Our safari weekend in Pama National Park

Back in March, while the girls were on a break from school, we set off with some friends on an adventure to the southeastern part of Burkina Faso to a remote little area east of the town of Pama which closely borders the country of Benin. We stayed at a lodge set on the Pama National Park for two days of safari fun.

Unlike the previous safari we went on last March to Nazinga near the Ghanian border where we saw mostly elephants, this time we decided to venture out to a different part of the country to try our luck at spotting the critically endangered....West African lion.

So after weeks of planning and research (because that's how long it takes here to plan a little two day trip) off we set on our journey with a whole bunch of friends in tow!

We did some car swapping before we left and Sydaleigh rode with her friends and Marvelly's favorite friend rode next to her! They are a couple of goofballs! I love having friends with girls the same age as mine and they all happen to get along fabulously!

This was also my mom's first time driving outside the city, and all the things that she had heard and read about that you typically associate with African life started to come alive before her eyes.

I love driving through Burkina. The landscape is identical nearly everywhere you go, with sparse shrubs, red dirt, and little huts dotting the landscape....but it never gets old. I like it. I like the simplicity. My mom does too. There is just something very peaceful about driving through the countryside and seeing little thatch roofs peeking up across the land.....

....little roadside stands selling gasoline and drinks....

...seeing cotton spilled out and blown across the roads after being harvested and piled high into holding areas until it can be loaded up into "trucks of a Burkina Faso program that deals in cotton certified as fair trade."  It's too bad, and sadly not at all surprising, that the program is being investigated for child labor violations. 

All of Burkina's certified organic cotton crops are bought by Victoria's Secret, and the fiber harvested like shown here is then sent to factories in India and Sri Lanka and fashioned into underwear, and then labeled, "Made with 20% organic fibers from Burkina Faso".

So naturally we had to stop so my mom could hop out of the car to bring some cotton home! Cotton straight from Burkina before it ever hits the stores!

But! Just because the country is simple....doesn't mean it's boring! WHAAAATTT is up with that car?!?!?! Where else can you see this on the road I ask?! Truly epic. Only in Burkina. Hey mister, I think I see some room for a few more jugs up there in the corner...

It was a peaceful six hour drive....until we got to the fifth hour and our little green sign pointed us down this path for the last stretch....

...it might not look so bad, but lets just say it was a doozey!! Weren't sure we were gonna make it at times!

There was LOTS of sand out here. I'm not sure why I was so surprised to see so much sand...but I was. I think mostly because it's easy to forget at times that we live in the Sub-Saharan desert in the capital. But out here, where there are hardly any buildings cluttered together, no paved streets or dirt to cover the natural landscape....the sand has a chance to blow in a settle from the massive Sahara desert just to our north. In Burkina it is illegal to cut down trees in an attempt to help prevent further desertification here in the country. But out here, it's easy to see the effects of the largest desert in the world nestled just to the north of us(technically it's the 3rd largest desert, Antarctica and the Arctic take the top two spots).

Oh, just an elephant crossing up ahead....

The first time my mom saw an elephant in the wild! There's a cute little baby nestled in there! We may have screamed and pointed and parked the car as close as we could get and sat there watching them until the female in the lead decided she didn't like us being there....then we booked it!

African elephants, unlike Indian elephants, are super aggressive. These aren't your "Dumbo let me climb on your back and take a ride and feed you peanuts outta my hand" type. These are the "get too close and I'll charge you, crush you under my feet, and pick up this log with my trunk and beat you with it" kinda elephants. So, we snapped some happy pictures and then mozied on our way.....

Our little abode for two nights. This was by far the nicest place we've stayed at in country. By far! This little lodge was super clean, had tiled floors, covered terraces, good bathrooms.....AND, drum roll please....running water the whole time! Which means we could flush our toilets! Whoop whoop! AND there was A.C. that they turned on for us during the night. So we didn't have to sleep in wet clothes to stay cool! This was my mom's first time staying at a "hotel" of sorts, in the country, so I don't know if she was as impressed as we were...but with the luck we've had with accommodations here, this place was paradise.

And just beyond that "fence" (if you can call wood beams lined up in a row that you can walk through a "fence", then yes, that's what it was) is the very alive bush. Not a whole lot separating you from the wild! As we later saw and heard!

