Another week has passed.

I was just chatting online with a friend from home, and he asked me about my week. And my answer was, "Well, I've done everything from scrub a few toilets to entertaining His Excellency the Minister of Education". That about sums it up. Another typical week!

But I haven't done hardly anything this week which I set out to do... not that I wasn't busy the entire week... it's just that it seems like every 15 minutes something else unexpected popped up and had to be taken care of immediately.

Oh well. That's life here. Jackie comes home tomorrow and can help me with some of the bits and pieces that I've had to take care of all week on my own.

This week ended with a nice treat - one my friends just came back from Nairobi and brought taco shells with her! So we had a huge potluck Mexican feast! I made guacamole with a little avocado that Richard and I scrounged through the market to find (yum yum!), and we even had flour tortillas! I also got knocked completely unconscious in a Wii boxing match with Annamarie. That girl is vicious with the Wii! The Wii games were cut short, though, as there was yet another power cut. Oh well, another dinner by the light of the solar lamps! At least we had good food and good company, besides I had worked up quite the sweat playing the Wii - imagine Wii boxing when it's 33C in the house! Good exericize, but a little on the warm side... But all in all, life over here is looking pretty good - tacos and Wii (which I'm sure must be the only Wii in town!).

Phew, all that work and play has tired me right out... and a nice breeze is starting to whip up, so it's starting to be cool enough to think about sleep!

A hobby?

Since we've had the most amazing city electricity over the past little while, I've been getting really excited about using the sewing machine that was sent up from Uganda.

I started out making some little things for our table. They were supposed to be napkins (um, serviettes, depending on which country you're from!), but they seem to actually work better as placemats and hot pads! Anyways, they are pretty little cloth things to use on the dining table (which, in our case, is a fold-out office table). I think they're rather pretty, myself, and I'm quite proud of them.

Then, last weekend, I decided I needed a new bag. I have a thing for bags. Any market, any shop, any little souvenir kiosk I see, I go straight to the bag section first. I've had this bag addiction for a very long time, and as a result, I have an awful lot of bags. Most of them tend towards the cloth variety, but I also have a few leader hand bags from various corners of the globe (for instance, my brown leather purse from Addis Ababa is one of my treasures :) ).

However, over here, I only have a handful of bags. I have a small bag, which holds basically a wallet, a pen, a few tissues and some hand sanitizer, which is from the Masai market in Nairobi. I have a big bright green bag from the beach on the Kenyan coast which is big enough to hold my computer, it's power cable, plus my phone chargers, a water bottle and some papers. I use this one mostly to cart my stuff back and forth between my house and my office, since my hands are usually full with keys and tea, as well! Then I have another bag, which I've had for ages, which is a tie-dyed cotton bag from the first city that I lived in when I came to Africa a long time ago. It's a great bag, but a little on the bright-purple tie-dyed side. I usually just take this bag when I go to the market, and cart around my eggs, bananas, tomatoes etc. in it. If it gets grungy (which it normally does!), it's easy to wash and I don't have to worry about it. The last bag I have here is a lovely navy blue and red kikoy bag, with a little red fringe along the bottom. It has the perfect length strap to wear across your body, it's roomy enough for a water bottle, your wallet, a novel, a few pens, a bunch of keys, a couple of cell phones, some tissues and some hand sanitizer. Everything a girl needs to go out and about around here.
However, it's been out and about for a very long time. It's been a faithful friend. But my faithful friends here have started to tell me that it's about time to get myself a new bag. But where does a girl find a new bag here?! Not really a hot spot for tourist shops to buy cute little African bags. The women around here have odd taste in handbags - they like really ornate pleather bags. Yuck. Makes me sweat just thinking about having this big old plastic handbag stuck to my arm all day.

So, I took matters into my own hands! Since the power was on, I whipped out the sewing machine, and here's what popped out!
I have to admit, I'm quite proud of it, and all my buddies here have said it's the next fad in local fashion! I think I'll quit my day just and just start designing bags! Well, maybe I'll use mine for a couple of weeks and see if it falls apart before I start marketing them :)

Special thanks goes to Zane, who so patiently posed for the above photos. And now you know that I have been in Jb for much too long, as I have just spent the better part of my evening posing my cat with my bags and blogging about it.

Up and Running!

