Less than 24 hours now

My roomies, Karen and Donna. It's like being back in college!

The ladies and kids of the church. Remi's wife, Anasthasie, is in the red hat next to Donna and 3 of their 4 children are in front, Ghislain in the grey pants, and Lenah and Lyza in the blue and pink. 

I'm mostly organized and packed now, and I'm leaving with less stuff than I came with, but with many, many new friends, and hundreds of memories, images, and stories. We went to the Plaza Restaurant today for lunch, and as we made a toast, I said, "To new friends who feel like old friends." It's true. Everyone at the table I have known for less than a month, but we are forever connected. 

L to R around  the table: Hans Aas (finally didn't get cut out of the picture!), Martha Aas, Karen, Phil Nelson (who runs the EELC Mission Compound and lives in the house right next to ours), me, Donna, June Nelson (married to Phil and is a nurse who works  at the hospital when she's not helping Phil run the compound)

The day started out early with Donna and I joining Remi and his family at the Millenium Church where he is an elder. The church is at the edge of the compound and is huge, made from bricks from the red earth of Ngaoundere, with beautiful stained glass. One of the many choir groups came in leading the elders in song and it beautiful to hear their energy. 

Tomorrow we have one final goodbye at Chapel at 7:30, although from the sounds of the number of people who have told us they plan to see us off at the airport, I'm thinking the final, final goodbye will be as we wave out the window of the little bush plane. I am coming prepared with plenty of kleenex. I will run over to say goodbye to Saliou, who is still in the hospital, before going back home to finish up packing. 

So, my next posting will be when I'm sitting in my own kitchen, looking out at lots of snow, and trying to reorient myself to being back in Minnesota. I'm planning to take the rapid re-entry approach. Arrive in Mpls on Tuesday, back to work on Thursday. We'll see....I've asked my colleagues to have pretty low expectations for my productivity on Thursday. 

I've been looking through my pictures. Here's a few more taken over the past month:

$10 to the first person who can identify what this guy is holding. (Not really on the $10) This is an elephant hide shield that is  (if what he says is true) 1000 years old! This was at the mosque that we toured. For being such a relic, it was just kind of thrown in this anteroom, amongst skulls of cattle and antelope, a few elephant feet, and red plastic coke crates. 

Big football tournament last weekend on the compound.

On my last day, I am finally able to sneak up on a lizard and get a picture. This is a redheaded lizard (I know, self-evident but I did not make this up) and is much bigger than the one that met his untimely demise a few weeks ago. I have continued to give my poor housemate grief about that!

This lady was one of the first patients Remi and William saw about 3 years ago. She was in renal failure and wasn't expected to survive, but somehow, without dialysis, she recovered. Today she looks and feels great. She comes back to see Remi and William often. She told me, "I was as fat as an elephant!" Remi explained she had fluid everywhere.


See you in Minnesota!