Darren returns

I am happy to report that Darren has returned from Cameroon safe and sound
and a little bit lighter. His time in the north at a banana research
station was very profitable and will be of great help in our program here in
Gamboula and wherever else we go that happens to be banana producing.
Initially, Darren thought he would be learning to tissue culture bananas in
a laboratory setting. However, once he got there he found that they were
learning an altogether new and different technique. The technique he
learned is perfect for our setting as it requires all locally available
materials, is done outside, in non-sterile conditions, and the results are
still the rapid multiplication of bananas, nearly similar to what can be
achieved in tissue culture. I don't fully understand the technique myself
but I will by the time Darren has finished training me. In fact it is
something nearly anyone can learn without having to know the physiology
behind why it works.

After the training course Darren had 5 days to himself in Yaoundé waiting
for his plane flight to Gamboula. His flight in was BJ's flight home for
Christmas. We miss him at our table already but we are rejoicing with him
for his opportunity to go home for the holidays. Darren did lots of grocery
shopping for us and stocked us up on oats (to make granola), tuna, sardines,
and lots of fresh veggies like cabbage, carrots, green peppers and my
favourite, lettuce. We can freeze nearly everything but the lettuce, so
this week our systems are dealing with a lettuce overload. Not such a bad
thing and it is a nice change from eating spinach all the time. He also
bought me a gift of a can of pringles and a diet coke, both which are rare
and exciting and will make a nice edition to our next movie night.

As for work, Darren is catching up on accounting and I am busy in the
nursery. We are grafting like crazy as well as getting ready 5000 nursery
sacs for planting a high quality oil palm we bought in Cameroon from a
research station there. When we first bought them they were planted 5 to a
sac, now we are ready to divide them out one to a sac. 5000 is a lot of
sacs no matter what way you look at it. We fill sacs every other day in
order to give our backs a break. We are looking forward to Christmas and
spending it with new friends and family but I have to admit feeling a little
home sick today. Some days the problems in this place are too much for me
to handle and today is one of those days. However, I am thankful that
tonight is my prayer date with Clarisse and our times together always cheer
me up and restore hope in me.

A weekend to 'ou tere'

'Ou'-meaning to breath and 'tere'-meaning the body, is the sango combination
of words for rest. Thus, Clarisse and I spent the past weekend in ou tere.
Actually, since July we have been planning a weekend away in Berberati, the
second largest town in CAR, which isn't saying much for CAR, to visit her 3
brothers there and to wander around town, have fun and rest. I guess you
can consider it my Christmas gift to Clarisse in terms of paying our way
there. I haven't had so much yet since being in CAR. We stayed at the home
of her oldest brother who is quite the patriarch. He has worked for the
only well-drilling outfit in CAR for the last 15 years, owned by a Swedish
couple and recently handed over to an NGO to take over its operation. Her
elder brother, we'll call him Rex is now the head of their personnel and
such. He has managed to build quite a nice house, cement and metal roofed.
I was the first white person to be a guest in his house and he was so
pleased to have us. He set up two cots in the living room for us and we
slept side by side. The first morning when I woke up I had forgotten where
I was slightly as I rolled over to Clarisse and said "Good morning", in
English. She knows what it means but I quickly corrected myself. How
different it would be to not hear english for very extended periods of time.
For me it was only three days but it still felt strange.

Clarisse's other brother, third in the birth order also lives in Berberati
and close to Rex's house so we went over there to eat and visit. He too was
so excited to have us visit. He came over the morning we left to thank me
for visiting and to tell me how much joy I brought their family just by
visiting. Clarisse's youngest sibling is also in Berberati, living at Rex's
house. He is 19 and is still in school trying to get his graduate diploma,
similar to our grade twelve. Because of the cost of school most students do
not finish by the time they are 18 because they will have to stop and start
school again and again as they find ways to pay their school fees. I can
only describe him as a strapping, handsome young man with the brains to go
places in the world and the desire, but completely bound by circumstances of
poverty. While I was full of joy visiting amongst the cousins and brothers
and sisters and aunts and uncles of Clarisse, I was also filled with sadness
thinking about the future of these wonderful, good hearted, talented young
people, who, in different circumstances, would be entering top of their
class in university, but instead are left wondering about what their future
holds. I so much desire, as they do, for a future for them that is more
than searching everyday for something to eat, for money for school fees and
clothes to wear. Is there not some way to change their future so that it
includes hope for jobs, for less sadness and poverty and death and
scrounging for the bare necessities? I think if I were really rich I would
give scholarships to put foreign students from impoverished countries
through a Canadian college or university with the promise they would return
to their homes to try and make life better. But maybe that isn't the
solution either. All I know is that I can't get these young people off my
mind and I desperately want to make a difference in their lives here.