Whoo hooo! I just have to share my joy! I am now up and running with my old hard drive on a new-to-me computer! My organization has a "loaner" computer that had been living in a different city, and someone came from there today... and brought me a computer :) Same model as the old one, so I just popped in my old hard drive and away I go! I'm so thankful to be completely up and running like normal again. Just had to share my joy!

Some cheese with my whine?

Today, I must admit, I had a bit of a whiney day. And I feel sorry for my dear housemate, Annamarie, who had to listen to most of it! There are just some days where I feel like things are rather out of control, and when everyone else is whining to me and I'm the only one here to deal with it, I start whining myself! I went to the office this morning to the girls who work in the house whining about not having any gas to make their tea. Well, there hasn't been any cooking gas here for a few months now, and it will probably be until next month before more comes. So I'm sorry that they have to wait until we turn on the generator to be able to use the electric kettle to make their tea! I also got some whining from a guest about why we don't supply our guests with computers so they can check their email. This was just as I was trooping into the computer container where all the VSAT equipment is to figure out why there was no power to the VSAT kit and inverter. Sigh. I admit I made a snarky remark to her about if she wanted to check her email, she could walk down the street to the internet cafe or go pay $100 per night in one of the fancy tents by the river! That wasn't very kind of me, though, and I'm feeling really bad tonight for all the whining that I was doing about everything else around here today!

But I actually DID have a really nice afternoon. I worked all morning (part of it was spent clearing out the house that was just vacated by our nieghbor, which was a sad thing to do, especially since I was all alone doing it!), but then I played in the afternoon! I met Annamarie at her office and we had a really nice lunch, together with one of her Eritrean friends! It was a good way to celebrate today's Eritrean Independence holiday. 17 years ago today they got their independence from Ethiopia. We had a really nice time, and this friend of hers knows some of the same people that I do. I love this crazy small world!

Then we went tromping off to the market, which was great fun. You never quite know what you're going to find in the market. Unfortunately, they've completely destroyed the market which was within a 10 minute walk of our house :( So now we have to drive across town to the other market, which I really don't know my way around yet. But I guess I'll soon learn! We each had a few things that we needed to buy for our offices etc., and Annamarie was more successful in finding what she needed than I was! But I served a good purpose in that I could practice my Arabic and get some good deals for her. Plus, it was just really a lot of fun to go into the market and feel fairly confident of how to get what I wanted in the local Arabic. I think I should really just keep going shopping to improve my Arabic... or maybe I just need a good excuse to get myself out of the office once in a while?!

It was pretty hot and sweaty in the market today, though, so we had to stop for some refreshment on the way home - of course, the little Eritrean cafe and bakery was right on the way. As I had already stopped at a couple of gas stations with no luck in getting diesel for the truck, we decided that since we were out already, we might as well keep on going to the station near the airport. Thankfully, they had some diesel to put into the truck, as we were getting a bit too low for comfort! All in all, I did quite the tour of the town today, and thankfully, stayed safe and didn't have any mis-haps whatsoever!

So now that it's 12:25 am, and I seem to have found at least a temporary solution to our VSAT power issues, I should probably go to sleep. I actually turned my fan off in my room tonight, since it's only 27C in here! Brrr... might be getting close to the time of year to get out a second sheet to snuggle under! And hopefully, I won't feel the need to whine quite so much tomorrow... but man, a nice lump of gouda or chedder sure would taste good.

Home Alone?!

Yeah, that's what I said. I'm home alone. I believe this is the first time I have ever been alone in the house in the evening since I moved to this country a year and a half ago. Seriously. I'm not exaggerating. A year and a half, and this is the first evening I've spent alone! How weird is that? And all I've done so far is fry up some potatoes for supper, washed some underwear, made tea for the guards, and talked out loud to my cat.

But my friend lent me some new dvds to watch (she just came back from a holiday in China :) ), so I believe I shall settle myself under my mosquitoe net and have a dvd all to myself!

I sure am glad I don't live alone, though. One evening on my own is ok, maybe even kind of nice. Two, I might be able to handle. But give me three or four evenings on my own in a row, and that could be a very frightening though!

