Window shopping

I used to think that America was the most convinient place on earth...one stop at a Super Target and you could get all your shopping done for the day. But I'll have to admit that there are some perks to living here in Senegal, and one of them is the window shopping, as in you're sitting in your car in traffic, you see something on the side of the road that someone is selling that interests you, you roll down your window and voilà, a new purchase without ever leaving your airconditioned car! We haven't done much of this yet, just mainly for fruit, but here are a few things we saw for sale on our recent trip into the capital.

Clothes...all sorts including boxer shorts, and not just any boxer shorts, Barack Obama boxer shorts
Furniture...desk chairs, beds, tables, couches
Food...all the mangoes you could ever eat (it's mango season), bananas, orangers, cookies, little bags of water, nuts
Phone cards...everyone has pay as you go phones here, and phone cards are available everywhere
Tools...I saw a whole stand this weekend with all sorts of tools, who knows if they worked or not.
Luggage...backpacks, suitcases, purses
Games...I actually saw a French version of Monopoly and Scrabble! It was tempting
License plates...this seemed a little shady to me
Sunglasses...cute and cheap
Watches...I may have to get one soon
Miscellaneous items...Q-tips, toothpics, fans, car air fresheners (often with stars and stripes on them), New York Yankees baseball caps

And the best story of all was from one of our colleagues. Her husband was driving around one day and saw a kitchen sink of the side of the road. He asked the man if it was for sale, and ended up taking it home with him that day, just what he needed! So here in Senegal, you really can buy just about anything from your car, including a kitchen sink.

Snapshots

We're in Senegal!! We haven't taken many pictures yet, just trying to soak it all in ourselves, but here are a few 'snapshots' of our last few days.

Picture this... as our plane takes off in Dallas, Addie looks at me with a look of sheer joy on her face and says "We're flying to Senegal!".

Picture this... Addie just woke up from a nap on our first flight. We were late leaving Dallas and therefore late getting to New York. We have 6 carry-ons, 2 of which are filled with books. Picture me, half carrying Addie half holding her hand and making her run through the airport to make our connection. Picture her bawling because she's tired and me hearing "Final boarding call for Dakar" twice as we keep looking for our gate. Picture me out of breath telling the gate agents that my husband had to bring our gate checked carry-ons and would be a few minutes behind me but we were there! Picture us running onto the plane, dropping into our seats in exhaustion and begging the flight attendant for some water. It was exciting, but we made it!

Picture this... 4:30 am in Senegal, praying that all our bags would make it, and finding them all there!

Picture this... 9:00 am in Senegal, Wayne and I crashed from exhaustion, and Addie bringing me all the toys she has to play with at our teammates house. I could barely keep my eyes open to see them, and finally she crawled up into bed with us and fell asleep too.

Picture this... our first look at our new house! Picture both Wayne and I giddy at the fact that we will have space in this house! (I guess anything beats a 500 square foot apartment).

Picture this... Addie, delighted to meet our new teammates, chatting the adults ears off and loving having new friends her age to play with.

Picture this... Wayne looking at me with a look of sheer joy on his face after having met the president of the Bible College and talking about his future in teaching there.

Thanks for praying for us. We're so excited to finally be here and start to settle in. I'll post some real pictures soon.