Three weeks, we have been here three weeks. I have had seven Sango lessons and I suppose I am progressing well enough. I have a stack of verbs that I know and recognize in sentences but the challenge now is getting them into sentences. The sentence structure is different from both French and English and requires many little words. For example the sentence, "What is your daughter's name?" translates to "Name of child of girl of you is what? or Iri ti melengue ti wali to mo ayeke nye? Lots of little words to use and to hear. My language helper, Clarice, is a wonderful teacher and is also becoming a good friend.
Our cook, Leonard, continues to surprise us and is such a big help to us. We recently found out that he has been working at the mission since 1974. He turns 50 next month so I will attempt a birthday cake, although I am sure he could probably make a better one himself. I don't have any recipes really, at least none I know in French or English so most days I just put out some ingredients and he transforms them into some really good. Last week I bought a cabbage and asked him to stir fry cabbage with peanuts and Mrs. Dash. It turned out great as he added eggs to the mix and it was probably the best thing I have had yet. Once we communicated that he needed to lay off the salt and oil, our stomachs have been happier too. The two things I miss baking wise are vanilla and brown sugar. Hopefully I will be able to get some from Kenya in October. We are definitely not at a loss for food what so ever. We could eat avocadoes every day with the number that come to our door in the arms of children each day.
This week I have really noticed the poverty that surrounds us. Darren got back Sunday from his trip to a village north of here. He said they saw lots of abandoned villages on the way as they were driven south due to the threat of bandits. Rumor has it that there are 'soldiers' from Chad that are roaming around north of here. We are in no danger, but they have paticularly attacked Fulani villages in the north and many of the Fulani have come here. It is a great opportunity to witness but it has also made for a huge host of other people here. I am learning the significance of communication and am greatly looking forward to even a rudimentary level of Sango in the near future. Everything I would like to do involves speaking. I am especially keen on helping Paulien, the lady that was hired to teach women at the nutrition centre how to raise vegetables, actually do some teaching. She is a good teacher but she needs a bit of a push to start actually teaching. First I need to be able to really communicate with her. I will also be getting into doing a lot of grafting. There is a huge interest in grafted fruit trees and this year the Lord is really blessing the garden. Many of the trees Roy planted 5 years or more ago are starting to flower for the first time. Not only does this mean we will have fruit for the first time off of them but it also means we know they will flower here so grafting them makes even more sense. I think I will wait another 2 weeks or so until the rains start. I am also battling bugs in the nursery and have plans to do some bug training with the agroforestry guys. The verbs for making something bad is 'buba'. Ngasa abuba bagba translates to 'The goats wrecked the fence'. Fun word!
This past week and a half we have been laboring under the Harmattan, a phenomenon of sand clouds covering the sky with an eerie haze blowing in from the Sahara desert north of us. Daily highs have been consistently 35 celsius and nightly lows at around 22-24. Last night we had a delicious rain storm and a lot of lightening. We only recieved 0.4inches but it still counts as rain. Today the temperature is much more pleasent.
We finally put batteries in our short wave radio (thanks Kirk and Jan) and the first program Darren stumbled on in English was a Radio Canada International broadcast talking about Simon Fraser University. We haven't figured out the program times but would appreciate someone looking it up for us. We have also listened to some BBC broadcasts and were dismayed to hear that Iraq is still in the headlines. I guess there is no escaping it, even out here.
Darren is off fishing with Kim and Roy for the day. They are hoping to catch an African tiger fish, whatever that is, though it is supposed to be a rather big fish. There are hippos where they are going so that is pretty exciting for him. I opted to stay home and catch up on e-mails, decide on meals for the week and just relax. It is Sunday after all.
My final thought is on poverty. It is all around us. We felled a huge dead tree in our neighbours yard yesterday and as it hit the ground a bunch of bats flew out from beneath the bark. Tons of spectating kids ran in and grabbed for as many bats as they could grab from the trunk. They snapped the necks and brought them home for lunch. I didn't grab any for our lunch but many of the kids looked like they had hit the jackpot. We hired one kid yesterday to help Darren build trellises in our garden. He said he needed 500CFA for a school exam he had to take. I also gave him a hardboiled egg and bread for his supper. Well, this morning he showed up at our door while we were eating breakfast and just sat there. I pretty much knew he didn't have anything for breakfast which made our breakfast rather unappetizing. We gave hime some of our breakfast and then he asked me for another 500 saying he made a mistake and the exam actually cost 1000. It is hard to know when you are being conned, but the truth is, no matter how much the exam cost he needs the money. We have decided not to give any money out unless we get some kind of work in return, and we are making efforts to buy fruit from little kids whether we really need it or not. We are trying to reward hard work and ingenuity. Many of the missionaries give themselves a set amount each month to give away, and when it is gone they say no until next month. I think this is a wise idea.
Once again, we are thankful for the missionaries we have the priveledge of living with. We were totally unprepared upon arrival and they have really helped us find our way. The scripture about giving up everything for the sake of the gospel and gaining it all back 100 fold is so true. We gained a 100 times as much when we moved to Florida and since leaving our Florida family behind we have gained another wonderful family. Praise be to our heavenly Father for his continued provision and care of us.
