This Weekend

Recently I met this wonderful Italian lady (she and I share the same love for dancing that’s how we bonded, at the dance floor at an african concert). This weekend she invited us to joined her and her friend to the beach. She and I communicated in Spanish, but her friend and David communicated in Portuguese... the boys well they are getting used to people switching languages often. Here they have been learning Arabic and French at the local school, which is the customary way. Anyways we had a great afternoon, now that Gabriel is really sitting on his own, it is such a different experience to go to the beach. I am really loving it so far since he is not yet crawling and eating sand!

Off to the Beach

It looks as though the beach continues to be a recurring theme in our lives (thank God!). Which is funny because it has been one of my dreams to have a nice house near the beach, now at least one part of my dream is coming true (God willing the other will too sooner rather than latter). I am constantly amazed by how hospitable and warm people have been to us here. I don't know if they take pity on us because we look a bit out of place and in need of guidance and help, but we have been very blessed to receive plenty of invitations to do things during the weekends with the boys. Last weekend a friend invited us to her little beach cabaña were we grilled some good food while the boys played around the beach with her son.

Yippee

Here are some pictures I took at this weekends visit to an amusement park in the outskirts of Nouakchott. As you can imagine the boys had a blast, even Gabriel understood this was a special treat just for kids... but it was too much excitement for him and he got tired ;)

Baby Steps

The last couple of weeks have been busy for all of us, I had a couple of photoshoots, David has been doing progress on his writing, the boys have been working hard in school, and Gabriel has learned to sit on his own. Previously I had mentioned that we exchanged contact information with these turkish girls we meet at the beach, and recently they invited us over to their place for dinner, such sweet girls! They spoiled us rotten with so much attention and care, you can see Arturo was not waisting any time bonding, and I wish I could have recorded Salomon talking to them about geography, world cultures, languages and religion! We are slowly, but surely making progress in our projects, and meeting new people. I leave you with a few recent shoots.

Grace of Africa

Picnic Beduin Style

There are many french nationals residing here in Mauritania, recently we made friends with a really nice family and they invited us to join them in a picnic at the beach. This was a fairly new experience for us and a very interesting one too. They invited people from different backgrounds, Spanish, Mauritanian, French, Lebanese, American-Colombia (us of course) and they hosted everyone at the beach inside and outside a big bedouin tent. They had some locals cook a whole goat which was served with couscous and salad. Children running around, Adults talking in at least 3 o 4 languages, babies crying (it was well past Gabriel's bed time, but no worries they brought a little portable crib for us. )Such a wonderful evening, forever grateful!