Our last blast of winter-I hope!

Well, we had one last big storm blowing through tonight, but it has already been reduced to a just a hazardous outlook. Thank the Holy Lord. We are about wintered out around here. The weather has been in the mid 30's for 4 straight days and our driveway still has many inches of ice. The newspaper reported 105 accidents were reported to the County Sheriff's department over 4 days. That doesn't include the ones who just called a wrecker and didn't bother with a police report. The great, wonderful news: mid 40's by the weekend. Yippee!! Yahoo!!

Update on food shortage in Burkina Faso

Last Wednesday the people of Burkina planned a demonstration to let the government know that enough was enough with the sharp food price hikes and shortages.
This week the prices are as follows:

corn 2lbs approximately 90 cents up from approximately 55 cents
cooking oil 1 liter approximately $3.40 up from approximately $1.35
1 egg 20 cents up from 15 cents
This in a country where many people live on about a dollar a day.
The government requested the people not demonstrate and said they would work on the problem. So the capital city was quiet. However 2 other cities did demonstrate and there were riots. All reports are there is one dead. The people are somber and angry. They are planning another demonstration if the situation is not dealt with.

Happy Birthday Grandma K.

This is Grandma K and Matt at Old Country Buffet celebrating her 83'rd birthday.

On Sunday we took Grandma and Grandpa K out to dinner for Grandma's birthday. As always the food was delicious. The weather was cooperative too. Sunny and mid 30's.

Happy Birthday Kassoum!

This is Kassoum, Rakieta's older brother and one of her best friends. He really is a great brother. Kassoum is the only male child in his immediate family so he handles girls pretty well even in a Muslim household. Kassoum is always there it seems to help with the things the girls need. This weekend he took Rakieta out and helped her get her cell phone and set it up for her. He called all the relatives and gave them Rakieta's phone number and in general he is just a good guy. He would like to be a police officer. This year there was only enough money to send one of the kids to high school and the choice was made to send the other sister. It ended up being the wrong decision. In the meantime Kassoum has to wait until next fall to go back to school. Next year we will make sure that Kassoum gets to school because he is a very hard worker and we admire his spirit. This is the only picture we have of him. He is posing with friends to look like American dudes.
I want to take the time to brag a little about Kassoum's English. In the early days after the reunion, Kassoum would take dictation from Rakieta in the tribal language and translate it into English to send to us. Even though Kassoum has never been to an expensive school, his English is actually pretty good. His e-mails to us are always in English and not too bad. Better than some of the folks we know who have been to or are going to very good Burkanabe schools.
Kassoum was born on St. Valentine's day. An important religious day in France and Burkina.

Ok, who's idea of a joke is this?!

Ok, this is ceasing to be funny! The kids have had 4-5 snow days in the last 2 weeks. Depending on where you are located in the county determines the number of snow days accrued so far. Looks like another one tomorrow. Any more after tomorrow and they will have to tack the days onto the end of the school year.
2-4 inches are expected with this blob and I will tell you we will probably exceed that prediction. The ponies are Yettie's again tonight and visibility is pretty pitiful again. Not to mention the slipping and sliding going on out there.
I know we have not had this much snowfall in many, many years.

Food shortage in Burkina

This is a more serious post. I am being told by all our Burkanabe family and my friend who is living in Ouaga that there is a very drastic food shortage right now in Burkina.
I am being told that the reason is the very high oil prices. So if anyone doesn't understand inflation since it has been so long since it was a problem in the US, I will help put it into perspective.
The average Burkanabe family earns $300-$500 yearly. A 50lb bag of rice that used to be $25.00 is now about $30.00. Corn has been high for a few years, and cooking oil is now about 25% higher. However, wages are not increasing.
This means great hardship for those folks who already struggle just to feed their families.
Because of the scarcity there are reports of merchants using fillers and additives to stretch their meager supplies and not all are safe.
This means soaps and toothpastes, etc are also running very, very expensive.
Refrigerated items are not available at all. That means all dairy and probably eggs for those folks who don't keep chickens. There are some reserve stocks of irradiated milk that are still available. (Must be something like the old condensed milk from my childhood)
All this means that anyone who does have a little may also be a target for theft. I am thinking about the last box we sent that was shanghaied before it made it to Grandma's postal box. All reports are that it cleared customs, but it never made it to the postal box. It was sheets, towels and soap.
We really take things for granted here in the US. Yes, America has a few problems, BUT we have no idea or appreciation for the daily struggles that go on for most of the world just to eat and keep a roof over their heads. There is no time for contemplating your navel when you work from dawn till dusk just to produce basics of life.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MELISSA!

