Kids in the village

Our kids love the village life. It is a blessing to me that they find it so enjoyable. Maybe if it was their only place of residence and they didn't have friends around and such, they wouldn't love it as much, but they always look forward to the time there. They don't even mind the car rides anymore because they listen to audio books. We don't hear a word from them the entire trip. :)

There is much to do there, like tree climbing, playing in the mud and sand, games of baseball, bike riding, forever freeze tag, playing with our donkey, lounging in the hammock, and going for evening drives with the kids sitting on the roof of the car. I've done the roof ride once and won't again. While for one second it is fun and almost gives you the sense of a boat ride, bouncing up and down on metal bars is not very comfortable. Not sure how the boys handle it. :) I'll be happy being the driver from now on. 

Haven likes helping at the hospital. :) She'll treat her own patients while walking around and takes over the pharmacy as needed. :)  It's cute to here her say, "You going to help the sick baby?" and "I want to help da baby."

The first times we were there, we loved seeing these beautiful black birds, with purple and teal feathers. They are really gorgeous. But after a few nights of hearing a ruckus of squawking, we came to loathe those birds. They are pure evil, we have decided. They love to get going around 2 and 5 am. It's awful. We have sound machines and ear plugs to make it bearable. And, now, we also have a pellet gun. I am totally against guns and I hate that we even have a pellet gun, but desperate times call for desperate measures. The only problem is that no one in the family is a good shooter. :) We are working on it, though. 

Finally, after trying many, many times, Brett hit one. D, though he had been the biggest proponent of the hunt, was devastated when his dad got one. The death was not humane, I'll have to admit, but I'll spare the details. I can at least make it more humane by saying the boys (except D) and Brett ate it. They loved every single second of the process. Me, not so much. This was a total man thing of which I wanted no part.

Other fun parts of being in the village include being in wide, open spaces so our 11 year old can learn to drive. He does surprisingly well. I even rode with him with Haven in the car. It actually seemed fairly natural as I rode with him but when I stepped out of the car, it hit me that it was my ELEVEN year old that was driving! Craziness!

 We are in the season of the harvest now. Peanuts are everywhere. This huge pile was these ladies' task for the day. It is hard on the fingers. I worked with them for a little bit but my weak fingers gave out quickly.

Haven enjoyed stealing peanuts and making a mess, throwing the peanuts all over. (Yes, she does have underwear on). They tolerate her crazy behavior because she's white. A Malian child would not be shown as much grace. They would have a blistered backside.

 And what do you do with extra rolled bandages that were sent on a container but had gotten too dirty to use? Give them to the kids to play. They wrapped themselves, they tied themselves together for three legged races. They had a blast with it.

If you ever wonder if I'm up for the challenge for being a Malian woman, the answer is no. I am weak and pathetic. So pathetic, actually, that a friend and I went to the market to buy a few things. It's not that far from the house but there's no shade and it's hot. If we were good Malian women, we'd have the items on our head and Haven on my back. Since we know our incapability, we hired a guy to push Haven and our items back. He was not amused at first and really tried to get out of it. But a job is a job, right? We were willing to pay (it cost a whole 20 cents). Once Haven decided to lay down on his cart, he lightened up, laughed at her, and even tried to make her more comfortable. It was cute. And if I ever go to the market again with Haven, I will most certainly find a push cart for my travels. I even thought of getting one myself to go back and forth with, just so I didn't have to carry items. Or maybe I'll just suck it up and continue to pay 20 cents per trip. :)

Rainy season driving

For those who read our other blog, this may be a bit of a repeat but I thought I should add some of the personal moments of driving during rainy season out to the village.

Going out to the village during rainy season is no easy task. The skies were black as we headed into the region on one of our trips. Thankfully, we didn't get a huge downpour as we traveled. 

The "road" is often so wet and squishy (can a road be squishy?) that the car is constantly swinging back and forth. Brett turns the steering wheel all the way right, then all the way left just to go in a somewhat straight line. There are times when it feels like you are riding on the water rather than the mud.

Haven cracked us up on one trip in particular. As we started out and Brett hit some holes rather hard (they are often hard to see), she yelled to me, "Mommy, tell Daddy to be careful!" and "Don't bounce me, Daddy!"

As we went through a puddle/lake and were riding on the water, she remarked, "We're floating!"

And as we were nearing the end of the trip and the car was swerving back and forth, she moaned, "I want out!" to which we all replied, "We do too!"

 One thing we have learned is that the day after a rain is worse than driving during rain. I guess the water has time to really mix into the mud and make things worse for driving. So though we had made it to the village without being stuck (a FIRST during rainy season!), we weren't so lucky on the way out.

While you see dry ground on the side of the car and may be tempted to wonder why we aren't on that ground, it is because we were traveling in the tracks already, where there was nothing but the muddy ground and the safest place to be is where someone has already traveled. And once you are in those tracks, you are pretty much in them and there's no way to get out of them.

 With Brett's handy dandy plastic boards (used most often in the Australian outback), a hi lift jack, and three men and Dawson pushing on the car, we were eventually able to get ourselves out.

They were all covered in mud. As they pushed from the back, standing in the mud, the mud also flew up all around them. They were D.I.R.T.Y.  The man between D and Brett was just a passer by that stopped and helped (and told us we should have been driving on the dry part of the road and not in the mud. Thanks for the tip, man.)

Thankful we have until June or July before we have to worry about rain again. There are some advantages to going months on end without rain, ok, maybe just one. :)