I don't think I blogged about this, but over the past couple weeks I've been painfully aware of my lack of patience. I think that over years I've become less patient with people rather than more patient, which is definitely not positive personal development lol. I am just not quick to forgive others of what I see as their flaws and personal shortcomings. As if I'm the one who gets to decide that. I'm thankful that the other people on this trip are much more patient than I am because I've been annoying myself even. So my prayer these past several days has been that I would have increased patience with others, with the words that I say, and with myself.
I think that now I am really seeing improvements in my patience, especially after the past couple days of deciding to consciously change my attitude. I kind of realized today how prideful I've been with my lack of patience and my hard-heartedness but in and of themselves and in not acknowledging that their roots lie in the stubbornness of my own heart and that I need to hand them over to God. Maybe I'm missing something or consequences will present themselves later, but I'm glad that at this point I haven't had to have a significantly serious humbling experience for me to learn this particular lesson.
Monday, June 6, 2011
June 4, 2011 -- "Life changing"
Personally, I think I've gotten over a major hump. It's totally a halfway point thing. Now we only have 5 more days here in Togo and then 3 days after that til we're on our way back to the States. I'm really looking forward to it but now that we're on the downswing and I'm past the "so ready to go home" stage, I have a much better outlook on the rest of the time here. Our team is gelling well and mellowing out after having spent 3 weeks together, and I think we're all getting settled into a rhythm with our personalities and will do well together this summer.
On another note, something we talked about tonight when Caroline and I went over to the Kennells' for dinner kind of struck me. Mark just touched on how people leave Africa and go home unchanged, just because they are calloused to letting it affect them. I just don't want that to be me. I was literally thinking earlier today, "OK, life changing experience? Right. That's cliche." I totally wrote it off, when in reality I need to let God be God and do what He wants to do in my heart rather than dictating what will and won't happen ahead of time. maybe I won't have some cataclysmic, earth-shattering experience or revelation, but why do I get to play God and say that I won't be changed? That's a little self-righteous. I'm praying that my heart would be open to however God wants to move me over the next week. I just want Him to be the one who determines how my heart is shaped, rather than me.
On another note, something we talked about tonight when Caroline and I went over to the Kennells' for dinner kind of struck me. Mark just touched on how people leave Africa and go home unchanged, just because they are calloused to letting it affect them. I just don't want that to be me. I was literally thinking earlier today, "OK, life changing experience? Right. That's cliche." I totally wrote it off, when in reality I need to let God be God and do what He wants to do in my heart rather than dictating what will and won't happen ahead of time. maybe I won't have some cataclysmic, earth-shattering experience or revelation, but why do I get to play God and say that I won't be changed? That's a little self-righteous. I'm praying that my heart would be open to however God wants to move me over the next week. I just want Him to be the one who determines how my heart is shaped, rather than me.
June 4, 2011 -- Graduation
We graduated the women from the baking program today! It was seriously so much fun, it was like a big drunken party except everybody was completely sober. I guess Africans just know how to party! So we went into the day with a whole order of operations for the graduation ceremony, but then we got there and they had made up their own schedule so we just went with it. The chiefs of the village were there and I think pretty much everyone in the village came out, all dressed to the nines. They took it so seriously. The women sang, the chiefs welcomed everyone, our group sang (impromptu and not very well, I might add), and then we called the women up one by one to receive their chef coats and hats and certificates. Then they all threw their hats in the air, like any good graduation! Oh, and we presented them with a sign we made for their bakery. And then we had bread and other food and danced and sang with the professional drum band they brought in for the occasion and took a million group photos. It was such a blast! We all showed up wearing our own chef coats and hats and they kind of laughed at us to start out, but once they put them on they never took them off, even through all the dancing. It was so fun to see them so proud of their bread and their bakery and their graduation ceremony!
We'll be with them tomorrow at church and most of next week, but less than usual. Just doing some classes and letting them run the operation for the most part. One day we won't go out at all. But they can pretty much handle things on their own now, so they should be alright!