Merry, Rose (neighbor), Melissa, Jeni and Jamie

Melissa with Sweetie

Friday was Melissa's Birthday. Melissa is my sister's oldest daughter. We love you Melissa!
Is anyone noticing how strong the female gene is in this family? Yes, the men have to be pretty strong and independent to fit into this family as they are very outnumbered.

The morning after

Morning view

This is our dove tree. Every spring the mourning doves nest in there.

Good morning!
Before I write about ourselves and any small troubles we may have I want to mention the folks south of us who really have been through horrible stuff. The storm swept over the entire length of the middle US and Tennessee and Alabama were hit very hard. As of now there are 55 dead and many thousands homeless. Entire communities have been flattened. Our prayers are with those folks.
Here in southern Michigan, we got a LOT of snow. One of the worst dumps all at one time I have seen since living down here. I grew up in Northern Michigan and getting a foot or snow at a time up there is not too unusual, but here to be this buried is a little unusual. Thankfully we did not have blizzard conditions along with it. Now along the coastal areas they may have but not here.
Things are still moving very slowly and will all day as it never dropped below freezing and now it is getting very nice out and that means the snow gets heavier and heavier and slushier and slushier which means spin outs, very stuck cars, etc. On our morning scout to see if we should worry about dance class, the main roads had mostly one lane plowed and the main highway had both sides plowed but it was sticky and gooey with slush. The side dirt roads will get done later tonight or tomorrow so it will be a quiet day.
South of Detroit had more ice so the traffic reporters described conditions as treacherous even in late morning. Luckily it doesn't sound like we had power outages in the state this time which is good since Michigan has had it's share this winter season.
It will be an awesome day for snow forts, sledding and snow men.

Good morning! Greetings from snowy....no icy....no snowy and icy Michigan again!

Yeesh. This time we got no big media coverage like we have for the last several. Just quiet changes on the National Weather service web sight. It seems we got the northern end of all the nasty storms hitting Tennessee and Alabama.
Anyway, we are a big blob of ice. Like we need more.
Our whole winter season this year has had one theme. Ice. It rain/sleets, thaws some, refreezes etc. So again there is a long list of schools having snow days. Today is mostly south and east of us.

UPDATE: 12:30pm Well we are once again in a winter storm warning with 6 to 10 inches expected. Don't forget our ice. What fun.

Well, I'll be getting a lot of indoor stuff done. They really should have canceled school today.

UPDATE: 7:30pm Have we been dropped into the middle of Little House on the Prairie or something??!! In all the years of winter storms at this address I have never seen anything quite like this. We will be getting our full amounts of snow predicted or more and yes, there is a little tinge of ice mixed into it. Ok, so usually before a storm I feed and water my chickidoos inside their coop and set the shovel outside to dig them out after the coast is clear. Tonight I had to shovel my way into the coop just to shut the door. I had no idea the wet, stuff falling had so much bite attached to it. It looked rather innocent from the view through the window.
The little ponies and Daisy the sheep looked like Yettie's. They have run in sheds but do you think they used them. Heck no. However, they were very appreciative to be tucked into their stalls for the evening. The big horses spent all day indoors, but they aren't raving maniacs like the little ponies are.
I'll take pictures tomorrow after we get up.
By the way, it was 85* F in Ouagadougou at 10:00pm their time when I talked to Rakieta earlier.
And yes, everything this evening and schools tomorrow are already being canceled.