Well, back to the weekend. Saturday we arrived early in the morning after
getting a 5:00am start with Constant in the agroforestry truck. He was on
his way to Berberati anyway so we took our chance and got a ride with him.
After visiting all the relatives we set off on foot with Chris to the first
of two markets. The nearby market to Rex's house is considerably large,
though nothing at all like Yaoundé, and we wondered around looking at the
different vegetables, fabric and the various things for sale. Clarisse
bought curtains, (used), for her new addition to her house to help keep the
mozzies out. I nearly fainted as I was overcome suddenly by fatigue due to
the effects of the amoeba medicine I had just finished taking. After
resting some at a little shop selling beans and rice where we ran into
Clarisse's niece, Mesi, we continued on to her other brother's house for a
visit and some lunch. After lunch we took a short nap or siesta, which is a
total white person thing to do here but was much appreciated by Clarisse.
It was hot out and she fell asleep in an instant. When we woke up at 3:00
her relatives were teasing her and calling her white because she took a
siesta. She didn't mind though and we did the same thing the next two days.
In the afternoon Chris, Mesi, Clarisse and I went down to an even bigger
market to look around and stroll. Clarisse was in search of a few things
and I was just looking around. The funniest thing was Clarisse and gang's
reaction to the variety of cat calls and the like I get when I am out
walking around. People, young and old alike, love to call lout, "hey, look,
white person!" Or they start talking about me and don't realize I speak
Sango until one of our group says something to me and I respond back and
then that leads to more laughter and calling out 'hey, she speaks good
sango!'. I am quite used to being the centre of attention wherever I go
now, as if I am a circus act, but it gave Clarisse and them a surprise and
caused no end of laughter between us all. We found a brand new restaurant
in the area with cold drinks, cakes, real menus and satellite TV that was
beaming in a soccer game. I treated us all to cold drinks and we shared a
piece of cake that had canned peaches in it. A first for all three of them.
It was so much fun. Saturday night we sat up talking about all sorts of
things. Chris and his nephew, they happen to be the same age, go figure,
sat asking me all sorts of questions about the world of white people. It
was so much fun and once again I was so thankful for the ability God has
given me to pick up and understand a foreign language so quickly.

Sunday, we went off to church the morning and did more visiting and shopping
in the afternoon. We left Chris behind at one point and returned to the
market. When he learned we had left without him he sought us out in the
market, which isn't an easy task. He acted much like our body guard the
whole weekend. If a guy approached me and started to be a pest Chris would
step up and 'take care of him'. Given the circumstances I was glad to have
him around and it gave me lots to laugh about. I am sure Darren would thank
him. I am sure I can take of myself but it was fun to watch him step up and
take care of the white lady. Later in the afternoon Chris borrowed Rex's
motorbike and took Clarisse and I on a tour of the various cartiers and all
the way out to the airport, which is actually more than just a strip of
grass. It has buildings and a little control tower with most of its windows
in tact all the way around. The funny thing about it all was listening to
peoples comments and exclamations as they saw a white lady sandwiched
between to black people on a motorcycle. I felt much like a human Oreo
cookie. They figure the safest spot on the bike is the middle so I did what
I was told and got in the middle. I much prefer riding with Darren but the
breeze was nice and I once again provided the town with its daily
entertainment. No need to go to the movies tonight kids, we saw a human
Oreo cookie today! Chris, much the gentleman, took things nice and slow and
it was the highlight of our day.

