Banquet

Sahel had an all-school Far East Banquet. Kira and Brynn enjoyed getting all dressed up for it with special dresses, nail polish, fancy hairdos, and jewelry. Here's Kira.

And Brynn.
While Kira and Brynn were at their banquet, we took Elayna and Silas to a restaurant for their own "banquet" since Elayna is home-schooled this year. She got dressed up as well.
Silas watched his sisters posing for pictures and decided he needed to pose as well.


The banquet wasn't quite finished when we arrived to pick up Kira and Brynn. They were just beginning to teach the students how to waltz. Silas and Elayna joined in the fun. Here's Brynn waltzing with Silas. The photo is courtesy of our friend, Richelle.

Elayna did the waltz with Shelby (photo also courtesy of Richelle).

Silas turns 4

Silas turned 4 a little while ago. He chose to have a Pirate Birthday party. Everyone dressed up like pirates. They started off with a treasure hunt. Here's Silas trying to figure out the treasure map.

"X" marks the spot of the buried treasure.

Some of the treasure included deadly pirate swords. All the pirates quickly regrouped to a sword fight.

They all survived the sword flight and then boarded their ships for a cannonball fight.

Some of the pirates had trouble staying in their boat, but the cannonballs kept flying.

Everyone especially enjoyed eating the pirate ship cake.

Tree "Trimming"

When I lived in Tennessee, I learned a style of tree "trimming" that I had never seen before in MA. My friends and I dubbed it the "Tennessee chop." They would lop off the whole top of a tree, leaving just the trunk and a few stubs branching out from it. We discovered here in this part of Africa that they use the same method to "trim" trees.... except here most tree cutters don't have cherry picker trucks or chainsaws to use.

We have a number of trees around our house that were getting very tall. During the rainy season, they were swaying quite far in the strong winds that come with each storm. We decided to "trim" the trees before this next rainy season arrived... a little preventative measure to save our roof or power lines from being damaged. Last rainy season, there was a large tree on the street directly across from our gate. During a storm, half of the tree fell over. It fell across the street onto the main power lines and our wall. The street was completely blocked past our house. We called the power and phone companies to remove the tree and reconnect the lines. With that excitement fresh in our minds, we decided to cut some of our trees.

I hired a friend of our guard who cuts trees for a living. Their tools consisted of two machetes and some long ropes. One guy climbed up a tree... adeptly moving around in the tree like he was standing on solid ground. He methodically hacked off branches a piece at a time.

Meanwhile, the other two guys were below on the ground holding the rope to safely lower large branches to the ground.


They started with the two large Flambeau (Flame) trees in our yard that towered above our roof.

Here you can see the first tree has been given the "TN chop" and he is starting on the second tree way above the height of the roof. They spent a day and a half "trimming" all the trees around our house and then moving the huge piles of branches and brush out to the street. Our guard then bought the wood for himself at a highly reduced price. He will use it for his cooking fire for the next 4-5 months.


Silas had a blast watching the guys cutting the trees. He also helped me clean up the yard afterward.

Branching Out

We get asked to help out in a lot of different ways. I recently got asked by one of our colleagues if we could repair a tape duplicator for him. He uses it to duplicate tapes in local languages that he hands out in the marketplace and in villages. The machine can make four copies at a time, but one of the copying bays wasn't working... resulting in a 25% loss in copying ability. He had already narrowed the problem down to the motor for that bay and had gotten a replacement motor from the company that made the machine. He asked if we could remove the old motor and install the new one for him. We said we'd be willing to give it a try at the hangar. Here it is pictured going back together. The old motor is the black box on the table. A few minutes of soldering and the new motor was installed. The duplicator works great now. People are really responding well to the messages on these tapes as well as other forms of media in their heart languages.

Wildlife Park

After Christmas, a bunch of families spent a few days camping at the wildlife park a few hours south of here. A group of people went down the river in canoes and boats to get to the park. We drove to the park and met them there. At the entrance of the park, we picked up a guide. As we drove through the park, he sat on top of the vehicle giving us directions and trying to spot animals. Our kids actually had keener eyes than he did and usually spotted the animals before he found them. Brynn really had eagles eyes those days! This picture is of the paths through the park. There is a lot of tall yellow grass and smaller trees/brush. There are lions in the park. Some others in our group spotted lions, but we never saw any. They could have been laying down in the grass two feet from the road and we never would have seen them.
We saw lots of antelope and other deer-like-creatures.
We also saw some elephants.


