I know it’s a little early for this post, but if you know me you know that I’ve been listening to Christmas music for weeks now anyway, so really a Christmas blog shouldn’t surprise you that much. One night earlier this week Abby, Sarah, and I decorated for Christmas. Our duplex-mates are going to be in America for the holidays, so guess who gets to borrow all their stuff including a Christmas tree! We had so much fun putting everything up. The thermometer in our house said it was 96 degrees and we were sweating pretty profusely, but at least it was starting to LOOK like Christmas even if it didn’t so much FEEL like it yet :)
AND oh my goodness. Yesterday I picked up my Christmas “package” from my church family at Bear Creek Community Church in Cresson, Texas. I say “package” in quotation marks because this sucker was, in fact, an enormous trunk full of fantasticness. When the men at the airport found the trunk, they weren’t sure if it was mine (and neither was I) because some of the numbers and my name had rubbed off, so they opened it up and I think the air freight handlers were pretty jealous. As Abby said, “That is one big box of happiness.” It was absolutely FULL of American food/candy/coffee, health & beauty products (you should see all this nail polish), journals, jewelry, Christmas music (yay!), Christmas decorations, and more stuff than I ever could have imagined. And check out this awesomeness…it had a ton of WRAPPED Christmas presents so now we have presents under our tree! Thank you so much, Bear Creek family. I love you and miss you so much that there are tears in my eyes right now.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
A Heart-Breaking Couple of Days
A volunteer team came in a couple weeks ago to do some dental clinics. The team consisted of 2 dentists, a pastor and his wife, and 3 more women to assist the dentists and do whatever else needed doing. We did one clinic in the big city for the Sunny people and another people group we call the “Hidden” people, but before that we headed out to the bush.
One of the women who came over with the group is Mrs. B; she’s a nurse and she served with our company for 33 years in another West African country. In the first village, on our first clinic day, she went around to different huts to see if anyone needed some basic wound care. She came across a woman I’ll call “Becka.” She was lying in a dark room by herself. Becka is literally missing half of her face because it is rotting away. When you look at her right side you can see bone, teeth, and tongue. And her right eyeball is gone. Abby said that when she first walked into the hut she immediately thought a dead animal was in there because of the way it smelled. Mrs. B and a couple others took her to a bush clinic where they were told that nothing could be done there and to go to the hospital in the nearest town. So they went to the hospital in the nearest town (where we were staying) and were told that she must go to the capital (which is 4 hours away) to get the treatment she needs. Mrs. B and Nafi (my supervisor) both said that Becka’s face is the worst thing they’ve ever seen in Africa…and they have a combined 47 years of experience living here. It was a miracle that she was even still alive.
Abby, Sarah, and I were heading back into the city the next day so we and Nafi decided that the best course of action would be for us to bring Becka, her mother, and her uncle with us. Nafi came to our room to discuss what the next day or two might look like. The girl and her family don’t speak Sunny and we don’t speak French or Bambara so somebody was lined up to translate at the hospital between us, the family, and the doctors. By taking them to the hospital, we were wordlessly assuming all responsibility for this woman, including finances, so we discussed how that would work and what we should say. Nafi told us how to get to a couple of the different places we may need, how to be assertive if the hospitals refused care…just a lot of different things that we hadn’t yet experienced. She even told us it was okay if we needed to pull the truck over and throw up because of the smell. There were a couple of contingency plans discussed, then Nafi said, “If she dies in the truck, this is what you need to do…” I hadn’t seen Becka yet. I knew it was bad. I knew she was dying, but I didn’t really know.
So the next morning we picked up Becka, her mother, and her uncle. The Lord is so good. The hours flew by, the smell seemed dulled, and we arrived in the capital. We spent the rest of the day driving around to various hospitals and clinics until we were finally told where we needed to be. The clinic was closed on the weekend so we made plans to go first thing Monday morning. Before leaving, our translator shared the gospel with Becka and her mom and prayed for them. Then we drove them to the house of some family they had in town, gave them some money for food and transportation over the weekend, and left.