Monday we had planned to return home with Constant but his truck was being
fixed in the ICDI garage and wasn't going be ready until Tuesday. Clarisse
had to be back on Tuesday in order to get back to work so we started to
figure out a way to get back. While we sat at the house getting our stuff
ready, Clarisse doing some last minute things at the market, Chris went in
search of a traffique. Normally, traffique's leave early in the morning but
by the time we found out Constant was going to stay another day it was
already 3:00. Around five o'clock Chris came speeding up on a motor bike
taxi to tell us that he had found a traffique with two places left but we
needed to leave in a flash (a real word used in Sango; flash). So we
mounted the bike and gave the town one more show and arrived just in time
for the departure of the last traffique of the day. A real traffique is a
12 passenger minivan that they stuff 16 people into and charge 2000CFA a
head to get to Gamboula. The inside of our's was full and had only one
person riding on the top. They can be dangerous in that they usually drive
too fast and are loaded with stuff so high that they easily tip over which
is not safe in the least. I was given a seat of honour in the front beside
the driver. Clarisse was put in the very back out my range to talk with
her. The unfortunate part of the trip was the soldier that squeezed in
beside me. He happened to be our soldier from Gamboula, currently stationed
at the customs office at the Cameroon border. He is a pain in the butt and
is always ready to harass us for bribes. Monday was no exception as he was
very drunk and had a loaded gun. He had the gun cocked and ready to shoot
the whole way, just waiting for his chance to shoot a bandit on the road.
He told me that if he had to kill someone on the way to Gamboula, a bandit,
I was not to cry. Yeah right buddy is what I was thinking. He was so drunk
he would have to stand five feet fm the bandit in order not to miss him.
After an hour of me removing his hands from my arms or leg and placing them
respectfully back into his lap he got the picture. The hardest part was
that he kept asking me question and I couldn't understand a word of what he
was saying. His sango is from Bangui, the capital, where they tend to slur
their speech and combined with alcohol I couldn't get a thing he was saying.
He was obviously frustrated and I just sat and kept silent. At the half way
point he bought some grilled beef and then drifted off into a drunken
slumber much to my relief. The driver kept asking me if I would be his
'friend'. Right! After all that I still think I would take a traffique to
Berberati again, since in the end it is worth the reward at the end of the
trip. The key is to arrive early so you can grab a window seat and then
Clarisse can squish in beside me. It took 3 hours to get back to Gamboula
and while it was good to be home we could have spent another five days with
out missing much, except Darren of course.

I think what was so neat about it was how it reminded me of my family back
home. How my dad's family tend to live in clusters in the same cities. 3
here, 4 there, and they help each other out, get together for meals and for
fun. I miss that part of my growing up and I found it in Clarisse's family.
Like my dad, she also has 11 siblings so there are many similarities. Rex
was off to another village Monday morning to retrieve some well equipment
but before he left he gave me a painting of an African scene he bought in
Bangui and a beautiful traditional stool as souvenirs of my stay with him
and his family. I could tell you all his merits and the kindness he pours
out on his family and orphans he looks after, but suffice it to say that I
am now part of a very special family that will forever be part of me. May
they feel welcome at my home anytime.

Hmmm, amoebas

Just wanted to post a quick note to say why I haven't written a longer one
in some time. Between being busy, preparing for the coming of the heads of
the project's largest donor organizations and finding a slew of amoebas
having a tea party in my intestines, I am quite tired and haven't had much
time for writing.

One note about amoebas though. Don't leave home without medicine for them,
namely Flagil. I am not sure how people can believe we once descended from
the lowly amoeba because they sure don't get along with human beings in the
least. You know you have them when a simple case of traveller's diarrhoea
feels like child's play comparatively speaking. The meds for it are
supposed to make you even sicker for a spell but so far I am resisting them
well and have only required a loss of appetite, although raw carrots sound
really good. Thanks to our neighbour I dined on a bunch yesterday but will
have to do without for the rest of the illness. You can only get them in
Cameroon and they don't grow too well here. Anyway, not to be complaining
or anything because I do feel much better, can spare the weight loss and I
am eternally thankful that a medicine against them exists in the first
place. And besides, I am told that now that I have suffered through amoebas
and the cure I am a 'real' missionary. Whew, passed that test...

The winds of change

Dry season is officially here complete with a big dip in the humidity and
ashes scattered on the porch each morning. Dry season is the time when
people start clearing new fields for planting by burning the weeds and
trees on new patches of land. I can understand why this is such an
attractive practice as the fields are quite large and doing it by hand with
the help of burning is already a long an arduous process in itself. I also
know it is dry season because I am finding myself drinking 2 litres of water
in a morning without having to go the bathroom!

