The one with the totes nar backpacks

Sunday: So we woke up on Sunday and got ready for church, which since all my white shirts are dirty and I wasn't expecting to have to look decent until Europe meant borrowing Andi's Columbia fishing shirt all of my frat daddy friends would be so proud. As soon as we were all dressed, however, Vero informed us that Viola was on her way and we decided we would stick around until she got here so we could finally get a straight answer on when, exactly, we were going to be moving to Segou. She arrived at probably 10:30am with our friend from the first night, Anodella. After a while of listening to Viola and Vero speak about the curtains and other things the girls had made for the Environmental Learning Center I've officially decided that my understanding of the French language has VASTLY improved. It's when, as seems to be customary here, they switch back and forth between Wolof and French that I get confused. Viola then interrogated us as to our progress with our various tasks which had been incredibly difficult seeing as there had been a rainstorm that took out our internet for a week or so. Then she informed us that we, along with another volunteer, would be moving to Segou on THURSDAY (This information has since proven to be false. Patience and trusting the Lord when you have NO idea what's going on seem to be our consistant lessons while here) Andi and I were PSYCHED. High fives all around and what not.
Monday: WE GOT INTERNET BACK!!!! I proceeded to post our blogs from the week and check my facebook which was overwhelming because my birthday was during the dark ages. It was decided that I have the funniest friends in the entire world. What was that you said? You want some examples? Well here are some of my favorites:
Patrick Casey Bush: "I send my birthday regards"
Cody McCarthy: "So I coulda sworn your birthday was during first retreat but I think I miss saying happy birthday this time around due to a time change.... So happy belated birthday!!! Tricky fingers changing their birth dates on Facebook" (This one was especially funny because he meant to say 'gingers' not fingers. bahaha)
Josh Click: "Happy Birthday Marzipan! Hope your summer is a wild one like only us redheads can experience!"
Leanna Tanner: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY soon-to-be-best-friend!!!! I know you're having a blast doing your thing in Africa, but I can't wait until your back so we can do some water aerobics!!! Get your goggles and swim cap ready babay!!!!"

Zack LeCroy: "HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARISSA YOU AFRICAN WONDERWOMAN"
Robyn Schell: "You are the most popular girl I know. Even more popular than Jenna Rose, and celebrities wear the same jeans as her. Hap33 BiRtdAi ♥"
Kate Paty: "clap! clap clap! clap ya hands! hap! hap hap! happy birth! c-section or natural, drugged or not, i'm THRILLED the Lord saw fit to put you on this planet. as opposed to other planets."

Anyways, you get the idea. My friends rock. A lot. (...my friends are cool too, btw. Might I just say that Sassy LaShay Abney made Showdown aka the awesome women's ultimate frisbee team out of Austin. Can you say rockstar? -A)

(And actually, before we got Internet back, Marissa was playing with her food at lunch.. it was so happy to see her! -A)

Tuesday: The past few days as you can tell have been fairly uneventful, with a few exceptions, one of which being that I, somehow in 108 degree weather, managed to get a cold. This wouldn't be that big of a deal except we only had 4 kleenex and 1 roll of toilet paper....Thats it. For everything. So I was learning the art of using a single sheet of toilet paper to blow my nose. The good news: WE GOT NEW BACKPACKS!!! The girls handmade us the most rad backpacks I have ever seen including the pink Jasmine backpack that I had in 1st grade. (They are AWESOME. Even though Marissa's fabric choice looks like something from India and mine looks like something from Mexico. Promise they were made in Africa! -A) Man. I'm so obsessed with it. Maybe we'll take a sweet "back to school" type picture to show them off. Until then I'm hoping that Andi will have some funny side notes to fill you in on whatever else has happened in the past few days but my memory is failing me. (There's not been much going on here except for helping the girls get the curtains ready for the Enviornmental Learning Center in Segou--yeah, the one we're not moving too yet. Word on the street is that its still not ready for volunteers yet, whatever that means. So, hopefully it won't be too much longer but seriously, who knows. Until then, we'll just be patient and continue loving the girls here. -A)

