New Year's Campout

For New Years weekend, all of the personnel in Mali went on a campout. It was SO MUCH FUN. One of the couples who works for the company lives in a house on a large amount of land. So we all headed down there for the weekend. When we arrived, Nafi was stirring the biggest pot of chili I've ever seen over the fire. We set up our tents and hung out until dinner time. There were 4 holes in the ground for bathrooms and each of them had a straw wall around it. There were also 2 showers set up in the same way for bucket baths. We had a fabulous time sitting around the campfire getting to know everybody and having a blast. At midnight we walked over to a huge tree where somebody had set up a ball to drop. It was one of those big rubber balls with a handle on it, covered in Christmas lights, and hoisted up with a rope. Everyone counted down as the ball dropped and we rung in the new year. Then, someone started singing and before we knew it everyone was belting out "Don't Stop Believing." As good a New Year's song as any I think.

That night we FROZE. We were pretty far south where it's quite a bit cooler than it is here. I was wearing 3 layers of clothing, and a sheet in a sleeping bag in my tent and I was still freezing. 60 degrees just doesn't feel like it used to. The next morning we slept in, ate breakfast, sat around talking, played games and just hung out. And...I even won the Texas Hold 'Em game...don't worry, we weren't playing for money. Thank you, Randy Dane and Trent Vest for teaching me how to play about 7 New Years Days ago. That evening we watched The Rookie projected onto the side of the house. Man that movie made me homesick. I may or may not have burst into tears when it showed the Ballpark in Arlington...I don't even like baseball. Then we went to bed and headed back to town the next morning. I'd never been camping before I came here...turns out I like it!