So I just took a facebook quiz on "Where should you live". A lot of my friends are all coming up with the fact that they should be living in Africa. Me, I should be living in Japan, of all places!
Japan
You belong in Japan, a country that is becoming more and more important, and you want to be a part of it. You love being in busy places and you have a great interest in strange languages. You love the culture, whether that may be the ancient culture or the present culture, things like anime and manga, if its Japanese, you love it. You don't mind crowdy places and you are very interest in the customs of other people and you can easily adapt.
Yeah, 'cause I'm such an anime and manga fan... not! But I do agree that I have a great interest in strange languages. Though I wouldn't try telling anyone in Japan that they have a strange language!
Monday, March 16, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Birthday Weekend!
Yup, it was a hootin' hollerin' birthday weekend! (by the way, I'm writing this to the soundtrack of an East African band covering Kenny Roger's hits at the cultural center auditorium a block away! Just to set the scene a bit...)
Started out on Friday morning when my colleague here baked me a cake, which we shared at tea time with all the translators here. It was good fun - they even sang me happy birthday.
Then, I actually had a night at home alone on Friday night, in which I indulged in back-to-back episodes of the West Wing (I'm only on Season 2, so don't tell me anything that will give anything away!).
On Saturday morning, I had a little adventure - I drove out to a colleagues home to help him bring some old iron sheets to his house near the mountain. It was quite an adventure bouncing over the roads, and snaking our way through the tukels and up and down the little ravines. Good thing it's dry season - I don't think I'll be able to drive to his place during the rains. Once we were there, one of the daughters was sent to the corner store to buy me a soda (it's just normal practice to offer any visitor a bottle of soda when they arrive, and you can't refuse!). While Kabas unloaded the truck, I got to sit on a chair in the shade and cuddle his little baby!
How cute is this baby?! Her sister was pretty cute, too. And the sister was even more fun because I could actually talk to her - she's four, so her Arabic is much better than mine, but we had a little conversation about the goats that were trying to eat their tomatoes. That little girl has a pretty powerful rock throwing arm when it comes to protecting her tomatoes from the goats!
After delivering the sheets, Kabas and I went to a meeting with the elders and pastors in his church. They are interested in starting literacy classes in the church, so I went along to see how we could help them. We've had in our plan for a while to help them do some teacher training and get them some books to use. It was a bit intimidating - me sitting in the church in a circle with 10 elders and pastors from this particular language community. They all spoke in their language, and it was translated for me, and everything I said was translated for them. It was great, because everyone had to have their say, even if they were saying the same thing! I'm getting the hang of the "patter" that you have to do here - there's a lot of flowery words you have to say to people in those situations before you just come right out and make your point. but it turned out to be a really good meeting, and everyone was keen on starting with some teacher training, and they're going to start to find some teachers. And we're going to get ourselves some classes started :) I'm really looking forward to this whole thing.
Once that meeting was over, I got back to the compound, where one of my colleagues from the Ministry of Education was waiting for me - he needed some help on his computer. Unfortunately, I was already a bit late for my birthday lunch, so I just took his computer, stowed it in my room for later, and drove off for my birthday lunch with Annamarie. Annamrie treated me to a lovely t-bone steak dinner! It was really good meat - actually chewable, which is saying a lot!
After our lunch, we were off to... get this... a swimming pool! Of course, the president was also on the move at the same time, which meant we were trapped in the neighborhood for a little while, and ended up driving around in circles for a while trying to get onto the main road, which was all closed up!
But we eventually made it. Annamarie has some friends who are staying at a lovely lodge/hotel a little ways out of the city center, and they have a lovely pool there! And it's not busy at all, because it's basically just for the guests who stay there. So for the first little while, we pretty much had the pool all to ourselves! It was so relaxing to just float around in the cool water, to sit under the shade and read a book... ah... so nice. And my feet finally got clean, too :)
After cooling off in the pool, it was time to come home and get ready for my little birthday shindig. Annamarie made some lovely food, Kristina brought a yummy cake, and we all drank more apple juice than I've ever seen drunk at an adult birthday party!
