Wednesday, February 3, 2010
A Week of Many Firsts In North Star and Yosemite
There is so much to say about our first week in our city and village but it can be summed up as .... "God has definitely gone before us and has been here preparing the way!" We arrived about 3pm last Monday having a nice drive on a paved road all the whole way from Bamako and enjoyed lunch under a perfect baybob tree. We checked out our house and then went on the roof (where we will most likely sleep in the hot season) and we prayed over our house and city. It is beautiful from up there. The landscape is similar to Arizona and the temperatures too. God blessed us with a gorgeous sunset from up there our first night. Here only a week, we feel completely safe in both our house & city and hut & village.
Our house is brand new to the extent they continued with construction, plumbing and wiring for 3 days upon our arrival. We've had quite a bit of directing to do to get the landlord to finish all the projects he promised(think it's frustrating in the US to get things done, even more so here because they have no concept of time, promises and add in trying to explain the sink leaks still in French!) I am glad to have a room to 'call my own' at least for the time being! I've put up my Christmas tree since I got it in January and didn't get to and I've used the Christmas bows (thanks to Christy, Kristen and Kristen) to make a cross on my door and have put up my signs of encouragement (thanks to Gail) on the wall. We are in a more quite part of the city, a newer part of town with some nice homes so it is definitely a place of much needed quietness. On a funny note, North Star has a quite large and new airport but no planes that fly in and out of it. They even have a Colonel of Aviation, whom we met.
Because our house wasn't done, the three of us got to stay in one room for several nights, which was fun because it gave us time to pray together at night before we went to bed and bond a little. I even sang "May the Lord" to them (which some of you know as Dee-Dee's song). We have continued to have prayer time and time of singing together to keep ourselves encouraged and refreshed.
The week has been overwhelming and we are exhausted to say the least. We have all had our moments of "we are sick of Africa" this week... not understanding a thing that is going on in the world around you and consistently guessing what is going to happen or come next, constant language learning bombardment, lizards on the wall inside your house, repeatedly rebagging food in the cabinet to combat the ants, unpacking your canned goods into the shelves twice because the first time the cabinets almost fell off the wall, taking 2 hours to go to the market for household things that would take 30 minutes at home, waking up to ants everywhere, and our first rat in our Yosemite hut and so much blowing sand you have something constantly in your eye!
We have already had the opportunity to be 'lights for our Savior'. Right from the beginning before meals I explained in French, that we like to pray to God and thank Him for the meal. They have no problem with that and so we pray with palms open and facing upward. We always finish with "in the name of Esa. Amina". One man in Yosemite asked me our second night if "I pray" (which is their way of asking if you pray to Moh). I simply told him, I pray to God and through Esa. He actually speaks some English and is from Gabon, so I am praying for more opportunities to visit with him. The problem is that he is a single male and so sitting with males is difficult. And last night at our house, one of our new friends "Alice" brought us a meal ( after 2 days in the village we really were dying for our American omelettes we had started when she showed up at 8:45pm!) but we managed through another bowl of couscous and peanut/ fish sauce with here. The omelettes had to wait until breakfast today. The couscous here is brown and pounded so it's quite different and usually has some degree of rocks in it :) So we prayed and "Alice" said Amina as well. Our guard "Ken" promptly jumped on her and told her No Amina then asked if we were "C's". We never say yes to that question because here it can mean something very different to each person. So I responded in broken French again, "nous allons la rue de Esa". He understood and that was the end of that. I would ask for prayer for both of these new people for opportunities to discuss further. Early in the evening, we had brought mats to sit on out on our porch (as is the custom here) and turns out one of ours we think is a pray mat. When I brought it out to sit on, the girls told me he had a not so happy look on his face and said that we needed to flip it over. Not understanding we did so and then as soon as possible I took it back inside. Again, part of the difficulties of learning a culture. That mat is now the bathroom mat not the sitting on mat!
Tuesday morning we headed out to begin our 'grand entrance to our new life'. First to Yosemite, our village where we greeted the Mayor "Jay" and his 3 right hands. It is a village of about 5000 people about 45 minutes outside our city. We visited in the community building. They actually have had some assistance from NGO's here. They have an "I" school and a regular school, a hospital and pharmacie (sort of), a community building and last year the EU helped them start community gardens and wells where the women all work their plots of land growing vegetables. It is sad because they were arguing about not having enough money for school chairs but they have a beautiful huge building they've spent money on, the mosque.