We arrived Friday afternoon around 1pm, unpacked and then quickly sat right back down so we could hang out and chat. The lodge had an outdoor restaurant with great food, minus the meat they kept servin' up. =)
      
We went with just the greatest group of friends.....coming along were our friends Mike and Amy (who brought along a sweet girl named Beeba), my dear friend Joanna, and some fun new friends Jonette and Martin (and their three girls).

Here is part of our group, rows two and three....as we were piled into the vehicle preparing to leave for our afternoon safari a little while after arriving on Friday. These rows do not seat six to a bench...but somehow we all squeezed in and no body fell out while driving! Success!

....and then the first row folks and Isaak in the front. That's fourteen people from our group plus the driver and the lookout....that's a whole lotta people squeezed into one vehicle! It was a BLAST!

Our first excursion started around 4pm and we stayed out for 3 hours or so. It was warm but the open top of the vehicle gave us a great wind and the fresh air felt so good. There is no fresh air to be breathed in Ouaga, so I was very grateful to come out here just for the air! Also, it's amazing how much animals blend into their natural environments.....there is an elephant in this picture. It could very easily be seen as a rock, or tree stump.
     

That first ride out we saw a bunch of animals, but never were able to spot our lion. We did however see lots of deer...

We saw roan antelopes, but here they are called Kobas. These are big, really really big animals. They looked more like horses out there. They fed one of these to all of the non-vegetarians our first dinner there. 

And of course we saw more elephants! Biggie on the far right wasn't too happy to see us. When elephants get angry, aside from stomping their gigantic feet and trumpeting their horns...they spread out their ears as a warning to get back. And they most certainly did!

We came upon this family right around sunset, which was great because we had just enough light left to be able to see them. We sat and watched them from a safe distance for a little while before they finally turned around and left.....

...off they go....so so cute.

We traveled around for about three hours looking for animals and then watched the sun set over the savannah as we traveled through the bush on our way back to camp for the night.

some oranges and pinks still clinging to the sky as the sun kisses the earth....

Before long only a sliver of light remained and it became harder and harder to see....

almost gone.....

...lights out.

We had about two feet of visibility from the little headlights on the vehicle. It. was. dark! And eerie! You become keenly aware in the moment that you can no longer see that you are in the middle of the very active bush bustling with animals that you could see moments before! Aside from the rouge animals lerking around, my biggest concern was not gouging my eye out or getting stabbed with invisible branches sticking out into the "road" as we drove back.

When we weren't out safar'ing the girls occupied themselves playing cards, roaming around the grounds playing and relaxing in our room watching movies.

The next morning we set out bright and early as soon as our a.c. turned off around 6am.

By about 7am we were roasting under the oppressive sun!

We stayed out for about 6 hours this time. It was a long safari, especially in the heat. But our guide kept it interesting by trying to shoot himself some of those flying things. Some kind of bird I'm guessing....I'm not a bird person.

    

We saw some baboons. And some more elephants. And deer.
      
And played memory games with the kids to pass the time as we drove.

Marvelly and her buddy rode in the front for a few hours, and eventually Marvelly fell asleep. The guide was so sweet, helping to keep her covered up with a towel I brought so she wouldn't burn to a crisp.

Our mode of transport. One of the tons of birds we saw. We drove around for so long this day that everyone was getting a bit tired from the heat, and the pain of sitting for so long on such bumpy terrain. We had mostly seen deer, antelope, and birds for the first few hours. We were getting antsy. Because their was still no sign of our lion, let alone the dozens and dozens of water buffalo we were told roamed out here.

We did however see Pumba!! And baby Pumbas! Warthogs are so cute! I may be the only one that thinks so, but really, they are. They are like this strange combination of a dog, pig, rhinoceros and horse (thanks to the horse like flowing locks on their head!) all mixed together. 

Eventually the guide pulled over to give us a break to stretch our legs. We stopped at this lookout that the park has set up way out in the bush. Two girls at the lodge stayed up here over night the first night we arrived. Of course all the kids wanted to climb up there and check it out. I don't think that I would have let my kids climb up and down two stories on a wobbly rickety old ladder if I hadn't of moved to Burkina, but after you let 'em sit on crocodiles it's like, "up ya go!"

We took a couple photos. And then loaded back up and kept on moving....praying praying we would see a lion.....

