Time flies when you're having fun

Two months!  TWO MONTHS!  I can't believe how much we've already done and our car hasn't even caught up to us yet.  Aaaah...our car...I never realized how much freedom there is in having a car.  A car is handy for spontaneity, independence or just plain I-forgot-to-get-frosting-at-the-store-and-I-don't-have-time-to haggle-for-a-taxi-so-hopefully-our-awesome-neighbor-will-let-me-borrow-some. (Thanks Susette)  **UPDATE**  Our car did arrive last week and the delicious taste of freedom has been sweet, as expected!

Chameleon caught at Ebbet's Field, a park for the US Embassy.  I imagine him screaming "FREEDOM!" Braveheart-style.

The taxis are always an adventure.  The haggling is fun for me, now that I know roughly how much it should cost to go places.  There's the Toubab price and the price for everyone else.  The Toubab (me)  pays quite a markup, but the haggling is part of the game.  So let's say I want to go to the Embassy.  From our house, it would probably be @ 1000 CFA, give or take, for locals.  So naturally the driver looks at me and says "deux mille sanq cent" (2500).  I smile and laugh a little and say "Mille franc"(1000).  He looks shocked and offended and says deux mille (2000) and I laugh and say" mille sanq cent" (1500) and he says deux mille again, to which I shrug and say "non merci" and start to leave.  He waves me back and we agree that 1500 is just fine, but that I'm a cheap American. (500 CFA is roughly $1, so it's not huge, but the principle of it.  It feels like Christmas if the one that stops has actual working seatbelts, but mostly they are missing and/or broken.  I mention that lack of a seatbelt only because riding in a taxi is taking your life in your hands.  One night we were driven home during a rainstorm with the guy hanging his head out the window, because his windshield wipers were missing.  We've been taken the wrong way and then handed off to another taxi after the first taxi got a better deal.  The second taxi took us through several back alleys and dirt lots and I was pretty sure we were going to end up as an international incident. (We made it)  Supposedly there are traffic laws, but much like the Pirate's code, they seem to be more like guidelines than actual rules.  Although, everyone drives very aggressively, I have not seen any road rage.  No screaming, No fingers. No tailgating.  Just the absolute certainty that that if you want to go somewhere you always have the right of way, no matter what and everyone else believes that too.

Of course there's always the bus, which is only 100-200 CFA to ride but, besides being strongly encouraged not to, there's always the fear of them tipping over or having your wallet go missing.

I have to admit it looks like fun!

The roads are filled with taxis, busses, cows, and horses pulling carts.  If it is a two lane road, expect 4 lanes of traffic.

The markets are some of my favorite places.  Aside from being mobbed by merchants (which is a little irritating)(NOTE TO SELF: Learn French/Wolof for "Leave me alone and let me look!"), the food markets are amazing.  More fresh food than I've ever seen in one place.

Fresh Herbs 

Magic fruit where the limes are yellow, the lemons are green and so are the oranges (and so delicious).

The biggest shrimp I've ever seen!

It doesn't get much fresher than this.  Pretty sure these are sheep.  The tails are long, so I think that means sheep.  Le Mouton anyone?

A cacophony of smells that are infinitely easier to handle in the morning than in the afternoon.  (David still won't go around the meat)

The girls are attending the International School of Dakar and we couldn't be happier.  The school has a very open policy on campus for the parents.  We can come use the library, the gym, the track and the pool during off hours.  

View of the track and field at ISD

The food vendor, Shady Shack, makes fresh bread and tortillas as well as the best hummus I've ever eaten. 

The girls are on the school swimming team and are improving by leaps and bounds. We taught them how to swim, but never stayed still long enough for them to learn the strokes. Having grown up swimming and competing on swim teams, my guilt is somewhat assuaged by their progress. 

