Togo and Bodowdaa

Today is an excellent day. I have had two new, great experiences in Africa. First, I got my dog. He is an almost 3 month old German Shepard puppy (see Picture). I have named him Togolese Phillips. Togo for short. A name quite fitting especially when I bring him back home with me! He is absolutely gorgeous! We had our first night last night and he did great. He slept the whole way through the night. He is still very new to the potty training thing but he's getting better! He is a great help for my loneliness! I am so greatful to have him! Currently, he is knocked out on the floor at my feet. He likes to sit under my desk and sleep while I play on the computer.

Second, I went to the village of Bodowdaa (Boe Doe da). The church there is struggling a great deal and David preached a great lesson to encourage them. After worship, they asked us to eat with them. We ate this mush-type stuff with some sauce (very spicy). You are suposed to take some of the mush off the plate with your fingers and dip it in the sauce. Very messy! The mush was the consisitancy of Cream-of-Wheat, and I have no idea how to describe the sauce except that it looked like melted butter with little floaties. The mush was actually quite bland but the sauce helped to give it flavor. It was pretty spicy though. Dave said it wasn't as spicy has normal so I was thankful. Anyway, a few things I have learned. 1. They leave you alone to eat. They do not eat at the "table" with you. 2. The men and women eat separate. 3. The men are served first, then the women, then the children. There is a definite pecking order.

I have included a picture of "Togo", the food that we ate in the village and a picture of the village.

Interesting Encounter

So, I had a funny encounter with this African lady yesterday. Well, I went to dinner at SIL. I actually ate with the Friesen's. They are a family from Canada and are working with the Wiclif (sp) Bible translator people, or something like that. Anyway, they have been here as long as our team has. So, I was walking up there - which is like a 30 min. walk. So, I left the schoolhouse. I always take my Ipod and listen to it while I walk, but I don't put it on until I get to the main road. That's about 5 min. from my door. So, I'm walking and when I'm almost to the paved road this lady comes running out to greet me. She is sooo excited to see me! Which I think is cool. So she is rambling off in French. I'm like - ok, brain switch to French. So, I'm doing my best to listen and then tell her that I speak very little French. She thought that was funny and turned to tell her friends something - don't know what, and they laugh. Anyway, so we get further into our "converstation" (in quotes because I do very little talking and A LOT of pointing) and I start to figure out that she is telling me that she knows where I live because she can see me from her house. I laugh and say wonderful (little scary) and then she proceeds to ask me what I'm doing here. Of course, in the time it takes me to process the first sentence that she has said - she is off in another whole part of our converstation. Which - due to my slow processing, I'm missing. Anyway, I finally am able to tell her what I'm doing here and that I think it's wonderful that she can see me while I wash my dishes. She also asked me where I was going and then proceeded to walk with me about 5 min. down the road. When she figured out I was going like on a 30 min. walk up to SIL she told me she was gonna turn around. While very weird - it was great to talk with her; even though I sounded very unintelligent. She thought the whole thing was hilarious and told her friends that so many times while we were "talking". I guess I made a new friend. Don't know her name becuase I didn't realize she was telling me that until about 10 minutes into the converstation (again, process issue). It's funny -when I'm in my apt. I can think of all the things I needed to say but when I am actually in the situation I freak, have a brain freeze, and all that comes out is "uh, uh, uh" and a WHOLE lot of hand gestures. Anyway - interesting encounter.

Snakes

So - although I have not actually seen A snake since arriving here on the contintent of Africa, unless you count the Accra zoo, I have been told stories. Well today, in the middle of school, Tracey informed me that one of our day guards, Chaula, killed a snake in the school yard. Apparently, it slythered underneath the gate and into the school yard. I had seen something black running around outside my window at one point but chalked it up to Chaula running around for no reason at all. This would be a first for him, but living here - nothing is surprising anymore. Come to find out, the snake had come in and he was chasing it around the building. He finally caught it and took it to the neighbor, who...conviently, eats snakes. Tracey said that Chaula said it was an "orangish" snake that usually eats baby chickens (this is not a problem for me due to my fear of birds). I thought it rather adventurous and took it in stride along with the pigs and lizards that freely roam everywhere. Thought you all might enjoy another animal story - no pictures cause I didn't actally see the snake :(

Church in Kara

This past Sunday we worshiped with the Chruch here in Kara. Worship started at about 9am and lasted about 2 hours - or something like that. The service was mostly in French. I was able to understand more and more the longer the service went. I think my mind gets oriented to the sound of French the long I am immersed in it. At one point, they started singing a song in "Enlish". I'm not sure why but I starting laughing really hard. I am still not sure why it was funny, but I couldn't stop laughing. There were actually two songs in English (didn't know the songs) and one of the songs repeated the phrase "Jesus is the winner-man". Hearing them sing that song with their accent was quite possibly one of the funniest things I've encountered here. I took a video and a lot of pictures. The Christians here currently meet in a building close to the river; however, they are not going to be able to continue to meet in that building because they do not have the money to buy the land. Please pray for the Christian's who meet here in Kara. They need a lot of encouragment and guidence from the Lord. Also, please pray for God to provide them with a place to meet as this is a very heavy burden on their hearts.

