My finger's stuck

This is how the child entertains herself so that her parents can read the newspaper for a little while at night. Do you hear this crazy language she is speaking in the second video? She sounds like she belongs at the Star Wars bar. The book on her head, I have to say, she got from me. Because the women here carry stuff on their heads all day long and so they look absolutely gorgeous just walking down the street, all things in alignment, proud and muscle-y and beautiful. Which leads me to ... I have been trying to walk with a book on my head. I do it about as well as our Dessi girl.

I've been thinking about these videos, waiting for them to load. ANd I've been thinking about how these little 30-second snippets worthwhile enough (in my mind, anyway) to be videotaped are actually just common things -- random moments on a random Sunday evening. And the actual abundance of these moments that we read the paper through or cook dinner around or, just, whatever, it's almost heartbreaking when one considers how rapidly a week, and then a year, and then a lifetime, can just pass by. There are so many of them now, and before I know it she will be off to college.

Which is to say, we leave Senegal on April 30th after a 2 1/2 year post. We are off to DC for two weeks, then Montana for two months, then Cote d'Ivoire in the fall for the next chapter in this wacky little book of ours.