Culinary delights?

Darren suggested I write about the interesting culinary delights of the past
week so you all know that we are 'real missionaries' in a strange land.
Custom has it here that everyday at 10:00 is break time. Because of Roy's
big, soft heart, he agreed to provide coffee, tea and 'donuts' for all the
agroforestery staff everyday. This was great and we were all happy until we
had this great brainstorm that maybe if we order food from a local
restaurant it would be less expensive each day. Ends up it isn't! However,
for the equivalent of $3 each day, we are provided with 6 balls of gozo (the
local starch made from manioc which isn't at all nutritious but extremely
filling) and a bowl of meat and sauce that sometimes has greens in it. The
local restaurants are nothing more than a few local women who serve food to
the public in front of their houses, thus, a restaurant. We started by
ordering from a different restaurant each week until we decided on the best
one and she comes with her food everyday at 10:00. It happens that our cook
is Nadege, Clarisse's younger sister and my Gbaya teacher. Her food is
really good but in the last week beef must have been hard to come by or bush
meat is preferred, as we have been served gorilla, monkey and wild pig all
in the same week. I didn't try any of the above, and especially objected to
the gorilla and monkey. If it is an animal that women aren't supposed to
eat according to local custom (like gorilla, sorry, it is for the men only)
she always sends a small plate of beef and sauce for the women and for our
one Muslim employee. Muslims here don't eat anything with top teeth,
including pig and forest rat. We had the pleasure of eating forest rat the
other day after the women I had hired to work in the nutrition garden killed
two while cutting down brush. It was quite tender and not as bad as it
sounds. Darren partook of the monkey and forest pig as well as lele (forest
rat) and found them all to be quite ordinary tasting. I may be a
missionary, I may speak sango, know how to plant gozo, and wear traditional
clothes, but I am a North American and I don't think I will ever want to eat
a bowl full of monkey.

I also learned today that eating dog is quite a delicacy around here, if you
are a man. They are also forbidden for women to eat. I also learned that
if you eat cat and then subsequently find yourself in a bad traffic
accident, you will be the only one to walk away without a scratch, because
you ate cat of course! Guess I best keep a close eye on Coco, our dog,
right now. This is the time of year for cooking up dogs as people have big
work parties in their gardens and as payment they cook food for all that
comes. The favourite item on the menu for these work parties is dog. One
more reason to bring Coco home with us.

We are well despite the things we eat, though I have a wicked cough from
what I think is a bacterial infection of some kind. Don't worry though, I
am drinking all kinds of concoctions from local herbs and bark to get rid of
it (just kidding, I am on antibiotics instead). If the antibiotics don't
work I will resort to the potions from the medicine man. I hear he is very
good. Things are progressing well and the rains have started so we and
everyone around us here are busy planting gardens.
Till next time, Angela

The Chief's Son Returns

I am writing with gladness and sadness all mixed into one, as life tends to
go here. While death is a thing of daily life here, being so close to the
hospital, and bandits and disorder are no longer news to us but part of life
here, we are happy to report on some good things in the midst of it. As you
may or may not know, New Year's day the eldest son of the local Fulani chief
was taken captive by bandits and held ransom for 10 million CFA (20,000
USD). Initially we were told that if the ransom was not paid in three days
he would be killed. It ends up that the bandits had a little more patience
than that and after a 2 and half month ordeal, he was released by the
bandits this past Saturday. It is through much prayer by many people around
the world that his life has been spared. The family had only been able to
pay 5 million CFA (about 10,000 US) through the sale of cows both in CAR and
Cameroon. He has been held out in the bush for the last two and half months
with only the clothes he was taken captive in and a straw mat for shelter.
His legs were held in chains and he was given only small amounts of food as
there were leftovers. This past Saturday there was a lot of discussion
amongst the bandits as to what to do with him. They told him that since his
family didn't love him enough to pay the full ransom that they should just
kill him but the captain said they should just set him free. Eventually
they agreed just to set him free and he made it back to Gamboula on Sunday
to the great relief of his family and of the missionary community. In
Fulani culture, the first born son of the first wife becomes the new chief
of the clan when the father dies and as the chief is nearing death it was
very important to have the son back. They are all thanking and praising God
for the son's return.

