Soooo Africa!

We had Friday off of school for "Farmer's Day" - so we used the time to travel to Ada beach.  It was absolutely beautiful - a time where I really realized that I was in Africa and I was glad and grateful to be.

Nicole and Charlie Wright, Kim Kershner, our driver William, and I drove the two hours to this glorious place.  There, we boarded a leaking canoe to get to the end of the beach, to a place called Maranatha.

The boat ride was beautiful - there were some really nice houses -mostly British owned vacation homes.

Then, right next to them are straw huts!

Sooooo Africa!

Then, we got to the beach where we were staying - it was an area like the jetty in Destin- "bay"on one side, and the ocean on the other.

Here is Charlie in one of the huts we stayed in!

Mosquito nets over the beds.

Straw roofs.  Apparently the straw huts are strong enough to last for years! I would have thought they had to rebuild them all the time - but the people said the roofs might need to be replaced every five years or so - crazy!

Charlie reminds me so much of my cousin, Lydia.  She loves animals!  We were all the time catching cats, dogs, hermit crabs, fish, and William caught this baby goat for her!

We swam and napped in the sun during the day, and when it was time to sleep, the huts were too hot --

so we carried our mattresses out to the beach and slept there...only for a while...

...until it the moon was up. (the sun set around 6 and the moon didn't come up for another 2 or 3 hours!! which made the stars in the sky soooo nice!)  When the moon was finally high in the sky, about 11 at night, we took a walk on the beach....

Looking for tracks from the ocean...

Left from a sea turtle!!! Ah! There was one who had walked up the beach to lay its eggs - it was so amazing!!! I felt like we were invading her privacy watching her - but it was so cool!  It took her over an hour - and when she was finished, she covered them up by moving the sand with her arms and legs, and rocking her whole body back and forth - smoothing out the sand over her babies- so that no one would disturb them.  It was so amazing.

She will come back in two weeks to nest - and to see her babies hatch.  The baby turtles will have to make it 20 or so yards down the beach - battling humans and massive crabs to make it back to the ocean to meet their mom and swim away.  She will know the exact place where to meet them - how amazing is that?!?!  We thought she was huge - but they said she was the "smaller" breed of sea turtles that come to lay eggs here.  Crazy!

The two days we spent in Ada was to relaxing and fun and it is always so nice to get away from the city. The people there were friendly - there were lots of internationals staying in the huts - all day and night there was drumming and African music - love it.  William was so excited to come with us - that was a huge blessing to see - he met some fishermen who let him help pull in their fishing nets - and gave him some fish.  He was sooooo excited to have fish to take home to his wife - it really reminded me of all the things that I take for granted - even here in Africa.  I have plenty of good food, a nice and safe place to stay, and great job.  So much to be thankful for.

I am getting really excited about traveling - I shot up in "bed" saturday morning - realizing it would be one week until I will be flying to Israel and then home!!!  We have not heard anything about our visas or passports - so please keep praying.  We are hoping that no news is good news - the lawyer says not to worry yet.  We have realized that as long as they will give us our passports back, we will be able to leave the country - it just might take a while to get visas to get back in - which I can deal with much better than not being able to come home!