And then by an incredible stroke of luck (or God's grace...I like to think He answers my prayers even about seeing lions! =) ) we spotted one! A West African LION!!!! We couldn't believe it! I still can't believe we saw one in the wild. The chances of seeing one, not even because they are critically endangered, but because they blend into their environment so perfectly, makes it near impossible to see them! 

Had the lion been laying down in the brush we never would have spotted it. But, it just so happened to be standing up and walking over to a large nearby tree where it laid down on the base and disappeared in the camouflage of the bark and shadow. So so incredible. We were all so excited and amazed. It was such a gift to be able to see one, and sit some 100 feet away and watch it walk in its natural environment. This was definitely the highlight of this excursion!! 

Later that afternoon when we returned we met this Frenchman who was staying at the lodge for two weeks. He travels around the world for six months out of every year hunting wild game (can you say $$$$$!!!) He is one of two people in the world who was approved for a license to hunt for a lion this year at the park, and he just happened to kill one the night we arrived. Due to the fact that the W.African lion is critically endangered they have strict limits on how many can be hunted annually, and at this park only two per year can be killed. And this guy killed one of the two! Isaak is holding the bullets used to take down Simba. Personally I think that if an animal is critically endangered, then they should not be allowed to be hunted at all, but clearly not everyone shares my sympathy for the plight of our world's creation.

Despite my displeasure over the lack of concern for animals in the eyes of hunters, it was really fascinating talking to him. He says every time you kill an animal the staff takes it and butcher the animal immediately after the kill. A small portion of the meat is reserved for the hunter for his prize dinner, and the rest of the meat is given to the families of the local staff who live on site here. 

This is a picture of a water buffalo being skinned. This Frenchman killed a lion the night we arrived, and then killed this buffalo this same morning while we were out. It was a bit bloody to watch, but strangely, I found that I could watch it without being squeamish. What's happening to me?! I think mostly I have become very immune to the graphic-ness of watching animals being butchered here, because I see it on the street almost daily. Never an animal this big, but still. It is such a normal part of life here, I've noticed that I've slowly become unaffected to this aspect of life here without dry heaving every time I see an animal killed and minced. Animals are a source of food. Not for me, but to everyone else they are. C'est la vie. 

We all stood around for a while, talking to the hunter and watching.....as soon as they skinned the animal and started gutting the buffalo some kids came over and started fighting over the innards, which were massive and they were scrambling to put their share in a bowl. At one point my mom saw a little boy walking around with a hand full of raw meat and stuffing it into his mouth. It sure is interesting here!
   
This is the skull of the lion he killed the day prior. He gets to keep the head, hooves and hyde...as his trophy. Apparently people are really into this...I don't get it, but whatever.

And then Saturday night as we were heading to dinner, this guy pulled up right next to us with this thing hangin' out of the back of his vehicle.

A koba. Isaak couldn't resist getting a picture. He couldn't have been prouder if he'd shot it himself. This was a day filled with lots of dead animals. It's a good thing I'm not the easily offended kind of vegetarian.

Much much later that night after dinner and most everyone went back to their rooms some of us adults stayed out and played games.....we had a great time. That is until around 12am when we were finishing a game of 7 Wonders and we started to hear the field next to our lodge (the field just on the other side of our "fence" where we stood and watched baboons dangling from the trees some 20 feet away earlier on) start to come alive with wildlife. First it was a warthog(s) huffing and puffing, then an elephant started to toot it's big ole horn, then came the sound of what we think were baboons fighting...either themselves or something else...then the elephant started to trump even louder because of the baboons commotion, and then we heard what sounded like a lion viciously growling.

I swear it was a lion.

Of course when you are staring out into the bush in the pitch black and can't see a dog gone thing, it can be a wee bit tricky to tell exactly what you are hearing....but there is nothing that I know of that compares to the sound of a lion....and this was a lion. As soon as we heard it, that sound, that dangerous sound that makes your hair stand on end, everyone froze. And all the eyes just turned away from the game to the wide open field a mere 60 feet away from us. I actually stood up and was so scared I was ready to book it to my room! Except I kept thinking I was Val Kilmer in the Ghost in the Darkness and had this vision of a lion bolting out from dark and grabbing me as I tried to get away! Ah! Too many movies!! Only this time it was real! It didn't help that two weeks ago at this very lodge a hunter was mauled by a lion while out in the bush and had to be rushed to the hospital. It also doesn't help that when in the wild, and the dark, you have no way to gauge just how close an animal is because their sound carries SO far. SO of course what sounded like animals fighting 50 feet away from us could have been a mile. No way to tell! All I know is that it was LOUD! And nerve wracking!

