making up

Well I feel like I've been avoiding you blog checking friends- I keep remembering how I promised pictures in my next post, and since our computer still isn't fixed, I've just avoided posting (and taking pics) altogether. So in an effort to make it up to you, I'm posting a record number of pics today. So that you can follow along here's the general outline of this post:
1) news and update
2) pics of Sam
3) pics from our day today
4) pics from around town
5) pics of billboards (that's for you mom)

So as I mentionned, we still don't have our normal computer fixed. About a month ago, we thought that the power cord wasn't working, but then it seemed to be fine. That time we were in a real panic because we had no back up computer (and therefore work) plan. But just before the charger really stopped working our friends Ron and Ruth lent us the most humongous computer monitor I've ever seen. We were able to hook it up to the laptop that I dropped right before Sam was born (breaking the video card) and it works great now! Here's a pic of the new set up :-)
In other news, we're looking forward to two big events in our work lives in the next month. First, a visit from our interim regional supervisor for CAMA and the head of a CMA affiliated local NGO in Burkina Faso. We're hoping that the meetings we have with them this next week will be really helpful to BREAD and for defining our role here a bit better.

Then we'll be going to Ethiopia and Tanzania for two weeks in October. John will be attending a conference in Dar es Salaam on Village Savings and Loans Associations, and Sam and I decided to go along for the ride since he'll have the room and one ticket covered. In Addis Ababa, we'll be visiting our friend from college, Elisabeth, who we haven't seen for four years. It was quite the great surprise when we saw that our tickets would be routed through Addis and the stay could be extended for no extra charge.

Okay, now on to Sam. He's really growing up- I'm sure I could say that every post, but this week a lot of people here have mentionned that. He's into climbing, brushing his teeth with our toothbrushes (and a bit of minty paste), swimming, singing and playing with us, and recently has enjoyed trying to imitate the way we say some words (like bug). We're having a problem with our upload speed on our internet so I won't be able to post any of the videos this time, oh well.
So here are the pics:
Sam playing 'where's sam?'

One especially messy dinner
So pleased with himself when we called him an avocado head
One day a few weeks ago we found that Sam had climbed this shelf in the bathroom to get to the toothbrushes. That made us nervous, but then this week he's started climbing out of his crib, opening his door and coming in to wake us up in the mornings.
I just thought this was a funny face
Playing with the dogs in the morning

enjoying afternoon snack time (which consists of sitting on the kitchen counter or the freezer while we hand him a bunch of finger foods)
He loves ping pong. John has been playing a lot with our friend Gibran, so we have to find ways to keep Sam distracted during the actual games. Sam doesn't really share well, so when he's around, he wants all the paddles, all the balls, and wants to stand on the ping pong table.



Here's pics from our day:

-taking the dogs out for a run at our friends house (we do that about 4 times a week)

But first we stopped at SIL where we ran into Anya (she's a year and a half older than Sam)

They have enough space to really let the dogs stretch their legsAn action shot
Sam likes exploring at their place
And here are some pics from driving- this first one is on the nearest main road to our house
This is on the main road into town- not really crowded, but t
here are cart pushing guys trying to cross a big roadThis picture is off to the right at the same place- it's the state stadium and to the right is the eucalyptus forest which contains the tennis club (with pool and playground that we go to almost every day)Sam loves this elephant statue which we pass at least twice every day
Still on that main road to town- this is the new US embassy- it's supposed to be the smallest embassy in the world but it's the nicest building in town (and definitely the most well built)
Here's a view of Kinshasa across the Congo river
This pic is just for my parents- all taxis are painted green and white here, but I'd never seen this make as one before (my parents have a sky-blue one in Morocco)
I just took this pic to show the women's dresses
Whenever the president gets back from a trip the streets shut down for a little while and they put up banners like these all along his route
And finally, here are some billboards (thought you'd like that, Mom)

I'll try to take pictures of a few other parts of town sometime- it's a little intimidating for me to take pictures at the market or around our neighborhood, but I'd like to show you a bit more of what we see here.