Category Archives: Team

December 26, 2010 · 4:18 pm

Dashing Through the Sand.

This is what I was up to on Christmas Eve, while everyone else slaved over dinner. ...in fact, this is what I've been up to since my legs staged a coup last Friday!

Good…morning?

*Yawn

Alright, first things first. I don’t know about you, but I absolutely abhor the thought of giving up Christmas music so quickly!  I simply don’t see a reason for it. This one has been stuck in my head for about seventeen hours now-I kid you not, I’ve probably played it on repeat no less than twenty times just this morning. It’s got all of the sweet flirtation of “Baby It’s Cold Outside”-which routinely gets stuck in my head every year from about October to February. Give it a whirl.

 

Perfect. Now that we’ve got our mood music, I can go ahead and admit that I slept through call to prayer #1. And #2. …and quite possibly, #3. I can neither confirm nor deny that one. The point here is that Christmas tuckered me out! This may even call for a nap later. I wonder if Dayton will let me borrow his snuggie…

…nooot a chance. I don’t think the boy’s taken off that monstrosity since Ben gave it to him yesterday morning-we’ll be prying it off his cold, dead body one day. Or rather, his snuggly-warm dead body. [And there, you have the sheer genius of the snuggie. Currently selling

Christmas Eve dinner!

 like hotcakes in Japan.]

Sleepy and snuggie-less, my mug of caramel truffle coffee [Divine. If you’re a coffee drinker, switch immediately.] and I are here, as promised, to regale you with stories of Christmas in Dakar!

We rolled off the floor at about ten thirty AM, and were unwrapping presents by eleven. [And THERE you have the

Right before caroling on Christmas Eve!

latest Christmas morning I’m going to experience for approximately the next eighty-seven years.]  Now, confession is cathartic, so here’s mine for the day: My name is Ashley, and I am the world’s worst gift-giver.

Whew. I feel cleansed.

But it’s no exaggeration-for all of my wonderful intentions and as much as I adore the people I shop for, nothing throws me into a panic like having to pick out the perfect gift for somebody. I’d rather be boiled alive in a vat of hot chocolate, or have my gums scraped repeatedly with an ice-pick. I’m not kidding. I prematurely age approximately eight more

The boys unwrapping the African shirts we had made for them. Get in line, ladies...

 years every time a friend of mine has a birthday.

Drama, drama drama.

Given that I’m so exceedingly, atrociously awful  with this whole gift-giving thing, I’m always entirely caught off guard when somebody is really good at it. And let me tell you, I have five teammates that are. Michelle, for instance, has been listening to my grandiose plans to track down a fabric market in Dakar, find a tailor, and have an apron made in a funky African

The snuggie. Me-OW.

fabric for months now. I’ve been talking about it for months-but it’s always just sounded like too. much. work.

I’ll give you one guess as to what that sweet girl had under the tree for me yesterday.

And then there was Ted, who found the. most. gorgeous African scarf I’ve ever seen. I have the world’s most persnickety, obnoxiously picky taste in clothing-and over the years have perfected the delicate art of placidly arranging my face into a faux-excited “oh I absolutely adore pleather!” expression. It’s entirely convincing-puncuated by elated gasps and exclamations that would suggest I’d just won a trip to Paris or gotten that pony that’s been on my Christmas list for 23 years straight. But secretly, I’m always cringing. Dayton understands this about me, and apparently when Ted told him he was off to track me down a scarf, he simply rolled his eyes and shuddered, knowing full well that nobody should ever attempt to pick out something I’m going to end up wearing. [Or rather, that they hope I’m going to end up wearing. ;)]

The boys unwrapping the grill we got them. ...the grill that wouldn't light last night, resulting in a two hour fiasco that left their male egos forever bruised. Merry Christmas!

 

…to both Dayton and my stunned amazement, I didn’t fake a thing yesterday. LOVE it. Somebody’s Mama taught him well.

Ben, being one of the most thoughtful people on the planet, had snuck a stack of my favorite classic books onto the plane last October, and has been hiding the stash in his room ever since. In fact, Ben had all of his Christmas shopping done in October! Why oh WHY am I not that thoughtful?!

