Since Sophie stayed over night with her cousin Samo I was free to go with Sami and Louisa to their friend Paul's villa by the sea for the day. Paul is one of Sami's partners in a project called El Rancho (www.elrancholebanon.com) and has a beautiful villa/condo by the sea. There were 3 large swimming pools and one kiddy pool beside the sea. However the red flags were out since it was so windy that day that we couldn't go swimming in the sea. It was a large gathering (approx 20) but we could have called a meeting of the UN. A couple of the people were Muslim (not only that but there were some Sunnis as well as Shiites represented there) and we were the Christian contingency and yet everyone got along! One of the ... read more

On Friday the 4th, Sophie and I traveled to the village of Kharfoura which is north of Beirut but south of Tripoli. The neighbors of Jemal had a luncheon for us outside (Eddie's sister in law who is widowed due to her husband being killed in the '82 war) Here are photos from that. ... read more

We had arranged for a taxi driver to pick us up from our hotel on Wed morning to take us to the airport but I wasn't sure if he would show up or not so I ended up asking the hotel to call for one. That's when the fun began. Because my taxi driver showed up the concierge didn't want me to take it because as I found out later they get paid $15 euros for each driver they call. They practically got into a fist fight in front of us before I finally just told my driver that we should go and the concierge should cancel the other car. After all that excitement it was pretty calm getting through security at the airport. We had an extra seat beside us so Sophie ended up sleeping ... read more

So, here I am again, looking forward to another adventure. Sophie and I leave in 2 days to travel first to Paris for 3 days and then onto Beirut for 10 days. I'm hoping to have internet connection to keep you loyal call me crazy followers up to date on what's happening to me. I'm apprehensive at this point probably because I don't have a thing packed yet for either Sophie or I but it will all have to come together by Sat afternoon. I'm looking forward to this adventure!... read more

As Paul Harvey would say...and now the rest of the story.....When I wrote to you about going to Wenchi I purposely left off a part of that trip. After eating dinner in Weslio we were about 30 min out of town when I looked up and a small boy ran directly in front of our minibus. The driver instinctively swerved to miss him or we would have killed him on impact. The driver cranked the wheel as hard as he could to the right and we plunged into a ditch at a very high rate of speed, went up an embankment and then hit a fence. The driver had his seatbelt on but unfortunately there weren't any seatbelts in the seats that Lauren (the English teacher from the midwife college) and I were sitting in. Lauren ... read more