Soooooo...I'm back. And it's so strange. I feel like the last 18 days were a dream.

I'm bummed to be back. Sad to have 4 months ahead of us. Frustrated to be back to this town that I hate. Sad to sleep alone again.
But I also feel hopeful. I feel rejuvenated. We made it over the hump, the majority of the distance is behind us now and we just have 4 months left. The last 5 months of distance came as a surprise to me. I was surprised because it went more smoothly than I had expected it to. It was hard but it didn't kill us. My SO and I both made an incredible effort and we stayed positive through it all. So I have confidence that the next 4 months will go similarly.
Difficult, but not devastating.

Like I said in my last blog entry, my trip there was wonderful. It was not perfect and we did not spend the entire 18 days happy. We fought a few times but that's life, right? Part of the reason we fought was because I had expectations that the 18 days should be perfect. But duh! This is life and life isn't perfect. So let that be a warning to you all: Don't expect your visit to be all cupcakes and roses And wouldn't it be boring if it was? When you love someone you have to love all of them.

So we spent the 18 days living our normal Bamako life. We played cards and watched movies. We visited various family members. We cooked meals together. We took pictures. I beat him at pool for the first time ever. We took his daughter to the amusement park (which totally freaked her out haha). We decorated the apartment. We talked about life. We talked about the future. We talked about God. We cleaned the apartment. We went out for a special Christmas dinner. We lit fireworks. We had a lot of special times in the bed (and on the roof) . We cruised around on his moto, rapping along with our favorite songs on the ipod. We laughed and cried and loved.

And here are the pictures to prove it:

Here are our decorations. I brought the lights from France and made snowflakes. I told him that it was up to him to "find" us some sort of tree. He got paint and paper and decorated the whole house with paper chains and painted a giant tree on paper with pink paper hearts and cut out angels with little notes on them.




This is outside our apartment:




Our special Christmas dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant:


Happy New Year to all my LFAD friends! I hope that 2011 brings you all your wishes, happiness, health and your loved ones.