Dayton gave me some beautiful glass Christmas swizzle sticks for my coffee [where he found those in Dakar, I’ll never know], and he found us CHAIRS! Glory hallelujah, we can now seat

Ben: "It's like we're a family!" Ashley: *exasperated sigh "THAT'S what I've been TELLING you for two years!" Aaaand cue the laughter you see here.

four people around our little kitchen table. Epic poems will be written about him for years to come. I may even do a lyrical dance…just as soon as my legs decide to start working again.

And Christy…bless her. About a week ago, she looked at me with an amused grin, and this is the conversation that ensued:

Christy: I don’t have anything for you for Christmas.

Ashley: …yeah, I haven’t gotten you anything yet either.

Christy: There’s nothing in this country that I want.

Ashley: Me either.

Christy: Do you want to just not get each other anything?

Ashley: …we’re going to be friends forever, aren’t we?

We gave each other the gift of blissfully stress-free jack-squat. Which might sound grinchy to you, but was hysterically

Unwrapping the clues that led to our chairs upstairs!

 perfect for us. [And in my defense, her birthday present is tucked safely away in my super-secret hiding spot! I'm all over it this year. :)]

The rest of our day was spent throwing together brunchfest [and guess who found bacon in a Muslim country??], watching the Grinch, skyping with friends and family back home, eating dinner together…the usual cast of characters that you fully expect to enter stage left on Christmas day. And it was magic. There are only 364 days left until Christmas next year-and can I just say in all sincerity, that I am silly excited?

Stay tuned for tomorrow’s story, tentatively titled “Why no one in my family should ever ever EVER take Ambien no matter HOW badly they want to fall asleep.” And oh boy, am I ever going to get it for telling you that one…

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Filed under Christmas, Joy, Team

December 23, 2010 · 11:15 pm

Just a Spoon Full of Sugar. [Butter is Better than Prozac.]

The ghetto-fabulous little gas oven that we got to use for the day!

Today was baking day. Or more accurately, three homesick girls self-medicating with copious amounts of butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.  

Because as my Mother taught me, there’s almost no problem in the world that can’t be solved with a biiiig stick of butta. And butta is a much more socially acceptable coping mechanism than some of it’s prescription counterparts.

And so we baked. And baked. And then just to keep everybody guessing- we baked some more. Given that the blizzard of flour and sugar that ensued in the kitchen earlier today is as close as we’ll get to a white Christmas-…I may have gotten a little carried away. But oh, was it ever worth it. The most intoxicating, mind-numbingly divine smells were wafting from that rusty little gas oven-chocolate chip muffins [why do I even bother eating anything else?] and sour cream cinnamon swirl coffee cake [Martha may be a felon, but the woman can throw together a cake like nobody’s business…], monkey bread [say what?] chocolate chip cookies […okay, so given the fact that I literally quadruple the amount of chocolate chips my muffin recipe calls for and I doubled this batch of cookies…I’m sending out an SOS for more chocolate chips.] cinnamon nutmeg apple crisp and homemade Hawaiian pizza….all together now: be still my beating heart.

It was glorious. It was therapeutic. Eyes rolled blissfully into the backs of heads, taste buds broke out into the hallelujah chorus and my skinny jeans went and had a good cry.

And there was much rejoicing.

Laura-vraiment merci for letting us come use your oven all day!  Christy will name her firstborn child after you.  You heard it here first. [And so did she.]

Now, I’m going to level with all of you. There have been some tears around here lately-and by “here”, I mean my apartment. [Our he-men teammates upstairs don’t cry quite as often as Christy and Michelle do. ;)] We really miss home. And right now, I miss my mobility. It looks like the reindeer trot tomorrow morning won’t be as feasible as I’d hoped-but don’t you worry, because we’re going to find another way to work in those costumes.  

Anyhow, I just thought I’d be honest and admit that this isn’t easy. And sometimes, it’s with slow  reluctance that I unclench my fingers tightly wrapped around my dream of Christmas at home, and slowly, slowly hand it over to the God that died for me. We have to work at remembering and believing

Monkey bread. Delish.

 that following Jesus to Africa is worth it because He is good and enough. Enough. Not in a barely-scraping-by sort of way-no, not even close. In an overflowing, I can’t out-give Him no matter how hard I try kind of way.

