3 months

The day before we left for Guinea, little miss turned three months old! Of course that meant I had to dress her up in her best safari animal print outfit in honor of the event. Last month was a good one. She started smiling non-stop, blowing raspberries, chewing on her tongue, chatting and my favorite, laughing! She is seriously the best baby, which is why we have decided to stop while we’re ahead. Sorry Adele, if you wanted siblings, but you know how they say if you have a difficult baby first, your second will be easy? Well, if that’s true, then the opposite must also be true, and we can’t risk it. Ok, I’m only (mostly) kidding. We’ll see how it goes.

We were so sad to leave our friends and family in Utah, but it was time to go home and be together as a family. She was a dream on the flights, sleeping most of the way there, but made up for it by screaming three nights in a row when we got home. Luckily we have turned a corner and she’s back to her old self again. While we were waiting for our luggage and passports, one of Misters colleagues told us that there were hundreds of people outside the airport, and they cheered when the plane landed. I didn’t realize there were so many people looking forward to our return. Ok, there weren’t. Turns out an important political leader was on our flight and the cheers were for him.

harsh reality

The first familiar face I saw when we arrived at the airport in Conakry was not the expeditor as I expected, but one of Mister’s local colleagues. I thought it was a bit strange, but so nice that he would come welcome us. When he said he was so happy to see us, I thought he was just being friendly, but he then told Mister that he needed to call his boss right away, and they had both been working non-stop all day. As I listened to the conversation, my stomach dropped.  A demonstration just like the protests all around the Muslim world was scheduled for the following day, and Mister had arrangements to make. We were told that it would be peaceful, but even peaceful protests can turn violent on a dime.

The next morning I cried as I watched Mister pull on his tactical pants and combat boots and head off to work, not knowing what the day would bring. It turned out to be a non-event. They had great support from the local authorities and the protesters (all 30 of them) were detained before they even turned onto the street the embassy sits on. We were lucky, but many of our colleagues around the world have not been. Countless embassies have come under attack this past week with devastating results, including the death of four very brave men. I did not know them, but I easy could have, that’s how small this community is. My heart breaks for their families.

I used to live my life in a state of blissful ignorance, not worrying about anything that wasn’t directly affecting my life. I did not know what was going on in the broader world, nor did I care. It’s impossible to ignore things now that I have friends all over the world. The world has become very small.

Almost there

I was snapping at my mom the other day when she asked what my deal was. I told her I just want to go home. She said, but this is your old home, doesn’t that count? No, it doesn’t, not anymore. I haven’t called Utah home in ten years.

It has been a long 5 1/2 months. I have enjoyed my daily (yes, daily) trips to Target for random things I only think I need, eating out for basically every meal, often without leaving my car, going for walks in my sidewalk filled neighborhood, getting prescriptions filled within minutes, using my credit card, choosing between 10 different brands of peanut butter, you know, convenience. But this isn’t home. Home is brushing my teeth with water from the distiller, locking the steel door and setting the alarm before going to bed, taking anti-malarials every week, bleaching my fruits, vegetables and eggs before eating them, waiting weeks for toiletry items we ran out of and forgot to order ahead of time to arrive in the mail, taking a  2 inch stack of bills to get a weeks worth of groceries. Home is where he is.  Just 7 more days until we’re home. All three of us.