An hour and a half visit with him, we received our new names of 'our people'... Sokana, Magou and mine Toudo (said two-doe) Dawara (said Ja-war-a with a rolled r). That process takes 10-15 minutes as the 4 of them discuss it and agree. I was named after the mother of the Mayor and my people used to be the 'hunters'. They are also a direct descendent of "Mo". We established our needs of a house and security and the Mayor assured us of both. We discussed the medical team we will be bringing next week. I was excited again about how much of my French I am being able to comprehend. We toured the village some which of course caused the biggest excitement for many that they've had in quite some time. After just 2 short visits and now 2 nights there everyone knows our names and calls out to us repeatedly. We were immediately impressed by the fact that the Mayor's number 2 is a female, "Joanni" and struck up a quick friendship with her. She is a patient language teacher and speaks a little English as well. She has become a good friend that we "cheek to cheek kiss" and hug already. Another answered prayer, on the way there Nafi asked me, saying I know you love kids and that she had been thinking if I wanted to do an English club that might be a good thing with my short time here. I was so excited she suggested that and she told me to pray about it. I am planning on starting that as soon as possible and the Mayor was thrilled with the idea when we returned and told him. As SILAH Mali (the name we go by here) we are an NGO (non-governmental agency) whose purpose is development, health and education work. Our village has a large grove of mango trees (yea!) which should come in about 2 months. We walked through the school and were greeted in the classrooms by the children standing and welcoming us. The "I" school teaches and speaks only in Arabic and they sang to us in each class. The parents have a choice of which school they want their child to go to, not that school is mandatory.
After leaving our village we went to greet the city officials, the Mayor, the Prefecte, the Judge and other random officials. We also had an introduction with Pastor "Paul" in the city who does have a small church of believers. Perhaps down the road there will be opportunities to work with him. It does seem anyway that he is actually trying some evangelism as he has an out-of-town preacher coming for a 'revival' a weekend in March so we were surprised and pleased to hear that.
Then for our first' presentation' of ourselves in our Saga or market (and trust me white people in a market speaking or attempting to speak their language, as you can imagine does make quite a stir). First stop we purchased some cloth that is traditional for some of the people in the Desert Triangle which of course made us a big hit but was hysterical for us! The lady dressed us - it's all one piece of material and it ties and wraps in various places and over your head. Learning to walk and keep it on is once again a challenge. Sarah received quite a few laughs as she basically become disrobed in the middle of the street :) We managed to muddle through some vegetables and bread purchasing and started to make friends. It is important here to make the rounds to all and then eventually compare prices based on what we know in Bamako and who seems most honest and welcoming. We have already started to find our favorites. I am getting great at bargaining and walking away. It is a must here for us to bargain straight from the beginning so we did our best. A much, much happiness as we have been able to find lettuce, tomatoes, green peppers, carrots which we did not think we would have! Also, green apples and yesterday I found some mandarin oranges that we delicious in a cooler and cheaper than Bamako. We even found a mobile ice cream man that serves homemade vanillaish ice cream - the girls say it's great. All in all, we have been surprised with how much is available here. We have also discovered two "restaurants if you will": an egg bar - egg sandwiches to go or you can sit - order what you want in them (it's great!) and for only 500 cent or about $1.00 and the other a place that has cooked chickens and beef brochettes (a very common restaurant fare) that were delicious and cheap also... 2500 CFA or about $5 for the chicken and the brochettes for 3 were 1000 or about $2.00. We will totally take advantage of that when we want something fast and are too tired to cook!
Wednesday, we went to the hospital to introduce ourselves to the doctor and discuss the locations of medical clinics as well as meet the lab man who kindly gave us specimen bottles (should the need arise). He had a decent lab and would be able to give us malaria test as well as test for other diseases. The girls and I worked on our house that afternoon and supervised the installation of our hot water heater while Nafi visited the villages for the clinics to prepare the way. It will be a full week but wonderful this group from Florida is coming to help us start off our work here.
Thursday, we went back to "Yosemite" to view our hut they were to prepare. We had been praying that all would be prepared and our Father answered. Our hut is in part of the Mayor's family compound and has its own shower space and front covered porch which is where we will sleep in hot season (unfortunately we don't have a roof). We requested they dig a bathroom for us before we return Saturday (and they did as promised!) Our Father just continued to make things fall into place and answer prayers all week long. I've been reading "Holiness" by Henry Blackaby (when I have a few moments) and this brings to mind James 5:16 - "The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective". When you first read it, it could sound arrogant but God is telling us how we should try to be I think. Blackaby goes on to say, that we should in fact be praying, "Lord, please help me understand what it means to be righteous in Your eyes to have holiness as a way of life.... so that we can stand before You and KNOW WHAT YOU ARE SAYING TO US... that my eyes and ears are open and my heart is tender because no sin is there." To seek righteousness daily.... that is an important reminder.
We "promenaded" each evening to greet neighbors.... "Agathe" is one lady who has befriended us and we have sat with her. She is a hairdresser but does not have a business anymore except out of her house because she has lost a leg and has difficulty getting around. She sold me some pure Shea butter which comes from Africa and they call it 'beurre de caliente" but has really helped my fingers and feet that are bright red and peeling constantly. As a gift, she gave us our first 'henna' which is a painting art (like tattoo) that is very popular here on hands, finger and feet. Our people loved it when we arrived at the village.