What I can tell you though is what the Lord has been teaching me about in my quiet times, which is modern day idolatry. So I knew that idolatry didn't only apply to golden statues of cows but for some reason reading through 1st Thessalonians and listening to the Breakaway podcast on it, it just hit me. America has a serious problem with it. It's an epidemic, and what's worse is that I'm right there in it. Here is what the problem boils down to: We, as human beings, were made to center our lives around something. We were made to worship something bigger than ourselves. We all recognize it, even those who choose not to believe that the thing we're meant to be worshipping is God. It starts with the recognition that we are never satistfied. There is something wrong in our world and we recognize that something's wrong with us too. So we decide what it is that we're discontented with (usually misguidedly) and we go to any lengths to fill that vacancy. So we look to things for a solution to what we see as our deepest need. Beauty: we spend exorbitant amounts of money on clothes, makeup, hair cuts, gym memberships. Money: we'll sacrifice our time, relationships, and sometimes even our happiness to watch money grow in our bank accounts. Love: we'll change our behaviors, heck, we'll change our personalities so that we can have the fairytale love story. I love the way Ben looked at this in that our childhood movies all involve the significant other coming to save them. Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White: The Prince comes to rescue them in their hour of need. Princess and the Frog, Beauty and the Beast: The Princess comes and makes them into something handsome and honorable. The silly thing is that we KNOW this isn't reality. People come with problems that don't just go away when you get married. But we WERE meant to be saved by someone, and that someone IS perfect. And He would and did DIE for us. Our lives were meant to worship Him, be filled up by His Spirit, come to Him in our moments of desperation. The headline of the story of history is that nothing lasts and nothing fully satistfys except Christ. Man, I wish that I could get this into my thick skull. But first you have to figure out what the things are that you turn to for your security. Ben gave three questions from Tim Keller's book "Counterfeit Gods" 1) Look at your imagination. Because your mind will go effortlessly to your idols when nothing is demanding your attention. 2) Look at your flow of money. What do you spend the most money on? 3) Look at your uncontrollable emotions. When you get really upset was it because you think something is too important and it gets threatened? My prayer for myself and all of you is that this summer we could be like the Thessalonians who turned from their idols to SERVE and LIVE for God. Nothing else satisfies.

Love all of you,
Marsa and Andi

The one where it was "good for women to do wash"

As if the birthday celebratory deliciousness wasn't enough, we spent the majority of the day Thursday at the church celebrating the First Communion and Confirmation of a few of the kids there. Mass was two-and-a-half-hours LONG. Perhaps it seems to drag on longer than usual because I have no idea what is being said in the readings or homiley and because its stinkin' hot in the Senegalese outfits Vero lent us. (Mine had a coffee bean print. No stinkin wonder all the Senegalese men want to marry me. It's my impecable style and dancing skills. That and the fact that the majority of the time I've been here I've either been throwing up or covered in hives. Really though.... my proposal count is at like 10...-M) The kids who were celebrating their First Communion or Confirmation were absolutely adorable though; the girls were all dolled up in their white dresses complete with all sorts of sparkley flowers in their hair, white lacey socks with their white patent leather heels and of course, silky white gloves. Hott mamas. It really was adorable--you could tell they were so proud of their outfits and that the whole day was about them! (Ok so Andi and I talked in an earlier blog about Sophee's 'weave', I just wanted to clarify that it is not just her. I don't think I have seen a woman's real hair since I've been here and it is CRAZY what they can do with the fake stuff. The first communion do's were out.of.control. Seriously there were like 20 ft long braids wrapped up in massive twisty buns with small glittery bouquets sticking out of them. Andi and I have no mirror here which is a blessing but also means that I am definitely losing in the hair styling competition here. By a lot. But the post rain humidity might allow me to win the afro competition, so at least I have that going for me.-M)