At this point, we’d been told that Becka had a disease called NOMA and that the clinic in town was run by a non-governmental organization who would perform all the treatment at no cost. We looked up as much as we could about this disease and looked at various images online…none of which compared to Becka. We read about the predisposing factors for NOMA, all of which are prevalent in an African village. We learned that most victims of this disease are children, even though Becka is just a couple of years younger than I am. And we learned that the survival rate for this disease is almost non-existent. We were pretty down…but not defeated, knowing that we serve the Great Physician.
We picked the family up on Monday morning and headed to the clinic. After waiting a while (long enough for Abby & I to go put oil in our truck), we were told to go to another branch of the clinic. So we got in our truck, our translators got in their truck, and we all followed a man on a moto to the other place. We were seen by the doctor that some co-workers had already told us about (they have experience with this disease and a little boy they know). He took her to an examination room and then brought our translator, Abby, Sarah, and me into his office. He began talking to Mrs. L (our translator) in French. Some things he had said had obviously surprised her…and even disappointed her. After they finished their conversation, she told us that the doctor said he knew Becka. He said she’d been in to see him 4 months before and that the treatment plan had been laid out for her already. Her family already knew that the treatment would be a long process and that it would all be at no cost. Then he said what I didn’t see coming: that she has AIDS. She’d been told at the previous visit that she would need to take anti-virals in order to even get her body strong enough to be treated for NOMA. We asked if she’d been taking them so he went to ask her and found out that she had not. It was such a gut-punch. I know this sounds horrible, but all of a sudden it seemed pointless to try to treat the skin disease when she was dying of AIDS. And it seemed pointless to try to get her the treatment she needs when, for whatever reason, she hadn’t been complying with what had already been prescribed.
We were told that their transportation back to their family’s house in the capital would be provided and that we could leave. We met up with Nafi and the rest of the team coming in from the bush for lunch. After a small debriefing, we were able to once again see how God is at work. The last couple of hours had been frustrating and disappointing, but it doesn’t change the fact that God has a plan…a perfect plan, with perfect timing. God is really up to something in the people group of Becka and her family. He has raised up new believers, sent more workers, and given a hunger for His Word and a curiosity in His Son. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Becka, but we know that it will be for His glory. She is currently undergoing treatment at the clinic for AIDS to get her strong enough to move to another clinic closer to her village where she can stay and be treated for NOMA. Please pray for her. Pray for her body and pray that the words of the gospel that she has now heard will take root in her heart so that she can be a testimony to her family and others in her village.
One of the women who came over with the group is Mrs. B; she’s a nurse and she served with our company for 33 years in another West African country. In the first village, on our first clinic day, she went around to different huts to see if anyone needed some basic wound care. She came across a woman I’ll call “Becka.” She was lying in a dark room by herself. Becka is literally missing half of her face because it is rotting away. When you look at her right side you can see bone, teeth, and tongue. And her right eyeball is gone. Abby said that when she first walked into the hut she immediately thought a dead animal was in there because of the way it smelled. Mrs. B and a couple others took her to a bush clinic where they were told that nothing could be done there and to go to the hospital in the nearest town. So they went to the hospital in the nearest town (where we were staying) and were told that she must go to the capital (which is 4 hours away) to get the treatment she needs. Mrs. B and Nafi (my supervisor) both said that Becka’s face is the worst thing they’ve ever seen in Africa…and they have a combined 47 years of experience living here. It was a miracle that she was even still alive.
Abby, Sarah, and I were heading back into the city the next day so we and Nafi decided that the best course of action would be for us to bring Becka, her mother, and her uncle with us. Nafi came to our room to discuss what the next day or two might look like. The girl and her family don’t speak Sunny and we don’t speak French or Bambara so somebody was lined up to translate at the hospital between us, the family, and the doctors. By taking them to the hospital, we were wordlessly assuming all responsibility for this woman, including finances, so we discussed how that would work and what we should say. Nafi told us how to get to a couple of the different places we may need, how to be assertive if the hospitals refused care…just a lot of different things that we hadn’t yet experienced. She even told us it was okay if we needed to pull the truck over and throw up because of the smell. There were a couple of contingency plans discussed, then Nafi said, “If she dies in the truck, this is what you need to do…” I hadn’t seen Becka yet. I knew it was bad. I knew she was dying, but I didn’t really know.
