were the front to seats for our driver Phillipe and the visiting Dr. Tim Jahris from Hawaii. Then Margariet and Huub Van Roeckel (they’re missionaries from Holland) and their one year old Rebecca and I all squished into the middle row of three seats. Actually, Rebecca didn’t really squish because she had a car seat that gave her plenty of built in room. The car ride lasted an hour or two (I don’t have a watch, so I’m a little uncertain on exact times).

It was insane. I think you’d really have to experience the road to understand what it’s like. Their are curves everywhere. We were following a large yellow truck, that threw up so much dust that at times we couldn’t see him at all even though he was just twenty feet in front of us. The road istself is something like certain ski slopes I’ve gone down which are completely covered in moguls, and when you don’t know what you’re doing you fly down over the top of them, teeth clicking and all the air getting knocked out of your lungs. Your body lurches around like a possessed rag doll doing a frenzied dance.

I’ve learned a few things about how to ride in a car here along these roads. The biggest beginners mistake is to try and sit still. You tense all your muscles, trying futily to not flop into your neighbor. This method will only leaving you flopping lurching awkwardly into the door and your neighbor (or both neighbors if you’re in the middle) and once you finally emerge from the car you realize that your muscles have become petrified in only an hour or two from tensely fighting the bumpy road.
Don’t do it friends. Unless you want to look and feel like Igor you need to relax. This way you just absorb the bumps. You flop around a little, and you need to find a balance between looking like a sheet flapping in a wind (which will result on hitting your head on the window or the ceiling or the car frame) and trying to pretend you’re made of stone.
After several car rides I’m starting to get the hang of it, but really, you’ll be sore no matter once if you ride long enough.

On this particular day I’m pretty sure it was about 200* F as well. Luckily, once the enormous truck in front of us lost steering and veered off the road into a hill, we were able to open our windows because there was less dust. We did stop to make sure that everyone in the truck was alright, and later we informed another truck in their company of their plight so that someone would go rescue them.

We also saw a man beating his pet monkey who ran away (just before the monkey had been holding on to the mans leg and sitting on his foot while they strolled down the road). Another surprising image was that of a fuel truck tipped over on it’s side, leaking from the back. This was concerning, but then as we passed him and looked back, there were two men lying under the cabin arms behind their heads. Phillipe must have seen them on the way out to pick us up (because he stops to make sure everyone is ok) and reassured us that the men were just fine. They must have been simply resting in the shade of the truck to avoid the heat and wait for someone to come.

Bongolo is in the middle of nowhere. There is no village named Bongolo, only a hospital on a hill and a few houses for doctors, nurses, visitors, residents and a few other odds and ends. There is a village about 10 minutes away over the river named Lebamba.

On the bright side, since it is so remote, there’s not much car exhaust. There are beautiful views off the hillsides of palm trees and bamboo and sky.

There are also lots of birds, bugs, and lizzards running (or flying) around.

I have an apartment (really it’s a nurses who is in the US for a few months). It’s a huge apartment. I have a great big room with a desk and a big bed. There’s another little guest room (but no visitors...), a bathroom (also home to my spider friends, who I can’t seem to come with good names for), and a kitchen/dining room/living room. It’s really very nice. My oven doesn’t work though, but that’s alright because I can’t even get the gas on to work the stovetop. (I need to ask about that and keep forgetting).

My apartment is attached to another where Renee (a doctor whose been here about a year) and Karen (a nurse whose been here for 16 years).

My first evening as we drove up to the Thelander’s I could hear Luke squealing out news of my arrival. Joanna, and Luke and Sarah brought me down to my apartment where they had hung glittery signs they’d made welcoming me to Bongolo.
Joanna gave me a tour, explaining how different things work and killing any cockroach we happened upon.

Then it was back to there house (it’s a nice little walk, about 5 minutes) for dinner. They even had homemade ice cream, which we’ve had every night I’ve been here. It’s great. Ice cream here is something like diamonds here. Rather expensive.

