going to Chad

Its finally here! Tomorrow we leave to start our trip to Chad where I will meet my future in-laws, file papers at city hall, wait awhile, and then... get married!!!

I am very excited and a bit nervous, but most important - I'm ready.

We will leave and travel all day by bus to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. We'll stay there a couple days before taking another all day bus trip down to Lome, Togo. From there we'll take a plane to N'Djamena, Chad - Jean-Patrick's hometown.

We plan to spend 2 months in Chad and hopefully the wedding will be early in September, but we have to wait until the papers are filed there until we will know the definate date.

Too Cute

last day of school

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but we had our last day of school with an all-day celebration. Here is a picture of the lunch that many women worked on all morning to prepare for more than 500 students and teachers. Everyone was instructed to get into circles of 6 people, then a bowl of food is brought and placed in the middle (on the ground) and everyone eats from it together with their hands. Oh, in the bowls was rice with cabbage, fried yam slices, and beef - which brings us to the next picture...

This obviously is a photo of a cow's head and feet. These were sitting like this for awhile just off to the side of where lots of kids were hanging out and walking by. I may be the only one who found this unusual or disturbing. The day before I saw these pieces still attached on the cow being lead by rope into the school yard awaiting its fate. Not long after this picture was taken I saw a man take the head and roast it over a fire. I think I'll stick to the not eating four-legged friends thing.

I could have put cute pictures of the kids, but you've seen those already. I thought this behind the scenes stuff was more interesting.