Reaching Africa’s Children Blog - by Amy Farley

So, seriously….if my life were a reality show I honestly think it would be quit entertaining at times. I mean sometimes, I just do REALLY stupid things. Last night, I almost burned my house down…yep…thats right!

In Senegal, people usually dig through your trash….you know the saying, “One mans trash is another mans treasure”. Because of this, I always make a stack of things (papers etc) for burning. You know, things with personal information on them. Well I had a pretty big stack of things to burn-and I was getting tired of the clutter it was creating in my apartment-so I decided to burn it all last night.

I had the ingenious idea of burning these things in my kitchen sink….yea….I know…sometimes I don’t think these things through. So I start the fire and get excited (I mean who doesn’t like to play with fire??) and start piling everything into the flame. After a few minutes the flames get REALLY big, my eyes start to water and I start coughing. I realized that the ENTIRE apartment was filling with smoke!!! I quickly run to open every window in the house (leaving the fire going-because why stop when I am already halfway through…right??).

Once I return to the kitchen (coughing) the flame is TOO high! And it was at that moment I realized the cabinets above the sink (high above the sink) are made of wood. I then decided it was a good idea to put the fire out. I reached for the metal faucet (which had been engulfed with flames) to turn it off…and of course it was HOTTTT…I burned my hand (ouch) but successfully turned the water on and put the fire out.

My entire house STUNK of smoke and ash! I lit every candle I had-and left the windows open through the night. This morning my house doesn’t smell so bad-but my kitchen…is almost unbearable to be in….there was also a YUCKY YUCKY mess left in the sink to be cleaned. I should have taken a picture…ewhh!

I think the sink is kind of permanently stained… : ) I think I will invest in a shredder!