A very fitting way to end an adventure, with a good healthy dose of animal fear!

We had an amazing time. This was one of the greatest trips we've taken in Burkina so far. The company was fantastic; I love our friends. We had such a great time talking and laughing. The kids had a wonderful time. I love that Sydaleigh and Marvelly had friends along too, and they were able to make memories together. So very grateful we get to do this. Love that my mom was here to join us and she could experience this with us. We've made such great memories.

Until the next adventure....

Morning mommy monster

I had an epiphany this morning.

I'm not a morning person.

This revelation really struck me. Because I used to be. I still really want to be. I can be if I am allowed the time to wake up on my own accord and have peaceful moments of solitude before the demands of the day beckon to be dealt with.

But such is not my life right now.

Right now, I am not a morning person.

Currently, I am more of a morning mommy monster. The gleefully joyful morning person I used to be that jumped out of bed rearing to go has taken a back seat to a maniac.

I need to find a way to bring that lady back again. She was nice. And patient.....and nice....and patient.

I think my kids would really appreciate that chic coming back. As opposed to the drill sergeant standing next to them at the table barking for them to eat their breakfast faster or they're going to be late for the bus while trying to brush their hair and look for library books.

No body likes a frazzled totally whacked out drill sergeant monster of a mom.

This, this....is a lie!! Oh look, we're so happy and smiling, and wearing real clothes and brushed hair by 6:30am! Fake! You should go to jail for so falsely misrepresenting yourself!

This is more up my morning reality...I mean, if you take away the nice hair, accessories, lip stick, and pretty dress. But if that chic was decked out in sweats, no bra, a sloppy pony tail, glasses and eye boogers...that would totally be me!

All I've gotta say is that I'm gonna be so happy when this school year is over and we can commence waking up with ease! And then I will have two whole months to erase the scarring I did to my kids from all the freaking out over lunch boxes and gym shoes I did as they prepared to leave each morning!

I'm counting down the days!!

Wild weather!

Today we had some wild weather blow in! I love storms. They make me all excited and giddy!

This is an approaching dust storm. It was a big one! After taking this shot the storm blew in less than five minutes later....it was moving fast! I stood outside for about five seconds before dashing in the house to take cover. But then I had to go back outside in the middle of it to open the gate once Marvelly arrived home from school. I could hardly open my eyes. Dust storms are pas bon for people with contacts. I also made the mistake of opening my mouth....note to self...don't open your mouth in the middle of a dust storm, you will be crunching on sand for a while.

 The dust storm was then proceeded by a torrential downpour. Yeah! I think rainy season has arrived!

Followed by many mangoes forcefully falling out of the trees onto my roof which sounded like a shotgun firing every time, and then my yard being turned into a gigantic mud puddle.

It was great! I love these days. I don't love that two massive boards connecting our screen wall to the ceiling got ripped off in the storm and now that screen wall is in danger of being blown over if someone sneezes too hard. But other than that....it was my favorite kind of afternoon. 

Weird post about walking.

I had big plans to wake up this morning and take Steven to the forest to go walking for a little outing for the both of us. But when I wake up and sleep has evaded me I have very little energy and will to do anything at all. I'd like to blame last nights minimal sleep on Steve, but alas, Legally Blond was calling to me and my mom, and pillow covers were needing to be made, and then a few chapters in a good book had to be read....

....Oh how I would like to crawl up into a ball and recover some of the sleep I lost by my own indulging hands. I must say though, every lost minute of sleep was worth it, to sit and laugh with my mom and get started on a project we've been meaning to do and travel far away to the land of the Amish and cry over a story. All worth the loss of sleep, but I'll be paying for it today.

So, seen as how a return to slumber land is not in the cards for me this morning I think I shall hop in the shower in an attempt to think a bit clearer and then go to the forest and push my little man in the stroller anyways.

