Travel Update

Herve bought me meds

You never think about the days past when you don’t sneeze until you pass a week full of days, each of which had at least one violent sneezing fit. So this is my life now, I guess. I blame Germany, the sudden drop in temperature that caused me to develop a cold and probably malaria. I’m still recovering. Dr Claire prescribed antibiotics and when I’m miserable enough, I actually follow her advice. For the record, Claire, I usually follow it better when you actually bring me the medicine, but I did go into the pharmacy here and buy meds all by myself. Well, technically I tried to walk in the wrong door in a daze about 10 times before I realized that someone inside was yelling at me and pointing to the other door. The good news is that really proved how sick I was to the people inside and they gave me an antibiotic without evening asking for my prescription. Oh wait-they never ask for it here in the land of freedom, aka Chad. All you suckers in the West with your fancy doctors have to spend a day getting an appointment just to acquire the necessary paperwork to purchase life-saving medication. I just walk in the pharmacy with an illness my friend diagnosed over whatsapp and I’ve got meds!

Malaria test was negative, but malaria meds
stopped my fevers, so who knows what disease I had?

Anyway, I wasn’t intending to write about my illness. I had a few international trips to mention, Thanksgiving Cooking Proof Photos to post, and some news for the interested.

A few blurry weeks of sneezing ago, I was in Germany, staying with the parents of my lovely friend Rhyan, speaking at some German schools and churches and enjoying beautiful fall leaves, courtesy of German Autumn, excellent food courtesy of Marilyn, and exciting tours of Hamburg, Lübeck, and Wismar courtesy of Nils. I’ll post a few photos, but really—you know I’m a terrible photographer. Go online and find good pictures!

A selfie with Nils.
I was laughing because when I told him we
should take a selfie he said, "Ah. Ok. Ja. Zelfie. OK. Zelfie."
This is in Wismar

Another zelfie with Nils (Marilyn doesn't like photos)
at the violin concert they took me to in Hamburg.
It was beautiful.

Enjoying the Autumn colors for the first time in many years.

Shopping in Germany (Ok fine-this is how I always shop)

Pretty

Pretty

Marzipan!

Lantern in the cool old boat restaurant we went to
in Lubeck for Nils birthday.

IAS Germany with Tabea in Stuttgart!

At church with Pastor  Gertrude on the 100th Anniversary of the end of WW1-
very interesting experience. For people whose ancestors fought on
different sides of two wars.

Adorable dogs

Best Christmas decorations ever!
Too bad they weren't edible.

I used some cooking techniques that Marilyn taught me to stuff a chicken for my Thanksgiving party, which I had to have because no Americans invited me to theirs, and I like to eat Thanksgiving food. Even if Americans HAD invited me to their parties, I would have still had to cook my own food because I like my family’s Thanksgiving food, and I wanted to eat it. So in addition to stuffing a chicken, I made the following: dressing (Southern Style-because you can take the girl out of Tennessee but she will still make southern dressing for the children she raises in Indonesia, and after multiple hot and humid Thanksgivings trying to convince one of them to eat things besides the canned no-berry cranberry sauce someone graciously sent to them in Indonesia, said child might realize that she likes the mush in the casserole dish and eventually learn how to make it herself), cornbread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, pecan pie, sausage balls (had to make the sausage and bisquick myself because life overseas!), cream cheese icing for the pumpkin bread, and peas because I thought we should probably have a vegetable and I like peas. Special thanks to Debbie W who brought cranberry sauce (without the annoyance of berries in them—perfect) to make everything that much better. Very special thanks to Claire who made whipped cream for the pie (since she disapproved of my spray whipped cream) and washed all the dishes while I was out walking Joe. She really is the best person in my life right now, without her I would be sad, lonely, sick, and still have a sink full of dishes in my house. She even spent the night with me in spite of the fact that a rat ran right by her mattress after Joe chased it into the bathroom. I then called the guard and had him come in a dispose of the rodent because Joe is not a killer.  Though he does love fighting with goats, even when he gets head butted.

Yeah, that's me cooking!

Chicken turned out GOOD.

Joe watches Claire make whipped cream

He loves to lick the beaters!
But this is me giving him one, and not Claire.

I made all this food!

Went to Bitkine with this cool chick for a couple of days.

I had a Christmas party for Antani's kids. I fed them
tons of sugar and then took them to see Santa at the Hilton.
They looooved him because he gave them candy.
Incidentally, that's also why they love me.

Lastly, I went to Senegal, got stood up for the first two days, but then Tim showed up finally, no thanks to Air Burkina, and now I’m engaged. But I’ll save that story for later because this post is long enough already. 

Reading my giant book on the Balkans,
by myself on Ngor Island

Ngor Island is cool.

Senegalese fisherman

Making fun of a girl who was doing this same
pose for her instagram photo. I did it in one shot.
She was posing and photo-ing for at least 10 minutes.
I just have natural instagram skills without actually having instagram.

Photos we sent to the sisters

If you want to know more, I'll probably write more about the guy later, after I get his express permission to publish all the poems I've written for him and the video he did for me of an Irish Riverdance, the traditional way to propose marriage in his part of Northern Ireland.