So the next morning we picked up Becka, her mother, and her uncle. The Lord is so good. The hours flew by, the smell seemed dulled, and we arrived in the capital. We spent the rest of the day driving around to various hospitals and clinics until we were finally told where we needed to be. The clinic was closed on the weekend so we made plans to go first thing Monday morning. Before leaving, our translator shared the gospel with Becka and her mom and prayed for them. Then we drove them to the house of some family they had in town, gave them some money for food and transportation over the weekend, and left.
At this point, we’d been told that Becka had a disease called NOMA and that the clinic in town was run by a non-governmental organization who would perform all the treatment at no cost. We looked up as much as we could about this disease and looked at various images online…none of which compared to Becka. We read about the predisposing factors for NOMA, all of which are prevalent in an African village. We learned that most victims of this disease are children, even though Becka is just a couple of years younger than I am. And we learned that the survival rate for this disease is almost non-existent. We were pretty down…but not defeated, knowing that we serve the Great Physician.
We picked the family up on Monday morning and headed to the clinic. After waiting a while (long enough for Abby & I to go put oil in our truck), we were told to go to another branch of the clinic. So we got in our truck, our translators got in their truck, and we all followed a man on a moto to the other place. We were seen by the doctor that some co-workers had already told us about (they have experience with this disease and a little boy they know). He took her to an examination room and then brought our translator, Abby, Sarah, and me into his office. He began talking to Mrs. L (our translator) in French. Some things he had said had obviously surprised her…and even disappointed her. After they finished their conversation, she told us that the doctor said he knew Becka. He said she’d been in to see him 4 months before and that the treatment plan had been laid out for her already. Her family already knew that the treatment would be a long process and that it would all be at no cost. Then he said what I didn’t see coming: that she has AIDS. She’d been told at the previous visit that she would need to take anti-virals in order to even get her body strong enough to be treated for NOMA. We asked if she’d been taking them so he went to ask her and found out that she had not. It was such a gut-punch. I know this sounds horrible, but all of a sudden it seemed pointless to try to treat the skin disease when she was dying of AIDS. And it seemed pointless to try to get her the treatment she needs when, for whatever reason, she hadn’t been complying with what had already been prescribed.
We were told that their transportation back to their family’s house in the capital would be provided and that we could leave. We met up with Nafi and the rest of the team coming in from the bush for lunch. After a small debriefing, we were able to once again see how God is at work. The last couple of hours had been frustrating and disappointing, but it doesn’t change the fact that God has a plan…a perfect plan, with perfect timing. God is really up to something in the people group of Becka and her family. He has raised up new believers, sent more workers, and given a hunger for His Word and a curiosity in His Son. We don’t know what’s going to happen with Becka, but we know that it will be for His glory. She is currently undergoing treatment at the clinic for AIDS to get her strong enough to move to another clinic closer to her village where she can stay and be treated for NOMA. Please pray for her. Pray for her body and pray that the words of the gospel that she has now heard will take root in her heart so that she can be a testimony to her family and others in her village.
New Digs
Okay, so we are all nice and settled in our new home in the big city. After the relocation, we lived at the company’s guest house for about 2 ½ months. Even though all 3 of us (and all of our stuff) were crammed into one room, it was really pretty fun. We got to meet volunteer teams who came over from America and it was always encouraging to share with them what we’re here for and learn more about them and their home churches. PLUS they’d leave us their leftovers…hello Starbucks and bacon!
At the end of October we moved into a more permanent residence and it is really, really great. It’s a nice place and it immediately felt like home. Each of us has our own room, there’s 2 bathrooms, a nice living/dining room area, and a kitchen. And because a lot of people were moving back to America right before we moved in, we inherited a TON of stuff…food, cabinets, armoires, more cabinets…a coffeemaker…and a microwave!
The best part is that it’s a duplex and we share it with another family who works for the same company. The couple is about my age and they have a 1-year-old son…who is SO STINKING CUTE. They are amazing…they have us over to eat, play games, or just hang out. And one day all 6 of us piled into the truck and went downtown to the big market to shop, listening to Christmas music the whole time. It felt like a family outing. We are so thankful for them and a new place to live!
At the end of October we moved into a more permanent residence and it is really, really great. It’s a nice place and it immediately felt like home. Each of us has our own room, there’s 2 bathrooms, a nice living/dining room area, and a kitchen. And because a lot of people were moving back to America right before we moved in, we inherited a TON of stuff…food, cabinets, armoires, more cabinets…a coffeemaker…and a microwave!
