Our Cat

This is our cat Jack. He was born while we were in the U.S. and Canada. Since returning we've been trying to persuade him to come and stay at our house instead of returning to the house where his mother or brother or sister lives. He's a good cat and at a young age is proving to be a good mouser or lizard catcher.

The kids enjoy Jack but aren't too keen on picking him up. Especially since someone informed us that he has worms. We've been working on getting a worm treatment for him. Several times at the table or wherever Elianna will ask, "Jack has his worm treatment yet?" What other 2 year old do you know that talks about worm treatments? We're also all going to be taking a worm treatment as well. Elianna often has her fingers in her mouth and I think it's a good idea/preventative. Ok, worm treatments here we come.

Mangoes

Mangoes

This is a picture of our first supper in our new home. One thing we've really enjoyed eating since our return to Guinea is mangoes. Hmmm. They are so yummy. Sort of comparable to a peach but in some ways better. Now the mango season is coming to an end. Actually right now it's hard to get much of anything in the way or fruits and veggies. Sometimes it's downright frustrating. Please pray that our garden will continue to grow and produce!

Forts

I'm sure most of us can remember building forts as kids. Under the dining room table or wherever. Last week Pete made a fort for the kids in their play/school room. They had a great time and it stayed up for a couple days.

It's very difficult to get both Aidan and Elianna to cooperate for a picture!

Garden Planting

These are planted around our house. This is a double something or other right now I can't remember the name. Maybe you recognize it?

My marigold plants that I started from seed. Marigolds aren't my favorite plants but as my mom says, "they're hardy", they are also supposed to be anti mosquito plants. They're doing well and I have enough to fill up 2 flower beds.

It's a bit hard to see but these are some, Cosmos, flowers that I started from seed.

Pete is planting some sweet corn that he got from my dad. We have high hopes that it will turn out! The fresh corn that they grow and sell here is tough and more like field corn.

The vegetables we are trying to grow are: lettuce, spinach, green beans, peas, carrots, squash, corn and soybeans. We also have some volunteer tomato plants that we are trying as well.

Here's our garden plot. We are trying some raised beds. Behind Pete you can see some mounded hills. That is typical African planting style. Another African lady is using the rest of this garden. So we'll see who's stuff does the best!

We've moved

I know it's been a while since I've posted. We've been busy and our internet connection isn't real great here at the house. Hopefully in time we'll improve that. Yes, we are moved into our house. Thanks for your prayers and encouragement. We moved in Tuesday, July 10th but have been working since than on never ending projects! We still have a small list of things that will be ongoing for a while. Here are some pictures around the day we moved in a several days following. We're so thankful for the help of several missionary guys here, we couldn't have done it without them.

Pete and Benjamin lifting some of our solar panels into place. It's hard to see but they were racing to beat the clock as there was a big thunderstorm brewing in the background.

Here are some of our solar panels. We have two different sets. These here are 55 watt panels and we have 10 of these. We also have 4 larger panels which are 105 watt panels, I believe. Beware, some of my statistics could be slightly wrong!:) The guys are getting ready to hoist these onto the roof. They used the truck as a 'ladder.'

Pete at the breaker box. Our inverter is also here, it inverts the 12 volt solar electricity to 110 volts and allows us to use our American appliances and charge our computer etc. Most of you probably know this stuff, just putting it out there for whatever.

Our friend Benjamin working on our breaker box thing. Here's where all the wires from the house come into and our charge controller for the solar panels etc. The batteries sit below it. Just to the right is our freezer! Yah! We have a freezer. It's so awesome to have room to freeze stuff and to have cold things.

Pete is wiring in the switch for a light in our bathroom. Since the walls are already in place we had to drill holes in the ceiling and run the wires for switches and outlets down the walls. Afterwards we covered the wires with a nice plastic white thing called conduit. I'll try to send a picture of that later.

A work in progress. It's a lot of work to wire your house and basically set up your own source of power. Here's some pictures of that process. Those are our batteries that we use to store our power in. We currently have 4 but are probably going to add one or two more.

House Renovations Continue

Here are some updated photos or our progress. We're getting close to moving in. Our to do list still includes, finishing wiring, hooking up solar panels and batteries, hooking up our pump, filling water beds, maybe fixing our toilet or just bucket flushing for a while, bathroom ceiling. All that to say we hope to move in a day or two. There will still be list of things to do for a while. Those of you who have done renovations know what that's all about. Enjoy the pictures .

Ok, here's a picture of the finished paint job. The walls were going to be light tan. Well there are no paint mixing machines here. After our painter mixed all the paint by hand taking at least 30 min. or more we said it was good. In different lights it looks, light green, cream or tan.

Here's all the paint. They painted the ceiling a flat white paint. The walls get done with an oil based paint. A trick they use here is to 'water down' the oil paint with gasoline, notice the yellow jug with the red lid?' It makes the paint go further. The guys asked for some gas and Pete brought a couple liters, the painter said no that he wanted about 25 liters! A couple times when I visited the house during painting the fumes were so bad I got a headache. I don't know how they worked in there.

Here's one of our painters. They took 7 days to paint our ceiling and walls. They did quite a bit of patch work on the walls. Everything is cement here, so they were fixing holes and cracks as well as filling in the small space between the ceiling and walls. We were very anxious while they were working but they did a fabulous job. Not your average African paint job.

These ladies work at our guesthouse here in Hamdallaye. After work one day one of them asked if I had a camera to take a picture. I thought it was a little strange but when I got the camera they climbed on a co-workers 3 wheeler and posed for a picture, complete with revving noised! The lady in the blue has given me an African name, they have a hard time pronouncing Faith, so now I'm Mariama Camara.

Ok, so this is not your ordinary North American sign. Basically it says, "It's illegal to pee or litter here." It's strange since those two things happen everywhere! Hope it makes you smile.

Pete and Salu, a believer here in Hamdallaye preparing to work on the ceiling.

Norm and Pete are working on the ceiling. They did a great job.

Here are Norm and Debra Copeland. They helped us out a couple weeks ago while they were visiting Guinea. Thanks so much guys.