Keegan swimming backstroke

Rowen couldn't resist a little wave as she pushed off the wall for the last length :)

The house is coming together.  We are waiting for Maintenance to come hang our pictures and then we can take a few pictures :) I can't wait to get out and sightsee a little bit and plan a couple of trips.  Still loving it, slow internet and all :)

Our first week in Dakar

We've been in Dakar for over a week now and things are finally starting to settle down.  My apologies for not posting sooner, between the jet lag and the lack of a working cell phone, I didn't take many pictures.  In my head, I didn't want to post until I had some pictures and I was stuck in an unending loop of no pictures=no blogging.  In the first few days, I got out of the habit of carrying my cell phone everywhere because I couldn't use it without a new SIM card and that wasn't as high on the priority list as sleeping.  Even after I got the new SIM card, I didn't want to use my prepaid time on the Dakar network and so I had my phone for phone calls and rarely if ever pulled it out for anything else.  Kind of novel and a little freeing.  However, again, I haven't taken as many pictures as I wold like.  I will remedy that this week and flog myself with a fresh pastry as a demonstration of my remorse.

Our arrival in Dakar was uneventful.  We arrived around 11am and the Embassy had sent over a lovely woman that expedited us right through the airport and customs.  Which was a good thing as the 3 hours of sleep I got on the plane made me incapable of forming a coherent sentence in English, much less French and since I seem to have the most French of the group *cough, cough Keegan cough cough  2 years of French cough cough*, it was nice to have someone there to help us.

David's new boss was waiting outside in a large van.  He had seen my pictures of our luggage and had envisioned Imelda Marcos and her shoe collection, no doubt, but the reality is that our bags aren't terribly big, just numerous.

Only 12, sheesh!

They drove us to our new house where our fabulous sponsors were waiting to welcome us with a fridge full of groceries and some CFAs (the local currency).  I can't even begin to describe the relief at knowing we didn't have to try grocery shopping or ordering food or even leaving the house.  Our sponsor and David's boss happen to be neighbors and great friends, so we all went to dinner together at a fantastic restaurant on the beach. 

We came home exhausted and discovered that we also didn't have hot water in the bathrooms.  While the water is never "cold" per se, it certainly wasn't warm.  So brisk showers were taken and we had the beginnings of our list of things to call housing about the next day :)

Our other water issue is that we can't drink out of the faucets.  All the drinking water has to be distilled.  We have a distiller and water bottles in the fridge, but old habits die hard.  Sure enough on our 3rd night here, I lined up 2 glasses of water and 2 cups of herbal tea for us to take our anti-malarial meds.  After the girls and I had each taken our meds and I handed David his cup, Keegan said, "Is this water from the distiller?"  Of course it wasn't, I had filled up all the cups at the faucet.  I had a moment of panic, actually several moments, where I envisioned the rest of our weekend spent in the bathroom or at the as-yet-to-be discovered hospital. There wasn't much we could do at that point.  We would either get sick or we wouldn't.  The girls assured me that it was ok and they knew I hadn't done it on purpose.  So they grabbed some bowls from the cupboard to sleep with and we said the only family prayer I've ever heard with the phrase, "Dear Heavenly Father, Please help us not get the trots." and went to bed.  We were indeed blessed and nobody got sick, but I haven't touched the faucet since.  Lesson learned!

Our house is beautiful and spacious enough for all our things and more.  I would post pictures, but I'm waiting for our Household goods (HHE) to arrive.  The pictures that housing sent to us left something to be desired.  (As much as I'm sure you're dying to see what it looks like, I'm sure you'd rather wait for my pics than to see the picture of the dining room table being moved by a gentleman with his pants coming down.)

The bugs.  Well, fortunately bugs don't bother me much, but that doesn't mean I want to share living space with them.  So far ants have been our major pest, but there have been a couple of tiny roaches and mostly little beetles.  Hardly an infestation, except the ants.  We had been hypervigilant about not leaving food out until we discovered that our ants aren't attracted to human food, they are cannibals of the highest order.  David killed a couple of bugs right before bed and rather than clean up the carcasses, he left them.  The next morning the hallway was swarming with the little barbarians, hauling away bug bits through my closet, to hole in the wall behind our bed. 

Yes that is a snail and yes it could eat her toes in one bite.