The best part is that it’s a duplex and we share it with another family who works for the same company. The couple is about my age and they have a 1-year-old son…who is SO STINKING CUTE. They are amazing…they have us over to eat, play games, or just hang out. And one day all 6 of us piled into the truck and went downtown to the big market to shop, listening to Christmas music the whole time. It felt like a family outing. We are so thankful for them and a new place to live!
Friday, October 15, 2010
More on the boiled goat stomach...
One day we went to Little Yosemite to visit Beatrice, our mayor's aunt. We had to be at language at 1pm, so we started trying to leave a little after 11am, knowing that they would probably try to feed us. Well, they did. They called us into a little room where Sarah, Beatrice, and I sat down on the floor. Another woman brought in two covered bowls and a covered plate. Even though all of them were covered Sarah and I knew that there being 3 different dishes (instead of only 2) would be bad news.
Well the first cover came off the bowl of rice. No surprise there, we have rice for lunch every day. The second cover came off the bowl of peanut sauce. Another non-surprise. We braced ourselves for what we knew was coming...the third removed cover revealed a huge plate of meat. It was worse than usual. Usually the "meat" still has at least a little bit of what you would think of as being "meat." This time it was all organs and intestines. I could identify the heart, liver, stomach, small intestines, maybe a kidney or two, and then there were various other unidentifiable parts...it was kind of like dissection day in high school biology. We poured the peanut sauce over the rice and Beatrice asked if we wanted some meat. We said, "Sure! A little," which is our standard answer for anything because a "little" to them still ends up being a lot. So she put a little bit of meat on the rice and we ate it. We thought we were in the clear! We finished off the rice and sauce and then Beatrice moved the bowl we'd eaten from out of the way. We really thought we were in the clear! But then she grabbed the (still huge) plate of meat and put it in the middle. She took one little part of the heart then said she was full and backed away from the plate. We ate several bites then said we were full. No luck. She told us to keep eating. At this point I really was full so I tried again. She told me to keep eating. I asked her, "One more bite?" This usually worked on H-Mama. She said okay. I took my one more bite, I even made sure it was a big one, and said, "Okay, I'm full." She said to keep eating. I said, "You said one more bite!" She said, "I know. So take one more bite...until it's gone." So we finished off the plate...completely riceless...we should have had her put all of it on the rice and sauce to take away from the texture and taste a little bit. Then when we walked out of the room I saw the goat's head, legs/hooves, and empty skin in a bloody pile on the ground...at least it was fresh. It's okay, they think our food is weird too. Somebody told me that they had asked a group of African translators what the weirdest food they'd ever eaten when being out on a trip with a group of Americans was. I believe almost unanimously they answered, "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."
We think these situations are pretty funny...and sometimes nauseating...but it really shows how insanely hospitable these people are. They rarely let us visit without making sure they feed us in some way and they want you to stay for as long as you possibly can. They love it when we help them do things...mostly because we're not as good at it and they get a pretty good laugh. And they love just sitting with us even when we've exhausted our language and can't think of much else to say. And you don't even have to know people before you visit them. They immediately welcome you in like you're their long lost niece or something.
The other day I was talking to a Bambara man and he asked me my name. When I told him he said, "Oh, you're a Sunny woman!" I said that I was and that the Sunny people are good. He agreed with me and said that the Sunny people are very good because they are always helping each other. I know it seems kind of silly, but I really am proud to be one them.