In other news, our turbine has finally been fixed and we now have power and
water back at our houses. It is amazing how much more complicated life is
without running water. And, while the Eastern half of Africa is suffering
in a drought we are having a remarkably wet dry season. As I type I feel
like I am back in Victoria as it has been raining off and on all morning
just as it would be at home in the spring. We thank-you each one for your
prayers regarding the chief's son and regarding our work here. We are very
busy as this is the time of year for travelling around giving seminars on
agroforestery, grafting, banana production and gardening. I also just
finished writing a seminar guide book in Sango which was a fun challenge.

Kete voundou laso

I know this entry is going to come across a little strange to all of you but
some things just need to be said. A month ago our neighbours surprised us
with a new pet. A bush baby, a really little one. A bush baby is in the
monkey family and kind of looks like a lemur more than a monkey. We named
him Pip, after Pip Squeak and he has been bringing us happiness since we got
him. He has free reign of the house and he is small enough to curl up in
the palm of your hand. We had been feeding him milk from a syringe, bits of
bread, banana, papaya and termites since the bobos starting coming out two
nights ago. Well, this morning when we woke it was thundering and raining
and Pip came straight to the bed to greet us and all was normal. I lay on
the couch with Pip curled up in my shirt while reading this morning and then
maybe an hour later I went looking for him to hold him for a bit and I found
him dead curled up amongst my hats in the bedroom. I am feeling quite sad
at the moment and homesick all at once. It has been raining since early
this morning and has that grey cast to the sky and slight rain-cooled chill
to the air, just like at home in the winter but 15 degrees warmer. Pip's
death and the rainy day have me thinking of home and feeling rather pensive.

We have had a challenging couple of weeks in February that has tired us out
with no time to rest. February 11 we held an "agroforestry recyclage". We
invited one member from each of the 25 cooperatives to come to Gamboula for
four days of teaching and hands-on learning at the agroforestry center. We
had over 40 participants as a contingent of 7 Aka pygmies from Bayanga came
up with Raul, the American missionary there, as well as all of the ag center
staff. I played a big role in helping organize things and in teaching.
Darren taught on the banana technique he learned in Cameroon, Bruno and I
taught on grafting and we also did an afternoon on vegetable gardening. We
also spent one full afternoon talking about cooperatives and their
importance in development. It was an excellent week despite the fact that
during day 2 our energy generating turbine went on the blink and is still
broken nearly two weeks later.

Now I know what you are thinking, 'big deal, the power went out. Don't you
live in Africa?'. And yes, we do live in Africa but our houses are set up
with full reliance on the turbine and so is our hospital. We do have an
emergency generator which is too big for its purpose here and drinks 15
litres of fuel per hour! We have been running the generator for six hours a
day in order to give us a chance to cook, for the fridges and deep-freezers
to stay cool and to pump water. Hundreds of people rely on the mission for
water and our pumps need electricity. The unfortunate part of the set-up is
that our house is the last in line to get water so right now we are only
getting water for maybe an hour a day. We have been showering in agri's
outdoor shower or at Roy's house and storing up water in buckets for use in
the kitchen and to flush our toilet. The part for the turbine has to come
from Spain so we will be without for most likely the rest of this week. It
is not that being without power and water is the end of life, as this is how
most everyone else around here lives, it just means that it takes up much of
your time to do really basic things and this is something that while I knew
it I didn't fully understand it in a practical sense. We surely are a
spoiled bunch in North America that is for sure. I am just really grateful
for our back-up as is the hospital. It is really hard to do surgery without
power.