But the highlight of the evening was my "Happy Birthday" bagpipes! Dear Peter brought his pipes, and after a rendition of Happy Birthday, played some dance tunes, which we clumsily danced to for a few minutes. Our resident Scot came in a bit late, so didn't have much of a chance to teach us enough to redeem our pathetic attempts at highland dancing... but it was definitely enjoyable!
Started out on Friday morning when my colleague here baked me a cake, which we shared at tea time with all the translators here. It was good fun - they even sang me happy birthday.
Then, I actually had a night at home alone on Friday night, in which I indulged in back-to-back episodes of the West Wing (I'm only on Season 2, so don't tell me anything that will give anything away!).
On Saturday morning, I had a little adventure - I drove out to a colleagues home to help him bring some old iron sheets to his house near the mountain. It was quite an adventure bouncing over the roads, and snaking our way through the tukels and up and down the little ravines. Good thing it's dry season - I don't think I'll be able to drive to his place during the rains. Once we were there, one of the daughters was sent to the corner store to buy me a soda (it's just normal practice to offer any visitor a bottle of soda when they arrive, and you can't refuse!). While Kabas unloaded the truck, I got to sit on a chair in the shade and cuddle his little baby!
How cute is this baby?! Her sister was pretty cute, too. And the sister was even more fun because I could actually talk to her - she's four, so her Arabic is much better than mine, but we had a little conversation about the goats that were trying to eat their tomatoes. That little girl has a pretty powerful rock throwing arm when it comes to protecting her tomatoes from the goats!
After delivering the sheets, Kabas and I went to a meeting with the elders and pastors in his church. They are interested in starting literacy classes in the church, so I went along to see how we could help them. We've had in our plan for a while to help them do some teacher training and get them some books to use. It was a bit intimidating - me sitting in the church in a circle with 10 elders and pastors from this particular language community. They all spoke in their language, and it was translated for me, and everything I said was translated for them. It was great, because everyone had to have their say, even if they were saying the same thing! I'm getting the hang of the "patter" that you have to do here - there's a lot of flowery words you have to say to people in those situations before you just come right out and make your point. but it turned out to be a really good meeting, and everyone was keen on starting with some teacher training, and they're going to start to find some teachers. And we're going to get ourselves some classes started :) I'm really looking forward to this whole thing.
Once that meeting was over, I got back to the compound, where one of my colleagues from the Ministry of Education was waiting for me - he needed some help on his computer. Unfortunately, I was already a bit late for my birthday lunch, so I just took his computer, stowed it in my room for later, and drove off for my birthday lunch with Annamarie. Annamrie treated me to a lovely t-bone steak dinner! It was really good meat - actually chewable, which is saying a lot!
After our lunch, we were off to... get this... a swimming pool! Of course, the president was also on the move at the same time, which meant we were trapped in the neighborhood for a little while, and ended up driving around in circles for a while trying to get onto the main road, which was all closed up!
But we eventually made it. Annamarie has some friends who are staying at a lovely lodge/hotel a little ways out of the city center, and they have a lovely pool there! And it's not busy at all, because it's basically just for the guests who stay there. So for the first little while, we pretty much had the pool all to ourselves! It was so relaxing to just float around in the cool water, to sit under the shade and read a book... ah... so nice. And my feet finally got clean, too :)
After cooling off in the pool, it was time to come home and get ready for my little birthday shindig. Annamarie made some lovely food, Kristina brought a yummy cake, and we all drank more apple juice than I've ever seen drunk at an adult birthday party!
But the highlight of the evening was my "Happy Birthday" bagpipes! Dear Peter brought his pipes, and after a rendition of Happy Birthday, played some dance tunes, which we clumsily danced to for a few minutes. Our resident Scot came in a bit late, so didn't have much of a chance to teach us enough to redeem our pathetic attempts at highland dancing... but it was definitely enjoyable!
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Procrastination
Yes, I procrastinated doing my blogging last night. And I even procrastinated doing my washing. So when the city electricity went off at about 10:40pm, I was caught off guard!