Saturday we had prayer, worship and breakfast together before leaving for our village the first time. As we sang "I have decided to follow Jesus" I had a picture come to mind of the three crosses up on the hillside at Yosemite (it's actually neat - our Father gave us a small 'mountain' right at our village and many of you know how much I love to hike) and the whole time we drive towards our village we can see our mountain .. I truly felt with that vision that the Holy Spirit is working there!
Praying the whole way in the car and with nerves and excitement all rolled into one I wrote in my journal as we bumped along our bush road and we all agreed.... "this is THE moment that God has prepared us for our whole lives - to bring us exactly to Yosemite to do HIS WORK".
We arrived and were waved to a place to park by about 15 African men (they all love to give directions for us driving though many have never driven or ridden in a car!). Our truck was loaded down with cots and supplies because we did not know what to expect. One thing my teammates brought -- a plastic toilet seat and we had from the SILAH stuff a bucket that had the bottle cutout - VIOLA! we have our own makeshift hut toilet. No less than 20 people immediately started taking everything out of the truck and carrying it to the hut and placing it inside. Several of the men put the cots up before we even had a chance to set things down! All this help plus 15 some-odd children standing at the door in the wall to our hut watching it all..... this would become a normal thing... we pretty much "live like fish in a fish bowl now" and have learned the word 'sala' quickly which means 'go' to say to the children as politely as we can:)
"Joanni" arrived shortly and we spent the next 3 hours greeting, walking and of course being told the Sunshine word for everything! Oh, we have a pond/ tank (if you are my brother-in-law) just outside the village that has alligators but they don't cause any problems. Our people are animal herders so there are tons of longhorn cattle around, donkeys, goats and sheep.
Our people also have a bit of a cultural issue as we were told which is a vast majority of the "Sonshine" men leave to work and make money but don't always send it back (they go to other African countries, Europe or if they can afford it US) leaving wives and many children behind. They often will never return. Which leads to the women being a bit 'lose' if other men come to the village. The more time we've spent there, it is really sort of ire because there is very obviously a lack of men around. You can walk into a compound and see easily 15 women and countless children and not a single male as is the case in our compound (not 15 but 6).
We walked out to the gardens and greeted many of the women there and attempted to get them to let us help draw water from the wells for watering. It was a long, hot afternoon and finally we returned back to our hut, hoping to organize and chill for a few minutes but the continual stream of welcomers lasted well into the afternoon. We were starving for lunch and hadn't had a chance to eat and weren't sure if our family would be cooking for us or not, so we scarfed a quick bit of peanut butter and bread only to have a meal of rice and sauce appear 20 minutes later (lunch is at about 2pm) and so the eating and the carbs begins :) We ate with the matriarch of the compound, Henda, who has kind of been our designated hostess taking most meals with us. It is very strange to just arrive and have people you don't know just automatically cook for you and bring it to your hut. We spent most of our 2 day stay 'feeling like royalty' and doing our best to not be. It is a hard battle for everyone we are told when first arriving to your village.
Most of what we have to do now, is observe, because we have no idea how life works. We did get a few minutes to put up mosquito nets and figure out where to get water from but unlike the other village we've been in, there did not seem to be an obvious return for bathing and meals, so the first day we never did get a bath. We were unprepared as well because we did not have the required bowl to wash your right hand before the meal, we didn't have a broom to sweep up the crumbs off the mat so they were constantly running to get things for us... all things we have since acquired for our return. The mayor came to greet us that evening and insisted on bringing us 3 of the chairs from the school which arrived on a moto a short time later. Our mayor by the way, is easy to recognize thank goodness, he is actually a 6 1/2 foot African (rare for sure). After much difficulty in translation, I did finally figure out that he wants us about 8pm each night to move our truck to his compound 'for safe keeping' over night (which is really nice of him to think of that) and then about 8am or 9am we move it back to the other spot each day... kind of funny... it's like a parking meter in Chicago overnight where you have to move it all the time:)
After a meal of who-toe (couscous) and chiga-deega (peanut sauce. there are actually 3 different names for the exact same sauce, it just depends if you put it over rice, couscous or millet!) which finally appeared about 8pm then girls of the compound danced (son-guh) for us. I joined in after a bit and they had a good time with that. As the girls were dancing, salad appeared for us (lettuce and tomatoes in oil) which I would normally love but a) it was now 9:30pm and b) we know it's not cleaned well, so luckily it was dark, so we could fake eat a few bites in our hands.
