who's who of Tchad.

Our internet isn't working lately, so it's not very much fun to write, but otherwise I won't remember what to tell you and I'll be in trouble from all sides! :-)

Let's start with all the nasaras (white people) here. There are five SMs that will be here the entire year. There are two others that are leaving after this week, and then of course James and Sarah (the Dr and his wife). Right before we left here for the US back in June a kid from a church near G&G Parker came for 6 months. Since we were leaving we had him come to Cameroon and he stayed there and worked with Charles, our guy there. But he really wanted to fly with Gary to see if he would like to become a pilot. So, we brought him back from Cameroon with us and he was only here a few days when he got very sick with malaria. (It was actually from Cameroon.) So, he was in the hospital on IV quinine for a day and then spent several days recovering here. Then Gary took him back and picked up a bunch of our stuff. Then we have a man named Steve Rose (he came to meet us when we were at Aunt Rita's and Uncle Ralph's place). He is here for 3 months and is a pilot and physical therapist. I guess he is trying to decide if this is something he wants to do full time. He is staying here in a little hut (but very nice) that we are renting for him and eating meals with us. We also have a couple Jeremy and Annie Smith - he is Canadian, she is Filipino, but grew up in Ivory Coast and Congo, so she speaks French. They will be here for a year and so they are building the first building on our new property. It's a small hut to start out with and they may add more later. We also have a well being hand dug out there too, so we are staying busy with that. Jeremy also has an agriculture degree and so he has our garden up and running again and is anxious go get started at the new property as well, but we have to wait for water and a way to keep the goats/pigs/etc out. So, we have a lot of pale faces here right now, and we have been enjoying that.

Thanksgiving Day

Gary left on Tuesday before Thanksgiving to take Danieal back to Cameroon. He wasn't planning to come back until Friday morning, so we were thinking maybe we would have our TG meal on Friday evening or Sunday. Well, on Wed I commented at lunch time that we were going to have a mini TG on Thurs no matter who was there. We were trying to get together with all the SMs and James and Sarah, but I couldn't get anybody to tell me when, where, etc, so I was just saying I was going to cook a TG lunch anyway! So, Jeremy was here and said, "Can Annie and I come too?" I didn't know if they would be too interested since they aren't American, but I was happy to have company, but the problem was Annie was working til 3pm so we would have to do it for supper. Then Gary called Wed night and he was coming home Thurs morning, so we were ending up with a good number anyway. Then Thurs afternoon about 4 or 5 James called to say they were having dinner at their house with all the SMs at 7pm! :-) So, it's a good thing I was already cooking and we had a nice big potluck, and good fellowship, even though we didn't stay too long since it was so late. One of the boy's mother had sent him a package with everything for a TG meal including recipes, so it was a real treat.