So, I won't go into all the details, but to make a long story short, that which I wanted to blog last night, didn't get blogged because by the time I actually got to sit down to blog, the batteries had died on our Internet. Ooops. So I read my book instead :)
Anyways, I was going to blog about my headache prevention actions yesterday. I've been getting killer headaches every afternoon for the past several days. Does it have something to do with the heat? Probably, I'm thinking. Since the headache usually starts around 4pm, when I've been sitting in my 41C, 42C office for a couple of hours after lunch. And then it usually goes away once I cool down in the evenings (after my cold shower at about 10:30pm).
I also realized that I really haven't been drinking all that much water in the afternoons - I just sorta forget to get out from behind my desk and go and find anything to drink. So yesterday, I remembered the thermos that we've got stashed in the back of the cupboard, and I dug it out at lunch-time. After cleaning the rat footprints off the top (who knew rats could have such cute little footprints?!), I filled it up with ice and water, and trotted back to my office, clutching my prize, hoping to stave off the afternoon headache.
And lo and behold, it almost worked! I only had a minor headache by the end of the afternoon, rather than a terrible headache! I tried the same tactic today, and got away without any headache at all... though today was quite a bit cooler, thanks to the nice cloud cover. In fact, it's only 29C at 11pm tonight! So much cooler.
On a more work-related note, I felt rather relieved today because, with input from a few of my computer geeks scattered around the world, I figured out how to save a dictionary that I thought had been lost from one of the computers here. It would have been a few months of someone's work, and I simply could not figure out how to get back what I thought was lost. One of my colleagues here is a bit "click-happy", clicking through any dialogue box he feels like clicking and doing all sorts of weird and wonderful things on the computer that I can never seem to undo. And he never remembers what he clicked because he doesn't pay much attention to it when he clicks things! I've now made him promise to count to 10 before he clicks any "OK"s.
Anyhow, I'm glad he didn't lose his work, but it took me several hours of fiddling around with things and skyping and emailing to try to figure out how to get his dictionary back! On the bright side, I've also learned a bit more about how this particular dictionary making software works. Not intuitively, that's for sure! But it was satisfying to see if all back to how it should be and to understand a bit more about how the program works so I can help a bit more efficiently next time someone has a problem with it... unless the Lord miraculously sends us a resident computer geek before anyone has any more problems :)
Monday, March 9, 2009
I wish I had something interesting to blog...
But I think my brain needs some refrigeration, as well. Honestly, I could feel my brain liquidizing today, and now that it's slightly cooler, the re-gelling of the grey matter is giving me quite the headache.
On a high note, though, I had some lovely Eritrean food this evening. My buddies at the "Basilico" restaurant always give us a warm welcome and a good price on the food! And on the way, I get to wave at the Eritreans who have opened a little beverage shop on our street. I'm turning into such an African, I tell you. I have to wave and holler out greetings out the window, or even stop and shake hands with the neighbors every time I go past now! But it's fun to know people in the neighborhood, even if they are "transplants" from a different country!
Since it was so sticky and sweaty and hot last night, I didn't sleep very well. So I'm going to attempt to go to bed early tonight - perhaps, just perhaps, I can be asleep before the generator goes off and the fans turn off... Last night was miserable, man. Just miserable. Pray that the rainy season comes soon!
On a high note, though, I had some lovely Eritrean food this evening. My buddies at the "Basilico" restaurant always give us a warm welcome and a good price on the food! And on the way, I get to wave at the Eritreans who have opened a little beverage shop on our street. I'm turning into such an African, I tell you. I have to wave and holler out greetings out the window, or even stop and shake hands with the neighbors every time I go past now! But it's fun to know people in the neighborhood, even if they are "transplants" from a different country!
Since it was so sticky and sweaty and hot last night, I didn't sleep very well. So I'm going to attempt to go to bed early tonight - perhaps, just perhaps, I can be asleep before the generator goes off and the fans turn off... Last night was miserable, man. Just miserable. Pray that the rainy season comes soon!
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Things that need refrigeration
It's been hot. And I mean hot. In the house the temps are normally in the low 40s (that would be celcius degrees) during the day. That's hot, yeah?
