Guest Posting Today: My daughter, Ilsa

Today’s post was written by Ilsa, age 10 and 11.5/12ths.

This is what I miss about Mauritania:

• The good old Sahara heat!
• Not wearing seat belts.
• Going to the beach every week, and the water actually being warm.
• My friends! (Hi Bethany and Haley and Aidan and Esther and Matthew and Erik, etc)
• My school–I miss my nice teacher from last year especially
• Throwing sand-balls at the boys
• Weston, our dog

What I don’t miss about Mauritania:

• I do not miss the jellyfish at the beach
• I don’t miss the boys throwing jellyfish at me while I’m trying to eat my sandwich. Also dead fish and fish bones. We took revenge, though.

What I like about being in America this year:

• There’s delicious candy
• Halloween.
• Christmas presents that don’t break the second you touch them
• my friends here
• there are better puppies and kittens here; cuter and different kinds
• good old air-conditioning!
• And now, heat.
• Fireplaces!
• Hot chocolate w/o skin!

Here is a still life I drew with my pastels. I used a creamer and sugar from the 60s with a really fun shape, and I added fruit and drew a frame with patterns copied off the china. My dad scanned it:

Edited to add: In wordpress, this shows with a complete frame. I can’t figure out why the blog itself shows it cut off. *frustrated sigh*