in a nutshell

It's been a while since I really updated about life. So I'll try to hit some recent highlights (including some marginally embarrassing pictures).

My Ghanaian Husband

For some reason, I have spent lots of time at the Ghana Licensing Office in the past couple months. In August, I got my drivers license. But of course it would be absurd to actually get your license on the very day that you apply for it, so they give you a "cover note" until your real license can be made. (Here is my cover note from August complete with my newly cut mullet.)

So I was at the office a couple times a month checking to see if my real license was ready. (And I was also checking for some other American friends.) Every time I went to the office, I would go straight through all the madness and chaos to a certain office. And this is where the real story begins. This certain office is the air conditioned office of an important man. He likes to constantly remind people how important he is...saying things like "did I tell you to enter?" and "go, if I need you, I'll call you, and I can call you 20 times if i'd like to". So its always very entertaining sitting in there. For some reason, the man in this office took a liking to me. He started calling me "sweetheart" and chit chatting with me (while 3-4 people were waiting in his office and 10 more outside his door to be helped). He told me about his recent travels...how he visited his wife and kids. And about the new technology from New Jersey to make new licenses. One time he had malaria so we talked about that. And we talked about his church.

He was always sure that our real licenses would be in the next batch delivered. But of course they never were.

So finally he told me to forget the old license. To bring my friends the following week and he would get us one of the fancy new ones from New Jersey technology.

And somewhere in there I got promoted from "sweetheart" to "girlfriend" to "wife". First reaction: ew. He's an old married man. But, you gotta do what you gotta do to get a new license for you and your friends. So I just let him call me "wife". He always tells the other people in his office that I'm his wife. He laughs and I laugh. Its a good joke.

So I went back with my American friends and we got our fancy new licenses with the technology from New Jersey. But again, it would be crazy to assume that one could actually receive a real license on the very day you apply for it. So we got a new temporary license. The real one should be ready in 2 weeks (says Important Office Man). But I'm not holding my breath. My temporary one doesn't expire until I'm back in Georgia, so I'm not worried about it. Here's the new fancy license (mullet free I might add!).

The following week, I took Margaret to get her new license. But now I'm done! I won't grace their presence for a while now.

Malaria?

I started feeling bad last Monday at the license office with Margaret. So I came home and went straight to bed. (I'm so thankful for a flexible job!) I woke up a couple hours later with a fever. Took some advil and felt better by the evening. I even drove with Claire to pick up a team from Mississippi. But I didn't sleep much that night. And in the morning, my fever was back. So I went back to sleep for a couple hours. Claire came in to check on me...felt my head and said "ew, you're sweaty" and then started kind of laughing. My fever had broken and I was drenched in sweat. It was hilarious. We even took a picture cause it was so funny. And disgusting. (I was representing Colonel...he played football for Lousiana College back in the day and momma sent me this shirt.)

Of course, our first thought is Malaria. So I was pretty bummed...mostly because I do not want to have to tell Tom Downs that I have malaria!! So we call our trusty nurse friend, Laurie, and she asks me all my symptoms. Fever...headache...feeling like I was run over with a mack truck. Oh, and my throat kinda hurt...but I'm sure thats just cause we slept with air conditioning. She said "oh it might be strep....check your throat for blisters" And it was like a blister party back there! After the diagnosis, she told me what medicine to take and then I went straight to the shower cause I was still covered in sweat. That's strep in Africa for ya.

So I was down for the count for a couple days...sipping on sprite...taking antibiotics. And honestly, it was kinda nice to have a couple days to do absolutely nothing! By Thursday I was back to normal. Isn't it weird that I got strep in Ghana? Not some tropical disease like malaria or typhoid...but strep. Ridiculous. But I am oh so glad that I didn't have to tell my daddy that I got malaria.

The Flaturnating Kids

I finally got some pictures of the kids at the childrens home in Pram Pram. The one with my glasses on is Stephanie...the 5-year-old flaturnating one. :) The smaller one is Joshua, he's 4 and so cute! And the 3rd one is Kujo. We spent our time this Saturday in the toy room. Everyone else was outside playing, but they wanted to play here...especially after they made a house out of couch cushions. We played the trusty ol' "where are Stephanie, Joshua and Kujo?" joke ...then they would bust of of the house laughing. Of course, this went on for a quite some time. What kid doesn't love that game? (You'll see in one picture that Stephanie thought it was super funny to pretend to be asleep.)

I love these kids. They are so cute! And they say the funniest things. I'm so grateful that I get to go hang out with them. The youth group kids go every Saturday...I get to take them a couple times a month. Its awesome. I will be very sad to leave them in a couple months.

So thats the latest! This week is a crazy one. I'm helping at AIS with standardized testing. I'm administering the test to the 3 kindergarteners. They are so funny...when we finished yesterday they wanted to keep going because it was fun. And I'm "mom" again starting Wednesday...Claire is traveling all over Ghana with fellow Mission Society missionaries and one of their bosses from the home office.

Is anyone else freaked out that its already May? Crazy!