We'll be with them tomorrow at church and most of next week, but less than usual. Just doing some classes and letting them run the operation for the most part. One day we won't go out at all. But they can pretty much handle things on their own now, so they should be alright!
Thursday, June 2, 2011
May 29, 2011 – Conversations and Bread Baking
Seriously, when I say we talk about everything here, I mean everything. I’ll keep a record of the subjects we discuss today:
Documentaries (we've started to make lists of books to read and movies to watch when we get back to the States lol)
Where we would live based on climate
The physics of breastfeeding (we’ve all seen more breasts here than in the rest of our lives combined)
The bread baking process
Rabies
The worst storms we’ve ever been in
The worst birthdays we’ve ever had
Serial killers and psychopaths
Computer viruses
Taking a motorcycle trip around the world
Encounters with huge bugs
How “culture” is defined
And those are just the ones I remember…but overall, that’s a pretty typical day. No holds barred here! Most nights we get together in the girls’ room (it’s by far the biggest and nicest :) ) and we’ve been covering everyone’s life stories one at a time. Now we’ve gone through all of them and our new get-to-know-each-other plan is to come up with a question at breakfast that everyone will have to answer at dinner. That’s where the birthday discussion came from today. Should make for interesting conversations!
We fired up the ovens for the first time today. The whole process went fairly smoothly! The women broke into groups and we ended up baking about ten loaves of bread. What’s really cool is how proud they are of their ovens and everything Nestor (our welder)’s wife came with us today to see the process and the women were asking us to make sure she wasn’t going to go use their recipe and process to sell her own bread. And they were all so proud of their first batch of bread! It was like before the bread actually came out of the oven there was a sense of …is this thing actually going to work? Are we really about to make real bread? I’ll admit that I had the same skepticism lol. But it happened! It was so much fun to see them learning and having fun with it too.
Also, the women are legitimately using our Kabiye names that they gave us the other day. They call me Esosoolam to my face and introduce me as that too. I think it’s awesome!
Documentaries (we've started to make lists of books to read and movies to watch when we get back to the States lol)
Where we would live based on climate
The physics of breastfeeding (we’ve all seen more breasts here than in the rest of our lives combined)
The bread baking process
Rabies
The worst storms we’ve ever been in
The worst birthdays we’ve ever had
Serial killers and psychopaths
Computer viruses
Taking a motorcycle trip around the world
Encounters with huge bugs
How “culture” is defined
And those are just the ones I remember…but overall, that’s a pretty typical day. No holds barred here! Most nights we get together in the girls’ room (it’s by far the biggest and nicest :) ) and we’ve been covering everyone’s life stories one at a time. Now we’ve gone through all of them and our new get-to-know-each-other plan is to come up with a question at breakfast that everyone will have to answer at dinner. That’s where the birthday discussion came from today. Should make for interesting conversations!
We fired up the ovens for the first time today. The whole process went fairly smoothly! The women broke into groups and we ended up baking about ten loaves of bread. What’s really cool is how proud they are of their ovens and everything Nestor (our welder)’s wife came with us today to see the process and the women were asking us to make sure she wasn’t going to go use their recipe and process to sell her own bread. And they were all so proud of their first batch of bread! It was like before the bread actually came out of the oven there was a sense of …is this thing actually going to work? Are we really about to make real bread? I’ll admit that I had the same skepticism lol. But it happened! It was so much fun to see them learning and having fun with it too.
Also, the women are legitimately using our Kabiye names that they gave us the other day. They call me Esosoolam to my face and introduce me as that too. I think it’s awesome!
May 28, 2011 – Side Effects
I’m starting to feel the effects of the eating pattern we’re in. Eating makes me feel sick. I’m not used to eating on such a schedule, I usually just kind of eat when I’m hungry. And I usually am getting exercise during the day. Not so much here. I should probably clarify: we have it GREAT at the hotel we’re staying at. They feed us breakfast every morning and dinner every night, and it’s delicious food. We just don’t have a choice about what they bring us, and usually it’s very heavy and fried at dinner. It’s a rough way to end the night. My body is rebelling lol. I’m looking forward to having a little more say in what I eat when we get back to the States.
