I Could Get Used to This...

I could definitely get used to this life.  I've often thought over the past few years that sometime, just to get a break from compound living and all that entails, I would check myself into a hotel for a weekend to enjoy all that entails - air conditioning, a nice breakfast, a hot shower, and 4 walls.  Unfortunately, the average price for a hotel with just those basic amenities averages $125 - $175/night in these parts.  Hence, it's a bit unattainable.

Enter my friend, who used to live in these parts.  Before, she lived on a little compound, in very basic conditions (rats and other critters in the rafters, cold outdoor shower, limited electricity...), so she knows what it's like.  This month, however, she's come back to work with a different NGO, and they've put her up in a pretty nice hotel during her stay here.  Hot showers, a/c, and even a little swimming pool!  This weekend, since it was American Thanksgiving, she got a few days off, and decided to go visit some friends in a neighbouring country.

Since she knows all about what it's like to spend most of your life in "basic" conditions, she offered her room of luxury to me for the weekend!  Her NGO was still paying for the room (and the included breakfast!), so she asked the hotel management if I could move into her room.  No problem, they said!

There were too many things that kept me on our own compound on Saturday, but once the evening rolled around, Jackie very kindly let me borrow her car for the weekend.  So off I went to check myself into the hotel!

The first thing I did was have a hot shower to scrape some of the grime off my sweaty little body.  The water pump in our bore-hole had gone kaput on Friday night, as well, so we didn't have any water in the water tank on Saturday, so this was extra good timing for me to be able to get away!  For the rest of Saturday night, I watched part of a movie, did some reading, listened to some music (without having to worry about which of my nieghbours or housemates I was disturbing!) and even slept under a blanket in a room with 4 whole walls!  Truly an amazing night.

This morning, a good friend came to join me for breakfast, which was good fun.  The bacon was a bit disappointing, but the banana smoothie was pretty good :)  Once our breakie was finished, I went back to my a/c room, and sat on a real couch (not a wicker patio "couch"!) all by myself.  I listened to a really good sermon by John Piper (which, ironically, was about how we, as Christians, are called to GIVE of ourselves to others, and not retreat into our rooms and close ourselves off from the rest of the world - actually, it was a really encouraging and refreshing sermon).  I also just had some really nice quiet time on my own to think and pray and sit and "be", without anyone else disturbing me.  I even got to swim and sit by the pool. All by myself.  I took myself out for pizza at the restaurant next door, and enjoyed sitting and eating what I wanted, when I wanted.  All by myself!  I must have seriously needed some time alone, because normally, this extrovert needs some people around to have fun.  But this weekend, it's all about being quiet and undisturbed.

My friend is coming back tomorrow, so I shall sleep here another night, enjoy another breakfast, and go back to "real" life tomorrow morning.  I don't know if I can bring myself to leave, though!

It is Finished!

I can say that about two things today.

First, the workshop!  Yahoo!  At the risk of sounding like I'm patting myself on the back... let me pat myself (well, ok, OURSELVES) on the back.  It really was a good workshop.  A lot of work.  But it was good.  I really felt like we we were working with some serious, professional teachers this time.  They were learning from each other, asking amazing questions, and really eager to learn.  I haven't read through the workshop evaluations that people left for us yet, but Jackie did, and she thinks that people were saying it really was one of the best workshops that we've put on yet! 

But alas. It is finished.  The big job of cleaning up, sorting out, and writing reports etc., now comes.  I still have several things looming over my head to get done in the next few days.  But it will get done... and then... in two weeks... I GO HOME!  Whoo hoo!  I haven't even hardly had time to think about it yet, and it all happened quite suddenly, but I'm booked to fly home to the land of the ice and snow for Christmas!  I can hardly believe it (though my ticket hasn't actually been issued yet, but that should happen tomorrow, I hope!).

And the second thing that's finished today are the greens in the garden.  I went out to water my plants today, which were just about at the point of munching on... when I found that they had ALL already been munched on!  I couldn't figure out what on earth had been munching my greens... until I asked J & R, and they were like, "Oh, yeah, we saw the guinea fowl eating your plants".  They even took pictures of the guinea fowl flock eating my plants... but did they run to scare them away?  NO!  They let them devour my entire harvest of greens!

The worst part is that I can't even really be upset with them, because they were so excited about how many guinea fowls there were in the flock (like, 19 of them!), and they were amazed that they were all standing so still for the pictures... because they were munching on ALL my greens, so of course they were standing still!

Anyway, perhaps tomorrow I shall replant, so that when I come from Canada, if the guinea fowl leave me anything, there might be something tasty and delicious to eat from the garden.

The Times are a changing

The weather changed today.  As the day went on, I could literally feel the humidity being sucked out of the air.  This evening, I've had to use lip balm and moisturizer on my hands, and my little plants in the garden just sucked up all the water I gave them.  It's pretty hot (in the mid-30's this afternoon), but I hardly sweated at all.

