Adventures in Africa

Living in Africa constantly teaches us new things. This weekend Alexis was sick and needed something like Pedialyte which is found in the U.S. Well, we got to experience making our own oral rehydrating solution (water, sugar & salt) and trying to get her to drink it. We took Alexis to the doctor this morning and received an antibiotic for her but it looked a whole lot different than we expected! It was a bottle with white powder in it. We had to add a certain amount of water, mix it and then give her the right number of mL (milliliters) with a syringe. What a learning experience!
We also had a challenging grocery shopping experience. I sent Dan to the store for bread and hamburger meat. Hah! He had no idea what he was in for! He went to four boulangeries (bread stores) and there was no bread to be found. What this means is that there was NO BREAD. I mean there’s no one who will go to the back of the store and find you a loaf that has been saved and not put out on the shelf yet. There is simply no bread so you eat something else. Our househelper today confirmed that she has not been able to find bread for 3 days. There was no hamburger meat Saturday and there still isn’t any today. The store we use is also out of chicken so we will have to be creative with the meals we can make. (I could probably go to the market and buy a live chicken but you won’t find me doing that anytime soon!) It’s amazing how we’ve learned to make do when things simply aren’t available. I am thankful that I have not heard one complaint from anyone in the family. We are learning to be content with what we have and that’s so cool.