Monday-Tuesday, August 8-9, 2011

Bonjour,

 

Joe had an early start to his day on Monday morning.  He got up at 3:00 to take Mack Siekbert to the bus station to go to Accra.  Mack wanted to get there, get his paperwork taken care of, and get back home all in the same day. 

 

Joe had several errands to run in town.  Danny asked me where Daddy was because he was ready to go.  I told him that he went to run some errands.  Danny said, "What? He went to see the Aarons?"  I had to explain what "errands" are. 

 

Since I was down with me leg on Sunday night, I didn't get the dishes done.  I spent most of the morning on Monday getting the kitchen cleaned up.  Then, I packed for our trip. 

 

My leg was still swollen in the bite area, and the swelling went down into my ankle.  But, it is starting to get better.

 

We left the house around 2:00 and headed to the ocean.  We spent the night at a hotel by the ocean.  We played in the ocean with the kids for a few hours until it was almost dark.  Just as we were getting out of the water, Gilbert picked up a jellyfish.  He didn't know what it was.  As he was saying, "Look, Dad!" Joe was saying, "It's a jellyfish!  Drop it!"  Instead of dropping it, Gilbert slung it, and he got stung on the face.  At first, we thought it had stung him in the eye, but after we got him calmed down, we discovered that it was below his eye and down his cheek.  Just as all of that was happening, Danny realized that he had set his seashells down somewhere.  He had been so excited about getting his own seashells.  So, I took him to try to find them.  He remembered that he had set them down on top of a rock with a little puddle of water in it.  The only problem is that there is a very rocky area with hundreds of rocks like that.  I helped him think about what he had done after we picked up the seashells. We found the right rock; Danny was happy!  We headed up the big hill to go get cleaned up for supper.  When we got to the top of the hill, Bonnie said, "Dad, did you get my seashells?"  We gave her some of Danny's.  : )

 

The salt water helped the swelling go down in my ankle.  The bite area is on the mend.

 

It took a long time to get our supper.  There was a big medical team also staying there.  They were preparing a buffet style meal for them; so, everyone else's orders got put on hold for a while.  It was nice just sitting there listening to the waves hit the rocks on the shore below.

 

On Tuesday morning, we ate breakfast and then headed to Ivory Coast.  We did not have any trouble along the way.  There were eight police checkpoints between the Ivorian border and Bassam.  We only got stopped once to see "what we had brought for them."  Joe gave the guy a New Testament for the four men at that checkpoint, and we were on our way again.  We got to the Posts' house around 12:30.  Jennifer had lunch ready for us.

 

I did some sorting and packing after lunch.  Joe and Dan picked up pizza for supper.  The kids had a great time playing with the Post boys.  We had a good time of fellowship.

 

A demain,

 

Joe, Laura, Gilbert, Danny, and Bonnie