Small world

I love the networks that these Africans have! I was chattng online this afternoon with a friend from Eritrea. He has gone from Eritrea, to Sudan, to Kenya, to Djibouti and is now in Uganda. He's been trying to get a hold of one of his relatives who is here in my city. He told me the name of his relative, and on the way to dinner tonight, I stopped into my favorite little shop, owned by Eritreans, where I buy most of the things that I need. Anyways, I didn't have such high hopes for these guys knowing my friend's relative, but right away, they knew the guy! The one who knew his phone number wasn't around this evening, but they're going to call me tomorrow or the next day and give me the relative's phone number. Who knows that my friend from Eritrea might end up here?! I'm really amazed by how the network works...

I had the most amazing meal tonight, too. I went out with a friend, who happens to know my cousins back home, as she's from the same town as they are, and my housemate, Annamarie. We went to my new favorite Eritrean restaurant and stuffed ourselves silly. We then went around the corner to the new cafe, owned by the same Eritreans, and topped it all off with some wonderful coffee! Honestly, life is really looking up here! Because of the new curfew at night, the roads are a lot calmer in the evenings now, too. You can drive out without fearing for your life, which I really appreciate. While some people gripe and complain about curfews at night (from 11pm - 6am), I really quite like it - makes for some peace and quiet at night! I don't hear Shania Twain blaring in the distance at 3 am anymore. And there are no motorbikes or trucks whizzing by the fence, either. So quiet... speaking of peace and quiet, it's about time to go and turn off the generator.

Goodnight!

Too sleepy...

I originally opened "my" computer to watch an episode of Smallville on a dvd that I've got. But this silly borrowed computer won't play it :( So then I thought I would spend some time blogging and putting up photos. But the Internet wasn't working. So I couldn't even do that! Now, since it's way past my bedtime, the Internet has started to work again. But I'm too tired to do anything tonight... so you'll just have to wait until tomorrow!

Low-light of the day: looking forward to a yummy meat stew for lunch, which I carefully planned with Vicky (the young woman who works in the guesthouse as a cook and cleaner), only to find at lunch time a huge pot of soupy, smelly liver. Ew. Anyways, at least the Africans among us were happy at lunch - they got to eat all the white folks' share of the liver, since none of us wanted to touch it with a 10 foot pole! I really don't like liver at the best of times, and if you've seen how the liver sits out in the sun with all the flies and who knows what beating down on it... well... ew is all I have to say. That lunch was not for me. Which is too bad, because I gave Vicky extra money to spend on lunch today so we could have a nice meat stew as a farewell lunch for Eileen today :( Oh well. At least I think Vicky learned something about white folks today - we don't like liver!

Where to start?

Man, I have SO much to blog about, I don't even know where to start! Perhaps I'll just have to blog a few snippets of the past few days... not to mention continuing to write about the adventures that I had in Mlkl!

Anyways the highlights of the past few days:

1. Rising to new computer-geek heights whilst examining the innards of my computer. There I was, surrounded by screw-drivers and computer bits, blowing the dust out of crevices and trying to figure out if everything looked like it was supposed to. The highlight of the afternoon occured when I finally connected to some of our computer guys via Skype (using a different computer, of course!). They were trying to help me connect my hard drive to one of the other computers here to see if it could read the hard drive. Seemed like a simple thing to connect the hard drive to the little driver reader that we've got here. But I just couldn't make the connections connect. Finally, it occured to one of them to tell me that I had to take the hard drive out of the little silver case that it lives in. Once I got the case off, everything was smooth sailing :) And my hard drive seems just fine. Probably a mother board problem, or an issue with the power going to my hard drive. Sigh. My inner [computer] geekiness starts to rear it's ugly head at times like this. Who knew that was lurking inside?!

2. As I was going out for dinner with AnnaMarie the other day, we were happily driving down the main road here when out of the dust and smoke emerged a giant tank, with its gun pointed straight towards us! I must admit, it got my adrenaline going a bit, since you couldn't see anything behind it, and one just never knows if one is going to encounter an entire militia following along behind or what. I actually had to swerve off to the very edge of the road to give the tank enough space on the road - those things are HUGE!