Well the first cover came off the bowl of rice. No surprise there, we have rice for lunch every day. The second cover came off the bowl of peanut sauce. Another non-surprise. We braced ourselves for what we knew was coming...the third removed cover revealed a huge plate of meat. It was worse than usual. Usually the "meat" still has at least a little bit of what you would think of as being "meat." This time it was all organs and intestines. I could identify the heart, liver, stomach, small intestines, maybe a kidney or two, and then there were various other unidentifiable parts...it was kind of like dissection day in high school biology. We poured the peanut sauce over the rice and Beatrice asked if we wanted some meat. We said, "Sure! A little," which is our standard answer for anything because a "little" to them still ends up being a lot. So she put a little bit of meat on the rice and we ate it. We thought we were in the clear! We finished off the rice and sauce and then Beatrice moved the bowl we'd eaten from out of the way. We really thought we were in the clear! But then she grabbed the (still huge) plate of meat and put it in the middle. She took one little part of the heart then said she was full and backed away from the plate. We ate several bites then said we were full. No luck. She told us to keep eating. At this point I really was full so I tried again. She told me to keep eating. I asked her, "One more bite?" This usually worked on H-Mama. She said okay. I took my one more bite, I even made sure it was a big one, and said, "Okay, I'm full." She said to keep eating. I said, "You said one more bite!" She said, "I know. So take one more bite...until it's gone." So we finished off the plate...completely riceless...we should have had her put all of it on the rice and sauce to take away from the texture and taste a little bit. Then when we walked out of the room I saw the goat's head, legs/hooves, and empty skin in a bloody pile on the ground...at least it was fresh. It's okay, they think our food is weird too. Somebody told me that they had asked a group of African translators what the weirdest food they'd ever eaten when being out on a trip with a group of Americans was. I believe almost unanimously they answered, "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."
We think these situations are pretty funny...and sometimes nauseating...but it really shows how insanely hospitable these people are. They rarely let us visit without making sure they feed us in some way and they want you to stay for as long as you possibly can. They love it when we help them do things...mostly because we're not as good at it and they get a pretty good laugh. And they love just sitting with us even when we've exhausted our language and can't think of much else to say. And you don't even have to know people before you visit them. They immediately welcome you in like you're their long lost niece or something.
The other day I was talking to a Bambara man and he asked me my name. When I told him he said, "Oh, you're a Sunny woman!" I said that I was and that the Sunny people are good. He agreed with me and said that the Sunny people are very good because they are always helping each other. I know it seems kind of silly, but I really am proud to be one them.
We found her!
A few months ago, before we came to the city, our mayor's aunt from Yosemite had come to the city because she'd been really sick. We had taken her to the hospital in G-Vegas before, but even that wasn't helping so they finally just sent her here. Well a few weeks ago we found her! She is staying at our mayor's brother's compound so when we went it was like a Little Yosemite. Everybody who lives there is either from our village and is just staying here for a while or grew up in our village. It was so nice to be reunited with friends and family. PLUS, Little Yosemite is right down the street from a fake McDonald's...it's called MacParadise. We haven't tried it yet, but it's got to be good...or at least better than boiled goat stomach :)
Language, Language, and More Language
One of the best things about coming to the big city is that we have been able to meet with an actual language teacher...I'll call her Alicia. She is a Sunny woman who speaks...that we know of...5 languages, including even a little bit of English (and Bambara, French, Russian, and of course Sunny...I told you Africans are geniuses). Her actual job is teaching Russian at the public high school, so she really knows how to teach language. We started going to her to learn enough Bambara to get around in this city and then our supervisor said we could continue with her for Sunny for a while.
So we've been going to Alicia for 2 hours a day 5 days a week and it has pretty much revolutionized my language learning. Out in the village we had gotten most of our vocabulary. By pointing, acting out, and any other means we could use we had figured out most nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs...at least the stuff that gets used on a regular basis. The more difficult aspect had been putting sentences together correctly. It is difficult to communicate to a non-English-speaking person who has never once taught anybody a language that you want her to teach you how to put sentences together and speak above the preschool level...in a language that is nothing like English. We would try to get syntax from listening to them speaking to each other (because they would usually speak to us at the level they knew we could understand), but usually they would get to talking so fast that it was still hard to pick out how they had said something.
In the first few weeks, Alicia taught us the things that we'd been trying to figure out for months. Things that we would think we had figured out and then we'd hear it used in a completely contradicting way later. It could be pretty frustrating, but by the time Alicia had explained it we could look back on the things we'd heard in the village and more pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. It's still been fairly crazy because English is her weakest language and she will readily tell you that she doesn't understand English grammar at all...which means that she does most of her explaining in French and some even in Bambara. And we're still learning everything orally...so no writing anything down or seeing anything written down...just us and our voice recorders, but I am so, so, SO thankful for the time we've had with Alicia and the opportunity to get some of this stuff figured out.