Speaking of side effects, this malaria medicine is giving most of us increasingly bizarre dreams. We’ve had some great breakfast conversations that revolve around the crazy dreams we’ve just woken up from. If you ever want to wake up with good stories to tell, I highly recommend Doxycyclin or Mefloquin. That is, if you don’t mind also waking up in the middle of the night with the intense desire to move your body. Cam and Dylan have both had to get up at odd hours of the night to stretch or do pushups because of their meds lol. Probably not healthy…
Speaking of side effects, this malaria medicine is giving most of us increasingly bizarre dreams. We’ve had some great breakfast conversations that revolve around the crazy dreams we’ve just woken up from. If you ever want to wake up with good stories to tell, I highly recommend Doxycyclin or Mefloquin. That is, if you don’t mind also waking up in the middle of the night with the intense desire to move your body. Cam and Dylan have both had to get up at odd hours of the night to stretch or do pushups because of their meds lol. Probably not healthy…
May 27, 2011 -- Kabiye
It kind of amazes me how much language has not been an issue. Of course Esowe is so important to our ability to communicate, but with the women we can still talk and build relationships even across our different languages. My basis for comparison is always Honduras, but when I’ve been there I feel like language is ironically even more of a barrier when I can speak and understand. It’s as if I’m more hesitant to try to communicate in Spanish because I’m afraid I’ll mess it up. Here it’s understood that we don’t speak this language, at all, so it’s OK to not know…if that even makes sense. But still we are learning some Kabiye phrases! Here are some new ones:
Con care – Good work
Ezuma – How many/much
Tono – food
Loale – morning greeting
Alaafia – response to greeting (it seems like this is a phrase you can throw around anywhere and it will work)
Yoooo – response to alaafia (also something people just throw around)
Labale – Thank you
Bijazima – How is it?
Minowase – midday greeting
Blabiche – See you tomorrow!
Yesterday the women gave us Kabiye names. That was really special for all of us. Mine is Esosoolam, which means “God loves me.” I like it better than anyone else’s :) I’m not sure how they assign them or come up with them, but we all got them…I feel like it was a rite of passage though, like now we’re officially accepted. Our relationship with them is different than it would be if we could speak to them, but maybe in a good way? Maybe our bond is even stronger?
Con care – Good work
Ezuma – How many/much
Tono – food
Loale – morning greeting
Alaafia – response to greeting (it seems like this is a phrase you can throw around anywhere and it will work)
Yoooo – response to alaafia (also something people just throw around)
Labale – Thank you
Bijazima – How is it?
Minowase – midday greeting
Blabiche – See you tomorrow!
Yesterday the women gave us Kabiye names. That was really special for all of us. Mine is Esosoolam, which means “God loves me.” I like it better than anyone else’s :) I’m not sure how they assign them or come up with them, but we all got them…I feel like it was a rite of passage though, like now we’re officially accepted. Our relationship with them is different than it would be if we could speak to them, but maybe in a good way? Maybe our bond is even stronger?
May 25, 2011 – The Team
I’m having a really interesting time getting to know the people in our group. We have seven people who are very distinct and our relationships with one another change daily – it’s like summer camp where we spend every waking minute with the same people. You live your lives together, the good and the bad, and you get to know each other whether you like it or not, whether you like what you see or not.
We have Lydia, who isn’t one to say much, so most of what she does have to say is worth hearing. It’s either witty or just a worthwhile comment. I can appreciate that because often that’s not how I am. She self-professes laziness, which I can also relate to. Level-headed, quiet, calm, but funny and witty.
Caroline is really a thinker. She’s just always using her brain. She’ll get very deep into whatever it is she’s working on and when she’s focused there’s no point in interrupting her. But she’s just really happy, easygoing, easily entertained, and quick to laugh, which I love about her.
