Looking Back: Milestones

Well, people, it's official: Rachel survived a whole year in West Africa.

In honor of the occasion, for the next week or so, I'll be writing "Looking Back" posts.  Today we'll start with some firsts - some big, some trivial, some tongue-in-cheek.

The Milestones

Firsts:
- flight across an ocean
- all-nighter (actually it was two all-nighters in a row, neither of them being intentional - I couldn't sleep on my flights over here)
- eating-around-a-bowl meal
- taking the bus by myself
- taking a bus I'd never taken without being told by another ex-pat, "Bus X goes to Place Y" (that gave me a great sense of accomplishment!)
- outfits made at the tailor
- pet gecko (the first of many!)
- ferry ride
- time on an island (I think it was my first time, anyway)
- burger with egg and fries on top (I've heard you can get them in the States, but I never tried it till I came here - here it's hard to find a burger without an egg and fries on top)
- marriage proposal from a taxi driver
- understanding a play-on-words in French (it was funny, but I think I laughed more because I was pleased to have understood)
- shopping at the market by myself
- understanding an application from a message at church
- visiting my host family by myself
- visitors from the States
- making bissap myself (Angèle taught me)
- frying plantains myself (Marie-Claude taught me)
- birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter in Africa
- baptism at church
- wedding reception
- baby born to someone I know here

Other milestones:
- the longest stretch of time I've been out of California (and therefore the longest stretch I've been away from family)
- the half-way point of the French program
- 7500 words/phrases in French (we can expect to learn about 12,000 - 15,000 words/phrases over the course of the program)