After the longest Mass in the history of ever (no but really-M), we went home with Vero and Sophee so we could give Leah the keys we accidentally made it to church with and Marissa and I took it as a chance to change out of the heat tents we were wearing. Whoop for t-shirts and capri pants! Vero was going to help the ladies in the kitchen at the church prepare food for the celebration and we tagged along. I was interested to see how the Senegalese kitchen worked. We ended up hanging out in one of the huts around the priests' house all day, watching the ladies prepare the salads--and by salad I mean plates of shredded carrots, cabbage, califlower, and pieces of tomato, bell pepper, cucumber and hardboiled eggs. It did have a tasty little dressing and strongly resembled cole slaw, I just had to avoid the huge blob of mayonaisse they are so very fond of here. (Amy Lorance, you would not like it one bit--they eat mayo on pretty much anything.) Trays of meat and rice filed in the little hut and the women busied themselves spooning it all onto platters to be served at the main table where the "kids of the day" got to dine with the priests and nuns. Shortly, huge buckets of frozen bissap tea and platters of little muffin-sized cakes and of course, more rum cake were hauled into the tiny hut. (Extra heavy on the rum, Andi loves it but I feel like I'm getting tipsy from the fumes of that stuff alone. Good news is that the crazy high alcohol content probably kills any germs-M) After everyone else had been served out in the courtyard, the women in the hut got to indulge in the remaining food. Pretty good way to spend an afternoon if I do say so myself.

I feel like I need to take a moment and explain to you the glory that is bissap tea. Now for some of you, you're reading the going, "Tea? Ugh, I don't even like tea. What's so stinkin' special about TEA?" Well my friends, bissap is in no way, shape or form like the black tea you're thinking of from America. In fact, bissap is purely hibiscus blossoms and mint, steaped in sugar water. (Extra heavy on the sugar. I like this stuff but more as a occasional frozen dessert. Andi on the otherhand...-M) Don't worry, once I'm home, I'm figuring out where to get some hibiscus and am making this all the time. When its frozen, its like a little popscicle. Which in Africa, is awesome to have. Vero calls it "freezy juice." Therefore, "snow cones" will now be refered to as "freezy juice."

Once we had managed to refuse seconds of cake, Vero took us outside into the courtyard where there was, yep, you guessed it--dancing! Everyone was in a huge circle and we found a spot by Sophee and Bernadette. Its become a known fact to us that we'll be forced to dance at these things. Its only a matter of time. Marissa has successfully made "the jerk" the toubaar dance. They LOVE it when she does that. We were enjoying just sitting among friends watching people dance around and pull their friends in with them when the best thing EVER happened. It started with just one precious little girl who came to sit in the chair in front of Marissa. Next thing I know, there's four little ones sitting on the bench next to her and the first little girl is sitting in her lap. PRECIOUS. Not too long after that, Burnadette's brother Surgey is sharing my chair with me, fascinated by my ring and bracelets. It was the greatest thing just to get to love on some kids finally! Even if we can't speak their language, we can communicate Christ's love through giving them attention and a smile. Sorry I just got all mushy with you, but it really was sweet and the highlight of my week. I especially loved that Surgey noticed the cross on my ring and then pointed to the cross on the steeple of the church. AWESOME that he made that connection. Seriously, God is so great. (If I could even begin to tell you how awesome this was, I would, but words cannot describe. The little girl in my lap couldn't have been more than 3 and her sister fell asleep on my shoulder while we were watching everyone else dance. Which was a multi-purpose dose of awesome because it kept people from pulling us up to dance.-M)

(Side note: During the first time we had lunch at the church I made friends with a little boy named Antoine. I may have mentioned him before but I can't check because the internet is still...out.... Anyways I fell in love with him and he's my new African boyfriend. Turns out the little nugget is twofold connected to us already. 1) He's the son of one of Sophee's friends from the choir who does NOT look old enough to be a mom 2) HE'S STANLEY THE SOCK EATER!!! I knew he looked familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it. I know now that it was the lack of socks in his mouth. Anyways, the wedding is on Juneteenth and you're all invited.-M)