As for the tree side of things, we are getting ready for a three day visit
from the head of the Food Resource Bank and Covenant World Relief, both
major donors towards Roy's program here. They have also helped us with
funds for the pygmy program. We are getting everything looking spic and
span and it seems fitting to do it this time of year as we would be have
been doing the same thing right about now at ECHO getting ready for the
annual conference. Along with FRB's visit we are hoping to hear what they
think about future work here and that will help set the tone for our
programs in the coming year. We are hoping to have funding to do a grafting
and tree propagation seminar in each village with an active agroforestry
cooperative starting in January. This would take up much of my time and
would be welcome as I love any opportunity to teach.

Darren and I are well though we are both trying to shake the tail end of
colds off. We are at the end of squash season and so we have been eating a
lot of it lately. If you know any great recipes please let me know. BJ
loves squash so I haven't had any menu complaints as of yet. Our cook,
Leonard is gone for the week at a regional church conference so I am in
charge of the house this week. I suppose I should be relishing my new found
womanhood but quite honestly I would much rather be in the garden working on
all the many things that need to be done. Besides, bending over a stove
when it is already 35 Celsius outside isn't too appealing here.

Last week was productive yet full of sadness at the same time. Living in
such a small place there are hardly things that are kept secret for too
long, including stuff you don't want to know about. While there are many
Christians here there are also a lot of people still involved in what we
would generally term black magic. While on the outset some of it seems
harmless, other practices are far too terrible to say out loud. After
hearing some of the goings on around here I needed an escape from the
reality that we live in. Us three ladies used drastic measures to escape
and we watched the first two movies in the Anne of Green Gables series. It
was wonderful, so wonderful that you hardly want the movie to be over. Jan
is away this week so we are waiting for her return before watching the last
one.

Last week's events weighed heavy on my heart; come Monday morning and as I
was by myself, watering trees in the nursery, it gave me pause to think
about my own village back home. It made me think that when it comes down to
it there isn't any difference between the two worlds we live in. We are all
humans, we all sin and we all fall short of God's glory. The things that
seem so nasty here aren't any nastier that the abuses and sins that are
committed in our towns back home. The only difference about home is that we
aren't likely to meet any of the victims or know any of the perpetrators in
our sheltered lives. I now feel more compelled to not only pray for
Gamboula but for my own home town. How funny that living here has served to
expose the inadequacies of where we come from.

Saturday I spent the morning planting manioc with Mama Paulien. It was a
lot of fun and not particularly hard work unless you are prone to a sore
back (which I am not). However, word spread quickly about the white lady
out planting manioc on a warm Saturday morning. Seems this is the first
time this has happened in these parts and I am sure I was the topic of many
dinner conversations. I guess this is to be expected. They all thought I
wanted to learn how so that I could go back home and make a big garden for
myself. Unfortunately we don't at all have the right climate for it.

Happy Thanksgiving to all of our American friends. Know that we are truly
thankful for each of you.
Ange

Finally a hero...of sorts

For those of you who know me well, you will recall that I once tried to
donate blood with near disastrous results. Let's just say that I never made
it past the initial blood-typing finger prick. Years later I tried to give
blood again during one of the Red Cross' 'Holiday Hero' blood donation
campaigns. Needless to say they had me in the computer under 'never to give
blood again'. Well, today my blood was called into action and I stepped up
to the job, donating almost a full pint to the cause of life-saving. Anita,
our Swedish administrator in Berberati, a person on whom we rely on for
many, many things, recently developed a kind of cancer like illness in her
bones requiring her to have blood transfusions every 4-6 weeks for the rest
of her life. We happen to be the same blood type and since she required two
units of blood, both Darren and I gave this morning. Darren gives all the
time back home so to him it was nothing new, but this was my first
successful time and given my history, I had Darren and Aleta watching over
me the whole time waiting for any signs that I might keel over. I must
admit that it was not an entirely pleasant experience but it sure beats
going to the dentist!

So, in light of the approaching Thanksgiving and Christmas seasons, I
encourage all of you, especially those who have never given before, to
donate blood this year. Make it your Christmas gift to your local
neighbourhood. Besides, blood is kind of like money, when you give it away
you can always make more!

Happy blood letting,
Angela

Finally Home

For those of you not on our e-mail list, I thought I would post our most
recent newsletter that went out over e-mail. Drop us alline if you wanted
to be added to our list. We only send out an emailonce every 5 or 6 weeks.

