Sometimes, it’s like another planet–one filled with nomads, where sandstorms are a part of life and where things just look a bit different. We’re an American family who until recently were living and working in Nouakchott, Mauritania, located where the sands of the Sahara Desert meet the waters of the Atlantic. We’re spending a year in Portland, Oregon, before moving back to Africa. This blog chronicles the various aspects of our lives, from adjusting back to the US (easier said than done) to the kids doing a correspondence course in French, with a little Arabic and Spanish thrown in. I am wife to Donn and mother to Elliot, 12, and boy-girl twins Abel and Ilsa, 10.