It's looking a lot like Christmas!! (not really....)

We have had another busy month and I think the best way to share what all has happened is to post the pictures...here it goes!!

A village trip
We went to the village of Kongou and will continue to make trips out there every month to help out a teammate while she is on home assignment. The picture below is the chief of this village. His brother was building a new grainery to fit all of their harvest of millet (in background). The picture below the chief is one of Rog and I getting to drink this millet in a form called cobbal. It is pounded down millet that is made into a ball, then water is added to make it a mush. Yep! It tastes as good as it sounds...especially with the bonus sand bits added....

Notice how Rog is looking at me drinking cobbal so enviously? No worries, he got to have some to! We all drink out of a communal bowl and scooper...and then wonder why everyone gets a cold at the same time! 

Field Day

The kids had a track and field day and it was a scorching 38C or so outside! Their school rents out this big stadium in the city (for a very reasonable price!) and the entire school gets to have lots of fun...I hung out with Nathan's Kindergarten class for a big chunk of time and it was fun (but tiring!) 

Here is Nathan running...um, don't know what he was looking at...I think he may have even placed third! 

Nathan sitting and waiting patiently with his Korean friends

Visit with friends:
I visit Zainabou once a week (a new language partner) and her 2 year old is so cute! Here she is trying to do what almost every woman, man and child does here...carry things on their head! 

Aissa and her friend playing "house"...her friend has a doll strapped to her back and the collection of broken plastic toys must have taken a lot of imagination to use! 

 Randoms:
Here are some more just random pictures

Nathan singing at his school Christmas concert

 Our Christmas corner:
Looked up how to make paper Christmas trees and tried to decorate the house a bit to get us into the spirit of things. It is weird here in that there are NO carols playing wherever you go, no snow, no decorations, no hint that it is the Christmas season! I know it is the extreme opposite back in Canada and the States where the materialism and huge shindigs have masked the whole meaning behind Christmas, but it is a bit hard for us to get into the spirit of things here.

Had another sewing frenzy...made some stockings and Christmas presents (headbands for friends and teachers!)

So the website I looked up said that these were so easy to make, you could make them assembly-line styles...um, well...these headbands took me 3 days to sew!! (I think there were 12 in total)

Christmas baking!! These sugar cookies turned out so yummy! The Internet is a great source...anyway, no Christmas cookie cutters but used some Noah's ark cookie cutters (for the first time!) and the kids had fun making them.

Well, that is all the excitement that I took pictures of (well, pictures that I am willing to make public, anyway). Let me take this time to wish each of you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! May the gift that God has given us this Christmas be real to each of you, may you experience His love for you through this gift, and may it overflow into the New Year! We miss our family and friends so much during the holidays, but we know that we are where we should be and look forward to spending time with our team family and friends again this year here in Niger.