3. More adventures with refridgerator rats. We set the trap on top of the fridge again the other night. Sure enough, a little while after we turned out the lights and went to bed, we heard the snap and clatter clatter, followed by quite a lot of squeaks. Once the flopping and squeaking died down a little, we figured it was safe enough to check out the situation... so all three of us emerged from our respective rooms to investigate. We looked and looked and didn't see the rat (or the trap) anywhere. Finally, we heard a few faint squeaks from behind the fridge. So we moved the fridge out from the wall. Still nothing. Finally, we looked down between the fridge and the coils (don't know what you call all that "machinery" in the back of the fridge), and there we saw the poor little rat. Not only had he gotten stuck in the trap, but he had fallen face first down and gotten stuck between the back wall of the fridge and the machinery. Next challenge was to get him out. We tried some tongs, no luck. Couldn't get a good grip on the little guy's tail. So Jackie ended up going in with her hand to pluck the little guy out. Of course, Zane was ready and willing to dispose of the little rat once he was free! And then the story made for a good Arabic lesson yesterday!

4. As I was flipping pancakes for dinner last night, I spied a little lizard on the brick wall above the stove. Wouldn't have been blog-worthy except that this poor little lizard had no tail and was scarred with marks that looked suspiciously Zane-teeth shaped! I had to admire the little lizard for still hanging out in the kitchen after having such a close call with Zane!

I know there have been a few more blog-able moments lately, but I just can't think of them all... and it's nearing my bed time. By the way, I'm writing from one of the extra computers that we have here in the office. Not an ideal situation, but I'm thankful to have something to use until I can figure out what the next steps are with my other one! I'm starting to get a complex about being a computer killer... but at least I know I didn't kill my new hard drive!

If you're tired of reading what I have to say...

... you can read what Jeff Adams had to say about these doctors who were trained in Calgary and have returned to Sudan.

My computer... again

So I was watching a dvd episode of Smallville last night, when suddenly, my computer just quit. The hard drive wasn't spinning at all. So I turned it off. Tried to turn it on. Tried to turn it on again... nothing. It was dead. But considering it was after 11pm, I just put it aside, said a few prayers over it (especially since I knew there was some very, very important data from the past few days that I hadn't yet backed up!). I have to admit that I didn't sleep very well last night, though, as I was worrying about this silly computer.

So I woke up this morning and tried turning it on again. No change. Nothing. Dead. So not much I could do. So I went off to church. And I prayed about it some more.

Then I came home, and decided to try just once more. Lo and behold, it started up... just long enough for me to back up that important bit of information from the workshop. Then it stopped.

Then it was time to run to the airport for my luggage! Whoo hoo! It actually came on the flight that it was supposed to come on... amazing! So I picked it up. And then it was time for fellowship. Where I prayed for my computer again.

Then I came back home, and turned it on again. And it's been on for over an hour now - long enough for me to back up all the rest of my email. And hopefully long enough for me to post this blog.

I don't like it when my computer goes on the fritz. It really reminds me of how dependent I am on my computer... and again, reminds me that maybe I am TOO dependent on my computer, and need to just keep depending on GOD to meet all my needs and not my computer! Does that make me sound like I'm a complete geek or what? My computer is sometimes, literally my best friend! And right now, I'm just so thankful that God has kept this little machine running this long, and has allowed me to back up all the data from the workshop in Mlkl, which made me sick to my stomach to think about losing!

So, though it may seem like a trivial thing compared to so many other things that are going on in the world at the moment, could you all please pray that God can keep my computer running so I can do my work and stay in touch with the world out there? Thanks.

Unpacking?

One of the things I like the LEAST about traveling is coming home to unpack. Thankfully, my luggage got left in Mlkl, so I don't have to unpack tonight!

Yup, I managed to make it home today, and I don't think I've ever been so happy to back in this town as I was when I got home today! We rushed out of the house this morning to get to the airport by 9:30am. Just after 4pm, we were heading towards the "inner" waiting room at the airport! At about 6pm, we finally landed at home. There weren't even any taxis left in the parking lot here - they were already mopping the floors in the airport, since everything was shutting down for the day! Anyways, I'm just thankful to be back home! Sitting in the airport could have been worse - at least the bathrooms there are relatively ok, and there are coolers, which keep the place quite cool. Unfortuately, there's nothing more to eat than bread and cookies, soda and tea. So I was quite hungry by the time we got back here. Thankfully, we were whisked off right away to the Queen of Sheba and I stuffed myself silly with injera and shiro.

I'm really tired tonight, though, for obvious reasons, so I'll write and post photos tomorrow. Just wanted ya'll to know that I'm home safe and sound!

Lonely Planet Chapter 2

So to continue the Lonely Planet guide to Mlkl...

