more about our roadtrip

We are back in Minnesota after almost 6 weeks of traveling around America.  The trip was so amazing that it is hard to figure out how to write about it in brief.  I think that knowing people in so many places is cool and I am glad that I could visit friends and family around the country.  But it is also hard to say goodbye and know that it will be some years before we see each other again.  I know some really wonderful people!  When I am in Mali I miss certain things about America and when I am in America I miss certain things about Mali.  Sometimes I wish that all of the people I love could all be my neighbors so I could see them all the time.  Maybe it's like that in heaven.  I know it could be a lot harder and I am thankful for the ways I can stay in touch with people easily through modern technology.  For missionaries in the past it was much more difficult.  Just 15 years ago I wouldn't have had a cellphone or easy internet access in Mali.  It makes the world seem smaller to think that at any moment in Mali I can just dial up my mom and at the same time her phone rings thousands of miles and an ocean away and (for about 40 cents a minute) we can talk.

So enough of my rambling and back to the roadtrip:  JP got some really good experience driving in the states.  We were never stopped by the police.  The only car trouble we had was one flat tire (or rather I was driving on a low tire which someone pointed out to me and we had to put the spare on, no biggie.) We had to go through 3 border patrol/immigration checks when we were near Mexico.  I would have liked to cross into Mexico, but that wasn't possible because JP's USA visa is single entry, so we can't go to Canada either.  At 2 of the border control places they just looked at us and waved us through.  But at one they asked if we were both US citizens. I said that JP is from Africa and they made us pull over and find his passport to look at.  We almost ran out of gas once.  The light was on for a long time telling me that the gas was low, but we were in the middle of nowhere in southwestern Texas.  There is nothing there for a long time.  Finally an exit with a gas station appeared and I was able to get some gas, even if they were charging an extra dollar a gallon!  We were lucky because the gas prices were lower that they'd been in years during our trip.  When we left MN it was about $1.89 (it's up to $2.25 in MN now) and the highest prices were in California at about $2.59.  We enjoyed all kinds of weather along the way, but now we are back to below 0 freezing cold winter in Minnesota.  We've been inside a lot since we've been back!

Big American Roadtrip

We’ve been on the road for 3 ½ weeks now!  We left Minnesota early on a below-freezing morning.  Just 20 minutes later we were in Wisconsin and a few hours after that we entered Michigan.  We like to keep things exciting, so we managed to drive into and through a snowstorm on the first day of our trip!  After that we headed south until we hit the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama where the weather was much more to our liking, and from there we’ve been going west.  When we get to California we will go north and east until we return to Minnesota about 2 weeks from now. 
The main reason for this big trip is to visit family, friends, and people who support us in our work in Mali (who are generally also family and friends.)  It has been amazing to see so many people that we haven’t seen in a very long time, or in some cases to meet them for the first time.  Besides seeing a lot of special people and receiving gracious hospitality, we have appreciated a lot of other things about this trip as well.  Some examples are:  seeing so much of the USA, experiencing American culture in varied forms in different homes,  JP having to practice his English a lot,  the wonderfully low price of gas, spending a lot of time together as a couple, being out of a regular routine helps us step back and see things from a new perspective, trying new foods, and having that exciting sense of adventure.

A big fancy house in the snow in Michigan.

On Wolf Bay off of the Gulf of Mexico in Alabama.

Home for the Holidays - USA 2014

 Our time in the states over the past 2 months has been really fun and really busy.  It has been especially fantastic to spend the holidays with my family and have a white Christmas!  I thought I'd post a few pictures of fun things we've done in the last few weeks.
We went to Bentleyville in Duluth.  It is a huge walk-through Christmas lighting display village.  It is free to go there, and they give out hot chocolate, cookies, marshmallows to roast, and popcorn (and we tried them all!)  We went on a night that wasn't too cold, I think it was actually just above the freezing point.  I'm glad we went when it wasn't any colder because after an hour of walking around, even being all bundled up, we were freezing.

 We took a self-guided Christmas tour of Glensheen Mansion in Duluth.  There was a tree in pretty much every room.  We walked around the grounds outside and down to the boathouse on Lake Superior after the inside tour.  JP was happy to see a lot of books in French on their many bookshelves.

 Here is JP perched upon a gigantic Belgian horse.  It was his first time ever being on a horse!  We got to go on a sleigh ride over the fields and through the woods just north of Duluth.  The horses wore jingle bells. :)

JP's first snowman

 There hasn't been a ton of snow yet, but we had some on the ground with a warm enough day for it to stick together, so JP made his first snowman!  We got to go visit some friends at their farm in the country.  The pictures look dark because it was at dusk - the sun is already setting at 4:30pm here!  We are waiting for some more snow to fall so that we can try sledding.

what we've been up to

Wow, we have been so busy that I haven't blogged since October.
So, here is a little bit of what we've been up to:
In October I worked hard to get our house and us prepared to leave the country for nearly 6 months.  If you've taken a 1 or 2 week trip you know that it can be a lot of work just to get everything together, sorted out, and organized for that.  Well, packing up and preparing for 6 months is no small task!  There are some friends staying in our house in Mali and taking care of our dog while we are gone.  So I could leave food in the fridge and not empty that out, but there were other tasks to do to make the house ready for other people to stay there.

