She said sure, why not? I've never done that before. Should be fun (or something like that).

This photo is irrelevant. Hervé thought it would be
funny to make me try on his jacket and take photos.

So after hundreds of proposals from men all over the world, most detailed in this blog, I finally picked one. This one doesn’t want a green card, but he also has not offered to buy livestock for my father. My Moru Mama, aka Repent’s mother, has told me to tell him that he should just give the livestock to them—she’s requested some cows, goats, and sheep. After all, she says, I’m in their family, and it’s only right.

Herve says, “I knew it! I told you that this year you would be getting married by the end of the year.” Urbain was impressed by his prophetic abilities until I reminded everyone that he says that every year and I’m not getting married until next year. But he is taking credit anyway.

Really it is Claire who should take credit because she was the one who gave me Tim’s contact information when I remembered he was drilling wells in Burkina Faso back when Neverthirst told me to check out other possible places we could look into doing projects.

But maybe I should credit Neverthirst with letting me do the project out of shame that none of them knew that Burkina Faso existed and I made them feel very stupid about it.

In front of an old well in the ruins of an old city in Cyprus

I knew about it, of course, and here I can give the credit to my maternal grandparents who went on a mission trip there back when it was still called Upper Volta. I heard many stories over the years about my grandmother teaching literacy out in bush schools while my grandfather helped dig a pond for farming because he was the only one who knew how to drive a tractor. I really thought it was common knowledge that Burkina Faso is a small, landlocked country in west Africa, and I wanted to go there while my grandmother was still alive to be excited with me about going there. And I used Tim and Neverthirst and Claire to get me there. That’s how I do. I’m mercenary like that.

But if we go back farther than Claire but after Upper Volta became Burkina Faso, we should credit Les Cedres with being the cheapest option to study French that would accept me on my weird schedule. Because that is where I met Tim and Claire and a bunch of other nice people and acquired a rudimentary knowledge of French that allows me to fake my way through the UNICEF meetings I can’t make Herve go to.

I took this photo of Tim in Burkina because he told me not to,
so I could bring it back to show Naomi.
In spite of this incident, he decided to text me
every day all day until he eventually got in the habit of
talking to me and thought--well, might as well marry her.

Tim and I have talked about the one conversation we remember having with each other while we were there before going our own ways and forgetting about each other. We were in the kitchen, I think because I had clean up duty, which wasn’t fair really since I almost never used the kitchen, being content to acquire my necessary nutrition from gummy bears and French mustard-flavored chips. He was eating or cleaning or making coffee or it clearly didn’t make much of an impression. Someone had told me that the tall guy worked in Burkina Faso doing water projects like I do, so I went over to say hi and discuss drilling in Africa and then considered my social duty for the day done. Looking back on the French school time, it was right after my dramatic escape the fighting to hide in the bush time, and I may have been having a bit of PTSD. I avoided social activities more than usual and spent a lot of time in my room, angry at the world for caring about what happened in South Sudan only as long as I was there, but while my friends were still there, still hiding, still uncertain about their future, no one really cared (so it seemed to me). Plus, as mentioned previously, I ate lots of gummy bears and smurfs and crocodiles from the nearby shop and I never really needed to leave my room for sustenance, only for classes and going for long runs around town on the coulée verte.

In Northern Ireland- after traveling all night from Chad
 to get to his tiny island,
he decided the best thing for us to do is climb the tallest
mountain in NI. Fortunately, N Irish mountains are mostly
glorified hills, but in spite of the fact that I nearly died of frost bite,
it was, of course, a great idea and exactly what I wanted to do.

At any rate, I ended up in Burkina Faso at the end of March this year with strict instructions from Claire to set Tim up with Naomi because they are both tall, close in age, and northern Irish. Clearly I failed in this endeavor, but it is not fair to say that I didn’t give it my best effort, TIM. I really did. I talked about her non-stop. I thought he would start to wonder if I was obsessed with her (I am), but he claims he didn’t notice. Probably because of my heart-stopping beauty and relentless charm. Or because he learned so quickly to ignore what I say. I think his favorite thing to say to me is "you talk such rubbish." It's poetic compliments like this, given in a classic country Northern Irish accent that really made me fall for him. To be fair, I'm just taking Naomi's word for it that it's "country," as I can't really tell the difference (yet), except that I've noticed (with only a tiny bit of sadness) that he doesn't talk like the Leprechaun from the Lucky Charms commercials.

He's a giant!