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Well, thanks to the ability to get up and get dressed without it lookin' like I ever left the computer....I found out the Forest is closed on Mondays. What the?! So apparently I won't be needing my work out clothes after all today. Now what to do with my morning?! Some days, I really wish there was more stuff to do here. I could really go for a sidewalk right about now, or at the very least, I'd settle for less bumpy dirt roads so I could walk Steve in the stroller around my house. I'm gonna have to get creative here for ways to productively pass the time with him while the girls are in school. A routine is waiting to be had, I know it is....it's just kinda evading me at the moment.

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Here I am again. It's currently the afternoon, so much for posting something short and quick this morning. Marvelly is now home and Sydaleigh will be here shortly and me and Stevie boy had a great morning playing outside. Thank the Lord for our yard. We may not have many options here as far as entertainment....but our yard packs a pretty big punch. We've got a lot of space here and I'm awful grateful to be able to come outside where there is grass, one swing, and plenty of dirt to dig in. I'd say I'm super grateful for our pool but that thing has been out of commission most of hot season. We lucked out with it working for the Easter party, but the very next day it pooped out again for the umpteenth time. We're still waiting for someone to come and fix it three weeks later.....

I gotta say....boys are so different in play! While outside today Stevie picked up the girls ring toss and proceeded to use it as a device to beat our bushes into submission! 

Boys are so crazy! He hammered those things for a good thirty minutes and had the best ole time doing it.
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It's Tuesday.

I should have posted this yesterday but time flew away from me. I tried going to the Forest to walk this morning, again, but it was closed, again!

Desperate for a place to go walking I called a friend and asked if I could park at her house and I drove down to Ouaga 2000 to walk along some paved streets. There are no sidewalks, but praise God that  area actually has many paved roads weaving through the homes and limited traffic.

I felt like I was in a neighborhood! I mean, as close to a neighborhood as we can get here in Burkina.  It felt so good. Ahhh, I needed that. Steven is a champ in the stroller too, he rides super well. Thank goodness we thought to bring our little umbrella stroller. I'm not sure how long it will hold up pushing him in it on these roads...but I plan to use it until its wheels fall off!

And I shall close this weird post about walking some of of Steven's mega awesome picture taking skills!

 Future photographer right there!

Sydaleigh's musical: Once On This Island

Sydaleigh has been practicing for her school musical, Once on This Island, for the better part of the school year and they finally had the show a few weeks ago....and she was incredible!

It wasn't a big budget production with fancy costumes or grandiose sets, but the kids made it bigger than life with their excellent performances! Especially Sydaleigh!

She performed in nearly every scene and was so calm and comfortable on the stage.

She remembered all of her lines and dance moves and was the picture of perfect ease up on the stage.

And she had FUN doing it! I loved seeing her so committed to her performance and engage in her roles with such energy and enthusiasm!

What a cutie! Proud mama alert!

The kids did amazing and worked so hard for hours and hours every week to bring this play to life. It was a large time commitment for Sydaleigh but she stuck with it and was glad she did.

My little performer. So proud of her.

It was great that my mom got to be here to watch it too! It's been such a joy sharing our life with her these last many weeks.

Great job Sydaleigh! Your hard work paid off!

Two weeks in.

The house is experiencing a somewhat rare and peacefully quiet moment right now. There is a stray afternoon April shower coming down as I type, Steven is sleeping, and Marvelly is playing quietly on my bed.

I know I should be sleeping too, but the sound of the rain beckons me to stay awake and soak it all in. A gift, it is. I really do love the rain. It fills me with peace. And I hate to miss it by sleeping.

I am pretty tired these days. Life since we brought Steven home has taken on a new level of chaos and energy that we haven't experienced....well, ever. The beauty, and also adjustment, of bringing home another child.

His sleep is very unpredictable. Which is one reason why I am so tired. It is just like when we brought home our newborns, sometimes they slept well, sometimes they didn't. C'est la vie. And such is the case with our new little man. Last night he was up every twenty minutes or so. He couldn't stay asleep, for whatever reason, and kept getting out of bed. First my mom was in with him. Then Isaak stayed with him. Then I let Isaak finish the remaining hours before dawn in our bed and I parked it on his floor for the remainder of the night. He tossed and turned and woke up repeatedly most of the night, and by 6am he had had enough of his fitful sleep and called it quits and got up for good.

Most nights these days are like that. Me and Isaak alternate sleeping in his room on the floor. There has been a few days since he came home that both him, and us, are gifted with a good night's sleep and he doesn't wake till dawn (he's a 4-5am kinda waker!) and everyone awakes refreshed from having slept soundly. But those are few and far between at the moment.