We did have a very fun trip to N'Gor (EN-gore) Island with a group from the Embassy.  Quite the adventure on a very full motor boat of about 50 of my new best friends and our life jackets that were mostly just for show and off we went for a short 2 minute ride to the island.  We got a couple of great pictures of Dakar and the ocean from the island, as well as a delicious Italian meal on the beach.  It even has a little walled in area of the ocean that forms a little pool where the kids can play after they eat.

We are having a great time settling in.  More pictures and stories next week!  

Making the most of it

When we arrived in Washington DC (technically Arlington, VA) back in February, we knew we had a limited amount of time to enjoy all that the area had to offer.  And we barely scratched the surface.

On our way! Look at those fresh faces, if they only knew...

Trying to balance the new job events like meeting new co-workers/graduation/classes with seeing old (and new) friends and family, as well as exploring this amazing area kept us jumping.  It's full to the brim with historical, cultural and natural opportunities. Not to mention the food! Good thing I've been wearing skirts and dresses more often, my pants may never fit again 😋

Colin Powell came to FSI to visit!

Flag Day!

Snow day on St. Paddy's Day, love the green fountain!

Riding the metro

David's parents visited and our friend helped us set up a White House tour.  

Our second White House tour in a week! So lucky ☺️

National cathedral, absolutely stunning!

The Cherry Blossom Festival was magical. Words cannot describe what this looked like at sunrise. We needed the  pictures to help remember, since we were stumbling around half asleep.

The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial is a stunning tribute to this remarkable man.

Keegan showing her Team Tesla pride next to Edison's display at the American History museum.

Our fabulous friend Sheila did a couple of photo shoots for our family pictures.  She's a remarkable photographer.  This is at the National Botanical Gardens.

We went to the US Capitol and the Library of Congress with our new friends the Oliver's!

Some new friends at graduation, looking very GQ.

Being silly with my new friend Brenda

Bbqs with old college friends

And with old military friends

Plus a whirlwind trip to Vegas 

One of our highlights was our Memorial weekend trip to New York City to visit my cousin.  We rode the train up from DC and I even hailed my first taxi with an ear splitting whistle.  It felt very New York-ish until my goofy grin showed everyone what a tourist I was 😉

View from the Empire State Building

 

Goofing off around the city and Brooklyn with my cousin Tom

Central Park.  David said he could almost live in NYC if he could live here...almost 😄

From the Staten Island Ferry

The 9/11 Memorial is just powerful.

And life happened.  David, Keegan and Rowen all celebrated birthdays here.  David and I celebrated our 16th wedding anniversary. 

Keegan graduated from middle school and Rowen graduated from elementary school. 

Choir concert with fun friends.

 Keegan's first dance!  

The time just flew. And now we are sitting in a hotel in Colorado, 18 days and counting until Dakar.  I can't wait to see what trouble we can get into before we leave!

 

Parlez-vous Francais?

Bonjour!
Comment allez-vous?  Je vais tres bien, merci! Comment vouz appelez- vous?  Je m'appelle Christie. 

Well, if you hadn't guessed it yet, I have been busy learning French.  At the beginning of May, the State Dept let me know that I would be able to take their 8-week FAST French program.  The catch is that since it is the same training that full time employees take, then the training + lab time is 40 hours a week.  I have kicked myself for years for not learning a language back when I was younger and my brain was in much better shape to learn to speak anything except English.  So, I am super excited at this awesome opportunity, but am juggling trying to make sure everything continues to get done. My apologies for not keeping up with our goings-on, but I have been immersed in French, moving, end of school year activities and just regular life.  2 more weeks of French!  When I am finished, I promise to post pictures of our soon to be new house in Dakar and some of the more interesting stuff we've been up to this past month!
Bonne weekend! A tout a l'heure!

To go along with my French theme and a hint about one of our state-side adventures :)

Where are YOU from?

Where are you from?