The power stayed on for 24 hours straight - the whole day Saturday. I was very excited about that. Reality set in again, yesterday, when it was out for 1/2 the day...again. I am having three skirts made here by the tailor from the fabric I bought at the market the other day. I am very excited to see them, and I"m sure you will see them in the pictures to come.

The first pictures are of the building the Kara Church is meeting in currently. The other picture is of Caden, Brett and April's son, "dragging" one of the children in to worship. She was just hanging out outside the building and he decided she needed to come in. It was cute!

A thing called Power

A candle -lit dinner has a whole new meaning. The power has now gone out for the.....uh, don't know how manyith, time here in Kara. The current temperture is a cool 90 degrees with absolutely no air movement what so ever and quite a bit of humidity. I have decided that there is really no good reason for the electricity to keep going off. The only logical reason I can think of is that some bird has decided to perch on some wire somewhere and has taken it upon itself to make mankind suffer, as all birds do, by twisting the wires in just the right way to make the power go off. Can you think of a better one? For those of you who are reading this and are currently wearing a sweater and drinking coffee or hot chocolate - dealth to you and your hot drink! Currently, little sweat beads continue to form on my upper lip and my shirt is pretty much soaked. I have literally laid on my bed and thought, I don't think the power will ever come back on. When it has, in the past - probably won't again - I have literally jumped off my, danced my way to the computer, and clapped my hands. (Aren't you sad you missed that?). I'm told it gets hotter - I can't wait...I'd take a picture but you couldn't see it anyway - it's too dark!

The Market

I love the market! We went there at 9am this morning, Becky, Elijah, Hannah and I. (that's 2 of her kids). Anyway, so we get there...and I've been there before but I was so - not with it then. Everything was so overwhelming and I didn't know what to think. I was still overwhlemed today, but alteast I was able to think this time. I actually bought some stuff. I got some presents for my brother and brother in-law. I already knew what I was looking for and found them. I also got fabric for a pangea (it's like a wrap skirt that is really easy to take on and off). Very Afrian. One is a blue/white kinda star-like pattern and one is a ty-dye purple and green. I also got a little "purse" type thing to use...because I can't ever figure out where to put things if I don't have pockets. :) I found this guy that makes all sorts of wood and basket things so I'll probably get a lot of presents from him. The prices are reasonable, and I like what he has there.

So, the market is like...picture a parking garage, 2 stories, people everywhere with their little stands selling things, other venders walking around selling you stuff. That's just inside. Outside the building is twice as many people and venders on the side of the street on a very busy road - with cars and motos EVERYWHERE! I have learned that "the market" is kinda just a designated area of town that everyone comes to try and sell you what they have. On the first floor, inside, is the "food" section. I still can't get the smell of dried fish and butchered meat out of my nose. I can barely breath in that section. Actually, I have to hold my breath a lot! On Market day there is blood and meat flying everywhere cause it's so busy, that's what they tell me - I have yet to experience it. Market days are Tues. and Sat. Anyway, so first we stopped at the fabric guy on the second floor. He was very nice and gave me a good price. Then, we walked downstairs and outside to look for a bag/purse type thing. I found one I liked so we talked to the guy who was selling it. He doubled his price right off when he saw I was white so we offered him 1/2 his price. He came back with something more reasonable but I still didn't want to pay that much, so I told him I'd think about it. Then he came down even more. I payed like 2 bucks for it. Well, I didn't have exact change so when his "friend" was giving me my change he tried to give me the wrong amount. I laughed and asked him if he was playing with me. He laughed and handed me the correct change. Becky had gone on ahead so it was a great confidence builder for me. We then moved out to the road and looked at different things there. She took me to the wood guy and I looked in his store. I will be visiting that place more often. He was a good guy and treated me well. I took a few pictures while I was there. The first one is looking down from the second floor of the building onto a part of the venders. The other one is one of the streets that is included in "the market" by our car.