"Joanni" returned as well and we are becoming quite comfortable with her so that some questions we have about how life works in Yosemite we have been able to ask her without offending anyone. One for instance is water. We were shown an well with a faucet that is just outside the compound but on the main market route. It is locked and the meat man has a key. Well, the thought never crossed our mind until we got like our 6th bucket the following day about it being locked. Apparently you pay for that water but the well water on the outside of the village that the women walk for a ways on top their heads is free. So we had been "stealing" water! but the man never said a word. We went back after "Joanni" helped me understand and tried to pay him, he only took a small amount so we really have no idea how much a bucket costs... more to discover.
"Joanni" helped me find out what time the ladies go to the garden in the morning and tell the ladies in our compound that we wanted to go help in the morning. We finally were able to excuse ourselves about 9:30pm and fell into bed exhausted but hot as could be. There are no windows in these adobe style mud huts so we slept with the door open for a bit of a breeze but it won't be long before we sleep outside completely. Oh, more fun, the first night brushing teeth and using the bathroom, it was a full moon and after a few minutes one of us, with a bare backside noticed we had a audience! The kids across the other compound had climbed the wall to check out what the two-bobs were doing! Oh, village life and more to learn.
The next morning we headed to the garden with Henda and watered each of the little beds. We took money for breakfast with us and stopped to each about 9am (traditional sugared rice soup). Right now, the mornings are quite beautiful, cool, blue skies with a nice breeze so being in the garden working was nice and gave us the chance to be one on one with someone to language learn rather than 10 people all trying to teach you words at once.
After returning, they of course told us we needed to rest, they think Americans are not used to work like this so that we are always in need of rest (true to an extent I guess). We helped with lunch. "Emma" is Henda's daughter and she is the one doing most of our cooking we think. We had given her some rice in the morning so that is what we had. We tried our best to explain it was for everyone not just us so it didn't seem like we were asking them to prepare it for us. Who knows for sure that the message got across. This time there was a small amount of meat (che) and potatoes on top that each person gets a bit of. We think the meat was goat and Abby got nothing but a whole chunk of fat (my Grandpa would have loved it). We sat down to eat when two girls showed up with food from "Joanni" as well... we are going to have to figure out eating with who, because then we ate the first meal and then "Joanni's" as well! Her's was the spinach sauce, which I enjoy because at least it's a vegetable.
That afternoon we experienced several different foods... green tomatoes (co-ling-yea) is what they call it but we think it's not quite a tomato. It's very bitter and hard. Difficult to down but precious to them because 2 were given to the group and everyone got a one slice so we politely at it as well. We also had something that grows on a tree that is a huge fruit they crack open and the nuts are surrounded by a white sort of 'sugary' coating that you suck on and spit out the seed... they weren't too bad. Then visiting at Joanni's she gave us suca which is another fruit that is yellow and small. Kind of reminded me of a apricot flesh on the instead but not juicy. ... it was ok but not my favorite.
Sunday is the big market day because the square right outside our compound was packed. So we had a great many 'helpers' telling us the words for everything - overload!!!!!!!!! But it was fun to see the village alive. We tried some frozen drinks that are sold in a plastic bag and you bit the end of the bag off - they were refreshing and only $.10 each. We had a red flavor, brown one like a soda, white like coconut. We walked around some more of the village and met a whole compound of Abby's family namesake and sat with those ladies. We watched them braid some intestines out of a bowl, an experience. We found a possible language helper there but it's very tricky to find a good one, who speaks slowly, patiently, clearly, has enough teeth so the words aren't messed up (honest!).
This time when we returned, we had learned the words for eat (ya-yea-gee), bath and sleep (sa-goo). So we told our compound we were going to go "yan-key" which is to bath and that seemed to be ok with them so we proceeded. Boy was that the best bucket bath.
We helped with dinner and then again sat with the compound again. I explained in French to Joanni that we would leave in the morning but return Wednesday afternoon - which she explained to our family. That night I slept much better thankfully and surprisingly (partially because I was exhausted probably). We were all overwhelmed and wiped out and much ready to get back to our house by Monday morning. The children headed to school at 8am so I walked with them part of the way there which they thought was really funny. I ran into Mama Jawara (my name sake) who was very pleased to see me and took be around visiting for awhile. I learned quite a few words including en-da-gah or goodbye so at least we now had something to say when departing someone rather than just awkwardly walking away. We helped in the garden for about an hour and then 'fell' into the car to head home.
All in all, our Father is walking with us, giving us strength, and patience with each other and language and the people. It was a wonderful two days but we were anxious to be home to a hot shower, comfy beds, ceiling fans and American food!
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1 comment:
I finally had the opportunity to read the whole thing to the girls today. I have been praying for you to "fall in love" with the Sunshine people, Dee Dee. From what I read, it sounds as if you are. A thousand thank yous for the explanations and information. It helps me not miss you as much! Love you, Beth
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