By: Madeline

     When your 'metaphorical cousins' visit, there are a few things you can expect. 1: Everyone will get along splendidly and nothing horrible will happen, it will be like little angels playing together nicely. 2: It will go well, aside for the occasional tiff and a few tears. 3: You learn not to expect anything because the results vary from hugs to sprained ankles. I think we can all guess that in this case it's the third.      The Reeves have been here for about a week now, and so far nobody has died. We moved my bed to the side and crammed two other mattresses in my room so I am currently blogging on the remaining two square feet of space. However, I feel used to this arrangement by now. The fact that our best friends are here after not seeing them for a few years outweighs that. So far, we have succeeded in reenacting Les Mis with the three of us girls, playing our own version of 'Thank God You're Here!', and chasing the bunnies around the yard quite a bit.

     You know, last night I was thinking about it, and I've never really thought about what went through my mind when we moved to Togo. I mean, honestly, nobody does that. Only crazy people. Obviously. And it's also something that lots of people have asked me, though I don't really know the answer. But now that I had a good three hours last night to think about it (compliments of a rainstorm), maybe I'll have a valid answer this time.       When we lived here the first time, I had no idea that it wasn't a completely average thing, to move to a developing, French-speaking country. And I was so little that I didn't even give it much thought when people asked me what it was like to live here (I learned to answer that question before I was three). But when I was four, and we made the sudden move back to America, I slowly withdrew into the normal American mindset, that living in Togo wasn't quite normal, just with the thought in the back of my mind that said, &q

     Having a blog is harder than I thought. As a writer, I only usually write when I have inspiration. But as a blogger, I feel like writing consistently about interesting things is hard to do. Especailly when i know people are reading it, unlike most of my other writing. In a way, it makes me feel more courageous as a writer, and in another way, it makes me feel like I'm not putting my best out there, which is one of my greatest fears. I do have a valid excuse for not writing in a few days though. For one thing, we made a brief but harrowing trip to Accra, which involved the Great Gatsby, a live Clue game, and the making of home made wizard wands. The trip to Accra is fifteen hours, and when you're driving all the way one day, spending two days in town, then driving all the way back the next day, it takes it out of you quite a bit.       We came back from said trip on Tuesday, and had a nice time sleeping until ten in the morning. On Wednesday I passed the day listening to D

     Today we went on a safari. For those of you who have never been to West Africa, (aka the sad, pitiful ones) this is not exactly like a safari you'd see in the movies. You get in a car, it's hot, there's no roof, you're out there for hours, there absolutely no breeze and the air that does blow is hot air, and there's not even a guarantee you'll see animals. Luckily, we did today though. We stated out by driving out to the game park, and all got out to pay. We decided to take the park car for some people, and everyone else would pile in our pickup truck. We went into their little solar-powered hut where I spent most of the time anylising the solar panels and how they work. We paid for the truck, were the guide started out by telling us we had to pay at least twice what the actual price was, then when dad just talked for a long time and got him down to the actual price, he threw his hands in the air complaining that's what he was saying the whole time.