Pictures!

Our Apartment



This is Brett on the front stairs with Puffy - the neighbors cat. She is always trying to get into our apartment! We are taking the water jug in front of Brett to school with us because they have filtered water there. We bring it home and use it!!

This is our front door (from inside our apartment.) We have lots of locks on our door but only one works with our keys - we are working on that:)

This is our living room. We were surprised because its bigger than our apartment
in Kentucky!

This is our bedroom. It is weird to just use sheets for blankets, but we don't really need them!


Brett found this little guy on our wall! He isn't like the lizards we see on the street - he is smaller and a bit slimy. We turned on the AC and haven't seen him since.

However we did come across this in the window sill. Maybe he is still around?!

Our washer was leaking all over the floor a couple times. The school found out and bought us a new one!! It is a crazy set up in there but we are so glad to have the new washer. I tried doing laundry by hand one day -all of it - I just know that washers are designed to wash clothes better than me!

Here is the lonely dryer. The apartments aren't designed for dryer vents and the walls are cement so I don't see one being put in any time soon. We open the window when the dryer is on but it makes it so humid we took everything else out! I will take an empty room any day if it means we get a dryer!!:) Brett has been doing quite a bit of writing lately and the best spot is on one of the school's balconys. It overlooks the ocean and is beautiful!

This is a look onto the schools playground. The green fence is the end of it and on the other side - OCEAN! Not a bad view.

Sorry it took so long for us to get pictures on the blog. Hope you are able to get a glimpse at our world over here. It is a busy and exciting time! We are in a transition time with getting a new teacher - hopefully that means I will only be teaching 1 - 2 grade levels soon. Thanks for your prayers!

- Angela

Declined, Brother

I've noticed that the blogging world is unusually quiet, which says quite a bit about the lives of the writers who post in it. It's almost the end of September, and everyone is probably very busy with families, jobs, and school. Updating on the internet comes at the end of a long list of things, at this time of year.
Angela and I certainly keep active. We're actually walking a rather fine line of accepting, and declining social invitations, and so far we're batting 1000. (I can't say I actually know what "the best" possible batting average is, but "1000" came very naturally, and everyone knows what I mean.) In the past three days, we have accepted one invitation, and declined another.
On Friday Angela and I were walking back from school, and we said hello to a Lebanese man we had greeted once or twice before. This time, we actually stopped and talked with him for a few moments, and then he said, "You will have dinner with me." (Word for word, marc.) We said we would love to, and agreed to meet at 7 o'clock on Monday, at Comodre- which was last night. It was, really, a wonderful time.
His name was Youssef, and he is in the timber business, mostly ookume trees. When we met was the first time that he was going to eat that day, because of the feast of Ramadan. We talked about Lebanon, ignorant Americans (us), and he asked us questions like, "Why does America view Muslims the way they do." It was a terrific conversation, especially so because we had gone into the situation so conscientious of protecting information about ourselves. Youssef ordered for us, food we never would have known to get by ourselves, and then we went on to have dessert, and tea with him. He payed for everything, we exchanged phone numbers, and he told us to call him if we ever needed anything, or got into any sort of trouble.
This morning, we declined an invitation. Our house-keeper Rose said she had someone who wanted to meet with us in our apartment. When I pressed her, asking, "Who is this person," she smirked at me and said, "A brother from the church."
Thanks, Rose, but I prefer to hang on to my video camera and computer for another week or so.

Finally, I would like to address what an enormously profound day this is for album releases in the United States. The strongest line-up I have ever seen, hands down, and I would have dropped 80 bucks in Best Buy without a second thought. If you pick one of these up, let me know how they are.

Stars- In Our Bedroom After The War
Iron & Wine- The Shepherd's Dog (Great album cover as well. Intriguing.)
Will.i.am.-Songs about Girls (I'm not ashamed of this one. And the kicker is, I am well aware that Mr. Will.i.am. is almost certainly not being clever in the least bit. Doubtless he has filled up an entire CD with, literally, songs about girls. Oh well. I own Elephunk too.)
The Darjeeling Limited Sountrack (If there's one thing Wes Anderson can do besides make movies I love, it's make soundtracks I love.)
Matt Pond P.A.- Last Light (This is last, and also least. I really like Matt Pond, and would buy the CD, but he's out of his leauge today.)

Ok, that's all for now. Angela is going to put up a post with pictures later, so you don't have to visualize what is happening, or envision what we look like. You can just indulge your big fat peepers. Drop us an e-mail, we'd love to here from you-cheers.

Cranberry Text

A blog update with cranberry letters! At first when we arrived I refused to blog (no one really asked - I was just telling myself that I would not). To say I was overwhelmed would be a bit of an understatement. New country, new city, new apartment, and school starts in 3 days! At the time I felt frozen as if I could not process things fast enough to have a reaction. However the dust is settling here (only figuratively) and I am able to enjoy the city, the school, the people and our time here in Africa.