I remember these days vividly from when the girls were babies. And I gotta admit...I did not miss them.

But just like with the girls, I know this will not last forever. Eventually Steven will get accustomed to sleeping in a room without ten other children and tantes. One day he will trust that we are still there, even in the dark of the night, and he is not alone. One day he will feel secure to go back to sleep without needing us in there with him. One day he will be comfortable laying down in his bed to sleep for both naps and bedtime without us laying on the floor beside him. But we know that will take time. And until then I just pray, sometimes pretty mightily!, for the Lord's grace each morning I wake up, to love my family well even in my fatigue. And to not harbor crankiness and irritability against them because I am tired.

There are lots of tired momma's out there. I am no exception. And in the middle of the night while I am awake my mind often wanders to the other momma's out there who are undoubtedly up with their children, rocking them to sleep, singing to them softly, swaying them in their arms, giving them bottles, or nursing, all in a desperate attempt to coax the baby back to sleep so they too can follow them and rest their weary eyes.

God bless all the momma's out there. I'm proud to be in such an important club with such amazing women. It's not easy....but it's great.

Aside from the lack of sleep, I am trying to find balance in the newness of life these days. Personal time has dwindled down to virtually nothing right now. And that has been an adjustment too. The constant need to always be needed and not have much time to myself has me praying for patience and joy more than I've had to do in a good long while. I have grown accustomed to the bits of more personal freedom I have earned since the girls have grown slightly older. But with Steven joining our family, his needs are very pressing and they demand most of my time and overlap the time I also must give the girls. So I'm being pulled in lots of directions and I'm trying to navigate and learn how to adjust to the newness of three children with grace.

I must admit....I've noticed in myself, a little bit of crazy wakes up in me when I haven't even had time to pee without someone banging on the door or calling to me from another room, because of course, in true mommy fashion, your kids will be alerted to your absence even if you sneak away covertly and they will track. you. down (eh hem, Steven, I'm talkin' to you boy =) ) and demand an explanation for your need to pee in private!

So, trying to figure out how to manage my time is challenging. The house has taken on a new level of disarray that I am just letting be. Stacks and stacks of everything are piling up around every room, and I'm letting them. I don't have the energy right now to spend what little time I get to myself on organizing and decluttering. It's driving me crazy, but I'm learning to just let it be. And God bless Odette for coming three days a week to deep clean for us...or else my toilets may never get clean.

Most things are in a state of adjustment, everything from our level of tiredness (last weekend while we had company over Steven woke up and needed to be put back to sleep, and I completely passed out next to his bed while I was waiting for him to fall back asleep and slept through the rest of our friend's visit and Isaak woke me up after everyone left....whoops! Bad hostess!), from how I prepare food, our bath time and bedtime routine, my personal hygiene ( I just want to tweeze my brows man!), time it takes to prepare to leave places...I mean, everything. There is no aspect of living that is not affected when another person is added to the family.

But, despite our increased fatigue, lack of personal time, the messy home, my increase in leg hair because I don't have time to shave (between my brows and my legs I be lookin' like Sasquatch up in here!), my tendencies to kill the cat because she keeps peeing all over Steve's room, and my frustrations over the lack of activities to do here in Burkina when I am desperate to get out of the house with the kids for a little change in pace....we're great!

Really, we are. The family is bonding and growing together each day. And right now, that is more important to me than having a clean home or a perfect night's sleep or "me" time. Those things will slowly but surely return, over time. But they are not the priority.

Right now bonding is the priority and growing together as a family. Discovering who Steve is since we missed out on his first four years of life. Figuring out his quirks, and habits, and patterns. What makes him laugh. Teaching him to talk, which he doesn't do yet. Setting boundaries. Sacrificing time spent doing other things to snuggle and play. Having dance parties with all the kids each night before bed. Assuring the girls over and over again through normal everyday connections that their relationship with us is not changing even though our family dynamics are. Making everyone feel secure. Watching the girls embrace their brother in their play. Listening to them speak French to him in an attempt to help him better understand, and encouraging their efforts to be involved as much as possible. Those are the priorities these days.

Our connecting is happening in small moments. Lots of small everyday moments.
It's happening.
We're doing it.
One step at a time we are doing it.