 Fortunately, neither Claire nor Naomi were upset when they found that the crazy man kept texting me-when he could have had Naomi or possibly Claire (she's basically a doctor-what a catch!!) if he really worked for it. In fact, they have thought it was hilarious good fun from the beginning and told me definitely to keep talking to him. I knew if I did, I’d probably end up marrying the guy, which was a strange thought to me, but I knew it would make Herve very happy and so for his sake, I went along with it. And I will say, the man proved himself because it is not easy for someone well over six feet tall (WELL over) to fold himself up like an accordion in order to fit in an airplane, and for months he followed me around the world—Cyprus, New Zealand, the US (the south no less! the clash of accents and inevitable miscommunications were so fun for me), Senegal (to get the ring), and he even condescended to meet me at the airport in Dublin, though he showed his disapproval by showing up late.  In fact, we have yet to be in the same country together twice (though by the time I get around to publishing this post, that might have changed).

When Micaela told us we look dumb
standing next to each other, but it seems
I am almost to his shoulder.

In conclusion, we are a ridiculous couple. Micaela, when taking a photo of us in New Zealand, burst into laughter at the sight of us standing next to each other and said, “You guys really do look dumb.” (I come up to his elbow, I think.) There are also a few years (or maybe a lot of years) separating us in age. And I think he is secretly disappointed that I’m American, but consoling himself with the fact that it’s only passport deep at best and he's moving me to the UK because he had the foresight to buy a house there and I own--nothing, I own nothing (he's not marrying me for my money and property, I know that). He also thinks it’s hilarious to remind me that he has two passports and I only have one. It’s a sign that he knows me well enough to know that is a cutting insult, as I am actually really jealous of that.  For people who don’t know us, we don’t look like we should be together, but for all the people who do know us, they’ve been 100% on board with us even when we weren’t. We think that’s a pretty good sign. Plans fail for lack of counsel, so says Proverbs, so we made sure we had plenty of counsel, even though we avoided all publicity.

And he loves dogs! OK, he pretends that he just
thinks they're fine, but he goes out of his way to
walk dogs that aren't even his (for real, Emily-he loves Loustic!).
Please enjoy this rare sighting of the top of his head.

For me, I’ve always said that I didn’t want to get married unless my life can be more useful and productive and exciting with the person I marry. (Because what’s the point? I already have an exciting life that is occasionally useful!) And with Tim, I really feel it will be. But maybe that will just be because we won’t be having to spend time and money traveling all over the place to see each other or texting each other all day, so we can get more stuff done. Incidentally, I’m pretty sure he asked me to marry him because he was tired of dealing with unstable Chadian internet while he was trying to talk to me. Anyway, he’s got a few weeks left to change his mind, some of which will even be spent in the same place as me without the mediating help of the internet cutting out when I'm getting annoying. But after that—it will be too late! Stuck with me for the rest of our lives—well, probably at least for the rest of his. Seeing as I’m younger (MUCH younger), I might outlive him, and this is why this is such a crucial decision for him. But then again, I have been living on a steady diet of processed foods, and if the health nuts are right, I’ve only got a few more years left to live, so he could still have another shot after me. The point is—you never know what might happen so we are planning for life.

In case you think I’m being too flippant about the sacred institution of marriage, I have two things to say about that:

1)   Of course I am—that’s how I deal with important life decisions.

2)   I really am thankful to have this very unexpected, undeserved blessing in my life. It really is undeserved--I know so many other single ladies who will be much better wives than I could ever possibly be, and I don't know what Tim did to deserve me, because he's a decent guy who has only ever done maybe 2 or 3 regrettable things in his life, which he will feel badly about forever, I'm sure, which should be punishment enough without him having to share a house with me. I’ve often thought that since God has given me so many other good things, blessing me with someone to share life with seemed almost excessive. But He gave it to me anyway. So I’m looking forward to having someone along for the adventures (he doesn’t have a choice), who can reach the things on the top shelves for me (extra storage space in the kitchen that I could never use before!), who laughs at my jokes (most of them), and makes me laugh (often intentionally!), and who will only be apart from me for shorter periods of time when we both want to be apart and/or we are working, unlike friends and family up to this point who I’m always saying goodbye to for months or more while I pursue my dream of wandering around the world and occasionally doing something nice for other people. I think we make each other better -- and not just because I will make sure that he rinses the soap off after washing dishes and he will make sure that I stop eating gummy bears for breakfast (or I expect him to make a genuine effort on this at least).

He brought me some old gummy candy he found

It had all turned brown

I ate it anyway. It was not too bad.
Yeah, I'll probably die first.