After our first week here we were invited to a picnic at the compound where the American Embassy workers live. The area is called Sablier and many of the Embassy workers and Ambassadors from other countries have houses there. It is beautiful!

We just found out today that occasionally they get movies from the military and when they find a good one they will watch it in the yard with a big projector so everyone can see it together. We are excited for the next one.

There is a big brown metal gate on the street level in front of our apartment. Open that and you walk up an entry way to the barred gate which opens to the stairway of our apartment.

We got dropped off in front of our apartment the first week here after running some errands. As the family drove off we opened our gate to see a refrigerator. Apparently while we were out a few guys dropped it off with a rented truck to move it in. (The school had an extra fridge and was letting us use it) We were not home so they left it next to the front of the gate. It was going to rain soon and we didn't know what to do but each take a side and carry it up the stairs. It is seriously a miracle that we lifted the fridge up the stairs. I mean it is a big refrigerator, there are a lot of stairs, and there was Brett and I in our flip flops!


This is the view from the front of our apartment. We have a balcony that looks out on the street. There is a bar/motel across the street that our night guards brother is the night guard for the bar (I thought I would throw in that extra tidbit of information). The ocean is straight ahead and the big brown building to the right is the La Meridian hotel.

This is the view outside one of our windows at the back of our apartment. We did not notice all of the satelites on top of the roofs until we took the picture! It is fun to hear the rain on all of the tin roofs behind our apartment. You would think it would be this soft peaceful sound but it is like the heavens open up and just let all the rain fall at once. It is almost like a thunder sound.

I was going to title this blog something like The rains in Africa thinking there was a song about I Miss the Rain Down in Africa. However upon Googling it I found out the lyrics are really Bless the Rain in Africa which is nice but not what I thought. (Apperently it is a common misconception because they had a couple websites clearing up the confusion with the lyrics)

I miss having face to face conversations with family and friends, but would not go back and trade this year here in Africa. I am learning a lot on all sorts of levels and want these new things learned to create a lasting change in me. I have loved the e-mails, reading other peoples blogs, and catching up with everyone. I wanted to let you know that we can see evidence of your prayers! Thank you.

- Angela

Bwitism, and Lists

Last night, Angela and I filmed an engrossing tour of our Libreville apartment, and we were planning to post it today- however, I didn't anticipate the need for video processing software on our computer, so it will have to wait until tomorrow.
Meanwhile, we're slowly starting to get adjusted to life in Libreville, teaching at the American International School,and our new schedules in general. I'm going to go ahead and take a break from speaking for the both of us, and say that on top of all those things, I am also beginning to enjoy myself here very much.
There's a lot to say since the last somewhat melancholy blog, so much so that I am not going to actually say any of it, except for the most very recent, which took place last night. (The rest will follow in three lists, which will contain the following information: Memorable Moments in Libreville, Things I Enjoy Most In Libreville, Things I Miss in America)
But first, last night. The local religion in Libreville is called bwitism, which mostly involves spirits, or rather keeping the spirits away. There are not really many friendly ones for a bwitist. Our apartment is right on the edge of a very large neighborhood that consists of many narrow, twisting little streets, houses that lean and run into one another, and just gobs of people in general. Bwitists are very active in this community, and Angela and I have heard them chanting, singing, and yelling multiple times in our short two weeks. Once I was able to catch the tail end of a crowd marching past our door, and once I was able to see a snippet of a witch doctor.
At around 9:30 last night I heard the now familiar whooping, and then singing, coming down the street, so Angela and I killed the lights and ran to our glass doors. (A perfect vantage point as we're on the 2nd floor.) There was a crowd of people coming right in front of our building, and two witch doctors were at the forefront, covered in long, white robes, pieces of straw, and they had giant white masks over their faces. It was, as you can imagine, an eerie sight. The two figures were dancing, and swaying back and forth, and people were "chasing" them, swatting at them with strips of wood bundled together. I want to try and get some video footage of it next time. If I do, I'll post it- and now for the lists.

Memorable Moments In Libreville
1. Going to church these past two weeks, and seeing true fervor, especially in music.
2. Seeing a parent get set on fire at the school picnic, stop, drop, and roll, ripping his clothes off, while people screamed and ran for water. Ouch!
3. Seeing the biggest penis on earth, a man was just standing on the corner showing it off. Who wouldn't?

Things I Enjoy Most In Libreville
1. The food. Wonderful.
2. Select people. (Our neighbor Rodika, the Solvigs, the Stambaughs...lots of them.)
3. The schedule.(You'dbe surprised at how much you can do without a TV)

Things I Miss In America
1. Of course, family and friends.
2. Lost Season 4. (I know it's not out, but I yearn for it.)
3. English
4. Movies in the Theatre (IMDB, why do I torture myself?)