Maryann's Musings

   In the American culture, having a business or a salon come to your home is expensive; here in West Africa, people will come to your door selling things, give you manicures and pedicures, or stop by wondering if you need some baguettes or fruit. The reason is: infrastructure.  Instead of having to pay for utilities and maintenance on a building, they can just show up at their next client's house. Word of mouth is the best form of advertisement.  Today, someone came to pierce Christianna's ears!    A few weeks ago Christianna fell and hit her head. In the Emergency Room (SHE'S FINE by the way) the nurse who worked with trauma cases took one look at Christianna and thought she was an American boy; not only was her hair cropped short, her ears weren't pierced.    When a baby girl is born into an African family, her ears are pierced immediately. It's a big deal. For years Christianna has been mistaken for a young boy because her ears were not pierced.  

  This blog is from a girl MK's point of view. Today's post is straight from the mouths of a bunch of guys. Their views of their camping trip up in the mountains with their bikes. I have * ahem*   highly edited  some of their stories and added notes, but this, as I said, is straight from them (and they agreed to the edits).  Some of you may find this boring, but I don't. It shows how their perspective is so much different from mine. And they are really funny.  (But getting them to sit still for the entire time was HARD. It took a lot of breaks...) AIDAN : "After going straight to Club Hippique, we drove up to Arnaud (he was reading a book) and Tristan opened the window and shouted at him. ( Editor's Note: M. Arnaud, our equestrian instructor, had invited the boys to go to a hotel up in the mountains where they could bike).  After two hours, we saw the first mountain come into view; then in another hour we saw our mountain and after driving up by vehicle (w