Flotsam and Jetsam

Here's a little bit of bullet-pointed goodness. They're bits and pieces from here and there with some photos. None of it was really a whole post on its own and so now it's just a bunch of random things from the past few weeks:

• Teaching some kids dominoes. They look really serious, but we were having fun. Really. They came over the other day. Lisa was busy and left me to talk with Davis for a while. I'm not really that good at small talk especially in French. Although he wanted to speak in English anyway. So we asked random questions, and tried to decipher what the other person was saying with a mix of French and English and some translation by Lisa. Anyway, after that I got out the dominoes to show the kids how you can line 'em up and knock them all down. Then Davis wanted to play a real game. Somehow through my awkward French instructions and demonstration they learned Mexican train dominoes. It was fun. The first round probably took at least a half an hour and I decided to not tell them you're supposed to play another 12 rounds :-D

• I keep dreaming in French. Almost all my dreams are partly in French. Half of them are tri-lingual because my brain likes to throw in German to the mix. At least when I'm asleep I can keep them all straight..

• More kids came over and they kept giggling and they were singing us songs in Nzebie, so I went and got my camera. Here's a pic of me with some of the kids:

• Saturday I went with Renee (a doctor here), Megan (a 4th year medical student doing a rotation here) and Jeff (Megan's husband, he does Graphic design) to the river. We floated down it on innertubes. It was a lot of, but 3.5 hours laying in the equatorial sun on reflective water during the sunniest time of day = one bad sunburn. It's finally turning purple and starting to hurt a little less. I never realised sunburns could be quite that painful. The point? Make sure you realy put sunblock on all exposed skin, even if you're in a hurry.

• Huub and Margariet and Rebecca are all leaving to goto Guinea. Huub was here to get some experience in different areas of medicine at a hospital in Africa and now they're off to a developing hospital (I've heard it's more like a clinic right now, but it's heading towards hospital-hood). Anyway, I'm super sad to see these great new friends leave, but very excited for them since they are heading to there own field now! Here's a photo of Rebecca and Me (I took it, so it's not that great):
  

• Amy, Megan and Jeff are leaving too. They were out here for rotations during Amy and Megan's fourth year of medical school. They were all super fun. We had lots of game nights with them and general craziness. I'm so glad they came out here during these past months and that we got to do so much with them! We're already forming plans for reunions in the states!

• This week is prayer retreat (starting Friday I think). All the C&MA missionaries are getting together here at Bongolo and a pastor and team came out from Cleveland to lead the weekend. We're going to pray a lot and we are having a potluck, so far this is about all I know about it. So I'll fill you in more later, once I know more!

Ok, there's enough random things!

Till next time.

Jessica