February

This is full of pictures. You know you're excited! I'm a firm believer that blogs are always better with pictures. Ladies and gentlemen, a photo essay of the month of February.

February has been the Month of the Rat. With 4 rats making an appearance in my tukel plus multiple sightings in our kitchen and bathroom areas it was time to take some serious action. Shannon destroyed all visible nets with his leaf blower, Davis continued to set his trap, Alyssa and I filled in all crevices in my tukel with steel wool, and Carrie, Alyssa and I all set out a variety of rat poisons along the fence and on the beams in our kitchen. So far the dead body count is 27 and we have only made a small dent in the population. But in my mind, a small dent is better than no dent!

Carrie gets major points for this. There is absolutely NO way I am touching one of these things, even when they're dead. Ever.

EW look at the teeth on these things! Explains how they eat their way through every kind of container in our kitchen.

School is going well. Sergeant Walker is reporting for duty at pre-school every day. Tell him a word and he can tell you what letter it starts with by sounding it out. His favorite things are gluing, wearing Thomas the Tank Engine stickers on his face, and listening to stories.

Davis loves math, history and writing hilarious limericks for people's birthdays.

Alyssa and I have been going to Nanok's village a couple of times a week to practice our Toposa and to get to know the people in this village better. This particular village is a little challenging but I am learning to be more okay with constantly being laughed at, proposed to, and told to bring them everything from beer to tobacco to shoes. Today's challenge: grind sorghum by hand. Bring it.

I swear I was doing exactly the same thing as Nanok but the second I started to grind the sorghum everyone started howling with laughter. While I admit my technique was probably a little off, I'm pretty sure the bulk of the reaction was because no other white people had come to their village to grind sorghum before.

Alyssa's turn!

Our awesome friend Renne visited us for several days. She lives in the land of delicious fruit and vegetables aka Uganda, and was generous enough to bring us things that we can't buy in town, like apples, broccoli, pineapple and ground beef.

My friend Nanok.

Don't judge the red face. It's 105 degrees or hotter every day, people.

So there you have it. Thanks for praying for us!