Rough Day With The Grandparents

How was your day, Cyndy?
Oh, just fine.
I won't get into details but it involved 3 loads of laundry, a bucket for scrubbing and another for puking, a shower, and Grandpa in Grandma's undies.
See, that is all you need to know.
I am going up to relax and get ready for bed now.

Rakieta News

Rakieta is very worried about her bleeding gums still. I don't think it is a crisis, but she does. I will have to do more investigating which isn't always easy with the lack of life education they have over there. Some times the conversations are very interesting but not real productive. Dental care is rare and witches are the blame for most things. Mortality is pretty high too from very basic stuff so there is always that scare but from the sounds of things she'll be just fine. I'll keep everyone posted, but I think she truly is just overreacting.
In other news, one of my nieces is going to do a presentation on Rakieta because they are doing presentations on child labor throughout the world. It should be pretty neat.

Penpals

Martha and her granddaughter Marium

Seetah

I promised I would post this for Martha. Martha and Marium are penpals with Seetah in Burkina. Seetah works for Marie Compaore and is one of Rakieta's friends.
The refrigerator behind is typical for the country and is a luxury. Most do not have them. So Seetah makes bags of ice which she sells on the street for extra income. Seetah is now going to night school too.

The audacity of help these days!

See this cat. She doesn't move. She is 14. She is creaky. She is grouchy! She also thinks the best place in the whole house is the bar in the kitchen. The pellet stove happens to blow warm air right to that spot on the counter.
These days we can't even throw her on the floor because she is so arthritic, but as soon as you put her down she creaks her way right back up there again.
Jeesh! Of course she has no problem pushing the papers all over the place.

Good Morning

It is another very sunny morning. Still unusually cold for the area and month, but this too shall pass. 40's by midweek.
I am finding after months of being so busy I just couldn't hardly breathe, that I actually have time to stop and smell the roses a little. I am still waiting for a shoe to drop, but I'll take the short respite while I can.
In spite of all the doom and gloom everywhere and believe me there is doom and gloom everywhere, my own personal corner of the world is cheerful for the moment. Part of it is that we are finishing or completing several very large things that have been unfinished or resolved for years. It feels pretty good.

Adele's birthday was yesterday. She is now 84. However, she is just not feeling well in spite of all the meds from last week. I will be very surprised if we get good news when she goes back in for her scope. But at least she is peaceful and content and again, it is pretty touching to watch her and Lee especially in the evening while they are watching tv.

Rick Santelli is on Frank Beckman on WJR as I write this and he is serious about the Chicago Tea Party. Sign us up!!!!!

Well, Merry is finally wandering in and we need to work on dance stuff. Later everyone.

Friday-The visit with the King in Burkina

The King of fada and I. Note the laundry. Even the king has laundry.

The girls and I. My favorite picture of the whole trip.

Delilah and another cousin serving food. The tray was cut out of the picture, (Thanks Rakieta) but she is carrying a large tray with meat.

After the dinner and celebration, we toured the compound. D and S's uncle made a recording studio in one of the huts. The picture does not show things well, but it is pretty cool. In many places you could see the evidence of the original hut, but yet it also was completely redone to look and handle sound for recording. Looked like something you would see in the US. He is doing a lot of recordings for up and coming Burkinabe musicians.

Grandma and Rakieta

You say "This ought to be good!" It was. Delilah and Stephanie's grandfather is the king of the Fada people. After a very quiet day, we were all whisked off to see the king. We all piled into a jeep of some sort. Picture the commercials where as many people as possible piled into a Volkswagen as humanly possible. I have no idea of the head count but we made it. The grandchildren did not want to go. I thought "Why on earth wouldn't the kids want to see their grandpa?" Well I found out. In Africa, having a king for a grandpa isn't such a good deal. You don't get kisses and hugs and treats like from a normal grandpa. No, it's prostrating-yes really- and serving. Being a royal grandchild means you play the servant role.
So after much complaining from the grandkids, they were told they were going and we all jumped into the vehicle and off we went. We drove only a short distance to the King's home in Ouagadougou. It wasn't anything very fancy. Just a normal compound. The pictures will tell the rest of the story. All in all it was a pleasant day and because of the rain it only was about 70* that day so a very nice break after all my excitement on Thursday.

The Grumpies

I am very grumpy today. In fact you could say I got up on the wrong side of the bed. Actually I didn't, but it seemed like as soon as I got up things were just not going well. Now at 1:15 I have settled into quite a funk. In fact I am so grouchy I can hardly stand myself. So after lunch I am going upstairs to hide.
I think I may be overtired. So a day of no schedules would do me some good.
This morning someone blamed it on the weather. Could be. I am not one of those folks who enjoys thunder storms. My husband on the other hand........ So the theory of low barometer could be accurate. The whole state is in a winter storm warning.
In cheerful news I found my dining room chairs online and they aren't going to cost a fortune. So.....I am going to try ordering online. I have never ordered something this big before. I'll let everyone know how it goes.