Now if you’ll excuse me, we’re going to go have ourselves a very merry little Christmas now!

And a very Merry Christmas to you, too.

Let nothing  you dismay.

Remember Christ our Savior was born on Christmas day!

To save us all from Satan’s power

When we had gone astray-

Oh, tidings of comfort and JOY!

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Filed under Christmas, God's faithfulness, Team

December 22, 2010 · 4:13 pm

In Which I Paid a Visit to the Senegalese Emergency Room.

Some of the girls that have kept me sane while I've rocked this whole bedrest thing.

The first detail that simply must be clarified about said “Emergency Room” is that it was exactly that: a literal room in a clinic in downtown Dakar with the word “emergency” clearly labeled on the door.

But let’s back this train up and talk about how it came to pass that at eleven PM on Friday night, I found myself being carried into that dilapidated little room in that ghetto-fabulous little clinic, staring at the single most gargantuan roach I have ever seen in my life crawling menacingly across the floor and begging the nurse on duty [read: the ONLY medical professional on duty] to lull me into a coma with copious amounts of Mexican narcotics.

…or something like that.

About a month ago, I noticed a big red bump on my leg. It felt like a bruise, but only hurt if I touched it-so being the child-prodigy that I am, I decided not to touch it and went about my life. I mean, when you live in Africa, you become intimately acquainted a host of foreign maladies disrupting the course of your day-to-day–most of which eventuallywork themselves out given enough time and Cipro.  [And THAT is only funny to you if you’ve spent time in Senegal before.] I simply assumed the thing that had taken up residence on my shin was some sort of spider bite that would eventually fade.

Kellan stayed up with me on Friday night cheating at 20 questions via skype and trying to get me diagnosed from an ocean away, and Christy has been catering to my every whim since I was exiled to the couch. So. Spoiled.

 

Unfortunately, that blasted little bump decided to unpack, hang up curtains and stick some garden gnomes in the front yard. I mean, it moved in.   And last week in the days leading up to the best Christmas party EVER [not to be confused with the Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which is an absolutely phenomenal book that you should RUN to check out of the library], all of it’s redneck cousins showed up for the holidays

Danielle actually read part of the latest issue of InStyle to me on skype yesterday. Greater love hath no woman than this.

with their double wide trailers and coon dogs, and seven new bumps appeared on both of my shins.

The night before our party, I typed in my list of symptoms to webmd, and pushed a handy little button that was supposed to deliver a diagnosis.  That exceedingly helpful little website promptly informed me that I had herpes. [Which, I assure you, is entirely impossible.]

Now, let’s talk about what I was really concerned about, here. On Friday morning, I threw on a dress for our Christmas party, and came to the startling realization that my legs and feet more closely resembled swollen polish sausages uncomfortably stuffed into an all-too-small flesh-colored casing.

Don’t. Don’t you dare go back and look at the pictures from the party. Just take my word for it and let’s move on.

Michelle's done everything from translate to helping Dayton track down my meds to running and getting me chocolate macaroons. Which, clearly, are a critical component to the healing process.

Well on Friday, by the time the drag queen angel had announced beanie baby Jesus’ birth and the wisepeople had delivered his .99 cent light up Walmart snowman, I was in a pretty significant amount of pain. I made dinner, and then sprawled out on my living room floor with my feet propped up on a chair, as short bursts of fire began to shoot up my throbbing sausages legs. Three hours and half a bottle of advil later, the pain was absolutely dizzying and I was in tears. My force to be reckoned with roommate [Christy] was on the phone with SOS [our emergency medical care provider] to try and figure out what on earth you do with a medical crisis at eleven o’clock at night in the middle of third-world-Dakar.

Nothing fazes that girl. Not a thing.

What happened next is a bit of a blur for me-I remember Michelle finding my passport, Ben ignoring my vehement protests and scooping me up to carry me downstairs to the waiting taxi, and Christy calmly acquiescing to my

Dayton dropped everything to translate all my symptoms into french, get me to and from the doctor, find a pharmacy to pick up my meds...

 impassioned declarations that under no circumstances would I consent to being stuck with any sort of needle [though at that point, I might have made an exception for the aforementioned Mexican narcotics], or staying overnight in the hospital.