So I've been discovering a few things that need some extra refrigeration around here.
1. We have margarine which normally lives on the counter - if you put it in the fridge, it turns into a really hard block. Normally, it stays just about the right margarine type consistency if you leave it on the counter. But when it gets to be in the 40s... I needed some melted margarine for a quiche that I was making the other day. Of course, we don't have a microwave here, either, so I was starting to get the saucepan out to melt the margarine in... fortunately for me, when I opened the margarine container, it was pre-melted! No saucepan necessary! I just poured the melted margarine into my eggs and saved myself the effort of washing up an extra pan :)
2. After my second of three showers today, I went to put on some deodorant (a very important post-shower step when you sweat as much as I do!), but found that it, too, had melted. So I ended up with a bit of a sticky mess on my armit and my foot (since it sorta dripped... but I'll spare you the details!).
3. Hand lotion. Yup, my shea butter hand lotion completely turns to liquid when it sits on my bed-side table. So that, too, is now living in the fridge.
4. Zane. I opened the fridge to get out some water for a drink (I can't keep up with how much water I have to drink when it's this hot... just a second, let me take a few gulps of water) and Zane jumped right into the fridge! Smart cat, he knows where to go to stay cool! I just wish I also fit inside the fridge... though it won't do much good tonight, as the electricity is off again. And it's still in the mid-30s in the house at 11:15pm.
But let me not complain about the weather - though as a Canadian, it's sorta ingrained in me to talk about the weather - whether it's too hot or too cold, we can always talk about the weather!
So I've been discovering a few things that need some extra refrigeration around here.
1. We have margarine which normally lives on the counter - if you put it in the fridge, it turns into a really hard block. Normally, it stays just about the right margarine type consistency if you leave it on the counter. But when it gets to be in the 40s... I needed some melted margarine for a quiche that I was making the other day. Of course, we don't have a microwave here, either, so I was starting to get the saucepan out to melt the margarine in... fortunately for me, when I opened the margarine container, it was pre-melted! No saucepan necessary! I just poured the melted margarine into my eggs and saved myself the effort of washing up an extra pan :)
2. After my second of three showers today, I went to put on some deodorant (a very important post-shower step when you sweat as much as I do!), but found that it, too, had melted. So I ended up with a bit of a sticky mess on my armit and my foot (since it sorta dripped... but I'll spare you the details!).
3. Hand lotion. Yup, my shea butter hand lotion completely turns to liquid when it sits on my bed-side table. So that, too, is now living in the fridge.
4. Zane. I opened the fridge to get out some water for a drink (I can't keep up with how much water I have to drink when it's this hot... just a second, let me take a few gulps of water) and Zane jumped right into the fridge! Smart cat, he knows where to go to stay cool! I just wish I also fit inside the fridge... though it won't do much good tonight, as the electricity is off again. And it's still in the mid-30s in the house at 11:15pm.
But let me not complain about the weather - though as a Canadian, it's sorta ingrained in me to talk about the weather - whether it's too hot or too cold, we can always talk about the weather!
Saturday, March 7, 2009
... But it wasn't quiet in our house!
All is quiet in town, but this evening we had some friends over for dinner and Jb Ultimate Dutch Blitz :) Because we had some newbies with us, we started with a few rounds of "regular" Blitzing. Then, after some tea and pineapple crumble with custard, it was time to turn up the volume a bit and get down to the Jb Ultimate Blitz rules! Phew, it was exhausting, but so much fun, all the same. It's good to be tired out from laughing and playing with old friends and new ones, too.
But man, even at 10:30pm, a girl can work up a sweat playing Dutch Blitz in this town :( But at least I feel like I've had some exercize... and really, if you saw the way we've, um, well, modified the rules a bit, you'd realize just how much exercize it really is! So on that note, I'd better catch up on my sleep...
But man, even at 10:30pm, a girl can work up a sweat playing Dutch Blitz in this town :( But at least I feel like I've had some exercize... and really, if you saw the way we've, um, well, modified the rules a bit, you'd realize just how much exercize it really is! So on that note, I'd better catch up on my sleep...