Friday we finally were feeling up to a run first thing in the morning. Let me tell you something, that was probably the best little jog I've ever taken. After sitting around the house for three weeks, my legs were so grateful to move quicker than a brisk walk. Of course my lungs were freaking out, but the rest of me felt 110% better. We helped Veronique cut strips of fabric for curtains she's making for Viola's new house in Segou. Other than my monster nap after lunch, we spent the day reading and having more time for Bible study. Not having Internet sure does limit your activities since all the work we're supposed to be doing is completely dependent on that. One of the men that works for the Grandarmerie across the way from us brought melon from Dakar for us. It was like a cross between a honeydew and a canteloupe with an incredibly buttery taste but looked like an enlongated acorn squash. New things all the time. (In other news the neighbor boys next door figured out that if they get on the roof of their house they can more effectively watch the toubaar's perform mundane activites including but not limited to such exciting events as: Reading, praying, writing letters, doing laundry, speaking in their strange foreign tongues. They've also discovered that this puts them at the perfect angle for a sort of reverse Romeo and Juliet act where they blow kisses and profess their undying love for us. Our response: Asking Vero how to say 'You're to young for me' She said that would only encourage them so we decided instead on 'I have a big scary husband back in the America'.... That should do the trick...-M)

So far, Saturday has been just a typical as a Saturday can get: early morning run, long breakfast with the roomies, laundry, watching soccer on the tube and enjoying cold juice with a good book. Its been surprisingly cool today--I attribute that to the wind and the rain that's sure to follow. Sophee dyed one of her towels today and tie-dyed some little pieces of fabric for Marsa and I. Tomorrow she said I could dye Dingey (the name I've affectionately given to my once white, now tan, towel) any color I wanted. So I get to make Dingey a beautiful shade of Fightin' Texas Aggie Maroon and Marissa is going to dye her equally dingey v-necks all sorts of colors.

(If you're wondering about the title of today's blog here's the story: So Andi and I are handwashing our laundry outside when the usual audience of next door neighbors comes over to enjoy the toubaar laundry show when the following conversation ensues:

Neighborman:Wolofwolofwolof frenchwolof wolofwolof french wolofwolof

Marsa: I really can't understand you. Sorry.

Neighborman: Cette Americanne. You speak Wolof. Wolof is good.

Andi: We are trying to speak Wolof, we just didn't understand what you said just then

Neighborman: You must try. Wolof is good. You do the wash?

Andi: Yes

Marsa (under her breath): youhavebeenwatchingusdothewashforaboutfifteenminutes

Neighborman: Ahhh yes. Do the wash is good.

Andi: Yes doing the wash IS good.

Marsa (again under her breath): itsevenbetterwithoutguyswatchingyouhangyourbrasuptodry

Neighborman: It is good for woman to do wash

Eternally Patient Andi: Yes well we do our best

Marsa (you guessed it): nothingweamericanwomenlovemorethangenderstereotypes

Have pity on me for the lack of understanding and patience. I was sick and a little annoyed with the constant audience while I wash my skivies. Really. Back up off.-M)

We still have absolutely no idea when Viola will come for us to get to Segou but we love just doing life with these girls here in Koungheul. Serving them in the little ways we can and growing in community with one another, laughing all the time. Not at all the way either of us had planned for this summer to go, but that's what's so beautiful about God breaking your plans to make way for His much better one. Praise be.

(I have a couple of additional side notes. The first is that one of the ladies from the church is the English teacher at the school and a really close friend of Vero's and so we're probably going to go sit in on a few English classes and help out if we can. Praise God for another opportunity to serve. The second is that I seem to be sick again, I have a pretty nasty cough and it's super uncomfortable to breathe. So if you all could be praying for me just for protection from any major illness and that whatever this is wouldn't inhibit my ability to serve while I'm here, I feel like He is doing a great job of answering my prayer to be stripped of my own strength so I could rely entirely on His. -M)

We love you all and miss you more and more everyday!

m&a

The one where Marsa turned 21!!!!!