Safari Trip

I just returned from Safari. The southern team came up and we all drove up to Penjari on Saturday morning. It's about a 3 1/2 hour drive. There were a total of 6 cars in our group so 3 cars left early in the morning and 3 cars left about and hour later. I was in the second set of cars - which I'm greatful for because I got to sleep an hour longer :). Anyway, I rode in the car with the Emersons. They are a ton of fun to be around and so easy to be with. After some "playing" with Marty's truck (a guy from the southern team) we headed to Penjari. We got there about 2:30ish and went to the hotel to check in. Now, in order to understand the next happening, you need to keep in mind this is Africa. Ok - so we arrive and go to the "front desk" and tell them we are checking in and we need our room keys. It ends up that the hotel had overbooked, some miscommunication with the main branch people, and there weren't enough rooms or big enough rooms for us all to have what we had reserved. Dave and Bryan had a "go-around" with the guy in charge. This was rather amusing because it was all in French and I could get bits and pieces of it as they talked. They finally got them to give us some portion of our reservation. So, we all "squished" in to the rooms we were given. I ended up sharing a room with one of the southern team families and Emily. We were pretty tightly packed. It was a great bonding experience. The second night we were able to get more rooms and Emily and I shared our own room. Anyway, that was all the first hour we were there. We finally got our stuff in and went out looking for animals.

Ok - what you do is get in your truck, or as I prefer, on top of your truck, and you take different circuts around the millions of miles in the park to see all these animals. The very first night, we saw elephants and lions. They told me that we were lucky to see lions at all. We saw them everyday we were there. It was great. We saw elephants, hippos, monkeys, baboons, so many different types of deer, some type of buffalo (can't remember the name), different kinds of birds, worthogs, and....a bunch of other stuff I can't think of. Anyway, I never got to see the elephants up close because we were watching the lion when the other people saw the up-close elephants. But I did seem them from a distance. It's so amazing to see God's imagination in his creation! The second day we were there - the lions had killed a buffalo and were sitting next to it chasing the vultures away. That was awesome! I rode on the top of Brett and April's car and the Friezen's car the whole weekend. It was a great trip! I'm gonna steel some pictures from other people who had a better camera than I did. I got some pictures but the people with zoom lenses got great pictures!

The first picture is of one of the male lions we saw by it's kill. The second picture is of a bunch of us standing on the cars looking out at some different lions.

Ajadaa

So, yesterday I got to go to the village with Becky. We went to Ajadaa (Ah-jah-dah). It's out went toward Ghana and then a little North. The road was awesome! By awesome I mean the worst I had been on since I got here. I, of course, took pictures :). We went through 3 ditches that were very deep and in the rainy season they are very flooded. It took about 45 min. to get back there. They were suposed to know we were coming but they weren't for sure so most of the women were working in the fields (or where ever). Remember that "time" here is not exactly the same as you think of time. We arrived at about 3:30pm. Greeted some people and then waited. And we waited - talking with one of the older Christian women. And we waited some more. We walked around outside some - over to the water well and then over to one of the family compounds. We greeted them. I say "we" greeted them - I did not talk, Becky greeted them - I smiled. I got my second or third marriage purposal, can't rememeber which number I'm on. Very tempting, but no. I laughed and they all laughed back at me. They saw that I had a camera and asked me to take their picture - the one you see on here. They all want to see it after you take the picture and just laugh at themselves. It's so funny because they are so excited and if they are in group picture - they want to know which one they are. It's funny. Anyway, so after "we" talk with them some - we headed back to the building and.....yep, waited some more! Finally people start showing up at about 4:30ish. So Becky starts teaching and we end up leaving the village at about 5:35pm or so, which puts us back at home around 6:30pm. Over all I would say that I have never enjoyed not talking so much in my life. You really learn to observe and watch when you are not running your mouth. There were more chilrent there and they broke my heart. If you could hear them sing...

The pictures I put on here are of the people I mentioned before and also the church building that they worship in (taken standing in the front).

Snakes Revisited

Round two (ding!). So, today right after school, I saw two African men running really fast in the backyard of the school house accompanied with really loud banging noises. I had the most natural reaction that most people would have.....SNAKE! Ok, maybe not your but here - definitely first reaction. I jumped up from my chair, looked out my window and saw Chaula ( the guard) and another African standing near the pig pen with pieces of wood raised up above their heads. I yelled down and asked Chaula if it was a snake and sure enough - it was. So, I grabbed my camera and ran down stairs to see it. When I got out the door - Chaula and his friend were walking toward the gate with the dead snake. I asked if it was dead. His friend laughed at me and told me it was dead. I asked Chaula what type of snake it was, and he said that in French they call it a Cobra. Now, I'm not sure about you, but I don't care what language I hear the word "Cobra" in - it only means one thing. So, I did the next natural "American" thing and asked them to stop so that I could take a picture. They laughed at me. Well deserved I'm sure but I don't care cause I got the picture. Chaula also said that he figured it was the male snake coming in the look for the female snake (which is the one he killed earlier this week). This time - I have a picture! Chaula is the one on the right, not holding the snake.