Thursday, March 5, 2009
All is quiet
So far, so good in this part of the country. No worries here. All is good. But continue to pray, please, especially for those in the other parts of this country where things are a bit more tense.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Feels like a Holiday.
We were advised by the UN and the NGO security folks to send our "non-essential" personnel back to the homes before the big announcement at 4pm today. So they all went home, leaving the five of us who live on the compound all alone on the compound. It was really eerily quiet. There were no cars moving on the streets, no children playing in the empty field across from us, not even a goat baa-ing. There wasn't even any Celine to break the silence.
Everyone was glued to their radios and TVs to see what was going to happen. Me and Jackie even got some cold Cokes with ice and tuned into whatever English station we could find on the radio!
And lo and behold, an announcement was made - one that wasn't surprising, but significant all the same. A couple of hours after the announcement was made, we started hearing bits of life coming back to the neighborhood, but it's definitely still very quiet tonight. I think people are still not quite sure what the official announcement means for this country. I'm certainly not sure what this announcement means for this country!
I have a feeling it will be "business as usual" tomorrow down here in this part of the country. And hopefully things will remain calm in the other parts, too. BUt only time will really tell.
In the meantime, it really does feel like a holiday - so quiet and peaceful! So I'm not complaining about that!
Everyone was glued to their radios and TVs to see what was going to happen. Me and Jackie even got some cold Cokes with ice and tuned into whatever English station we could find on the radio!
And lo and behold, an announcement was made - one that wasn't surprising, but significant all the same. A couple of hours after the announcement was made, we started hearing bits of life coming back to the neighborhood, but it's definitely still very quiet tonight. I think people are still not quite sure what the official announcement means for this country. I'm certainly not sure what this announcement means for this country!
I have a feeling it will be "business as usual" tomorrow down here in this part of the country. And hopefully things will remain calm in the other parts, too. BUt only time will really tell.
In the meantime, it really does feel like a holiday - so quiet and peaceful! So I'm not complaining about that!
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
A day in the life...
Nothing really out of the ordinary happened today, I don't think. At least, it didn't seem out of the ordinary, but perhaps I'll describe some of the happenings so you can let me know if it's "normal" or not!
I think I'm getting a bit of a cold, so I slept in a little this morning and didn't get out of bed until 8:30am! Since I have a pretty short commute to the office, it meant I could still have a shower and make it to the office by just after 9am! Of course, it was a little cooler last night, and was only 26C when I woke up... so way too cold to have a cold shower. So I heated up the water in the kettle (amazing to have electricity first thing in the morning still!), and had a little bucket bath with the warm water.
Then I made myself a piece of bread with peanut butter and jam (mmm... imported raspberry jam!), and trotted off to the office. Once there, I did a bit of work before jumping in our Toyota Hilux to pick up someone from his office to meet another guy at his office for our meeting. Of course, they're starting to do some road work on our road, so we had to take the long and winding road through the neighborhood to get to the main paved road. Having one paved road in town makes it pretty easy to give directions (we don't actually have street names or addresses here). You just have to tell people where something is in relation to the tarmac road. Once you get off the tarmac, well, it becomes a bit more complicated. But that's another post...
Anyways, we found the guy at the one Ministry of Education office, and drove off to the main Ministry of Education office, where we had to call our colleague there to find him, as he wasn't actually in his office. Once we called him up and he appeared, the girl with the cold bottled water and cold sodas appeared. So we downed the bottles of water and soda while meeting together about the implementation guidelines for the language and education policy of this country. Once we finished the meeting, we took the one guy back to his office, and then we continued into the "downtown" so Jackie could pay for her plane ticket to Uganda for next week. She's going on a little holiday!
Since we had a little lunch date planned with some education sector folks from UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), and we had a few minutes before the appointed time, we decided it wasn't worth driving all the way back to the office for 15 minutes, so we went to the posh grocery store downtown. What an amazing place it is - we don't go very often, but it constantly amazes me the sorts of things you can find there and how expensive they are! You can even buy shampoo and badminton racquets here now!