So we’re getting married in February. I wish you all could come, but I also wish I could just sign papers and call it DONE, and that seems unlikely. I’ll try to find ways to video in friends from around the world or Facebook live it or something. I’ve already convinced Joanna to plan everything—if only she would stop asking me my opinion about things (she never used to care about that) and just accept that I don’t have an opinion, but I still want to do that wedding cake tasting thing that people do (or I think people do it because I saw it on a TV show once) because I like cake. And next year we’ll spend a few months in Burkina Faso, a few months in Northern Ireland, and a few months in Chad until we figure out where we want to end up. They say you should try to keep your first year of marriage somewhere familiar to both people and so we decided to spend it in between airports. And we’re happy, and we’re looking forward to the next chapters of our lives after this unexpected plot twist brought us together.

On the back porch at my parents' house in TN

Brace yourself for many more photos of me and Tim (don't act like you didn't want them).

In Cyprus when we were trying to decide if we wanted to like each other.

After climbing around a bunch of rocks in a canyon near Paphos,
we decided we did.

Had already been planning to visit my wonderful friends Micaela and Tim (it's what all the cool guys are called),
and Tim decided to come along. His first 15-17 hour flight as a 6'6"man (as a woman who might be 5'3" but isn't really sure, I've been on many such flights--thanks Mom and Dad for raising me in Indonesia!--and even I don't love them). He got called out by NZ immigration too and lost his driving license in Dubai so I had to drive the rental car.
I only knocked one mirror off driving in Wellington and we found it anyway and put it back on.

On the bridge in Zealandia, showing off how much taller he is

In front of a crater in Rotorua (NZ)

The Parthenon in Nashville makes excellent steps.
Standing on one makes me the same height.

Tim hates this photo because he says he looks like a goofy giant,
but I think we can all agree that my mom is the one who looks like a dork here.
Tim's trying to lean down to make it look like he isn't looming over her, but it didn't work.
I enjoyed listening to them having conversations, knowing that neither had any idea
what the other one had said, but politeness kept the conversation going smoothly.

Senegal selfies

Isn't this a nice photo?
We took it by accident while we were trying to get a ring photo and I kept laughing.
Tim proposed on Facetime without a ring after I specifically told him not to.
I didn't want to go ring shopping! But he made me in Senegal, and I knew
he would be no help, so I just did everything as fast as I could, and we are mad because we probably
could have saved at least 10.000CFA on the stone if we had bargained, but we made that
little old man and his son so happy! And then we had the ring bit made out of bronze, I think,
so that my finger will always be green, and that will remind me of Ireland, but
I won't talk about that because he's from NORTHERN Ireland, and anyway
it is very possible that this ring will break soon, so I'm telling everyone
that we did it on purpose so that our love will last longer than my ring.

We also took this photo of me trying to fix my hair
while Tim moans about how long it's taking.

Family portrait! Joe hasn't met him yet.
I hope he loves him, otherwise we will have to live separate lives.
(Tim and me, I mean--Joe sleeps on my bed. Unless Claire is staying over,
and then he sleeps on hers. Sorry, Claire!)

Home Comings and Goings

 I recently got back from a much-needed break, much of which I spent in the bathtub eating Twizzlers. I don’t even really like Twizzlers that much, but someone had given them to my dad, and it usually falls to me to finish off the house candy that no one else wants—it’s a job I take seriously.

Naturally, the trip to my parents’ house involved many conversations that included the following phrases: “When are you going/coming home?” “So glad to have you home!” “Are you happy being home?” The convenient thing about those conversations, is that I had them in two countries with people who weren’t talking about the same “home.”

Unfortunately, both Air Canada and Ethiopian Airlines seemed to work hard to make sure that I didn’t get home (either one) as planned. Also, important side note: Canadians who work in the Toronto Airport are not as nice as Canadians are supposed to be. And Air Canada is the actual worst of all airlines I’ve taken for customer service, and you should remember that I’ve flown Sudan Airways and Air Asia. Once Air Canada finally got me to Nashville, they didn’t have my bag. And there was no one to report to that my bag didn’t arrive and no Air Canada personnel anywhere in the vicinity (and I searched the airport). So I had to leave the airport without my bag. I then called Air Canada’s 24 hour help line and no one answered. Probably in Canada, 24 hour help lines only apply to daylight hours, and in the dead of winter, this probably means that there is one half hour of customer service access per day, if it isn't  snowing. I tried to call their lost baggage department the next day during office hours (even Canadian office hours) and no one answered. I finally got a hold of someone in ticketing who referred me to someone who referred me to a link on a web page. After I spent an hour filling out an ambiguous repetitive report, I got an email back telling me that I would hear from a representative in the next “35 business days.” I laughed out loud and then I screamed. Then my dad and I drove back to the airport and found my bag sitting in the Air Canada office and an Air Canada employee all huffy about not having any information about it. Hey people reading my blog who travel: DON’T fly Air Canada if you can possibly avoid it. And if you are reading my blog, Air Canada, please be advised that I would like 5 free tickets and a million dollars to compensate for my pain and suffering and also because I had to help translate for a French-only woman in your country and French is one of the official languages there. WHY IS AIR CANADA SO TERRIBLE?

