On their way to cheer on the Malian national soccer team

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Week#9 - The Tooth Fairy Visits Bamako & Jenna and Gus On Belay
After more than two months of wiggling and with the replacement tooth already moving in, Jenna lost one of her bottom front teeth on Sunday night. She had been agonizing over whether it was close enough that we should wiggle it out all weekend and got out of bed after 5 minutes to announce that it was time. All it took was a wee wiggle and she was holding a little teeny tooth and dancing exuberantly around the room : ) See the proud smile below. The tooth cup that she made in kindergarten had journeyed around the world with us, and got put to good use.




















We wondered whether the tooth fairy knew how to get inside a mosquito net so decided to set the tooth bowl next to Jenna's bed. She came! And in Mali she leaves CFA instead of dollars and cents. There wasn't a chicken pecking around the room when Jenna woke up - to Randy & Stacy's relief and Jenna's slight disappointment. In some parts of Mali we are told that when a child loses a tooth they gain a chicken. See a great book for kids called I Lost My Tooth in Africa by Penda Diakite and Baba Wague Diakite. We found the book in Montpelier before we left and it was instrumental in Jenna's mind-set that Mali would be a fun adventure. It turns out that Baba Wague Diakite visited AISB last year as a visiting author so the kids here are very familiar with the book. This year the visiting author will be poet Brod Bagert in December - not sure if he has any poems about losing teeth. We'll come back to that in December.

Jenna and Gus Rock Climbing
We returned to Siby one more time this past weekend to let the kids try out some rock climbing and visit a waterfall that people rave about. Our friend Caleb was our chauffeur as his truck is more reliable than ours (not a tough contest) and Kat joined us as well.

Jenna was first...



The climbing wall at Rumney was good practice for the real thing! After a test that the rope really would keep her in the air if she slipped, she was good to go.

Gus was next. He got started with a boost from Dad, and never looked back...



























Ready to keep climbing...















After a taste of the stone, we loaded back into the car and headed to the waterfall.... It took us almost an hour along very bumpy roads, made worse by torrential downpours of recent weeks, until we reached the waterfall. We drove past some villages and lots of people walking down the otherwise quiet single-track road. As we got closer trees started to become more frequent and the greenery more lush. Walking down to the pool under the waterfall, it looked like the paradise vision from all those Hollywood movies. We brought life jackets for the kids, just to be on the safe side altho' there was no current, and they took a dip with Dad.


































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Corn Row Fashion

Stacy with a Fulani man making tea by the river

Stacy with a Fulani man making tea by the river

Making concrete blocks by hand

Making concrete blocks by hand