Much of Africa has Baobab trees like this one. There were a lot of them in the park. For much of the year they are leafless and look like an upside down tree with it's roots sticking up in the air. The fruit (monkey fruit or monkey bread) is rich in vitamin C. These trees can get very large in diameter so that they can be hollowed out and used for shelter. They also can hold a large amount of water which can be tapped and used. Some of you may remember these trees as the "tree of life" in the Lion King movie.


The girls really liked this bird. I haven't been able to find what type of bird it is yet, but it is pretty.


Here's a Giant African Millipede. They can grow up to 11 inches long. This one was about 8 inches long. Apparently millipedes are herbivores and centipedes are carnivores. No worries, this guy won't hurt you unless you get the liquid from it's glands in your eyes or mouth.

We enjoyed hiking on the rocky hills near the campsite.Here's the view from the top of the hill overlooking the river and campsite.

We also took a ride on the river looking for the elephants that are often near the water. We didn't find any on that ride, but we enjoyed the views along the river.


We also ventured up the river a few miles to an island where a lady has built 10 cabins like this one. If you'd like to spend a few days in a cabin on an island in the river, come on over... we now know where it is.


The kids love camping. It was a good family break before we began the new year.

A Cowboy Christmas Play

One of the perks of working together with family is spending holidays together. The kids have a tradition of performing a Christmas play every Christmas Eve with their cousins. This Christmas, they decided to add a twist to the play and perform it as a cowboy Christmas play.

Mary and Joseph were unable to find room in the "bar" so they had to stay in the barn.
Gabriel the cowboy angel proclaimed the good news.


Silas was a cowboy shepherd. Notice his sister's pink cowboy boots that he was sporting. He could only find one of his boots that day, so he wore Elayna's pink boots instead.


The neighbors' dog participated in the play as well.
Here's the cast after the closing song. An encore performance was a must this year so we could fully enjoy the play.

Surprise!

Someone bought a plane ticket for Joy to go home to see her parents for Christmas. Her sister, who teaches at Sahel, planned it so that the trip would be a surprise to their parents. Joy arrived here from school in Europe early in the morning. Our family and a group of her friends met her at the airport and went to the hangar for an early breakfast. I then flew Joy and her sister home for Christmas.


In the southern part of Mali there are some mesas that reach to 3000 - 4000 ft.


They jet up out of the flat barren land around them.

The steep sides are impressive.


Joy's dad asked me to make a detour on the way to their home to take some aerial footage of some fire breaks he had cut through the grasslands. Technology can be a wonderful thing! We talked on Skype before the flight. He described the location of the fire breaks while I looked at Google Earth. I was then able to get some coordinates for where the fire breaks would probably be. After 2 hours of flying to get there, the fire breaks were right where he had described. You can see the black ribbon weaving through the brown. That's one of the fire breaks he cut. The people in that area feed their herds of sheep, goats and cows with the grass. Brush fires rush across that area every year destroying the grass vital to the survival of these people. Joy's dad has been cutting fire breaks for about three years now to show the people and the government the effect they can have on stopping these fires.


Here's a little village we flew over.


And a herd of cows.

There's a large lake in that area. Apparently there is a lot of wildlife that gathers at this lake which is surrounded by sand and grasslands. Elephants venture north to this lake after the rainy season is over.


The second fire break we filmed was near this lake. It had actually stopped a brush fire. You can see the burned area to the right of the fire break in the picture. Joy's dad wanted the video footage to include in a dvd presentation he's preparing for the government.

The surprise worked out perfectly. We landed in the town where Joy's parents live. Joy hid in the plane while her parents pulled up. We told them to close their eyes and then Joy came out of the plane and walked up to them. Tears of joy flowed all around.

We enjoyed another quick visit with Joy on her way back to school after the break. The kids still consider her to be part of our family.