But, we did splurge $3.50 on a loaf of, get this, whole wheat bread! Amazing. The fact that you can now buy an actual loaf of brown bread in this city is truly revolutionary. Ok, it's $3.50 for a loaf. But honestly, for something that has real bits of grains in it, it's so worth it!
By the time we paid for our bread and got out of the shop, it was time to hit the road again to get to one of our favourite restaurants for lunch. It's owned by Eritreans, so I get to go and dredge up some of the Tigrinya I know, which always gets me a good discount on my food :) I really like our little restaurant here, and even without my discount, the prices are very reasonable. And it's just so much fun to be greeted so warmly by the folks in the restaurant. Of course, they have to play a little Celine while I'm enjoying my food... wouldn't be the same without Celine :)
Following lunch, it was time to get back to the office and get some work done! I had a meeting with our literacy "department" (that would be me, Jackie and Peter!), I answered a bunch of emails that piled up last week, and planned for a meeting that I'll have with one of the language teams tomorrow morning. I also worked on a report of the workshop that I facilitated last week.
Around 5pm Jackie and I headed out to the market to get some provisions for the week. We figured it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have a bit of food on hand in the house, in case we can't get out for the next couple of days. Without revealing too much about my secret location, there is a situation on the International stage which has the potential to affect us over here. Everyone is sort of holding their breath to see what is going to happen tomorrow, but it probably won't affect us much down in this part of the country. But still, it would be good for ya'll to pray for peace for this country, especially tomorrow.
We got what we needed in the market - dried beans, bananas, tomatoes, onions, pineapple, eggs, green pepper, eggplant, milk powder, dish washing soap and tea. There weren't too many other options in terms of fruit or veg, as usual. But it will be enough to get us through a few days, and we're getting a bit more creative these days with the bits that are available!
So that was basically my day - normal or not? Seemed pretty normal to me, but I'll let you be the judge of that!
I think I'm getting a bit of a cold, so I slept in a little this morning and didn't get out of bed until 8:30am! Since I have a pretty short commute to the office, it meant I could still have a shower and make it to the office by just after 9am! Of course, it was a little cooler last night, and was only 26C when I woke up... so way too cold to have a cold shower. So I heated up the water in the kettle (amazing to have electricity first thing in the morning still!), and had a little bucket bath with the warm water.
Then I made myself a piece of bread with peanut butter and jam (mmm... imported raspberry jam!), and trotted off to the office. Once there, I did a bit of work before jumping in our Toyota Hilux to pick up someone from his office to meet another guy at his office for our meeting. Of course, they're starting to do some road work on our road, so we had to take the long and winding road through the neighborhood to get to the main paved road. Having one paved road in town makes it pretty easy to give directions (we don't actually have street names or addresses here). You just have to tell people where something is in relation to the tarmac road. Once you get off the tarmac, well, it becomes a bit more complicated. But that's another post...
Anyways, we found the guy at the one Ministry of Education office, and drove off to the main Ministry of Education office, where we had to call our colleague there to find him, as he wasn't actually in his office. Once we called him up and he appeared, the girl with the cold bottled water and cold sodas appeared. So we downed the bottles of water and soda while meeting together about the implementation guidelines for the language and education policy of this country. Once we finished the meeting, we took the one guy back to his office, and then we continued into the "downtown" so Jackie could pay for her plane ticket to Uganda for next week. She's going on a little holiday!
Since we had a little lunch date planned with some education sector folks from UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees), and we had a few minutes before the appointed time, we decided it wasn't worth driving all the way back to the office for 15 minutes, so we went to the posh grocery store downtown. What an amazing place it is - we don't go very often, but it constantly amazes me the sorts of things you can find there and how expensive they are! You can even buy shampoo and badminton racquets here now!
But, we did splurge $3.50 on a loaf of, get this, whole wheat bread! Amazing. The fact that you can now buy an actual loaf of brown bread in this city is truly revolutionary. Ok, it's $3.50 for a loaf. But honestly, for something that has real bits of grains in it, it's so worth it!
