I love these Africans!

The people here are hilarious! Especially in the English camp that we just finished today (Friday). By the end of the week, we had two girls and two boys in their last year of high school and three men in their 40's.

Every day, we told them a Bible story and we discussed the story and put it into a sequence of events. We've done the Prodigal Son, when Paul saw Jesus on his way to Damascus, Zaccheus, Noah's Ark, and when Joseph interpreted Pharoh's dreams. We also gave them a verse that we memorized at the beginning of class. Today, a couple of them could recite every verse we memorized. All of them remembered at least one. The Bible says that when God's Word goes out, it does not come back void and that is my prayer. That these men and women would continue to think about these stories and verses and that God would use His Word to work in their hearts. I think three of the men want English Bibles. Their names are Umar, Mr. Jalo, and Ibrahima. Please pray for them. Also, pray for the rest of the students: Mr. Lum, Boss (who was our Pular tutor), Jenaboo, and Bella. None of them know Jesus as their Savior.

So I think I already told you that we taught them to play badminton. So funny! We also taught them how to play baseball and volleyball. But most of them already knew how to play volleyball. Playing baseball with them was SOOO funny! They had no idea how to play. We explained the rules and taught them how to hit the ball. The first boy up to bat, hit the ball and ran with the bat...but not to 1st base...he ran to one of the outfielders and stood next to him. By the time he figured out what he was supposed to do, he was still safe because the other team didn't understand the concept of trying to get him out. As time went on, they got better and most of them understood the rules. We acquired a crowd of about 15 little kids. They didn't cheer for us, though. They only booed a couple times. We only played three innings because it was really, really hot. The students loved it! At the beginning of our lesson today, we asked them what their favorite sport is and a couple of the guys said baseball! Volleyball was a lot of fun too. They didn't exactly follow all of the rules. At times, a couple of the guys would pretty much catch the ball and throw it to the other side. Definitely not right, but we let it go.

We sang "Old MacDonald" with them. But we sang it with the English animal sounds and then the Pular animal sounds. Hilarious! When we would sing the Pular sounds, we would say Mamadou Jalo instead of Old MacDonald because Mamadou is a very common name here and there are only about 5 or 6 last names at the most. The Pular sound for a cow is mboo. A cat says mew. Both are pretty close to ours. Their sound for a rooster is coo-koodoo-koodoo. The rest of the sounds are just imprssions of the animal. A frog does not say ribbit. They just make the noise that they hear.

We made pizza for them today. Most of them liked it. Boss hated it. He walked to Mamadou's cafe across the street to get something else to eat. Besides today, we've had rice and sauce everyday for lunch. One of the days, they told us how they make maffe tiga (peanut sauce) so I'll try to make that when I get home. I know that it won't taste anything like it does here. And I'll have to put a little gravel in the rice so you can really get the African experience!

I've laughed a lot this week! It's been a lot of fun!

I'm almost over my cold. Only a runny nose now.

It's been raining a lot more this week. We took a shower in the rain a couple days ago. Of course, we left our clothes on. And we wore shoes so we wouldn't get shocked if lightning struck. It was freezing. When we were done, I realized that a couple little African boys had been watching us. I'm sure it was funny to watch four crazy American girls giggle and scream while getting soaked by the rain. We each took a quick, hot shower when we came in. I realized that that was my first hot shower since I got to Africa!

I can't believe that I'll be home two weeks from tomorrow. I don't feel like I've been here for a month. But I miss you guys a lot and I'll be happy to come home.

Love you!
Sarah