We've been in Guinea for a week and a half now. It definitely feels like much longer! Life in Africa is a lot of things...but one thing is for sure... although life is "simpler" it is also much more complicated in many ways. Take cooking for example: we've had to learn to cook with only the produce that is available in this region and very little pre-prepared products: that means no canned soups, no box mixes, no microwaves. This means our first attempt at meal making was a huge fail! And the unfortunate part was that when we realized dinner wasn't working, we couldn't just go grab Subway or quick warm up something. We were just out of luck! We've had successful meals since then, which means that even if a meal is nothing special it feels like we just climbed Mt. Everest... It's such a huge accomplishment!

Brandon was able to play soccer with some of the neighborhood kids, that is until the mosque's call to prayer rang out and all the kids had to stop playing soccer to go home and pray. I've heard of halftimes, but...

And I have some friends in the neighborhood... a little boy across the street, about 2 or 3, runs to greet me whenever he sees me. He stands and looks at me until I shake his hand and say "bonjour" and then he runs away smiling. Almost every time I leave the house, without fail, this happens.

I start French lessons this week, hopefully tomorrow. They'll be taught by one of the English professors from the university in town. I'm so thankful to have a chance to learn the language--knowing more French will be a huge help as we continue to live here. Please pray for me as I try to learn. I'm not anticipating it being easy!

Thank you for your continued diligent prayers. We hope our blog posts don't bore you!

-Hannah

Our life continues at what seems like a breakneck pace. We're very thankful that, up to this point, all our meals have been provided for us! Over this past weekend we attended a Spiritual Life Conference for all the missionaries here in Kankan, led by a team from California. We're very glad we got here in time and were able to meet so many of our colleagues all at once and several days in a row so start remembering names. 

We've started to adjust to our house and now know where most of the light switches are, how to monitor that solar battery, how long it takes to heat enough water for a bucket bath, how much water flushes a toilet, etc. Life here is noisy, seemingly all the time. We live in a city with 250k-330k people, 85% of whom are Muslim...that means a LOT of mosques. For those unfamiliar with Muslim practices, 5 times a day a muezzin calls people to prayer over a loudspeaker...from each mosque. It's actually a very inspiring practice that is a great testament of devotion. So, for about 90 minutes, 5 times a day, the various muezzins are calling people to prayer and leading people in prayer. Did I mention that the first call is at 4am? Closing windows stifles the airflow a bit (but we've kept it under 80 degrees inside-which is low humidity feels downright chilly) but becomes necessary. We were also given earplugs which helps some. As we get over the jetlag and learn these new sounds, I'm sure our sleep will improve. 

Most Africans live life outside so there is always the noise of life as well: babies crying, dogs barking (for hours on end-it's actually almost unbelievable), goats, chickens, hammers (a metal working shop not far away), motorcycles (it seems there are 2 motos for each person here), etc.

Monday night we attended a leadership class for young Christian professors at the university (of 10,000+). These men teach chemistry, English, linguistics, physics, etc. Some of these are men we will be helping start side-businesses to supplement their $0.75 per hour college professor jobs. Some have already started businesses: a photo print business, an after hours learning center type school with 400 students, a computer lab with classes, etc. We'll learn more at a meeting today about what we'll be doing with these projects.

Well, there's one of the afternoon prayer calls. I may not be Muslim, but this might be a good practice to get into. 

Brandon

 Well, the whirlwind of the past month has ended with success in our ultimate goal: we made it to Kankan! Here's how.

Before leaving Dakar we had some tasty Vietnamese nems. A few of you may have been lucky enough to try these...

We took a walk down to the beach on our last day in Dakar...It wasn't quite the stroll you usually imagine when you hear that phrase...

That bald guy IS Brandon, for all you doubters...

We spent our last night in the "Congo" guest room at the Dakar guest house before a bumpy 90 minute flight to Bamako. All our bags arrived safely, free of charge including the ministry projectors we brought. We did some grocery shopping in Bamako before the uncharacteristically smooth, 5 hour drive across the Guinea border to Kankan...

We spent a couple days cleaning, sorting and organizing our house so these pictures are better than what we walked in to. The kitchen-manual light gas stove, running water, no microwave or any other electronics. Dishwater is heated on the stove...