Greetings from Central Africa!
We realize it has been a very long time since we e-mailed an update to
everyone, but we hope you received our latest newsletter by mail and have
been able to check or blog once in a while. We have been on the move since
July 1 which accounts for some of why we haven't e-mailed in so long. Let
me give you a month by month look at what we have been up to.

July: We spent the month in Bayanga, the extreme southwest of CAR, working
amongst the Aka Pygmies. We did a lot of village visits, planting trees,
working with individuals in their cassava gardens, helping people access
peanut seed, as well as helping the missionaries there with a school
nutrition project for the Aka children. In a village near Bayanga there are
30 Aka children currently attending school but they lag behind for a number
of reasons including inadequate access to food in the morning. We did a
clinic on sweet potatoes and helped with planting techniques as well as
giving out planting material. It turned out to be a very significant
project for that village. We had hoped to remain in Bayanga for the rest of
our term but it will not work out for us there in terms of housing and such
so we will return in the spring for an extended stay if the Lord wills it.

August: I returned home to Canada for the month, courtesy of my family, to
take part in my sister's wedding. She is now Sarah Thorp, and it was
wonderful to be part of her day. I also had the opportunity to speak at a
couple of churches as well as a local Victoria radio station. It was good
to be home but truthfully, Gamboula feels like home more than any place
else. Darren returned to Bayanga for nearly 3 weeks along with BJ, the
veterinarian next door, and Matt, a student from the US who came out for a
month. Darren did some more work with the ag projects we started in July,
following up with villages, as well as building relationships with some Aka
men. They were able to take part in a traditional hunt with nets in the
forest, as well as fishing with large nets in the Sangha river.

September: Darren turned into a computer technician in September when he
was given 7 laptops and one desktop to put into working order. Our living
room looked like a computer warehouse for a while. The neighbours received
these computers from the US to give to national leaders in our area (the
pastor, bible school director, hospital staff, etc.). They all had work to
be done on them and Darren knows the most about computers so he volunteered
for the job, with a little prodding from me! He finished right at the end
of the month. I went to Bilolo, about 4-5 hours south of here with 2 of our
ag workers to give an agro-forestry seminar. There are 2 SIL/Wycliffe
families living there and we were invited by them. We had 75 participants
including 8 Baka Pygmies from the area. Now that we have made contact with
them we plan on going back to the Baka villages during the dry season. They
look like the Pygmies we worked with in Bayanga but they speak a different
language. Fortunately Sango is fairly universal. It was a very interesting
trip for me and I encourage you to read about it on our blog. It is
entitled 'A lesson in respect.'

October: On the first of the month we were off again, this time to Kenya,
for our mission's triennial retreat. We gathered with 136 other
missionaries from around the globe for a week of conference and a week of
retreat, plus an extra 5 days of vacation, just the two of us. We had a
fabulous time and feel more than ever a part of our mission and the work God
is doing in the world. We attended some good workshops on AIDS and on our
own spiritual formation. We heard about the direction our mission is
taking, we were encouraged to continue on in our work with excellence, and
we were able to visit and hear about the work being done all over the globe.
It was a good time of fellowship, prayer and fun. Yes, we had a lot of fun.
With a group this big NMSI was able to negotiate good prices for
accommodation and such in Kenya, so we were treated to all sorts of good
things, all in the name of fellowship of course. We climbed Mt. Longonot, a
nearly extinct volcano in the Rift Valley, visited lake Naivasha as well as
the Masai Mara, Kenya's famous game park. We saw four of the big five and
we even pet a somewhat tame zebra that was wondering around our
accommodations in the Mara, the Mara Buffalo Camp. I was less afraid to be
face to face with a zebra than I am with a horse! We finished the retreat
on the beach in Mombassa where Darren got to know some guys in NMSI well as
they played 4 hours of volleyball a day. I took the time to visit with a
few newly marrieds to give them encouragement and listen to their concerns.
We spent our extra vacation days in Mombassa, soaking in some equatorial sun
(bad, I know) and finding time to read. We returned to Gamboula yesterday
to find things pretty much as we left them.

Coming up: The next two months we will be finishing out some bean variety
trials as well as getting the gardens in order for a visit from one of Roy
and our's major donors, the Food Resource Bank and Covenant World Relief.
Lots to do. Darren will be getting things ready to start his tissue culture
project and we are all three of us writing an agro-forestry manual for
distribution to the villages we work with. The deadline for the book is
January. Yikes!

