thinking about foreign aid

"In short, it’s complicated. Scharpf is engaged in a noble experiment — but entrepreneurs fail sometimes. And anybody wrestling with poverty at home or abroad learns that good intentions and hard work aren’t enough. Helping people is hard."

While reading this article in the NY Times, these sentences really summed up what many of us (or at least me) learned in the Peace Corps. When you arrive, you're all doe-eyed and ready to make wonderful changes in the lives of some of the poorest but amazingly hospitable people you've ever met. Then you realize just how agonizingly slow change can be in a country where you are just beginning to understand the ins and outs of the system. In short, it's complicated!

Please read the article, it is long, but worth it!

Sseko Sandals

I just wanted to share a link to these sandals which are SO CUTE and benefit a pretty amazing group of women in Uganda.


Here is story behind the sandals.
I know it's not really the best time of year to be wearing sandals in the states, but these would still definitely make great gifts.


You can host a party, (sort of like a modern tupperware party?!) or set up at booth a festival (or maybe your local farmer's market?) to sell the Sseko sandals.
They also are offering to make sandals in custom colors for your wedding! How cool! I wish I had known about that a few years ago!
ps- I am promoting Sseko of my own free will, I wasn't paid to do it!

a healthy dose of crazy

I want to pull my hair out right now. What was I thinking when I said "entirely handmade Christmas sent out early to the states"? Oh, and top that off with a Halloween party for all the kids in our apt building this weekend. Right. Idiotic.
Luc is in a; semi-teething, doesn't want to eat anything unless it's milk or strawberries, climbing out of his bed AND opening the door at naptime (aka refusing to nap!), throwing anything he can off the balcony, pushing the on/off button on the computer console, pouring his milk all over the carpet, pushing the webcam off the monitor, climbing on top of the dresser to get to the Sharpie markers, and in general quickly finding his next betise before I have finished trying to fix the last one-phase.
The more betise he does, the more frustrated I become. And the more I start to NEED him to take a nap. And that just isn't happening this week. I've been reading a lot of online comments of parents trying to get their toddlers to sleep, or enforcing naptime. First, it is impossible to enforce naptime when he has learned to climb out of his bed and open the door. And second, enFORCING a nap will not work. (Nor is it the respectful approach to parenting that we want to take) We're in a period of change right now, and either we'll have to move up bedtime, or start the nap routine earlier in the day. I hope that we can still preserve naptime, because this mama needs it! But if not, we'll have to deal with a grumpy monkey (and sometimes mama too) and wait until we're all adjusted into a new routine. But for real, couldn't this have waited until AFTER I finished all the holiday prep??

eye candy for babies

There is a collection of books titled "Eyelike" that our family has fallen in love with. The photography is beautiful, and the layout is appealing too. Luc loves to flip through the pages to look at pictures of REAL elephants, pineapples, and trees. He definitely prefers picture books/films or video clips of real plants and animals over the animated version. For months now, we've been reading the Opposites book, and he loves to point out everything when we ask him, "do you see the herd of wildebeasts?" We're hoping we can welcome the rest of the collection to our home soon, because we all enjoy the books so much! If you have a little someone on your holiday list this year, I highly, highly recommend one or more of these. You can find them on Amazon for 10 bucks or less if you don't mind slightly used ones. (We don't!)

ready for the holidays?

You might think I'm starting early when I tell you I've begun planning for Christmas. But since I've decided to handmake all gifts, I think I've got a fair amount done, but still have a long way to go until finishing. And let's remember that it took about 6 weeks for my Christmas package to arrive in the states last year, so really, I've only got a few more weeks until I should ship those gifts out.
To be honest, I started planning in September, using my first tutoring payment to buy the supplies I wanted. I tried to keep the purchases to a minimum, and planned gifts around the supplies I already have, and other things lying around the house. Of course I bought felt in bright red and green, because what are Christmas decorations without felt? I made felt stockings (since we didn't have any last year) in what I thought was normal stocking size and when I showed them to Alex he says "wow, they're huge! In France our stockings are much smaller". Funny the things you learn everyday, huh? But he quickly added, "they're great, love, this means we'll just fill them up with more gifts!" The conversation reminded me of the "Everything is bigger in America" mantra.
Anyways, you can see the beginning of the x-mas workshop here:






That's about all I can show you, because the rest has to remain a surprise!
Hopefully I can keep up my momentum for the next few weeks until most things have to be shipped either to the states or France.
Probably doesn't help that we decided to host a little Halloween party for a few of the kids in our building. Haha! Ohwell, I'm having fun in the process, and I think that's what matters anyway. Back to busyness now-it might be awhile until I'm back in this space!

a BIG announcement...

WE BOUGHT A HOUSE!!!!!

Here are the pictures from the real estate company, we don't yet have any of our own, so you'll have to make do with these until we have the opportunity to take some. The house is 30 years old, and definitely needs some work, but we really love it for it's location, it's big yard, and it's view on the sea. Oh, and of course, the mango, lychee, and banana trees too!



We first signed the papers for the house about 2 months ago, and have been waiting for what seems an incredibly long time to make sure the loan would go through in our bank. Yesterday we received a paper copy that all was good, and finally feel like we can truly celebrate. We'll be moving-in in about 3 months time.

Kiva's 5 year mark

Kiva is turning 5!

And because of that Kiva is offering us 25 extra lending dollars if we sucessfully refer 5 of our friends. (Meaning, if of our 5 friends sign up and donate $25 each to a Kiva loan)
In the past, we've lent to projects for
Tasleem
Omotolani
and
Ofugho
We'd love to be able to do more. If you're interested in learning more about Kiva, you can start here. You can also buy gift certificates in $25 or more for people. They would make great holiday gifts!
Let me know if you're interested by leaving me a comment below and then I'll send you an invitation.

POTty training

What you can't see is that he is reaching for his TIME magazine to begin an article while he sits.

kangaroo

isn't jumping just the best?!

gotta take a break.

again, with the happy face.

(note to self: must get new camara so pictures turn out a zillion times better!)

what's trending at Résidence COMPOSTELLE?

why, more market bags of course!

Red ones for a pair of sisters and someone's Mom. The brown one went to my neighbor downstairs who just left on Monday for THREE FREAKIN MONTHS in India!! Oh, how I'd love to visit there one day.


The construction is always the same, and the color choices are left to the person receiving the bag. One of the sisters is now making me a knit hat in exchange. She showed me one she had knit up previously and it's pretty impressive, but I'm just not sure where I'm going to wear a knit hat when the temps are climbing steadily back up to oppressively hot levels.

Happy Birthday Alex!

image found here

Hey love,
a birthday poem for you:

Let's have a party and some fun,
enjoy the warmth of the sun.
Another year has passed you by,
man, time sure does fly.
So sit down and relax,
play your music to the max.
May the beer be cold,
and also, you're old.

Love you!