Our bathroom-no hot water or shower, no shower curtain, toilet is flushed with a bucket, no outlets, no hair dryer or straightener allowed...

Our bedroom- The cabinets are all broken, but the bed is huge and pretty comfy. we have a light bulb, but no outlets...

Our solar powered fridge. Seems to work pretty well and we're very thankful for it!...

The living room- very large but sparse. There is an outlet in this room that does not run off 12v power so we can charge our computer and camera batteries, etc...

Beautiful dining room...

We have a large dry courtyard where our guards grow onions. Soon the mangoes trees will begin to bear...

The house came that pretty girl in the skirt- she's been a real trooper and good sport, really holding her own!...

We have so much more to share about things we've been up to and have planned but we want you all to see where we are so you can imagine our daily life a little better. Even though it's a far cry from our small house in Indiana, we feel extremely fortunate to have such a luxurious house-most of the people we see everyday have so much less.

More soon!

Brandon

Tomorrow is the day!

Tomorrow we should be in Guinea. We fly out of Dakar early tomorrow morning for a short hour and forty minute flight to Mali. While in Mali we will buy groceries and whatever other items we will need that won't be available in Guinea. We're not quite sure what to buy as we don't really know what cooking in Africa will be like. I, at least, am looking forward to learning how to cook over here using new ingredients and new methods. 

Today we went down to the beach. We have some beautiful pictures of cliffs and waves (and some of our trash covered pathway down to the beach), but it seems we discovered the first thing we forgot to pack: our camera cord! Hopefully we will find a way to post pictures soon. 

We looked at buying cheese today, as there won't be any available in Guinea, but it was $13 for a pound of Gouda... so needless to say, we decided to forgo cheese for the next few months! And chicken breasts are $7.50 a pound and deli ham $10! I think our diet may change. :) 

But... there are some things we get much cheaper... Brandon's new pair of Ray Ban sunglasses were $2! A loaf of french bread is 25 cents! And you can take a taxi 50 miles for $3! And of course you are curious about gas prices... roughly $7.75 a gallon. And you guys thought you had it bad!

The low part of the day was when I saw a dog on the side of the road who had been hit by a vehicle. None of the Africans seemed quite as concerned as I was... probably because dogs roam the streets here in the way stray cats meander around neighborhoods back home.

-Hannah

We've been in Senegal for a few days now. It's been great to be in the warmer weather and to be with family. We've done quite a lot since we have been here. Not long after landing in Dakar on Saturday morning, Brandon went to a medical clinic and got his meningitis and yellow fever vaccines for $40 and $13! What a steal!

Today we were able to go to the beach. It was wonderful weather; much cooler by the ocean and a very good breeze. On one of our walks on the beach, a few young boys followed us and helped us to kick our soccer ball back to our house. They seemed to want to kick it to me more than Brandon... I think they enjoyed watching what an excellent soccer player I am. :)

Brandon is in the middle of filling out our paperwork for our Mali and Guinea visas, which Bill (Brandon's Dad) will take downtown tomorrow. Please be in prayer that we are granted these visas, because without, we will be unable to go to Guinea where we are to do our work.

That's all for now. Our guess is that we will have the best internet of our whole stay while we are here at Brandon's parent's house. It's likely our updates will be less frequent when we go to Guinea on Thursday, although we can't be sure until we are actually there.

It's almost time!

We're in a flurry of packing, cleaning up our house and finishing last minute errands. We have a few more people to say goodbye to before we leave tomorrow morning and of course a few more of our favorite foods to eat before we go! We have a whole suitcase full of projectors and ink cartridges for  one of the ministries we will be working with to bring out.

We were both sick with some kind of stomach bug yesterday, and are really grateful that we both better now. It would have been a very unpleasant flight if we were sick!

We've felt truly blessed that we have found people to take care of things while we are gone... someone to live in our house, drive our cars and watch our dog. God has definitely provied for us and we are so grateful that all our loose ends have been tied up. And although you may not notice it from the picture, Brandon donated ten inches of his hair to Locks of Love, and is now sporting the buzzed look!

We leave Mishawaka at 7am tomorrow for Ohare and by Saturday morning we should be in Dakar, Senegal having breakfast and getting vaccines with Brandon's parents and two youngest brothers!