Drinks

Because Mlkl is actually quite hot and humid both day and night, you will need to consume an amazing amount of liquid on any given day. Any local shop will sell cold water, soda and a rather limited selection of fruit juice. Watch out for the Fruit Coctail juice which has listed as it’s ingredients, “Fruit Cocktail and Sugar”.

However, if you happen to be sitting around and waiting for a workshop to happen and have nothing better to do, there are several places within the market where you can sit and drink and while the day away, whilst keeping an eye on the local activities. On many of the street corners you will find the tea ladies. These women are all set up with their charcoal stoves, their pots happily bubbling away with boiling water, ready to make up a piping hot glass of tea or strong coffee from freshly roasted coffee beans. Y
You can get either with or without milk – if you take the “with milk” version, it makes it a meal in and of itself, as you will get a few tablespoons of liquid with 5 or 6 heaping tablespoons of milk powder.

These are also great places to make friends with the local folks, charming them with a few words of Arabic. Just be careful, though, because the going rate for a wife (even a foreign one) is only 11 cows, as opposed to the 150 – 250 cows that a white wife would bring in other parts of this country.

Transportation

There is a dizzying array of transportation options in Mlkl. Since the town isn’t actually all that big, you can get most places for a just a small fee. You can also use your feet and go “footing” very easily around the main market and back and forth to the River side.

One of the most popular modes of transportation is the Rickshaw.

These little three wheelers go cruising around the town, and are remarkably good at skimming through the mud puddles. A ride to pretty much anywhere in the town will cost between $1.50 and $2.00. You can fit up to 4 people (even those of, um, well, a more “traditional build” into one of these little tuk-tuks, though you might start to sweat together if your ride is too long. This might be your view from the back seat of the rickshaw.

A very popular mode of transportation in this town is the donkey cart. Most are driven by young boys, and sometimes can be seen racing each other down the main street. Some of the donkeys look very well cared for, and seem to enjoy their life, friskily trotting around the town. But for others, well, it’s a bit grim. If you’re an animal right’s activist, or even have a bit of a heart, you might want to avert your eyes when you see the way some of these poor creatures are treated and how poorly their taken care of.

There are also a plethora of small Kia taxis which drive up and down the main streets, and can be hailed. There are set routes, so you can jump in and out of the taxi along that route at whichever point is closest to your final destination. As long as you stay on the main route, you should pay significantly less than a $1.00 for each person. However, you can also contract these taxis to take you directly to where you want to be. Expect to be blasted with music in a local language or Arabic, dazzled by the tinsel and tassels hanging from the dash and the rearview mirror, and romanced by the hot pink fake flowers in the back window. But the driving will be reasonable, and you probably won’t fear for your life as you might in taxis in other cities on this continent!

For the men and boys, riding a bike is a viable option.

Of course, this can only be used during the dry season, as you might not quite make it through the mud after the rain.

If you have friends in the know, they may commandeer one of the few Toyota Hilux pick up trucks in town. While Jb is crawling with fancy new Hiluxes and Landcruisers, there are really only a handful of trucks here. And very few of them belong to the UN or to NGOs. If a Hilux is commandeered for you, be ready to jump in the box and hold on!

Because Mlkl is right on the River, boats are a popular way to go, and there are many options.

Some boats were probably quite posh in their day, and hark back to the days when the British plyed the waters, and whiled away the warm evenings in their riverside clubs.

Other boats are used for transport up and down the river, even transporting a whole load of Coke and Fanta to some of the villages that line the river banks.

...

Sorry, haven't had time to finish this chapter... will write more when I get a chance!

Workshop, STARTED!

Yes, we did start the workshop today! I'm rather sweaty and hot and definitely in need of a shower at the moment, but we have stopped off at the Ministry of Education for three of us to check our email (using one LAN-cable).