By the time we paid for our bread and got out of the shop, it was time to hit the road again to get to one of our favourite restaurants for lunch. It's owned by Eritreans, so I get to go and dredge up some of the Tigrinya I know, which always gets me a good discount on my food :) I really like our little restaurant here, and even without my discount, the prices are very reasonable. And it's just so much fun to be greeted so warmly by the folks in the restaurant. Of course, they have to play a little Celine while I'm enjoying my food... wouldn't be the same without Celine :)
Following lunch, it was time to get back to the office and get some work done! I had a meeting with our literacy "department" (that would be me, Jackie and Peter!), I answered a bunch of emails that piled up last week, and planned for a meeting that I'll have with one of the language teams tomorrow morning. I also worked on a report of the workshop that I facilitated last week.
Around 5pm Jackie and I headed out to the market to get some provisions for the week. We figured it probably wouldn't be a bad thing to have a bit of food on hand in the house, in case we can't get out for the next couple of days. Without revealing too much about my secret location, there is a situation on the International stage which has the potential to affect us over here. Everyone is sort of holding their breath to see what is going to happen tomorrow, but it probably won't affect us much down in this part of the country. But still, it would be good for ya'll to pray for peace for this country, especially tomorrow.
We got what we needed in the market - dried beans, bananas, tomatoes, onions, pineapple, eggs, green pepper, eggplant, milk powder, dish washing soap and tea. There weren't too many other options in terms of fruit or veg, as usual. But it will be enough to get us through a few days, and we're getting a bit more creative these days with the bits that are available!
So that was basically my day - normal or not? Seemed pretty normal to me, but I'll let you be the judge of that!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
I'm home and not going anywhere... for a week or two, at least :)
Yup, I made it home from Y. Had a lovely trip back - actually, the trip went so fast! The organization that I was facilitating the workshop for had arranged for a van to bring all the participants from Jb back to Jb yesterday. So I hopped in the van/mini bus with them. It was a much more pleasant trip on the way back than it was on the way there, for some reason!
Well, for one, there weren't nearly as many people in the bus - it's a 15 seater, but we only had 12 people in it - the back three seats were holding all of our luggage. On the way there, we had, well, a few more than that! It was also great because the driver kept having to stop to pee - so I felt free to keep drinking water since I knew we'd stop every hour to stretch and pee, if necessary. So I didn't get dehydrated. And I was with all the participants from the workshop, so I wasn't worried about any of my stuff, or have people talking about me or asking me strange questions or trying to get too friendly with me. It was just so relaxing! Plus, we didn't have to stop to wait for any de-minders, and though he was still driving very safely, the driver was driving faster and we made much better time than we did on the way there. So instead of the 7 - 8 hours that our journey out there took, it only took us 4.5 hours to get to Jb. And that included a stop at the police check point before entering the city.
The police stopped us and asked everyone to get out of the bus, since they wanted to check all of our luggage to see how many guns we were carrying. They started taking out some of our suitcases while everyone was still climbing out of the bus. One of the last people to get out of the bus was one of the priests who was traveling with us. He didn't wear a "collar" or a cross or anything all week - just wore "normal" clothes - but that day, he decked himself out in his clergy gear. And when we got to the police checkpoint, I realized why. As soon as he stepped out of the bus, the police took one look at him, and started putting the suitcases back into the van. The participants explained that we were returning from a church sponsored workshop, so we obviously wouldn't be carrying any weapons with us. It really is amazing how much respect the clergy collar will get you here. In fact, I've heard stories of how busloads of people have avoided certain disaster because of the presence of nuns in their habits in the buses. Even the soldiers with their big guns respect men and women "of the cloth" here.
Once we made it back to Jb, the driver of the bus drove within a few blocks of our compound, on the main road. So rather than have someone drive across town to where the bus was planning to stop, I had the driver stop by the side of the road and I jumped out with my bags to walk the final few blocks home.