Cameron is definitely growing on me. He has a lot of energy and is willing to try or do anything. He works hard and thinks hard and has a lot of passion. His heart is so genuine. He may be a little naïve and quick to trust for my cynical personality, but he really is a sweet guy.
And Dylan, he has his own opinions about things and is definitely intelligent. He’s lived in a lot of places so he has a relatively broad perspective on life and diverse experiences to draw from. Easygoing and funny. I’m quick to speak and react and say dumb things and he’s not afraid to call me out.
Dusty is also very genuine and loving. I can’t really take him seriously sometimes because he just says the cheesiest things, but he really does have an awesome heart. I personally would never have put him and Cecily together, but they work out great! She’s fearless and sure of herself, young and full of life, impulsive and ready for anything. They definitely complement each other and make a great team!
So all of us together are Lifebread, Summer 2011 Edition. 20-somethings living and loving in Africa. We have no common background, for the most part, so we have awesome conversations about random stuff. I mean, everything. And it’s the perfect balance of deep thought and frivolity. So we’re learning together. No blow ups or altercations so far, so I’ll take it!
We have Lydia, who isn’t one to say much, so most of what she does have to say is worth hearing. It’s either witty or just a worthwhile comment. I can appreciate that because often that’s not how I am. She self-professes laziness, which I can also relate to. Level-headed, quiet, calm, but funny and witty.
Caroline is really a thinker. She’s just always using her brain. She’ll get very deep into whatever it is she’s working on and when she’s focused there’s no point in interrupting her. But she’s just really happy, easygoing, easily entertained, and quick to laugh, which I love about her.
Cameron is definitely growing on me. He has a lot of energy and is willing to try or do anything. He works hard and thinks hard and has a lot of passion. His heart is so genuine. He may be a little naïve and quick to trust for my cynical personality, but he really is a sweet guy.
And Dylan, he has his own opinions about things and is definitely intelligent. He’s lived in a lot of places so he has a relatively broad perspective on life and diverse experiences to draw from. Easygoing and funny. I’m quick to speak and react and say dumb things and he’s not afraid to call me out.
Dusty is also very genuine and loving. I can’t really take him seriously sometimes because he just says the cheesiest things, but he really does have an awesome heart. I personally would never have put him and Cecily together, but they work out great! She’s fearless and sure of herself, young and full of life, impulsive and ready for anything. They definitely complement each other and make a great team!
So all of us together are Lifebread, Summer 2011 Edition. 20-somethings living and loving in Africa. We have no common background, for the most part, so we have awesome conversations about random stuff. I mean, everything. And it’s the perfect balance of deep thought and frivolity. So we’re learning together. No blow ups or altercations so far, so I’ll take it!
May 24, 2011 -- Ovens
Just brought the first oven out to Lassa. I think we’re all pretty excited! Yesterday we all carried about a million rocks on our heads to the oven shelter. They used them to make a foundation for the oven, but now the smokestack is too tall to fit under the shelter so they might have to cut a hole in the ceiling…? It’s an interesting process lol.
We’ve been trying to learn names for the past couple days and so far we have 5 down for sure. I wish I’d been better about names in Honduras too. It means a lot when someone remembers your name and you can remember theirs. Even if you can’t say anything else to them, knowing a name shows that you care. I can’t believe we’ve only been out here 3 days!
We’ve been trying to learn names for the past couple days and so far we have 5 down for sure. I wish I’d been better about names in Honduras too. It means a lot when someone remembers your name and you can remember theirs. Even if you can’t say anything else to them, knowing a name shows that you care. I can’t believe we’ve only been out here 3 days!
May 23, 2011 -- Church
Right now we’re out at Lassa Tchou and Lydia is giving her Bible lesson. Today and yesterday have been great days to be out at the village. Yesterday at church gave a really interesting picture of the culture of this place. Most of the people at church were women and children, not surprising. But what did surprise me was the role of the women who were there. They led the singing and dancing, which there was a lot of. There were also a lot of drums and shakers. You can’t tell me that that’s not worship, or that God doesn’t approve of how these people are worshipping Him. If you ask me, this is what church is all about anyway. These women share their daily lives together and then come and worship together. They share food and work and money and a love for God. That’s church!
