Babysitting and Wandering :)

Yesterday was our first Monday, which will usually mean our day off from school. This Monday us girls watched the Emerson's boys, Caden and Corban so that Brett and April could celebrate their anniversary. It was lots of fun hanging out with the boys and watching Veggies and Curious George!

Soon after we arrived at the Emerson's house, Jacque and I realized as it began to rain outside that we had forgotten to shut our windows and she had left her iphone... so we decided to leave Bethany to watch the kids while we walked back to the apartment to check on things. This was quite the adventure as it was still raining as we walked and this was our first walking expedition so we had to orient ourselves to where we were.

We arrived at our apartment after taking the scenic route... and then found Jacque's iphone safely next to an opened window that hadn't let any of the rain water in yet. We closed up the house and made our way back on a much more direct route... arriving back at the Emerson's soaking wet and laughing as we greeted Bethany to share our story. We have since realized that corn, red doors and chickens aren't good landmarks :)

Church in Ewede

Today was our first day to go to church in a village. We were planning on going to Njei for church, but instead we ended up walking to Ewede which was where I had gone for my bonding experience as an intern 2 years ago. It was fun to see the family I had stayed with and they asked to see me again for a meal.

After walking a ways through fields and puddles to Ewede, the church service had still yet to commence. We went to church with the Kennells and we met up with Matt and Grace Hangen once in Ewede and as we walked up to the church building chairs were gathered and brought into the church for us. Once we were inside and seated more people continued to show up throughout the service. The singing was fun and familiar, especially when they sang Ameya which Jacque, Bethany and I had learned in the states. Then there was the scripture reading, which we could follow along decently with our english Bibles, but once they started discussion all of us teachers were pretty lost in the slew of Kabiye vocabulary which we don't know. It was a good experience... Jacque made a list of all the things she learned about village churches today :) It is a fun list which includes our experience this morning with a cell phone going off during the service. After the ringtone played for a good bit, the man that owned it stood up, answered it and walked out.. I think that was one of the funniest highlights of today.

So, I probably will get a bit of online time before and after dinner the days of the week that we visit the missionaries for dinners. We don't have internet in our apartment, but we can access internet at most of the homes we will visit.

I will try to update often so you can get a glimpse of my life here!

Moving in!

Today I spent most of the day cleaning all the random things out of our closets in our apartment above the schoolhouse. I selected which tupperware will be kept for storing our leftovers and which dishes we will actually use and reuse for the next nine months. The leftovers of the dishes and tupperware will live under my bed in this nifty storage place where we can get them if we change our mind, or if we have a lot of company :)

I also went through two of my boxes and unpacked a majority of the things in them and placed them into our wardrobe and dresser... after of course cleaning out all the little gifts previous teachers had left for us and dusting. These little gifts included, but weren't limited to random wires to connect things, two old computer speakers, power strips, surge protectors, and some used old spice deodorant left by the gentlemen who once occupied our apartment (maybe if we get very desperate ;) ).

I have a couple bags that were left here at the Kennell's for tonight and I'll be finishing my unpacking tomorrow and then we'll be moving in officially :) It is so incredible to think of living there and making our little home there in the schoolhouse! It's really exciting!

We are visiting the market tomorrow .. we have been by it a few times already and stopped there to pick a few things up, such as "fast food" for lunch today, which included banana "donuts", and fried plantains... mmmm.. Anyways, April will be taking us to the market so we can stock our kitchen with essentials for creating all of our meals from scratch. We are lucky to already have some rice and sugar to start off with and a few other staples, but after writing out our menu we still have a lot of produce to buy as well as a few essential items for our apartment.