Our lack of power may also help to explain my failure to write in the past
month. Since the recyclage we have been planning for this season's work
including 6 big seminars that will be happening in large towns starting
March 6. The day after the training here in Gamboula Darren and I took off
for Berberati with Roy, Aleta and BJ to go and help fix a missionary house
there. Actually it is the house of Roy's son who recently came out with his
wife for a 2 year term. They came down here this past weekend and we had a
good chance to dream about what our futures in CAR would look like. We are
all talking about starting a model/research farm in Berberati connected with
a new development NGO in CAR. Anyway, for us this would be a few years off
but we are glad to be included in the development stage.

I feel as though my thoughts are very scattered today so I won't say much
more. The next few months will be taken up with travelling to seminars,
grafting, and more travel as we have said that any cooperatives that want
extra teaching on grafting, banana multiplication or that want women
specific seminars, that we will travel to them and do the training on-site.
There could be a big demand for this. Come summer we are hoping to be down
in Bayanga for a few months. Our mission director is planning a visit in
September/October which will be good to share our dreams with him as well.
We are planning on returning to Canada in late December in time to celebrate
Darren's Granny's 90th birthday. A second recyclage is planned for the
beginning of December and the guys insist that we be here for it!

As for next year this time, plans are evolving and it looks as if we may
find ourselves back at ECHO for a few years while I work in the nursery and
Darren attends FGCU. Please be praying for our 2006 seminar and follow-up
program, for continued safety on the roads and for change on the lives of
those we work with. These are exciting times for us and we know that there
are battles being fought all around us in the spiritual realm.
Ange

Special Help

In an update to the last Blog about extra help out here we would like to say
that anyone wanting to help send donations to our mission agency clearly
marked Boss-Special Projects.
In Canada the address is: CCWM, Box 25, Stouffville, ON L4A 7Z4
In the USA the address is: NMSI, Box 547, Fort Myers, Florida, 33902

At our discretion we will use the funds to help pay school tuition for
teenagers we see that have the potential and the desire to graduate and go
on with their education.

An update on the Women's project:
We started our new project in the nutrition center the first of this month
and so far the mother's are very enthusiastic and do not skip a day unless
they cannot leave their child. Three times a week we are prepared to have
any of the mothers with children at the hospital's nutrition centre come
down to the nutrition garden to learn from me or Mama Paulien and to help
with the garden chores, thereby learning how to grow the veggies that they
use in the nutrition centre. The hours they do are recorded and if they do
10 hours during their stay then when they leave for their villages they will
receive a machete and veggie seeds to take back with them. So far we have
given out 3 machetes. The women participating all work with joy and we can
see a genuine desire to learn, even the centre staff are participating and
learning and asking questions. I am happy to see one of my ideas come to
fruition and be successful.
Please note that this address sends and receives e-mail via a satellite
phone connection. All e-mails over 25 kb will be returned to sender
unopened. Sorry for the inconvenience. For more updates on the Bosses,
please log onto http://thebosses.blogspot.com

Help wanted ads...

I am not sure if this is an acceptable thing to use my blog for but since it
is my blog after all, then why not. I have been learning a lot about myself
over the past year and one thing I have noticed is that I am more and more
willing to give stuff away than I once was. Not just stuff even but my
time, talents and resources, such as this blog. I suspect this has
something to do with growing in the faith and being in the kind of place
that I am although I am sure that some people can be hardened to giving if
it is asked of them too often. All of this is to say that I want to present
you all with the opportunity to help a few people. I know that you are
already helping because of your gifts of your talents, time and resources
that you have not only given to us but probably to many others as well.
However, for some of you that is just not enough and I want to give the
chance to be blessed and be a blessing even more.

Opportunity number 1: There are two brothers in our church here in Gamboula
with the most incredible singing voices I have been privileged to hear in my
short life. They are both in their twenties from poor families, but they
have managed to scrape together enough money to make a cassette tape to sell
around the country. What they would really like to do is to go to the
capital and professionally record their music on CD. Actually, in their
biggest of dreams they would like to go to a French Conservatory Music
school somewhere in the world. However, given that that is a dream (one
that would be great to come true but not really within any of our means) the
second best would be for them to have the chance to record their music.