What what! I'm a big girl now. Granted, as there's no drinking age in Senegal the fact that I'm 21 as opposed to 20 isn't really that big of a deal. But we'll get there in a little bit since we last left you off on Sunday.


Monday- Fairly standard day at the WHEPSA house. We had our morning breakfast and spent some time in the Word. Since we've finished James we worked through Habakkuk which was surprisingly more challenging to get through than James. It basically is Habakkuk's prayers to the Lord about how bad things had gotten in Judah with the Israelites basically acting no different than the pagan nations around them. To say that Habakkuk is honest is a bit of an understatement, he is pretty much whining to God and questioning the wisdom of His decisions. It's easy for me to look at that and be like "Man, Habakkuk, get it together. This is the Creator of the entire world. He knows what's going on. Stop whining." but realistically how often when something happens that I don't understand, do I say to myself "Really Lord, THIS is what you have planned for me?" but studying through Habakkuk with Andi has made me realize two things -or rather, reminded me of two things that I often forget. 1) We have insanely limited perceptive abilities. Matt Chandler put it this way, if we were to put the entire history of the Earth so far into an hour long movie, I would only be in it for part of a millisecond. So it would be like being asked the plot of the movie from my milisecond long look at it compared to asking the Director and Author of the movie. We don't know everything. We can't see the long term effects of the things happening to us. But God can. So trusting Him is NEVER going to lead you astray. Trusting your own abilities... Almost always... 2) God wants us to come to Him with honesty in prayer. It's not like He doesn't know what's on our minds anyways so trying to hide our frustration, confusion, fear, or grief from Him is only hurting us. Apart from our Bible study we also got a chance to go to the center for the handicapped here in Koungheul with Leah. I cannot even begin to tell you how humbling an experience being here has been. The people here don't take anything for granted. Those girls work hard , doing embroidery and such, for the things they need, but they are so upbeat and gracious everytime we see them. There was a little boy who lived there that I'm pretty sure had never seen a white person before because anytime he was in visual range of us he would start wailing. Cool.... My mom said on the phone that it might have been because he thought we were ghosts, I'm not sure if she meant this seriously or as another jab at how pale I am.

Tuesday- Today we had a funeral to go to for a woman that goes to our church here. We were told to wear our Senegalese clothes, which felt super strange seeing as they're pink and flowery, not very traditional funeral attire. It was across town so we took a taxi... and by taxi I mean a cart pulled by a donkey. (And by "donkey" she means "bare bones horse" -A) I'm going to be honest, it is NOT my favorite form of transportation for two reasons 1) It kind of ends up being a Toubaar parade of sorts where everyone that you pass yells "TOUBAAR! BONJOUR TOUBAAR!!" and you wave at them and they yell some more and giggle and point 2) The poor donkeys (HORSES -A) (In my defense there are donkeys also-M) are so skinny and they have cuts all across their backs from the sticks they use to make them go faster. I know I sound like a PETA freak but it makes me sad. (She can't help it she's a vegetarian. -A) When we got there it turned out to be more of a funeral reception than an actual funeral. We sat for a while and talked to one another. I'm really loving the amount of time that Andi and I have to get to know one another. She is so. stinkin. cool. (That's not fair. Marissa is stinkin' awesome too. Like, really. -A) We were talking at one point about how cute the babies here are and how Vero is going to help us break into the hospital and steal one.-total joke, no worries mom and dad, international prison is not really my style- (Except that I was being serious. I'm totally going to steal a baby while I'm here. Leah is taking me to the health clinic tomorrow. -A) Then I saw a little puffy cheeked girl that was stinkin precious (ABSOLUTELY the cutest little chubby baby ever! -A) and Vero, while making fun of the baby by puffing up her cheeks, said the baby was ugly which lead to a conversation that went something like this:

V-That baby is NOT cute. See that girl over there. She is cute.

