Happy Birthday, Mark!!

Mark - Executive Director of Development - Birthday: April 12.

Mark is the most compassionate and hardworking boss ever. He is awesome and everyone just loves him. Saturday was his birthday and we had a little party for him today to celebrate. Notice the Razorback logo on his cake...Mark is an avid fan.

Jim, the only other man in the picture, is a genius with a great sense of humor! He was trying to get away and not be in the picture but I got him!:-)
Mark
Laura, Becky, Mark
Steph, Jim, Renea (you can only see her hair), Marweta, and Kim
Mark and Joy

Sounds of Africa

Saturday - April 12 - Sounds of Africa.
The African Students Organization here in NW Arkansas, stationed in Fayetteville, organizes this once a year. The aim is to acquaint their guests with the African culture, for the Africans themselves to enjoy their culture and dances and meet each other again, and also very importantly, to raise awareness and financial aid to support our African brothers and sisters back home. Donations are usually made from the over 300 guests present and these go to relief efforts in Africa such as to help those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

The program features dances from all over Africa, videos, fashion shows, freestyle dancing, drumming, eating, trading african artifacts, and then socializing afterwards. This year's program ended with a dance which continued into the early hours of Sunday. It was a lot of fun. For more pictures, please click here. You will need a temporal Walgreens login to see the pictures.
Guests slowly filter into the ballroom
We had a very good MC
Mohammed, the outgoing president, is a very dedicated and hardworking executive. This event marked the end of his term and was a huge success. He's also a good dancer and took part in some of the perfomances.

We had very talented drummers too


This girl from some Northern African country...I forget which one...was incredible!!
This was really good too

A Cameroonian, Mohammed from Morrocco, and I forget where the third person came from. They gave a delightful performance
These kids were too cute! They danced too!
And more... He's from Ghana
And the girls...
Fashion Parade. There were so many beautiful costumes I couldn't put them all on here. Go to this link if you want to see more.
From Cameroon

From Cameroon too!

Adeline is from Cameroon. Very sweet. She is also the incoming president taking over from Mohamed.
Selling African artifacts at the fundraising.

Aaron in the Holy Land

March 20-24, 2008 ~

Aaron visited Haifa for 4 days. He was able to celebrate Naw-ruz there, which was a real treat. The Cameroonian Baha'is there gave him a warm welcome and he met many of the wonderful friends there. My sister, Claudine, had also arranged to take him to Eilat, in Southern Israel, and so he visited the Dead Sea and Masada.

With Claudine and Claudia.

Eilat~ Floating on the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea is at the lowest point on earth, some 400 feet below sea level. The salinity in the water is so high that nothing lives in it...hence it's name. It is also very rich in minerals and it's surface is very elastic. Everything floats in it. So even if you can't swim, you can float in the Dead Sea. The mud on its banks is so famous that people come from all over the world to buy it from the stores that line the shore.