Opportunity number 2: As you may have gathered from previous entries,
graduating high school is about as difficult a task as getting a driver's
license in this country. Generally, kids do not make it past elementary
school because it is too expensive to go to school in terms of school fees
and supplies. As well, kids are often set back when the government here
neglects to pay the teachers salaries for a year and they close the school
down for two years at a time. If you do make it all the way through high
school you are required to 'buy' your graduation certificate at a cost of
one hundred dollars. I have the privilege of knowing two exceptional young
men who are near completing high school and who have dreams of not only
finishing high school but going on to University in Bangui (the capital).
One would like to study to be a lawyer, an occupation of which good ones are
in short supply. The other would like to study economics. They are both
fantastic youth with good hearts and good dreams for their lives. The are
doing every thing they can to pay their way through school; even their
relatives are pitching in but I am afraid it will not be enough. The one
thing that so troubles my heart here is that the only ones who succeed
monetarily in life here are those who are corrupt. If it is mostly the
corrupt to get into university and study and become the heads of things in
this country than it is no wonder it is in the shape that it is.

Darren and I are doing what we can and even by writing this e-mail we are
giving them some encouragement to tell them, 'keep it up, we care about you
and we want to see you succeed and rise above your circumstances'. Anyhow,
forgive me for being so bold and feel free to think I am crazy. I know that
if I was given the world, some days I would hold it all for my self and
other
days I would give it all away. I know there is a happy medium somewhere in
there, but I am still trying to find it!
We can be reached via our uuplus e-mail or by bossbugs@yahoo.ca

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Christmas wherever you are is all about what you make of it. Take, for
example, Christmas in Gamboula. How do you make a four hour Christmas day
church service a little more interesting to sit through. The answer is, you
form a choir of all the missionaries and get them to sing a medley of
Christmas songs including Jingle Bells, in front of 300 plus people. That
is good for a few laughs I guarantee, especially since no one has a clue
what we are singing. You could also get your ladies bible study together,
teach them a song in Sango and English and then sing that in front of the
church on Christmas morning.

As for Christmas dinner, ours wasn't a very exciting tropical dinner with
snake and monkey on the menu. In fact, ours was rather traditional in the
American sense. We had roast duck, stuffing, cranberry sauce, corn, sweet
potato, scalloped potatoes and salad. We stuffed ourselves with cookies and
lemon bars and yes, even Nanaimo bars for dessert. This was very exciting
for Darren and I; a) because it is a truly West Coast Canadian food, b) it
wouldn't be Christmas without Nanaimo bars and c). we actually managed to
fabricate all the ingredients necessary to make them and they tasted as
delicious and fattening as the ones my dad makes. Thanks goes to the
Lebanese merchant in Berberati for stocking vanilla custard powder in his
store. The only thing I have ever used the stuff for was to make Nanaimo
bars but I suppose one could actually make custard out of it.

Despite the holidays we are both very busy in our respective roles here,
especially since we keep picking up new ones. I am currently trying to
organize the agri office to help it be more efficient and accurate in its
record keeping and accounting. It is much the same as my job at ECHO trying
to keep my old boss organized. Lots and lots of fun. No, seriously, it is
a lot of fun. Seriously fun. Anyway...

2006 is sure to hold a lot of excitement and busyness for us. Besides
trying to complete an agroforestry manual, the agroforestry centre has 15
seminars scheduled for which the nursery will have to provide over 5,000
trees; we are planning on at least 4 months solid with the Aka pygmies in
Bayanga; Darren is working on producing a couple thousand banana plants for
distribution and I just got word of a good source of funding for a large
women's project for 2006 in which I would be completely responsible. Hmmm,
more fun. Actually, I thrive off stress and Darren thrives on picking up
the pieces of Angela as she thrives on stress.