Once we actually left the house, we went to Bamako for 3 days before we flew out.  It was a busy and stressful few days before we got on the plane.  JP had to go to the Spain embassy to see if he would get his visa so he could actually get on the plane (he got it a day and a half before we flew) and he didn't know until the last minute if he would be able to present his Master's Thesis or not.  The night before we left he got the call saying that he could present in the morning!  So 14 hours before we went to the airport we were sitting in a room at his university for him to present his thesis.  What a relief when that was done!  I had been worried that he wouldn't be able to present and that he'd have it on his mind for 6 months while we are in the states.  It is so nice to not have to think of that anymore and to just be done with it!  And of course I'm very proud of JP who now has a Master's Degree in Public Health.

This is me helping JP with his special robe that he had to wear when he presented his thesis to the jury.

 Once we were checked in at the airport we both felt amazing relief and calm.  The last few months had been very stressful with finishing school and moving and preparing our trip, and it was amazing to know that we were done with all of that and could just relax.
We spent time on vacation in Spain on the way to the USA!  It was the first real vacation that we've ever had!  I have some pictures from that on my facebook page, here's a link: SPAIN PICS

We arrived in Minnesota just in time for the first snow storm of the season.  It was JP's first time seeing snow.  He says he likes it so far, and he is staying warm with the long johns and other warm winter clothes we bought for him.

The 6 weeks that we have been in the states so far have been very busy.  There is so much to do!  We have stayed at my mom's house part of the time and at a friend's empty house part of the time, so we've been driving 30 minutes back and forth pretty often.  This week we'll be moving out of the friend's house and staying at my mom's until we leave for our big road trip in January.

Here are some of the activities we've kept ourselves busy with:
visiting family and friends
sharing about Mali in 5 groups (9 total presentations)
a short road trip to visit friends and share
seeing my new baby cousin in the hospital
shoveling snow
shopping on Black Friday
joining the Christmas choir
Christmas party
going through the things I have in storage at my mom's house (a few plastic bins)
cutting down and putting up a Christmas tree
JP learned to make wreaths and drive a backhoe (what a day!)
visting Bentleyville in Duluth
seeing the Nutcracker ballet (my mom won tickets and gave them to us!)
attending a Christmas music concert
going running to prepare for a 5k, it's hard to breathe in the cold!
dentist appointments
eye doctor appointments
chiropractor appointments (my back is feeling better now! there is no chiropractor in Mali)
sending out cards and letters and setting things up for our support raising efforts
trying to watch a few movies (but I am usually falling asleep before the end!)




Ok, so that is some of what we've been up to.

the new house: before and after painting

I've been in the new house for about 2 months now.  JP has been here sometimes, but he has been in Bamako working on school stuff some of the time, too.  We are getting ready to leave for the states in just a few weeks.  So I've had a big project of trying to get moved in and arranged in the new house and there was some painting that couldn't wait. We'll probably do a bit more when we get back from the states next spring, but here are some pictures of some of what got done already.

bathroom after painting

bathroom before

guest room before

guest room after painting

before: it really needed some cleaning and painting

ahh, so much better!  The interior doors were also all painted and look good as new.

dirty living room walls before

Our living room: come on in, have a seat!

plumber's kit

 After a few days of trying to get the plumber to come to the house, he finally showed up.  I think he would have come a lot sooner if he knew there was a problem such as a broken pipe, but I had told him that it was mainly to help me hang pictures.  I know, that doesn't sound like a job for a plumber, but it is here.  Houses are built with cement block bricks and it is all but impossible to hammer nails into the walls.  There are these tiny nails that I've found that I can hammer in, but they are only good for hanging very small or light things.  Anything heavy requires a special drill (which we don't have) to make a hole so a plastic anchor can be put in to attach a screw.
For a few weeks I've had things sitting on the floor all around the house, on the floor just below where I wanted them attached to the wall.  I had already held the items up and marked spots with a pencil, Jean-Patrick helped me with that when he was home.  So I was very happy when the plumber finally came and the walls went from being bare to being decorated and functional.  It is really nice to have a few towel bars in the bathroom, for example! (and not just IN the bathroom, but actually attached to the wall!)
Since the plumber was already here, I asked him to take a look at the toilet as well.  Each time that it was flushed it made a ridiculous amount of noise, it sounded like it was groaning, and a bit of water would leak out.  In total, between the wall drilling and the toilet repair, the plumber was here for 4 hours.  The total price for labor was $8, and this was for the plumber and his assistant.

I took pictures of the plumber's kit which he kind of dumped out on the floor when he needed to find parts or tools.  I find this mess very amusing.  The plumber seemed to think that I was a bit odd to want to take pictures of it, but he then asked me to take a picture of him digging in the mess!

One other good thing that came out of this visit from the plumber is that we now own 2 very decent quality power-strips.  I think that's what you call them in English.  In French it's a "multi-prise."   I'm talking about the thing that you can plug in and then plug a bunch of stuff in to it.  These are essential here because when there is an outlet (and there are never enough) it only allows 1 thing to be plugged in, not 2 like in America.  It seems that China sends a lot of absolute junk to be sold in Mali.  A couple weeks ago I was at my friend's house and the power-strip that she had just bought burned up and the cord separated into 2 pieces because it got so hot.  We had a power-strip that the plumber accidentally knocked down from a table, and the cheap brittle plastic that it was made of shattered into pieces.  He apologized, and I said it was no big deal, it was clearly a cheap piece of junk if it would just break like that.  I mentioned that I wished I could find some better quality power-strips to buy, and the plumber said that he had some good ones for sale in his shop.  He sent his assistant off to go get a few models to show me while he kept working.  I bought 2 since the quality did seem better, and I checked online and found that they are a brand from Morocco.  So far so good.