Prayer: Please continue to pray for peace in CAR. The number of reports
about bandits on the roads is increasing and we have decided to not leave
our town until we hear more favourable reports. We do feel safe where we
are but we do covet your prayers. Darren will be travelling to north
western Cameroon at the end of November to attend a one week course on the
tissue culture of bananas using methods developed by a Cameroonian research
centre. Darren never imagined that his education and gifts in biotechnology
would come in use on the field, but to the glory of God, they are just what
is needed here to speed up the production of many important plants including
bananas, plantains and spineless peach palm.

We are now able to receive mail through Cameroon. Please e-mail us for the
address. Our e-mail is bossbugs@yahoo.ca and we continue to be able to
receive text only, a couple of pages maximum. We appreciate hearing form
all of you and look forward to it! We are finding tremendous joy in our
ministry and are seeing many good fruits of our labours, both in the edible
sense and in relationships formed with those whom we serve. We are becoming
more and more sure of a long-term call to Central Africa and would ask for
your prayer regarding vision for the long term.

Each one of you is special to us and are prayed for. May God's favour rest
on each of you.
Angela, for the Boss duo.

a lesson in respect

A lesson in respect

The background: Bilolo, an average sized village, lies 160km south of us
along the Cameroon border and is home to a wonderful missionary family who
are working on getting the local language on paper with Wycliffe. The
village is in the rainforest and there are a number of pygmy camps
surrounding the village within a 50 km radius. The missionary lady also
happens to be the sister of our neighbor here in Gamboula. They asked if it
was possible for us to hold an agroforestry seminar in their village to help
the people. We gladly accepted the invitation and an evangelist we worked
with in Bayanga rode his bike 150km in order to visit all the pygmy villages
he could the week before the seminar to get them to come to the seminar.
When it came time to get things ready for the seminar last Saturday we
realized that the vehicle we had planned on taking (a Toyota truck that
could seat 5) was not available and that our only option was the project
truck which comfortably seats 2. This was a problem because we had planned
on taking Constant, the agri supervisor and Chrysler whose native language
is that of Bilolo. Normally, it is these two guys who give the seminars and
so we wanted to go down with them so they could give the seminar and we
would do the trouble shooting. With the back of the truck full of trees we
would all have to go in the cab. Not likely. So, early Sunday morning it
was decided that I would go and Darren would stay behind. Partly because my
Sango is good enough to teach in and Darren doesn't feel comfortable
teaching yet and partly because his spirit was telling him to stay behind.

The trip: On the 5 hour trip down I was neatly sandwiched between two guys
and when I say sandwiched, I mean we were literally cheek to cheek.
Constant wasn't so bothered but I think Chrysler was a little uncomfortable
at first. You can't be tense for 5 hours though so eventually he relaxed.
We arrived in Bilolo around suppertime Sunday night and the seminar started
promptly at 7:30 on Monday morning.

The seminar: We had 73 participants. Unbelievable! We had eight pygmies
representing 5 different villages. They walked over 40km on foot with
nothing but the clothes on their backs. We also had 3 guys from Nola, about
35km south as well as a few others from north of Bilolo. Amongst the 73
were a few soldiers from the village, 3 chiefs and 3 women. Quite a mix.
The first day went well and I was asked to teach 2 of the lessons. One
lesson I wasn't being too clear so Chrysler came to my rescue and we team
taught. I also did a lot of the writing on the black board since I have the
best spelling, especially when Constant was teaching (he didn't do too much
school).

Monday evening I had a long chat with Constant on the porch of the house I
was sleeping at. He proceeded to tell me his family history, about his
parents, about his own family, why he divorced his first wife, etc, etc. He
gave me some real insights into how you go about taking a wife and we talked
about me and Darren's marriage, what marriage means to us, how good of
friends we are. It was eye opening for the both of us and a good cultural
exchange. It was really dark and I could only make out his teeth so it was
hard to read the expression on his face.

Tuesday started rather loudly as we tried to get the village participants to
agree on a place to make a tree nursery. The second day of the seminar is
all practical stuff, planting trees, making compost, making a nursery,
dividing trees, and forming a bureau, or group to stay in contact with us
here in Gamboula. It seems that the village is split into two factions, the
north and the south and they have a hard time working together, or deciding
where to put their nursery. Half wanted it in the south of the village and
the other half wanted it in the north. In the end my solution was for the
group to start forming the bureau while Chrysler and I, the 'nursery
experts', went to look at each place so we could come back with a judgment
of which
site was the best. It worked very well and our decision was well accepted.
The rest of the days work went beautifully with the soldiers in attendance
swinging machetes side by side with the pygmies.

