Waiting for Debbie, Jerry and Sue

The last couple weeks we have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of our Christmas guests. Debbie, Jerry and Sue arrive in less than a month and we are very excited to greet them at the airport and show them around Mali.

Other than that nothing too crazy has been going on. A french organization is building a small dam near our village that will help with water storage issues and allow more irrigation of the surrounding fields. The construction of the dam will begin after harvest (sometime in January). Men from our village will do most of the manual labor involved with the project. The following clip and couple of pictures are from the welcoming celebration that our village put on, when the french organization came to our village to officially announce the financing of the project.

Of course our village welcomed the french organization in true Dogon style - dancing and singing.

Ashley holding Kaja, one of our favorite little girls, as the celebration takes place behind her
The women of our village all dressed up and ready to do a little dancing

This is a picture I took of Ashley as we sat looking over the fields near our house and watched as the sun setting behind us left the whole area looking beautiful.