Returning Home

I thought I would end my blog for 2007 with some photos of my return and the story of my return journey and first impressions home. In 2008 I will start a fresh blog for a fresh year.

My flight leaving Dakar was an hour late and then the computers were down in NYC so immigration took an extra hour. Driving home from NYC to Syracuse is usually a five hour drive. There happened to be a snow storm however and the trip took us nine hours. I was exhausted when we arrived but so euphoric at returning.

I have been adjusting to the constant chatter and noise of being home. There are so many choices I have a hard time deciding what kind of coffee, what kind of lettuce, what kind of coke do I want. There is even a new coke with like DNA samples or something bazaar in it. (ok I suppose it couldn't be DNA but it was something weird) It's like Coke Plus or Extra or More. In America there isn't just Coca Cola, its got more just like our nation.

Reflecting on being home I can say we are an incredible blessed nation. Blessed beyond belief.

I am staying with my friend Tricia who has set me up in her home in such an amazing way. It really is home to me. Like Oussouye and the Center are in Senegal, the corner of Westcott is a home to me here.

I am feeling overwhelmed with the love here. I have been embraced in the last 48 hours more than ten months in Oussouye but of course I am not shaking as many hands and exchanging greetings about their families.

Its great to be home.

Attached are some photos of my long awaited and desired hair cut and highlight. Also the massive amounts of snow on the ground. Ughghgh

Ta ta for now. Much love Kristina

Where I find myself

I told my friend Ramale that on Saturday I would come out to her village and visit her before I leave for the United States. Dvante is really far from Oussouye and there are students who walk every single day all the way to the highschool, home for lunch and back to school six days a week.

I took my bicycle through the villages so I could pray on my way to Dvante. (I have a great bike for the dusty, rocky pathways through the villages) I had to ask directions a couple of times becuase in the bowels of these villages its easy to get lost. I headed towards Kahinda instead of going straight and that was a mistake too, I was twisting and turning through the pathways, around trees and fetish sites. I would turn a corner and there was an alter with a little creature made from wood and bone staring at me. Another corner and the side of a house is covered with bones. At one point I rounded a corner of this big fetish site there, where people go if they have killed someone or taken innocent blood, and I am face to face with this very very old lady. I greet her in Jola and she greets me and touches me and stares at me. All the words in Jola I know are now finished so I just say au revoir and take off.

Someone I knew there spotted me and sent the word out to the girls house I was going to that I was arriving, so her sister starts chasing my bike to greet me and shouting.."Ramale Kristina has come she has come." Hugs and tickels for the children, photos to make them happy and Ramale says she is heading out to the fields to pick the rice.

We start walking and walking and walking. And finally I am face to face with a massive field of rice. Its bizaar when you wake up on Saturday morning and by 9:30 am you are face to face with something you have never seen before, EvER, never done before.....thinking to yourself, I love my life. I absolutely love the total randomness of what happens to me every day. So I spent an hour in the rice taking pictures and talking to the kids working there. I wanted to take some pictures of an old lady but she wanted money, but the children were more than willing.
A day in the life of me.

Thanksgiving

I spent Thanksgiving with two American missionary families near Bignona in a small village called Niamone. We had all the fixings of a real Thanksgiving dinner, including a wish bone.

Pastor Jerome Assine

Last night was my last Thursday night Bible study at Jerome's house. Here are some photos of Jerome and his wife Marie Claire, their son Joshua and the students who live at the their house. The two older boys Gibrail and Serge will be guarding my house when I am in the USA.

Eglise Evangelique D'Oussouye

I took photos of the church last Sunday. There were several of our friends missing but you can see how large the church actually is. We are the second largest evangelical church in the Cassamance region.

Pastor Joe Lambal

Here is a picture of the pastor of the Oussouye Church and his family. His wife is Lucy, daughter Lorna, Jonathan, Sylvan and Elyse.