So we've been going to Alicia for 2 hours a day 5 days a week and it has pretty much revolutionized my language learning. Out in the village we had gotten most of our vocabulary. By pointing, acting out, and any other means we could use we had figured out most nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs...at least the stuff that gets used on a regular basis. The more difficult aspect had been putting sentences together correctly. It is difficult to communicate to a non-English-speaking person who has never once taught anybody a language that you want her to teach you how to put sentences together and speak above the preschool level...in a language that is nothing like English. We would try to get syntax from listening to them speaking to each other (because they would usually speak to us at the level they knew we could understand), but usually they would get to talking so fast that it was still hard to pick out how they had said something.
In the first few weeks, Alicia taught us the things that we'd been trying to figure out for months. Things that we would think we had figured out and then we'd hear it used in a completely contradicting way later. It could be pretty frustrating, but by the time Alicia had explained it we could look back on the things we'd heard in the village and more pieces of the puzzle started falling into place. It's still been fairly crazy because English is her weakest language and she will readily tell you that she doesn't understand English grammar at all...which means that she does most of her explaining in French and some even in Bambara. And we're still learning everything orally...so no writing anything down or seeing anything written down...just us and our voice recorders, but I am so, so, SO thankful for the time we've had with Alicia and the opportunity to get some of this stuff figured out.
Sunday, September 5, 2010
Sam
A few weeks ago, Abby and I went to our tailor's shop in G-Vegas to drop off some fabric. Our tailor, Sam, speaks English pretty well so we're able to talk to him about a lot of stuff and he helps us out a lot. On this particular day, we talked about the health of children in Mali and how so many of them die from malaria. Then we talked about how the government is trying to improve that by supplying mosquito nets to pregnant women when they go to a doctor's appointment and when they give birth to the child. BUT many of the women never step foot in a doctor's office because they live out in the bush and don't even know the importance of this.
So then Sam started talking about how it is the husband's job to make sure that his wife is getting the treatment she needs. We camped out here for a while, but this basically let to a long conversation about marriage and what his faith teaches versus what we as Jesus-followers believe. We talked and talked and talked about the Bible and how it is the Word of God and that we regard it as absolute truth. He was very open to talking about this and we discussed the many similarities between his faith and our faith. We also discussed some of the differences. We never even brought up the idea of conversion, but he kept saying over and over how difficult it would be to convert because he has just believed his way all of his life because he was born in Africa. And he told us that we believed the way we did because we were born in a western country. But then he said that we were not like other "Christians" (most Africans refer to any westerner as a Christian). He said none of the others that he had met talked about Jesus...and that that's all we talked about! We told him it's because we chose to follow Jesus...nobody made that decision for us. As Abby and I were driving home, we were just in awe. God had totally taken over the conversation, giving us the words to say and keeping us from saying what didn't need to be. We don't know how God will use that conversation, but we know that He will.
Please pray for Sam. He did not come right out and say it, but I truly believe that he has at least considered the idea of following the Jesus Road because he spoke of the difficulty of conversion so often without any prompting from us whatsoever. And while it would be incredibly difficult for a man like Sam to follow Jesus, God can do anything.
So then Sam started talking about how it is the husband's job to make sure that his wife is getting the treatment she needs. We camped out here for a while, but this basically let to a long conversation about marriage and what his faith teaches versus what we as Jesus-followers believe. We talked and talked and talked about the Bible and how it is the Word of God and that we regard it as absolute truth. He was very open to talking about this and we discussed the many similarities between his faith and our faith. We also discussed some of the differences. We never even brought up the idea of conversion, but he kept saying over and over how difficult it would be to convert because he has just believed his way all of his life because he was born in Africa. And he told us that we believed the way we did because we were born in a western country. But then he said that we were not like other "Christians" (most Africans refer to any westerner as a Christian). He said none of the others that he had met talked about Jesus...and that that's all we talked about! We told him it's because we chose to follow Jesus...nobody made that decision for us. As Abby and I were driving home, we were just in awe. God had totally taken over the conversation, giving us the words to say and keeping us from saying what didn't need to be. We don't know how God will use that conversation, but we know that He will.
Please pray for Sam. He did not come right out and say it, but I truly believe that he has at least considered the idea of following the Jesus Road because he spoke of the difficulty of conversion so often without any prompting from us whatsoever. And while it would be incredibly difficult for a man like Sam to follow Jesus, God can do anything.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)