The second day here, I went over the Thelander’s at noon and played with the kids. We played with Trucks (which we did the first night before dinner too). And it was fun. We also played with Legos. We loaded the trucks up with them. And drove them around. Then I colored with Sarah while Luke played with a neighbor boy. We also watched trees be cut down and rolled down the hill into the jungle. The kids thought it was fantastic. They were so excited. It was fun too watch. I came back for a break for about an hour or a half. Then went back over and played with the kids more so Joanna could make dinner. It was more trucks I think...I don’t remember exactly. At dinner the visiting doctors came over (Tim, he’s a GI doctor, and Hank, who is an Anesthesiologist. Tim and Huin were there too. They’re a married couple, Tim is face surgeon (I think it’s oral maxo-somthing) and Huin is a family practice doctor.) So there were lots of people.

Yesterday I was awoken by some crazy animal that thought shreiking like a dying person was a good idea. It scared me quite a bit. Till I thought maybe it was a monkey, then I peaked out all my windows looking for it. I couldn’t go back to sleep. So I got an early start to the day at 5am. I made coffee, had breakfast, read my bible. And then got bored. At 8:30 I took a nap for two hours then got up again and headed over to the Thelanders at 12. We had lunch and then they showed me the missionary kid school. It’s not a running school anymore. But it has a library next door and a gym (which is being used as storage for now...so no basketball). There are a lot of books and toys and craft things. So I played read with Luke and Sarah and Becca for a while up there. Becca started to get pretty fussy so Margariet came and got her, and I got confused on the time (my cell phone is on a 24 hour clock and I got mixed up) and Luke and Sarah and I went back to the house an hour earlier than planned. On the way we jumped in the grass while a car came by and I got attacked by aunts. Luckily the kids didn’t seem to have any problems. But I got at least 10 bites. They sting! So I scratched my feet while walking back with probably looked like a funny, awkward, jumpy, dance. When we got back, since we were early, we watched some logs and things that were being burned in the yard and then played 2 games of Chutes and Ladders. After that it was quiet time for the kids. So I came back and to my delight, I found that my bins had arrived of all my stuff on the truck. So I unpacked everything. It looks nicer here now, much homier.

And then I got cleaned up and went over to Karen and Renee’s for dinner. Tim and Huin and Hank and the other Tim were all there. Then we had a surprise birthday party for Huin. Her birthday is Sunday but pretty much everyone is leaving here to go to a meeting in Libreville Saturday. It was a nice time.

Today we’re going to Lebamba. I’m excited about that. We were going to go tomorrow, but the stores close for a few hours or sometimes the day on Friday because Friday is like Sunday to Muslims (and I guess most of the stores are run by Muslims).

Margariet invited me over to their house for dinner tonight too. I’m going to go over early to watch Rebecca so she can make dinner (she has other guests coming over too).

Keir will be gone at the meeting in Libreville for 5 days, so the assistant stuff probably won’t start up till the week following his return. The baby clinic is Thursday morning and it sounds like I might get to start that next week. For now I’m just getting settled in and use to the place and meeting people.

Please continue to pray for smooth transition. I’ve had a hard time sleeping here, I think some combination of being on my own, plus the knowledge of spiders and cockroaches, and the loud outdoor noises (I don’t have a noisy fan to drown them out here).

On a whole though I’m really enjoying it here. The kids are a lot of fun to play with, my apartment is lovely, and I’m going to name the spiders so they are less intimidating. I’m leaning towards Eliot and Chaucer. But I think Chaucer ran away, which bothers me because he’s the creepy looking one. He left the bathroom last night (I can’t blame him, I thought he drowned in the shower, but he seemed to recuperate alright. And then I saw him in the hall. If I find him in my room I think I’ll have to kill him. I can’t sleep with spiders in my room. So hopefully he’ll go back in the bathroom. Maybe I’ll take pictures of them for you sometime.

Also, I’m around a lot in the evening, so 4-6pm EST. And the morning, but no one in the US is up then...unless you’re pulling an all nighter or get up at 3. So, I tend to be on skype (jessicaefox) and google chat(same screenname)...feel free to call anytime. It can get lonely in such a quiet apartment.

Alright, well I’m going to read and then it’s to the Thelander’s and off to Lebamba!

Love,

Jessica