At dinner this evening, Jackie, R and I took bets on whether or not it's going to rain again this season.  We've bet a chicken.  Neither Jackie nor R think it's going to rain again this season.  I had to say it would rain once more, just so had something to bet on!  But I do hope it rains once more, because it would be good for the garden.

We started yet another workshop yesterday.  The first day of a workshop is always a bit crazy.  And Jackie has asked me to "direct" this one, so I've got a bit more of the responsibility for how things go during this workshop than I often do.  So making sure all the right people arrived, and everyone had a place to sleep, and handouts and all the proper teaching and learning tools was a bit exhausting yesterday.  Plus, at lunch time, I got a killer headache, which didn't help matters much for the afternoon.  I didn't know if my teaching was getting through, and I didn't have much energy to put into it all.

This morning though, everything seemed to all click into place, and I felt like I was a bit on top of things again.  I even found myself singing silly songs with May at lunch time, and she told me, "I'm so glad there's someone who is a little bit silly here!"  We even heard a "Report from the Field" this afternoon from one of the language teams who is here.  They have been using a new Primer that we all developed together for the past 6 months in their school.  And kids are learning to read!  They're actually learning to read!  The team told some great stories about how the parents are involved in the schools and the parents have even requested a literacy class in the church now, because they see that their children are really learning to read their language, and the parents want to be able to keep up with them!  How exciting is that?!

I did hear a few good things yesterday, too, though.  As we were all introducing ourselves at the opening of the workshop, I asked everyone to tell us one thing that they really enjoyed about being a teacher.  One of the chaps said that when he was a young man, an elder in his community told him that if he wanted to make a difference in his community in 10 years, he should plant a fruit tree.  But if he wanted to make a difference in his community for generations to come, he should be a teacher.

So it's been great these past few days to work with teachers like that and to help them to improve their skills so they can more effectively teach in their own communities.

We have three days left with these teachers, so hopefully the next few days will be as good as the first few days!

If you're interested, the method that we're using for our new Primers is similar to the one used in N. Uganda by Mango Tree.  There's a great video of it posted here.

Feast or Famine

I got a rather cryptic email yesterday morning.  It said, something along the lines of, "Hi, I'm arriving at 12:30 at the airport tomorrow.  Hope to see you there."  Had no idea who the sender was or where he got my email addy.  But after a few very short one-line emails back and forth, I realized that he's a friend of my friend's mother in Montana!  And he was coming to Jb with a bit of a care package for me!  Whoo hoo!

So, in typical Jb fashion, I arrived at the airport a bit after the time that the plane was supposed to land.  No sign of the plane. After wandering around a while, I found out from the airline people that the plane was supposed to actually land at 1pm.  So no problem, I went to the little cafe (which, by the way, is much improved since I was there last!) and had a little snack and a Coke.  At about 1:15pm, I wandered back over to the airport to see what the story was.  Still no sign of anyone coming out of the arrivals area.  But there were quite a few Ethiopians hanging around, waiting for the flight.  (You can always tell where a flight is expected to be coming from, according to the predominate nationality of those waiting for the flight!)

Anyway, eventually, people started to trickle out of the arrivals area.  But no one matching the description of the folks I was waiting for.  To make a very long story short... ends up that the suitcase that had the stuff that the guy was bringing for me was left behind in another airport somewhere!  So I waited for 2 hours... to shake someone's hand and welcome them, empty handed, to Jb! 

On the plus side, though, there was a second flight coming from Addis later in the afternoon... so we agreed to meet again at the airport and try again.  So off I went to the market and to finish all my shopping for the workshop which starts on Monday...

Around 4:45pm, they called me, and said, "Our suitcases have arrived!"  So off I zoomed to the airport.  And this is what I found:

Look at all that deliciousness!  And even a Ziplock bag!  It's really a taste of "Fall" with hot apple cider, hot chocolate and a marshmallow chocolate pumpkin :)  So even though it took two trips to the airport and a couple of hours of waiting around, it was worth it for this sugary delightful deliciousness!  Thank you, Granny Annie, for thinking of me and sending me all these treats! 

It's slightly different from what I was eating last week in the village:

(The garlic salt had been left by an American group who had been in the village before we got there - it made even the sticky flour lump of food palatable!).

Victorian Diet?

So I just read this on BBC this evening:

Another Victorian cookery writer was Charles Elme Francatelli, a former royal chef, who wrote A Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes in 1852.

  "His recipes ranged from Sheep's Head Broth to A Pudding made of Small Birds - the type of dishes people are too squeamish to make today," says Gray.

He recommended starting the day with pumpkin porridge, which involved little more effort than simmering chunks of pumpkin with a little butter and water and adding a little milk before eating.
"Cheap eating largely revolved around loading up on carbohydrates to fill you up so you didn't need too much meat, which was much more expensive," says Gray.

I think this guy was cooking for my little corner of Africa!  While I was in the village, we had soup made from a goat head, as well as boiled pumpkin for breakfast every day (without the butter and milk, unfortunately).  We also filled up on stodgy flour porridge and rice for our main meals. Yum.