After having spent one year here we are pretty much hooked and although we
will be going home a year from now, we have set our hearts on returning for
a longer time in the future. We are talking supplementary educated before
returning. Darren in the field of computer science (so he can be a real
expert) and me, most recently, in the field of community health
nursing/work. Does anyone know of a good program for this, preferably
focussed on the tropics? Any info would be helpful as we are
internet-handicapped out here in the wilderness. Thanks y'all.

The injustice system

When the justice system in a country goes unpaid by its government for any
length of time, I suppose it is only natural that the system devises its own
plan for paying itself. Thus, a system that may once have been just,
becomes a system of varied injustice. Lady liberty has thrown away her
scales and has replaced them with rather large pockets in her trousers.

There are some customs you learn in a foreign country that are easily
adopted, others that you adopt but they always remain a bit strange and some
that you never manage to adopt and whenever they are encountered they remain
as foreign as when you first saw them. To me the justice system shall
always be in that last category. Take, for example, last weekend. Constant
was in Berberati for the week having our agri truck fixed, buying supplies
like shovels and machetes as well as stocking up on spare truck parts. They
very moment he was getting set to return to Gamboula he had an accident in
the truck. We aren't exactly clear as to whose fault the accident was but
it seems that a motor bike with a driver and two passengers ran into the
rear wheel of his truck at high speed. The injuries were not serious to the
passengers, just a bruised ankle and some minor scrapes. The bike was
damaged but the driver didn't have a license or the proper papers of
insurance and such for his bike. Constant and his idea was that they were
both at fault and they both go on their way. Unfortunately, a police chief
(CB) or some such person happened to be on his motorbike only 5 minutes
behind them and as they were just picking up the bike from the ground the CB
came upon the scene and called the police in to investigate. (On an aside,
Berberati now has a cellular tower and has leaped into the future now armed
with cell phones. Good for most but unfortunate for Constant.) The result
of having the police know about your accident is that they have just found
their month's pay check. You see, it is a crime in CAR to have an accident.
Both vehicles were impounded, and Constant was delayed an extra 4 days while
they 'discussed' what his fine would be. In the end, after what might be a
small movie script, mostly comedy, each driver was required to pay the
police 30,000 CFA. That is like sixty dollars. What I don't get and never
will, is that they both had to pay a fine for the mere fact that they had an
accident. It is your bad luck that they happen to find out that you had
one. If the police were never informed, they would have gone on their way
as though everything were normal. Unfortunately for the other guy, he also
has to pay another 30,000 CFA because of driving without a license and
insurance.

Since the accident was partly Constant's fault and we do have 'insurance' on
the truck, technically the other driver could have filed to claim damages
from our insurance. He won't do this though, no one does. Why? Because
then you have to pay the police to write a report, then you have to pay the
court to have a hearing to process your claim. In the end, you end up
paying as much or more than you are claiming for, so why bother? Thus a
very efficient injustice system.

I have many other examples, some that make you want to cry in frustration
from the ludicrousy of it all. You can hardly believe that some of the
stories you hear are true, but they are. People who do not collect
legitimate salaries are very easy to pay off.

On the brighter side of life, I am enjoying how life always steers you back
to the things we are good at. I feel like I'm right back at ECHO today as I
became Roy and Constant's assistant in the office, devising a filing system,
cleaning up receipts and generally organizing things. I like to organize
things. Today is also the French service's Christmas special. Next weekend
is for the Sango service. Today we are treated to choirs, memory verses,
skits and, of course, food. Clarisse is in the French service so I am
looking forward to a good time. We are going to Berberati next week to help
paint a house in preparation for some new missionaries coming to Berberati.
I am looking forward to introducing Darren to my new friends there and maybe
he will treat me to a dinner out at the new restaurant in town-a Christmas
present of sorts. Will report on the trip when we get back.