M- You just watch it. One of these days you're going to have an ugly baby, THEN what are you going to do

V- If I have an ugly baby I will give it to my mother.

A- So you're telling me you're going to give your baby away if it's ugly?!?

V- Yes but that won't happen because my baby will be pretty like me.

M- You're going to have an ugly baby for sure and then you're going to call Andi and I and we're going to come and get it.

So basically when Vero has an 'ugly' baby, Andi and I are adopting it. Either way I'm totally adopting a little African boy. No question. Andi will tell you about our boyfriends, Surgey and Antoine in our next blog, which should explain my decision.

That evening, while I was taking a shower, there was a really loud crash outside that sounded like an explosion of something electric-I was kind of hoping it was the amplifier that the call to prayer guy uses (Ah, if only it were that easy. -A)- and then what was seriously the most torential downpour I've experienced in my life. And the room we slept, since we obviously couldn't sleep outside, had a tin roof. It was awesome and made me excited for rainy season, but it also killed our Internet, hence the lack of posts since then. (Vero didn't want to run outside in the rain and unplug the "light box" aka the Internet hook up before the lightening got a hold of it. Obviously, if you're reading this you'll know its been fixed. -A) (Or that we're at an internet cafe... which at this rate is more likely. Like everything else, the people who fix the internet are in no particular hurry-M)

Wednesday AKA MY BIRTHDAY- First off thank you to all of you who sent me birthday texts they were so wonderful :) I can't wait to have internet again to see the messages there. Andi and I took it pretty easy. We went and got peanuts and Cikilop (chocolate covered cookies with coconut and marshmallow) and during lunch the girls got together and bought me a pineapple soda which was delicious and so sweet of them. Leah told us that most people here don't know how old they are much less when their birthdays are so the fact that they made a big deal out of mine was really really special. (It was a pretty wonderful day, I must say. These precious girls went out of their way to make it awesome. -A) My birthday present to myself was a call to both my parents and Sarah. There were about a billion people I wanted to call but seeing as the calls are a little more than a dollar a minute I thought I would keep it to three short calls. It was SO good to talk to her though. Getting to communicate through facebook and emails is great but there is something about hearing a familiar voice that made me so homesick. We started plotting out our joint 21st birthday party for when we get back and all of the things we're going to cross off our college bucket list next semester. (for example: impulse trip to the beach to watch the sunrise, start an epic prank war, run in the Muddy Buddy and Warrior Dash, and taking Will and Britton camping because somehow they have managed to have gone 20 years without ever camping. So much for rugged manliness) To say that I miss her would be a huge understatement. Andi and I then went to church choir practice with Sophee and it was gorgeous. Ugh. If we were staying here longer I would 100% be joining the choir. (Really, words cannot describe the sound these people make. Its stunning. I recorded a bit of it with my phone, so hopefully some of you can come close to understanding what I'm talking about. Surely this is what angels in Heaven sound like. -A) While we were listening to them sing one of lady's sons was staring at us and she put him down so that he could come over to us but he got about halfway then thought better of it and went to play with the drums. Andi says it's a guy thing. Haha. When we got back we had a special birthday dinner of SALAD AND FRIED EGGS!!! (AND FRENCH FRIES!!) AHHHHH woooooooo. Gosh. It was so good. Andi even got to have chicken. (WHOOP! Best. Chicken. Ever. Sorry Dad but I had to get excited about something OTHER than fish! -A) It was a good birthday for both of us. The best part of the day for me was right after I got out of the shower Andi said "Vero, Sophee... Kaiyea (which means 'come here') we have something for you" Which of course I took to mean that Andi and I had something for the two of them, because I'm an idiot and had already forgotten that it was my birthday. We went into Vero's office and there was a cake with a huge candle in the center. They all sang me happy birthday and Sophee decided that would be a good moment to start tickling me. It was so so soo soooooo sweet. Not the traditional (American) birthday cake but still delicious. All in all it was an incredibly humbling and wonderful birthday. Thanks Andi Pants for making it one of my best ever :)