Not so Wordy

Since coming back from my trip, I haven't really felt very wordy, plus, our internet hasn't really felt so speedy.  Bad combination for blogging.  I kept a bit of a journal while I was in the village and wrote down all sorts of interesting and funny bits and pieces and lots of great little anecdotes to regale you with.  But actually regaling you with them would require a bit of typing, some word-smithing and some quicker internet to upload all the pictures.  And I still haven't even completely unpacked my suitcase.

So.  Maybe it's true that a picture speaks 1000 words.  Here are a few to whet your appetite.

 This was the compound in which we stayed, nestled against the little mountains.

 This is one of the villages a little way up the mountain.  Most folks still stay up the mountain, because it was safer during the war, and also keeps them safer from cattle raiding from their neighbors.

 This was our home sweet home for the week. 

 We wandered around the area and greeted lots of people in the community!

 These ladies were coming from a dance in their, well, interesting head-wear.

 Maurice is standing on his side, overlooking the plains below his village.  STILL couldn't get him to stand up straight, Sean!

And we did train some teachers while we were there.  Here they're practicing some activities to teach learners how to put words together into sentences.

The Jury is Out...

... on whether these incessantly itchy little red welts are from bed bugs or from little fleas that jump from chickens to humans.  At this point, I don't really care what they're from, I just want them to go away! 

On Saturday evening, and then into Sunday, I started getting a bit itchy.  But I just thought there were a few more mosquitoes than usual.  But then, today, there seemed to be rather a lot of little itchy red marks, much smaller than mosquito bites.  As I was scratching away this afternoon, Janet (who was with me in the village) was scratching, too, and said that she had the same thing.  She got all itchy over the weekend once we got back.  Tonight, it's driving me a bit bananas, and I have a lot of little red marks all over my body.

Dr. D says they're bed bug bites.  My local buddy who grew up in a mud hut here, with chickens, said they're from little bugs that live on chickens and jump to people.  So, I'm doing a little google search, but can't seem to find too much about why we would start breaking out in little itchy bumps AFTER we left the area, and didn't seem to suffer anything while we were actually there. 

Any thoughts?!

Back from the Boonies

I'm back!  I survived my week of camping, and even enjoyed the peace and quiet.  I'm sitting here listening to my neighbors' weekly skype call to his sister in Texas, and looking forward to the end of the CSI episode that they were watching before it was time for their skype call.  I need to know what happens at the end! And I'm reminded of why the village was so nice - the only thing that really disturbed my thoughts were the pesky roosters.  There were a lot of roosters on the compound where we stayed, but somehow, roosters are easier to block out than neighbours :(

Anyway, let me do my best to ignore the Texans who are shouting into their computer 10 feet from my bedroom...

I will write a proper post for my trip once I get the photos sorted a bit.  I took several hundred photos - gack!  I had no idea I was taking so many until my memory card got filled up.  Good thing I still had my extra memory card in my camera case!  I was amazed to realize that we were the first people from our organization to visit this village since the mid-1990's.  This translation and literacy project has been going on for over 20 years, and not a single consultant has gone to visit them since the first linguist went there in the 1990's.  Granted, there was a war going on until a few years ago, making it rather difficult to travel there.  I did try to get there 2 years ago, to train some teachers, but we were defeated by the muddy, terrible road at that point. 

Since then, they've built an airstrip!  So we flew in with MAF, and they came and fetched us back yesterday. 

But man, it is a remote place.  Remote, remote.  But beautiful, and the people were friendly, and we really had a wonderful time.   And once I've rested up a bit more, I shall write about the week!

Forgotten Other Things?

Apparently, I have forgotten to blog this week!  I hope I haven't forgotten any other really important things this week!

On Saturday, I leave for the village.  We're talking the village.  I heard on BBC the other day that there is not a village in Africa where you can't buy a Coke.  Well, folks, I might just be going to that single village in Africa that will prove BBC wrong.  I asked my travelling buddies today if there was a little shop or anything where we could buy Coke in this village.  They said that if we want to drink Coke while we're there, we have to bring our own!  Yowzers!

So today we had a trial run with the tent that we scrummaged from a container.  We left it up in the compound tonight, so we'll see if it's still standing tomorrow.  If it is, great, then we shall go with it and have something to sleep in.  Otherwise... not sure where we might end up!

We also bought big bags of flour, beans, rice and sugar.  Janet and I bought a big bucket of potatoes, as well, because, well, I will just be happier if I can eat potatoes, rather than JUST stodgy flour porridge (like 'ugali' or 'posho' or 'fou-fou').  So, potatoes we have.  Janet is going to get some tin foil, so if we just need to wrap our taters in tin-foil and through them over a fire, with a little bit of salt, I think I will be happy!  Sure would taste better with a Coke, I'm sure, though!

Anyway, obviously, since there isn't any Coke in the village, there will not be any electricity, and certainly no internet.  Not even any phone network.  So... I'll catch you on the flip side, when I get back to Jb with a nice cold Coke in my hand, which I think I will have earned after a week in the village!

Oh, right, you can pray for us, too - we're going to do a teacher training workshop for the local teachers in the area.  Should be fun!