May 20, 2011 -- Tears
OK I’m probably blowing this way out of proportion, but I’m really concerned about my eye. It’s really sore and irritated and weepy. Changing focus hurts it, bright light hurts it, and the antibiotic I have is pretty shady and definitely not working. Oh, and my vision is getting hazy. I really really would like to not go blind and like I said, that’s probably out of proportion to what’s actually going on, but I’m kind of miserable and would love for this thing to get better. I’m pretty much out of control of it, and that’s super frustrating.
May 19, 2011 – Languages and Larvae
It’s our first day in the village of Lassa Tchou and I’d better start writing down some words and phrases that I’m learning before I forget them:
Labale – Thank you
Payan swe – What is your name?
Payan se – My name is
Punuh – goat
Pono – bread (easily confused with “punuh,” but guaranteed to draw laughs when Caroline, unaware of the difference between the words, leans down and looks at a goat and yells “pono!”)
Those are just the Kabiye words and phrases I remember learning today, but there were quite a few more. They have their own alphabet so of course all of those phrases are just based on phonetics. As is my French, which we’re also learning a lot of!
Comment vous apell et vous? – What is your name?
Bon soir – Good afternoon
Bon jour – Good morning
Bon nuit – Good night
Adieu – Goodbye (but careful, you only say adieu to someone who is dying. Which I learned after saying it to the local pharmacist. Whoops.)
Du rien – You’re welcome
Poisson – fish
Moto – motorcycle (the chief mode of transportation here in Togo. Seriously, there are more motorcycles here than I’ve ever seen in my life. Haha it makes me want one so bad!)
Panye – the fabric all the women use as skirts. They just wrap them around themselves or use them to tie their babies to their backs. It’s pretty ingenious, honestly.
I’ll try to keep a running list of new words I’m learning so I can remember and practice them more.
Folks, in other news, there is something seriously wrong with my right eye. It feels like there’s a speck of something stuck in it and it’s stinging like crazy. It’s really red and irritated and I keep sobbing and snotting out of the right side of my face. No bueno. Other health issues have come up too. Last night my half a meatball sub threw my vegetarian stomach through the ringer. I spent some time in the bathroom for sure. And Lydia did this morning too after drinking some coffee. And the worst one by far is Dusty’s back. He laid on a bad mattress in Uganda and got his back all pricked and then rafted the Nile the next day and now he has botfly larvae growing in his back. Seriously, they’re disgusting, and Cecily is having to pull them all out. But he has worms living and growing in his back and if he doesn’t get them out they’ll grow to maturity and crawl out of their holes as full-grown flies eventually. Is that not the grossest thing EVER? But other than that, I think everyone has stayed pretty healthy, praise God!
Today in Lassa Tchou was an awesome first day! We got to introduce ourselves to the women and they introduced themselves to us and we gave them their shirts and took their pictures. Then we took a tour of the village. It’s really cool! As we were walking around and seeing things we got to learn so much about their culture. We saw where and how they live and they taught us different words and phrases and even though we didn’t speak the language we could still communicate in a way. That is so amazing for me to see how something that was a main concern for me could just be put to rest so quickly. I mean of course it’s still an obstacle, as we saw in the market when we tried to haggle for panyes, but the women in Lassa Tchou it seems like just understand that we’re there to love them and they love us back for it. That might sound kind of hippie and naïve, but that’s really the sense I get. It doesn’t matter that we can’t speak Kabiye, we can still learn a lot from one another.