So I will write more about the workshop tonight and hopefully post it tomorrow or the day after. But for now, I have the first section of my Lonely Planet guide to Mlkl. Since it’s nearing dinner time, let’s start with Fine Dining:

Budget

I’ve been told there were, previously, a number of fine street-side dining kiosks until a few days ago, when the aforementioned tearing down of the market took place. Now, there remains only a handful of more “permanent” eating establishments. One of which is owned by a chap names James (or maybe it’s “Jamus” – hard to tell by the way folks pronounce his name here!). He employs a number of busy young men who will serve you cold sodas and water, and fry up some protein for you. You can have your protein served pretty much any way you like it: fried meat, grilled meat, fried whole fish, fried fish nuggets, ful beans with goat cheese, meat in sauce, fish in sauce, chicken in sauce. I recommend the grilled chicken – succulent and juicy, grilled to perfection with just the right amount of marinade. Seriously finger-linkin’ good chicken. (But don’t lick your fingers too much, since you never know what was in that water that you just washed them in!). James’ place is definitely the place to go for protein. But if fresh fruit or veg is what you’re after… well… um, maybe you should have stayed in Jb.

Don’t try speaking Arabic to the waiters (who look suspiciously like Eritreans), because they will answer you in English, “I don’t speak English”. Best leave any conversation or ordering to your colleagues.

To find James’ place, go down the tarmac road until you see the “Password Airlines” sign. Take a right down the single mud track. When you get to the first intersection where all the rickshaws hang out, cross the green algea filled ditch on one of the precariously balanced cement “bridges” where you see the men slapping meat on the coals. That’s James’ place. Definitely good value for the money.

High End

If you keep walking East from James’ Place for about 10 minutes, you will notice the new “Hotel”. The entrance is quite cleverly hidden on the North Side of the building. You may need to wander around the block a bit until you find it, much to the amusement of the locals who are enjoying their soda on the outside “terrace” of the building.

After trying to make yourself understood by the “security” guard at the front entrance, you will soon find yourself in a bit of a maze of glass doors, complete with cheap mirrored tint and little white pieces of paper declaring “office”, “restaurant” etc. The last door on the right will lead you to a small restaurant where office desks have been covered with table clothes to be turned into dining tables. However, the fans are brisk, and there is even A/C, so though you might be quite sweaty from the walk around the block to find the entrance, you will soon cool off.

There is quite an extensive menu, but make sure you ask what is actually available that day before getting your heart set on the cheeseburger.

Expect to pay Jb prices for fair food. However, the soda will be cold and cheap, and the service will be rendered with a smile, since I don’t think the waiters have much else to do, other than chat with you.

I'm on an adventure...

... and I finally found a place to connect to the internet today. I have been keeping a short "diary" to blog here, so I'll quickly post that before I have to go ... it's a work in progress, but hopefully I will be able to come every few days now to check the Internet, now that we're hooked up onto the Ministry of Education's kit here.

So, here begins the chronicles of our adventure:

Jackie, Elizabeth, Moses and I left our homes in Jb at 7:45 am on Thursday morning. By 9am, we were through the pat-down search and on the tarmac in the plane, ready to take off for Mlkl! I think that was a world record for checking in and leaving that airport. Last time we left on this same airline, we waited in the airport for over 4 hours. So I was just settling in for a long wait, when suddenly, we were rushed onto the plane!

Here’s the view from the plane – there was also a record number of small planes sitting on the tarmac! Our little plane had two propellers and seated 23, plus two pilots. No flight attendants with cold Cokes, unfortunately!

It was an easy 1 hour and 20 minute flight to Mlkl. I slept almost the entire way, which was SO nice!

Once we got to the airport, the waiting game started. Because Jackie and I are not in control of the logistics at ALL for this workshop (we don’t have a cent of Ministry of Education money that we’re responsible for!), we’re really just along for the ride during these initial days. And since all the conversations about what’s going on happen in Arabic, we’re also pretty clueless all the time about what’s going on!

We, plus all our luggage (of which there is a TON – you can’t travel light when you’re travelling with a mini library, office supplies and handouts for a two week workshop for 35 people!) were stationed outside the front of the airport. I was actually really quite impressed with the airport here – they’ve even got A/C! The toilets were clean, and there was even running water in them! There was even a little conveyor belt for the luggage to come out on – of course, it wasn’t functioning, but at least it’s there, so it has the appearance of a “modern” airport.

Finally, after about 30 minutes, a pick up truck came from the Ministry of Education to fetch us to… well… like I said, Jackie and I were just following. We really hadn’t a clue as to where we were being taken.

Turns out, we ended up at the State Ministry of Education office, to talk with the Director General (DG) about the workshop. Since neither Moses nor Elizabeth had actually informed this guy that we were delayed by over a week in coming from Jb, he was a little less than pleased that we just showed up on his doorstep, expecting to be taken care of! I was a bit embarrassed about it, too, but really, what could I do?!

