Time Warp

So, lately my part time job has been gathering information for my various employment requirements state-side. Often that means that I have to use my "connections" here at the college to call America through voice over ip calling. Then, through that, it feels kind of like a time warp, all of the sudden I am supposed to talk regular, non-Gambian English and speak to people in A-M-E-R-I-C-A! Which, the longer your over here, the more it becomes some kind of fantasy land, where everyone is rich and everything is wonderful.
Our pastime on "lazy" Sundays has been to plan various minute aspects of our move back home. Though this is good and makes us feel more proactive and excited about going back, it at the same time makes it sad that we are spending our time here doing that.
Today, being one of those Sundays, we have already made a detailed list of costs for moving back, moving to a new location, getting settled etc. Though for some it seems a long way off, only 8 more months of living here will go by so quickly because our weeks just disappear. We spent more than a year planning to come here, so moving somewhere else new is not far off in our minds. Always looking to the next thing. Sometimes we laugh, because I think if we weren't already married people would be wondering when we were going to settled down and live in one place for a while. I wonder too if I will ever have that desire!
Today we also made squash bread. I am becoming an expert in cooking with children. But I only always invite Fatou Bintou and MoLamin to help because they now know the ropes. Today, though Adama invited herself and added an extra spice to the mix. Andy did a good job wrangling her when needed and helping keeps things under control. Fatou Bintou holds the measuring cups over the sifter, MoLamin shakes the sifter (sometimes getting a little crazy). All the while we count out loud the amouts. Then after the squash was cooked I handed each of them a fork and they went to town smashing it in the bowl. All along the way MoLamin is taste testing everything sticking his finger in it all. Adama took the spoon that had cinnamon residue on it and stuck it to her mouth, then made a disgusted face. I smeared butter on her and MoLamins mouth. It was fun... It was carefully orchestrated chaos and we had a good time. After it was mixed I added a few raisins on top (MoLamin actually didn't like these) we put it out in the sun and a little over two hours later we had a delicious sweet squash bread. Man, gotta love the solar cooker. Fatou Bintou and MoLamin were the first to taste it and then we spread the wealth around the rest of the compound. Now... I wonder what we'll cook next week.
Oh, check out the new pictures of Andy putting in the solar system for our friend.