It may seem to you like we took a week off, since I haven't been able to update this for two weeks. Wow... you cannot understand how easy it is to take for granted high speed internet! Once again, I have experienced the challenges of trying to post blogs and pictures with very slow internet... and I again appreciate what we have in South Africa. Enough of that though. We are back in South Africa, but I still have many posts for our Gambia trip!

On our day off (Monday March 30) during Morning devotions, Nathan asked Brigit if we could visit her family compound when she came home from school. This was his first visit to a "real" Gambian home. Brigit's family has some land for growing rice and other crops, as well as raising pigs and ducks. Her mother is able to grow enough rice for the family to eat off for about 9 months of the year. She also trades the rice for other staples during the year. After praying with her family, we toured the rice fields, and found the neighborhood boys enjoying their swimming hole!! Another new experience for Nathan was to find 'loofah sponges' (not really sponges but a seed pod) hanging from vines in the trees. He cut one down and brought it back to South Africa for his mom. The one experience that he missed out on was tasting some of the "palm wine" that Brigit's uncle taps from the palm trees... maybe next trip!