The Little Bit Bigger Picture

These trees are Kenny's absolute favorite thing in Africa. He took this picture one Sunday evening on a moto ride. I think I should add a Bible verse and frame it!

Our house is now fenced and gated. It is necessary because of Molly but also nice to give us a bit of space. Not so many people just walking in.

We sit out behind the village. The sides of the road are covered with trash. They heap it on a pile and burn it occasionally but it blows around. Plus most people just throw things where they happen to land. I keep thinking about paying a few children with candy to pick up a bag full every day or something.

The shortcut trail through the back of the village. Walking only!

The blue building is a small store. On above and below pictures. But two different stores.

Atonkwa is kind of on a hill. You come into town at the bottom. You can turn left and loop around the side of the village or do what we do an go straight up the hill in the picture above.

At the top of the hill is a Catholic church. There is a Muslim Mosque in the village as well and we here the prayer calls.

And school.

Continue past the school and the road kind of dead ends at our house. There is a place to turn right or left that both dead end as well. 

And that is our village!

I don't have many road pictures. As we approach rainy season we are finding out how flooded the roads to our house get. And muddy and very, very bumpy!!! This picture is in Abina, the village between the shop and Atonkwa.

A bit of an update on what has been happening in our lives. Kenny's school started Monday. So far things have been going well.  Kelsey is having a two week break from school and we are so glad it happened to be the first two weeks Kenny has school. One less person to worry about getting out the door! They will go back the beginning of May and then the term ends the end of July. They have a 6 week "summer" break before the next term starts in September. Austin is busy as always. He had a high fever yesterday and spent the day laying around but today he is fine again. Brent has had terrible rash since we got here. I thought it was heat rash, at least the heat definitely made it worse. Last week I finally got to a pharmacy and asked what to do for him. She gave me an anti bacterial, anti fungus, anti allergy cream. It is doing wonders! Austin and Kelsey both had it across their shoulders as well and I had broke out with a small patch too. So maybe it wasn't heat rash??  I was thinking of all the things I want to get done while Kelsey is home. So far I haven't started on them but I did spend most of the day away today and Austin needed extra attention yesterday. Almost all the schools have break right now so we have an abundance of children around all day if we allow them to be. It gets a bit claustrophobic at times so I usually send them home in the afternoon so we can rest and nap. They had a funeral on the other side of the village last weekend and we heard music from Friday eve to Sunday eve. This weekend they had a funeral at the Catholic church and a speaker was pointed toward our house. They may as well have had it in our front yard! Till Sunday afternoon I was about dippy. The "African beat" is real!!!!

May 1 Noah Beachys and Jethro Martins both fly back to the US. Jethro's will be back the end of May. It is going to seem empty around here! When church is as small as ours, every person is missed when they aren't there. We are going to start counting down the weeks to the beginning of June when my sister and three friends come to visit. It is three months today since we arrived. So much has happened in that time!

In front of the shop.

 Ready to leave the US!