The fact that I was first of all taking the bus with the participants and not taking an air conditioned Land Cruiser or flying back to Jb made quite the impression on the participants, and then the fact that I picked up my bag and walked a few blocks to my home instead of being picked up in an air conditioned Land Cruiser, made quite the impression on these guys from the course. Sometimes they have odd notions about white people and our "prestige". Actually, status is a big thing here, so if you're anyone "important", you would never stoop to driving cross-country in a van, drinking water from a bore hole (it must be imported water from a plastic bottle!), or walking a couple of blocks with your bag. And so it's quite a big deal to have had the opportunity to show an example of the white foreign teacher who can join them in the van, drink rain water or water from a bore hole, and walk through the dust home, carrying her own bag! So I'm actually really glad that the Lord worked all of that out, too. And in fact, I quite enjoyed the bus ride back to Jb, as the landscape is really quite beautiful. And, well, I do have to admit that when they all insisted I sit up front in one of the best seats in the bus, well, I didn't argue too hard :) It was really nice to have a little extra space to stretch my legs and the opportunity to put a seatbelt on! Makes for a less stressful drive, that's for sure.
I've spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and resting from the heavy work of last week... and now it's getting rather late so I need to get to sleep so I can look forward to a good week back in the office here!
Well, for one, there weren't nearly as many people in the bus - it's a 15 seater, but we only had 12 people in it - the back three seats were holding all of our luggage. On the way there, we had, well, a few more than that! It was also great because the driver kept having to stop to pee - so I felt free to keep drinking water since I knew we'd stop every hour to stretch and pee, if necessary. So I didn't get dehydrated. And I was with all the participants from the workshop, so I wasn't worried about any of my stuff, or have people talking about me or asking me strange questions or trying to get too friendly with me. It was just so relaxing! Plus, we didn't have to stop to wait for any de-minders, and though he was still driving very safely, the driver was driving faster and we made much better time than we did on the way there. So instead of the 7 - 8 hours that our journey out there took, it only took us 4.5 hours to get to Jb. And that included a stop at the police check point before entering the city.
The police stopped us and asked everyone to get out of the bus, since they wanted to check all of our luggage to see how many guns we were carrying. They started taking out some of our suitcases while everyone was still climbing out of the bus. One of the last people to get out of the bus was one of the priests who was traveling with us. He didn't wear a "collar" or a cross or anything all week - just wore "normal" clothes - but that day, he decked himself out in his clergy gear. And when we got to the police checkpoint, I realized why. As soon as he stepped out of the bus, the police took one look at him, and started putting the suitcases back into the van. The participants explained that we were returning from a church sponsored workshop, so we obviously wouldn't be carrying any weapons with us. It really is amazing how much respect the clergy collar will get you here. In fact, I've heard stories of how busloads of people have avoided certain disaster because of the presence of nuns in their habits in the buses. Even the soldiers with their big guns respect men and women "of the cloth" here.
Once we made it back to Jb, the driver of the bus drove within a few blocks of our compound, on the main road. So rather than have someone drive across town to where the bus was planning to stop, I had the driver stop by the side of the road and I jumped out with my bags to walk the final few blocks home.
The fact that I was first of all taking the bus with the participants and not taking an air conditioned Land Cruiser or flying back to Jb made quite the impression on the participants, and then the fact that I picked up my bag and walked a few blocks to my home instead of being picked up in an air conditioned Land Cruiser, made quite the impression on these guys from the course. Sometimes they have odd notions about white people and our "prestige". Actually, status is a big thing here, so if you're anyone "important", you would never stoop to driving cross-country in a van, drinking water from a bore hole (it must be imported water from a plastic bottle!), or walking a couple of blocks with your bag. And so it's quite a big deal to have had the opportunity to show an example of the white foreign teacher who can join them in the van, drink rain water or water from a bore hole, and walk through the dust home, carrying her own bag! So I'm actually really glad that the Lord worked all of that out, too. And in fact, I quite enjoyed the bus ride back to Jb, as the landscape is really quite beautiful. And, well, I do have to admit that when they all insisted I sit up front in one of the best seats in the bus, well, I didn't argue too hard :) It was really nice to have a little extra space to stretch my legs and the opportunity to put a seatbelt on! Makes for a less stressful drive, that's for sure.
I've spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and resting from the heavy work of last week... and now it's getting rather late so I need to get to sleep so I can look forward to a good week back in the office here!
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