The DG is actually quite a nice guy, and he called his friend at the Catholic diocese and asked if we could be put up there for the duration of the workshop. No problem. So we jumped in the truck and drove over. By the time we got there, though, the sister who was in charge refused to give us a place to stay! So back we go to the DG. He then jumped in the truck with us, and off we go again, bumping over the roads and through the mud to the Catholic compound again. This time, the DG convinces them to let us stay in a guesthouse that they’ve got. Seems the sister refused us because the last guests she had from the gov’t left without paying anything for their stay, and she wasn’t interested in going down that road again, understandably so!

We ended up at the end of a little ally way, the truck stopped and everyone piled out, and started piling our luggage out of the truck. Dodging the goats and the mud and the odiferous stream running down the middle of the ally, we followed the sister to the gate of our new home.

I have to admit, I was a bit, well, apprehensive at first. There were two small rooms for us to stay in (with all of our junk). Me, Elizabeth and Jackie in bunkbeds in one room, and Moses in the other. A concrete room for us to have a bucket bath in. A squatty potty long-drop (pit) latrine. A tap in the corner of the compound with river water coming out. Doors that barely close, let alone lock!

But what choice did we have!? We don’t have $100 per night to spend at the “fancy” hotel! So here we are. And as soon as I switched my mind into “camping” mode, I started to enjoy living here much better! Here's a nice photo of just one set of the many eyes that watch every move the white folks make in the compound:

In talking with the sister who takes care of this place, I found out that she’s actually an Eritrean! So I’ve had quite a nice time speaking a little Tigrinya with her and just being all around friendly with her. She’s pretty pleased to have us here, since Jackie and I are the first “missionaries” (her word, not mine!) with “white skin” who have stayed in this little house. And somehow, I believe it!

Here are a few photos from our compound:

This is the outside of our room.

This is a photo of the “toilet” block – a squatty potty with a concrete room to shower in. None of the doors actually close properly, so privacy is a thing of the past. Oh well. The locals are getting more than an eyeful of some very white flesh if the happen to look in the wrong place at the wrong time!

As soon as we had dropped our stuff off in the house here, the DG took us to what is apparently the best restaurant in town. It was quite nice – at least, the fan that we were sitting in front of was quite nice! It was, well, once again, rather local. But the food was hot and quite good. Plus, our whole meal for 5 people cost about what Jackie and I pay EACH for a meal in one of the “normal” (that is, not fancy) restaurants in Jb! I’m just so thankful that I do have a relatively strong stomach, and praying over my meals has taken on a whole new dimension! People here have a different habit of spitting any bits of whatever they don’t want to swallow right onto the floor. So as you walk through the restaurant, you’ve got crunching bones and bits of grisle and who knows what else underfoot! And you kind of have to watch where you walk, ‘cause someone might accidently spit whatever they can’t chew onto your foot. Sorry if that sounds too gross, but that’s just the way it is around here, and, like I said, we don’t really have a whole lot of choice in the matter. Like Moses said before we even left Jb, “We’re going on an adventure!”

While we were sitting in the restaurant, a whole convention of local chiefs walked in to enjoy their lunch together. They were all wearing, and I kid you not, bright pink “toga” like wraps over their clothes, bright red stetsons, and carried an odd assortment of sticks and spears. It was one of the most amazing sights I’ve ever seen! But it would have been completely inappropriate to take a photo of them all, so all I’ve got is this technicolour picture in my mind!

The DG then took us back to our little house, and left us there. And this is where we’ve been since Thursday afternoon!

Well, not quite. Jackie and I have been working on a few pages for the Lonely Planet Mlkl chapter.

Because the workshop hasn’t started yet, and, well, like I said, there’s not much we can do about it, Jackie and I have been taking in all there is to see in this fine town. We’ve made several tours of the local market (most of which has been recently pulled down and destroyed by the city officials in an effort to “clean up” the town), and sampled tea and soda at a number of different fine street-side establishments. We’ve even taken a number of different local options for transportation. We’ve worshipped in a local church, making a tour of two other denominations before finally finding the one we actually set out to find.

So where do I start in the Lonely Planet guide… stay tuned to this site for more...