Besides, they see that we’re trying to learn. And it has been SO much fun for me to learn both of these languages today! I was seriously thrilled to learn from the women and from Esowe (our translator). I’m so glad that they’re patient and understand how much we want to be able to communicate. And learning these different languages is so much different than learning Spanish…it’s easier for me to understand French when I already know Spanish, but it’s still tough. I think I feel like I’m capable of mastering French while I’m here, as ridiculous and unrealistic as that is, whereas when I’m speaking Spanish I feel like I’ll never reach fluency. I don’t even know why that is, but I wish I were as confident in my Spanish as I am right now in my pretty much nonexistent French. Maybe this trip will teach me confidence in languages. I like the idea of being trilingual :)
Labale – Thank you
Payan swe – What is your name?
Payan se – My name is
Punuh – goat
Pono – bread (easily confused with “punuh,” but guaranteed to draw laughs when Caroline, unaware of the difference between the words, leans down and looks at a goat and yells “pono!”)
Those are just the Kabiye words and phrases I remember learning today, but there were quite a few more. They have their own alphabet so of course all of those phrases are just based on phonetics. As is my French, which we’re also learning a lot of!
Comment vous apell et vous? – What is your name?
Bon soir – Good afternoon
Bon jour – Good morning
Bon nuit – Good night
Adieu – Goodbye (but careful, you only say adieu to someone who is dying. Which I learned after saying it to the local pharmacist. Whoops.)
Du rien – You’re welcome
Poisson – fish
Moto – motorcycle (the chief mode of transportation here in Togo. Seriously, there are more motorcycles here than I’ve ever seen in my life. Haha it makes me want one so bad!)
Panye – the fabric all the women use as skirts. They just wrap them around themselves or use them to tie their babies to their backs. It’s pretty ingenious, honestly.
I’ll try to keep a running list of new words I’m learning so I can remember and practice them more.
Folks, in other news, there is something seriously wrong with my right eye. It feels like there’s a speck of something stuck in it and it’s stinging like crazy. It’s really red and irritated and I keep sobbing and snotting out of the right side of my face. No bueno. Other health issues have come up too. Last night my half a meatball sub threw my vegetarian stomach through the ringer. I spent some time in the bathroom for sure. And Lydia did this morning too after drinking some coffee. And the worst one by far is Dusty’s back. He laid on a bad mattress in Uganda and got his back all pricked and then rafted the Nile the next day and now he has botfly larvae growing in his back. Seriously, they’re disgusting, and Cecily is having to pull them all out. But he has worms living and growing in his back and if he doesn’t get them out they’ll grow to maturity and crawl out of their holes as full-grown flies eventually. Is that not the grossest thing EVER? But other than that, I think everyone has stayed pretty healthy, praise God!
Today in Lassa Tchou was an awesome first day! We got to introduce ourselves to the women and they introduced themselves to us and we gave them their shirts and took their pictures. Then we took a tour of the village. It’s really cool! As we were walking around and seeing things we got to learn so much about their culture. We saw where and how they live and they taught us different words and phrases and even though we didn’t speak the language we could still communicate in a way. That is so amazing for me to see how something that was a main concern for me could just be put to rest so quickly. I mean of course it’s still an obstacle, as we saw in the market when we tried to haggle for panyes, but the women in Lassa Tchou it seems like just understand that we’re there to love them and they love us back for it. That might sound kind of hippie and naïve, but that’s really the sense I get. It doesn’t matter that we can’t speak Kabiye, we can still learn a lot from one another.
Besides, they see that we’re trying to learn. And it has been SO much fun for me to learn both of these languages today! I was seriously thrilled to learn from the women and from Esowe (our translator). I’m so glad that they’re patient and understand how much we want to be able to communicate. And learning these different languages is so much different than learning Spanish…it’s easier for me to understand French when I already know Spanish, but it’s still tough. I think I feel like I’m capable of mastering French while I’m here, as ridiculous and unrealistic as that is, whereas when I’m speaking Spanish I feel like I’ll never reach fluency. I don’t even know why that is, but I wish I were as confident in my Spanish as I am right now in my pretty much nonexistent French. Maybe this trip will teach me confidence in languages. I like the idea of being trilingual :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)