It was all over by 2:00, after a lunch of gozo and pig meat in oil. I
survived 2 days of eating only gozo and oil (no pig for me please!). We
were initially planning to overnight in Bilolo Tuesday and then head home
Wednesday, visiting villages along the way. For some reason Constant was in
a rush to get going, maybe before another rain messed up the roads. By 3:30
we were in the truck and on our way to Dede, 4 hours away where we were
going to spend the night. When we got to Yantchi, an hour from Bilolo we
had to stop at a barrier. A lady came out and asked us for a ride to
Gamboula with her small child so they could go to the hospital. Constant
said yes and here starts the lesson on respect.

I knew as soon as I saw this lady that there was no way me and her and her
baby could sit in the cab together. So I made up my mind to sit in the back
of the truck with Chrysler and give the lady the front. I wanted to do this
for two reasons. One, it was just getting dark and we were entering an
uninhabited stretch of road that for two hours took you through the
rainforest with it's towering canopy of trees. We had next to nothing in
the back so I knew I would be able to stretch out. Secondly, I wanted to
show respect to this woman and her kid by having her take the front and the
white lady take the back. Well, this did not go over very well. I climbed
into the back and right away Chrysler was telling me no, I had to take the
front seat. I, in my stubbornness, said NO. There was a group of people
gathering around the back of the truck to watch our little scene. I should
have relented but I had already made up my mind and well, I am stubborn.
Chrysler finally relented but when Constant, our driver came around and saw
me he immediately said no way Madame. I told him I was strong enough, we
discussed it back and forth and finally I promised him that if it was too
rough I would shout really loud for him to stop and I would trade places
with the woman. He still wouldn't relent so I asked him, "Constant, do you
call me Madame?" "Yes", he said. "And you call me that because you respect
me?" "Yes", he said. "Well then if you want to call me Madame, then
respect my decision to sit in the back". With that, he got in the truck and
off we went.

I had such a lovely time in the back of that truck. I found something to
lean up against, stretched out my legs and I took in the sounds and sights
of the wild rainforest at night. Hundreds of lightening bugs flittering
around lit up the night sky and lightening in the distance gave everything a
dramatic effect that made you think, wow, Lord, you are truly amazing to
have created all of this. It will go down as one of my most memorable
moments in life.

Just before arriving in Dede, our stop for the night, we were stopped at
another military checkpoint. Constant came around to the back of the truck
to have a word with me and find out if I was dead yet! He said I had put
sadness in his heart because I was riding in the back. In this culture
there are very important rules as to how you treat people more important
than you and having someone who you think sits above you on the chain sit in
the back of a truck breaks all the rules. I assured him that I was having
the time of my life; I had been singing, I slept a little and that there was
no reason what so ever for sadness!

Yesterday morning we loaded up the truck for the rest of the trip back to
Gamboula. This time we had a lot more people with us in the back, all on
their way to the hospital and I heeded Constant's wishes and rode in the
front. It also helped him save face because if the folks in Gamboula saw me
riding in the back he would have heard about it! I did however get a good
chance to talk with just him. I said that he puts sadness in my heart. He
asked me why. I said that when he calls me Madam, it makes me sad. He was
puzzled by this so I continued on to explain. (There is a word in Sango
'legue-oko'. It means a few things but one meaning is the same way, or
way-one.) I told him that we have traveled together twice, legue-oko. We
have eaten the same food, we have worked hand in hand, done the same work
and we are the same age. I told him I didn't want to sit above him, that we
are essentially the same. He finally got it when he said, 'so you want me
call you Angela?'. Yes!!!

So now we are trying to be on a first name basis. This is going to me a
hard thing for him but it is a lesson for both of us in respect. I will
find ways to respect him in his culture and he will try and show me respect
in my culture, using my name. Maybe next time he slips and calls me Madam
I'll just call him Monsieur!

Next Saturday Darren and I are off to Kenya for a few weeks of meetings and
five days on the Indian Ocean in Mombassa. We will be using internet café's
and I will try not to write so much next time.