Hiatt's in the Congo

  Friday, I went with Amelia to run some errands. I wanted to go to the fabric store and grab a few more bolts of fabric and ended up getting tablecloth fabric as well!  I went to a new place in town I had never been before and it was eye opening.  We are blessed to live in the "nice" area of town.  Most of the houses here do not have running water.  They will carry these yellow jugs to a neighborhood well and fill the up and then take them home. The picture on the left is of school kids going to fill up the water to take back to the school.  There had been a big rain storm the night before and the roads were covered with mud puddles!   Here are some of the homes. They are made of this red brick that is not water proof and crumbles.  Once you buy the property down here you have to start building immediately or the government will come and take over the property.  You will find houses all over that have been started but never completed because...

 THANKSGIVING 2023 I have been looking forward to this day for awhile! Trent and I started talking in the office about doing Thanksgiving and I said I would totally host it!  We decided to do a pot luck where everyone would bring a dish (or two or three) from their country!  Trent bought a turkey and fed him for a month to get him ready!  He named him TG and I told him, I can't look him in the eye or I wont be able to eat him.   At first we though about having it at the yard but if it rained at all in the days leading up to Saturday we knew it would be muddy, so our house was a back up.  I'm so glad we did it at our house! It turned out perfect.  We have the perfect set up, with a huge living/dining room that fit everyone!   TG - Turkey...Trent put him in a brine and I have to admit, it was very tasty!! Sisca is amazingly talented and did the decorations. She had us send her a bunch of pictures of our families and she made table runners ...

 Preparations are underway here for our Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday, November 25!  We are having it at our house so last Saturday I took stuff outside to clean all of the dust off the front porch....withing 30 seconds I had helpers!  I love it when they come over.  It started out as Ella and Jason cleaning the patio furniture while I swept.  Then we mopped the floor and washed the windows.  Laurene came over to help and then, of course, it was snack time!  I tease Ella and Jason they have holes in their stomachs...they are never full!!                          

 I have slowly been building up my pantry here.  It is mainly going slowly because it is very hit or miss on what I can find here.  One thing we can not find is Crystal Light...and if you know Cory, he wont drink water unless there is flavor in it. I brought a bunch from home, enough that I thought would last until December, but we started running dangerously low so Kaylee and Aaron bought a bunch and got it over to Ben, from Westland, who brought it with him in October! Crisis averted!   I needed a way to store things and I don't have Amazon or The Dollar Tree to buy plastic containers so I do the next best thing...recycle our water jugs!   If you notice the big buckets of "cookies" (aka tire chocks) that the kids get as a treat!