I spent that taxi ride doubled over as waves of pain rolled up and down my legs. For a million dollars, I wouldn’t be able to tell you how long we were in the car-but eventually, we rolled to a bumpy stop, and Dayton, Christy and Michelle dragged me into the clinic.

Where, if you’ll remember, there was a dingy gray hall with a dingy, gray door clearly labeled “EMERGENCY”.

Accuracy in labeling is so important, don’t you think?

I eased onto the gurney, and the aforementioned [and clearly unconcerned] nurse sauntered in and asked me what the problem was.

My legs are on fire. I think I have gangrene. And leprosy. And apparently herpes. Is this real life?

 

He poked and prodded, with me moaning and an irate Christy standing watchfully over me looking for all the world like she was ready to deck that man in the face. [Which, she later confessed, she very nearly did.]

And then without taking my medical history, asking for allergies, or running a single test, the brilliant man proclaimed, “Well, that looks like it hurts. You should see a specialist tomorrow. Want a shot for the pain?”

Begone, Satan. I think webmd was more helpful.

Michelle took over and got me a prescription for an African narcotic [safe!] to tide me over until my doctor’s appointment the next day. [A man who proved to be only slightly more helpful than webmd.]

We’re still in the process of figuring this thing out-but I’m on bedrest [or given the fact that I don't have a bed, matrest] and thus, not in nearly as much pain anymore. My greatest concern at this point is being able to run in the reindeer trot on Friday-because let me tell you, my costume is fantastic.

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Filed under Cross cultural moments, My favorite people, Team

December 17, 2010 · 12:45 am

Red, White, and Butt-Naked. [Almost.]

With Cayce.

We decided to channel our red, white and blue and eat cheeseburgers for dinner tonight.

Cheeseburgers will forever remind me of Cayce. Cayce was one of my roommates in college, and it wasn’t at all uncommon for me to wake up on any given early weekday morning, in a feat of epic proportions sluggishly drag my uncaffeinated, highly perturbed little body out of bed, and stumble confusedly towards the general direction my coffee pot in the kitchen only to be rudely startled by the unmistakable aroma of frying beef.

Not something you expect to smell at the crack of dawn. French vanilla coffee, yes. Hunks of dead cow simmering in lard…no.

Roomates.

And sure enough, there would be Cayce, plastic spatula in hand, cheerfully frying enough hamburgers to feed a small third world country.

In. Her. Underwear.

Those of you that know my sweet redneck roomate already know I’m not making this up-somehow in her free spirited mind, it simply  made sense to wake up at 5AM and fry forty-eight hamburger patties in nothing but underwear and boots. The rationale was simple: if you weren’t wearing any clothes, you couldn’t get grease on them. And everybody knows hamburgers freeze just beautifully.

…I never did figure out the boots, though. They were probably just to make sure that $4.98 jumbo tube of double-coupon Food Lion ground chuck knew who was in charge.

Inevitably, no many times I’d seen her do it or how late I’d been up studying the night before, I would dissolve into peals of helpless, insuppressible laughter.

Those were the days. :) These are the days. Speaking of roomates, Michelle is currently tinkering with coffee grounds, old jars and knives in the kitchen in a hysterical endeavor to make a DIY roach trap she discovered on the internet after a rather lengthy google search. [Much to her chagrin, we were fresh out of boric acid powder, which is apparently preferable to the coffee grounds alternative.] This is just one in an endlessly long series of attempts to exorsize the bugs from our lives-I believe Christy has been put to work strategically placing cloves all over our apartment. [Something about ants not liking cloves popped up as well, apparently. And if it's on the internet, it must be true...]

Okay, now she’s throwing pepper around the kitchen like it’s holy water [Is pepper for the ants or the roaches? It may have something to do with the baby spiders-I've really lost track at this point.] and is hollering about letting small geckos loose in the house. Time to run and do some damage control. I adore the girls I get to live with!