But I still had fun times on the North American continent, hanging with the nieces and nephews, buying them nerf guns and dolls and lots of candy and having a gummy bear fight, requested in advance by one of the nephews, which involved us freezing on the back porch flinging candy at each other. Good times, though very cold. I decided if my life were a storybook, the title would be “10,000 Cups of Tea, One Woman’s Quest to Survive the Frozen Depths of Her Parent’s Ice Cave.” I’m not sure how much hot tea I consumed over the course of my visit but it was on par with my candy consumption, and remember: I ate a Family Sized bag of Twizzlers in the bathtub.

The one who requested the
gummy bear fight is in the front.

The one who let the other one have a gummy bear fight
as long as it didn't happen in her kitchen.
Also, Marian-we don't have any photos together?!

Teaching the kids how to make traditional New Years Eve bala-bala

He helped make them, but could not be enticed to taste one.

I told Marian I bought these for her kids.
She didn't believe me, but I might actually do it someday.
I'm really susceptible to those big brown eyes.

I did buy and help assemble the t-rex

Marian calls this a fail, but I kind of like the honesty.
I'm dropping the baby to kiss the dog, the oldest responsible child
is following directions, but no one else really is and it's too dark
to see the one obedient child anyway. Good times.

Hardest part of the trip is always saying goodbye to the one who cries.
The other ones are fine, and I can say goodbye with normal fleeting sadness,
but the tears! The tears hurt Auntie's heart.

Back in Chad, I jumped back into important life stuff after a brief, unplanned layover in Togo. I used that time to reconnect with an old university friend from there who was not in country, but hooked me up with his driver who showed me around town until I realized that it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my eyes open.

Already hard to keep the eyes open.

My tour guide in front of the beach you can't see.
I took a lot of other terrible photos in Togo.
Don't worry: I won't share them here.

The important life stuff in Chad involved being back with Joe, whom I missed dearly, and giving him and many other people the presents I bought for them. Everyone loved the presents except for Joe, who prefers a couple of goat horns he dug out of the fire pit to the processed dog treats and bacon-flavored plastic chew toy I lovingly selected for him.

Joe's new collar thanks to the Frizz Fam

So happy to be back together

I want this goat horn. Keep your fake bacon!

I’ve also spent hours in the office reading through emails and also staring at emails and not reading them because there were so many and most of them were really boring.

And I was tasked with taking care of two ladies who came out here to do some research on the Chad life. I mean, I was sort of tasked with it. It was assumed that I would plan a trip for them, and I planned many things, one of which was to visit our biosand filter project just outside of town. When we got out there, we stopped and talked to some of the villagers, and they asked some questions. We were going to go wander around the village, when one of the men that I’ve known for a while told me that there were hippos out. I suddenly forgot that I was there for a reason and told the guy that we would go out and see the hippos—let’s get a boat and go! They told me that boats aren’t really traveling right now while the river is low (dry season), but we could wade across to the island and get a closer look.

In hind sight, I probably should have asked the visitors if they wanted to go see the hippos instead of wandering around town. I should have informed them that there would be wading involved and proximity to dangerous animals. But none of that really seemed important at the time. Fortunately, I think they also enjoyed it, so it was fine. Yes. They enjoyed it. I mean, they didn’t complain to my face, so it’s a win!

Hippo footprints!

They look fine, right?

Hippo family! Four big fat ones.

This guy, named Joe (prob not spelled that way though),
was our hippo tour guide.

Hippo selfie-very important.

Dorcas pointing out the hippos and telling me that she doesn't approve
because they will destroy her garden (you saw what their footprints do).
Hippos are cool but mean.

Anyway, it’s good to be back. Join us next time for when I tell the story of “Island and Desert Travel Times.” Unless I tell the story of “Sending the Puppy to America” first. Barely February and I’ve already got so many stories. This is the life. Don’t be too jealous though: I still have to heat up water on the stove if I don’t want to take a cold shower in the frigid Chadian winter.

Survival skills

Oh yeah-we also went to a Joss Stone concert.
She came to Chad for unknown reasons and it cost 4$. 

She came into the audience, and I tried to hide, but Annie
made me get this photo first for the sisters.
Upon further reflection, I've decided I don't really like concerts much.
I don't appreciate forced audience participation because aren't we paying YOU to sing?
And the only thing more terrifying than a performer coming into the audience to make people dance
is someone dressed up in one of those giant costumes at an amusement part because WHAT IS IN THAT THING?
But it was fun to hear Joss sing about marijuana and watch Steve play some pretty amazing guitar.