A day in Gondolo

This sweet lady passed the time by smoking on her pipe.

The balloons I packed were a huge hit with all the kids. They lasted longer than I thought they would with so many thorn trees everywhere. I even caught two grown men fighting over one!

Last Sunday, we spent the day in Gondolo village to celebrate our teammate Lori's house opening. Until now she's lived on our compound in Yabus, but she now has her own mud hut in Gondolo. After church, all the church members and other neighbors walked back to her house and we immediately began making coffee and tea for all the guests. But as you will see in the pictures, we made coffee Sudanese style. First you wash the coffee beans, then roast them, then pound them, then brew the coffee in an old tin can over the fire, and finally you pour the brewed coffee into a jebuna - a clay coffee pot. It's quite a process but makes deliciously strong coffee. In the course of the day I think we did the process at least 6 times until everyone had drank all the coffee they wanted.

It was a very hot day but the boys did amazing. One fun thing wedid was teach some of Isaac and Evan's friends how to play Uno. The kids caught on fast and had a great time playing in the shade of a tree. Meanwhile Joshua had fun pushing around a homemade bike made of wood (see the picture.)

Quite a full day but also a very special day. After lots of goat soup, kisra (sorghum pancakes), and coffee we left in time to get home before dark. The next day we flew out of Yabus for a two week break in Kenya. It was a great finish to our time there.