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Filed under Home, Joy, My favorite people, My ghetto-fab life, Team

December 7, 2010 · 4:34 pm

Of Sugar Plum Fairies, and Nine Year Olds Gone Wild.

With some of our loot today. :)

My apartment looks like a troop of unruly nine year old boy scouts were left to their own impish, gleefully mischievous devices when grocery shopping. An absolutely embarrassing number of sugary American confections in telling, obnoxiously loud neon boxes are spilling out of cabinets that are much to small to contain the armies of teddy graham bears and peppermint kisses doing their utmost to hide within.

God bless them-every one.

As I sit here munching on a hoho and reading “Cooking with Paula Deen” [hohos make me feel close to Paula], I’d like to clarify something: I promise, I really am a food snob. [If it helps, I’m eating this hoho off a plate with a fork!] I can’t tell you the last time I put a hoho [or it’s equivalent] into my mouth before this one.  I’m absolutely mad about cooking and quite frankly, I’m rather good at it.  I love what imagination can do to a little bit of flour and a whole lot of decadent chocolate and creamy butter. And despite what that implies, a hobby of mine in the US is coming up with divine dinners that will make you forget your middle name, but are astonishingly healthy for you.

Well, here in Africa [where government recommendations on the proportions of fruits and vegetables that are advisable in your diet are viewed less as helpful, and more as imperialist propaganda], things are a bit different. Thanks to my rice-loving African counterparts, I’m currently in the process of ensuring that there will indeed be no carb left behind when I hop on a Raleigh-bound plane in seven months.

Something about life in Senegal can take a food snob and leave her unwaveringly convinced that she can’t possibly go

Given that I've been turning progressively more and more green all week over the snow you CH kids got this week, here's a picture of the last time I was in CH for snow. Coping. Mechanisms.

 another day without a ding dong. And so when sweet friends ask what I’m dying for in care packages, I’ve been known to request foods that several months ago wouldn’t have gotten a second glance from me, and now occupy the better part of my daydreams.

Hohos, teddy grahams, candy canes, French vanilla coffee, wheat thins, and chocolate chips [oh. my.] were premier on wish-lists that I sent back across the ocean several weeks ago. Yesterday morning at about five thirty AM, Ben and I ran [okay, on one cup of coffee the best I could do at that hour was amble confusedly] to the airport to pick up Jason and Courtney-two coaches of ours from the US that are here for a couple of days to observe what we’re doing, offer feedback, and ensure that we’re not contemplating throwing ourselves into oncoming traffic in an effort to get home for Christmas. They both packed duffels full of presents from our families, friends, and some Bible studies that have “adopted” us back home! I wish you could have seen that group of twenty somethings bursting out in peals of irrepressible, elated laughter as we unpacked Funyuns, Jiffy peanut butter [not, mind you, intended to be eaten together], and enough zebra cakes and Christmas candy to keep us sugared up until 2011. The caption to that picture in my head is “nine year olds gone wild”-and was. it. ever. hysterical. I had a laughter induced headache at the end!

I’m not kidding. I took two advil. 

Vraiment merci to everyone that had a hand in the madness that ensued in the kitchen last night. You made a STINT team feel overwhelmingly loved and cared for. And in no particular order, on my part…

Thank you Talley and everyone else from the SP for all of the teddy grahms, coffee and magazines! You guys are so sweet-we’re rationing everything you sent for team movie nights from here until Christmas. :)

Thank you Mary and the EKU Bstud for the magazines, hohos, chocolate chips, coffee and the lemon heads for my “lemon days”. :) [Wildly creative, and SO thoughtful.] I wish you could have seen my face when I found a “Vogue” in that stack of magazines! You’re not, unfortunately, endearing yourselves to the men on my team given that I made Ben promise to read to me tonight…;)

KStew, thanks for the Christmas music, candles, magazines and stuff to remind me that I’m a girl. You get me, and I miss you. :)

Our early Christmas was serendipitously timed in the midst of a rough week-God knows what He’s doing, I think. And the weary world rejoices.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to run. Dayton has goaded me into trying my very first Funyun.

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Filed under Christmas, God's faithfulness, Home, My favorite people, Team