This should be a relatively easy question to answer.  For most people, I imagine it is.  For me it is an endless source of confusion.  I grew up in Arizona, lived in Texas for 8 years, Virginia for 1.5 and Colorado for 5.  So when people ask me where I'm from, I typically say Arizona, but since I haven't lived there for nearly 15 years, I feel like a tourist every time I visit.  Colorado is more recent and so it feels more home-ish, especially as we still tend to feel like we're living in a hotel here in Virginia.

This question has become even more relevant as we are preparing to move overseas.  We don't have a "home base" anywhere, so most of our decisions are based on the people we want to see on home leave and where we might possibly want to eventually retire to.  David's parents are in Southern Utah and mine are in Northern Arizona.  Las Vegas has interested us for a long time as a possible retirement spot, due to the large airport, military base, VA hospital, proximity to family and financial benefits (read: NO STATE TAXES!!)  

So with all this in mind we decided to make Nevada our "home".  My mom said this makes us Las Vegans or Vegans for short.  It was a crazy adventure in which we learned a couple of things.

1.  Never fly Spirit Airlines, at least not for long trips.  I don't care how cheap the ticket is, if I have to sit upright for 5 solid hours because the airline is too cheap to have reclining seats then I'll gladly spring for the more expensive ticket.

2.  Getting a drivers license in Las Vegas was bar-none the most pleasant experience I've ever had in a government office.  We arrived at 7:45am (15 min before opening) on a Saturday and were horrified to see a line of 300 people waiting to go inside.  The DMV was so efficient (yes, I used the word "efficient") that when they opened the doors at 7:50 (10 minutes early!), we had our ticket and a seat within 5 minutes and were sitting in front of one of their 37 windows by 8:10am, taking an eye test and getting our pictures taken.  We were out of there in under an hour.  It was unbelievable :-D

This was only one half of the building. Crazy!

3.  We stayed in the coolest hotel on the strip.  The Vdara was gorgeous and had the most amazing staff.  There isn't a casino inside, so no smoking or weird smells, no noise in the lobby and yet it was just steps from the Cosmopolitan that had all those things and more.  All the best things and none of the gross things, plus we even got a pretty decent view of the Bellagio fountains.

Home Sweet Home!

Pokes, Prods and Passports

Our journey to Africa is still a couple of months away, but there are so many things that have to be done before we can leave. But never fear, I have an unbeatable weapon.  It is not the first one, and it will certainly not be the last. They have never let me down and always serve me well.

 I have my....LIST!

I have made lists for as long as I can remember, for every situation, but this list has them all beat.  It even has sublists.  I've been so worried about forgetting something and so I have it all written down.  The only problem is that nothing was getting crossed off, just more STUFF getting added.  Now a list without checkmarks is a sad list indeed, so you can imagine my joy when finally last week, I was able to start checking things off my list! YAY!!  (It's kind of sad how happy this makes me.  It's the little things)

The first thing was our spiffy, new passports photos.  It is somewhat disheartening to note that this photo is one of the best ID photos I've ever taken, which isn't saying much.  I couldn't show any teeth, but if I smile too widely with my mouth closed, my eyes squint shut and I  look like I'm going blind.  So I barely smiled and now I have a photo that says, "So what if I get to travel the world with this thing...meh...I'm bored." At least I was having a good hair day.

Enthusiasm successfully tempered 

Naturally, the next big thing was putting those awesome little pics in a brand, spanking new passport!  Did you know that passports come in different COLORS?  I did not know this, so imagine my surprise when I find out that not only do we get to keep our standard blue passports for regular travel, but we get nifty, black Diplomatic passports for just such an occasion as entering a foreign country on a diplomatic mission.  (That sounds really clandestine and important, and it isn't, but I still think it's pretty cool :D )

The most recent thing to be checked off is all the dreaded vaccines that we have to get.  It is remarkable how many little bugs, viruses and bacteria want to kill us in Africa.  My arms feel like I played a particularly vicious round of "dead arm" with my brother Aaron.  (He and I used to trade punches in our arms when we got bored...siblings!) and the fun keeps going with round 2 next week.  Oral typhus anyone?!?  Plus another rabies shot.  We know how to party in the Peterson house :D