Some things never change...

Okay, let me set this up for you. For breakfast we eat this porridge-like substance out of a big bowl with these “spoons” that are more like ladles. Usually the bowl of food is sitting inside another bigger bowl of water…either to keep it hot, or cool it off; I’m not really sure which. For breakfast—and breakfast only—we sit on these little stools that are about 6” off the ground and all gather around the one big bowl.

This stuff we’re eating can be kind of tricky. It’s kind of a lumpy goo and when you dip your ladle in, you have to wipe the bottom of it on the side of the bowl to get all the goo off. Well the other day we were eating and I was trying to see if I’d gotten all the goo off my spoon. For some reason, instead of holding it up and looking under, I tried to tip it over enough to see the bottom. So, of course, large amounts of lumpy goo went all over my skirt (typical). We all kind of laughed at me, including H-Mama. But then H-Mama proceeded to take the food bowl out of the water bowl, lean forward and grab my skirt, pull me off my stool, and plunge my skirt (with me still in it) right into the water bowl where she scrubbed off all the goo, wrung it out, and snapped it all smoothly back into place (definitely, definitely not typical).

So it’s good to know that some things never change…like me spilling stuff all over myself…but some things do…like my village mom washing my skirt immediately after it happened in the breakfast water bowl. Oh, Africa.

Language Learning and Saturday Night Live

In the system we’re using to learn language, you’re not allowed to speak for the first 3 weeks or so. All you do is listen—for the new and different sounds, for the rhythm of the language, for the differences between words. This is so that when you do start speaking your accent is much better than it would be if you tried to start talking immediately. It’s difficult because the people want you to repeat the Sunny words after them. And you want to repeat them also…it’s instinct. But I’m super intrigued by the system and having a really good accent. Once I do start talking (this week!) it’ll be a lot about mimicking what I’ve been hearing. Almost like trying to do a really good impersonation of a Sunny person. So…all that to say that I’ve been pretending that my dream of being an SNL cast member has come true and I’ve been spending the last 3 weeks preparing to do a new long-term character…like maybe a political persona. I think it’s helped.

The Malaria

Two Fridays ago I just started feeling really ridiculously tired. I kept having to lie down; sitting wasn’t even enough. I just chalked it up to the heat because it can really take it out of you. I just told Sarah that I was really tired and didn’t feel right. We headed out to the village the following Tuesday and I just kept wearing out really easily and feeling extremely weak. We’d walk to a friend’s compound or something and I would HAVE to lie down on the mat. And I’d fall asleep pretty much every time I did. Again, figured it was the heat. Well then I started feeling achy and running a low fever, but I never had any of the digestive issues that usually accompany malaria. We came back in to G-Vegas on Friday and took my temperature again. It wasn’t that high, but I told Sarah I wanted to go ahead and get a test done so we could rule it out. I’m glad we did because the test was positive. So I started the 3-day treatment and pretty much did nothing but lay around this weekend. Today (Monday) is the first day I’ve felt somewhat normal…I’m still taking it fairly easy...but tomorrow I should be good to head back out to the village.

Mystery Solved

I called Bear Creek yesterday afternoon because I just wanted to hear some voices. When I was talking to Michael, our youth minister/karate guy/resident Star Wars expert/guy who knows a little bit about everything, he told me that the giant poop is coming from our frogs. It makes sense because we have tons of frogs all the time. He even described the poop to me. So, mystery solved.

A Week of Firsts

I went to my first African concert last week! When we got to the village, everyone was asking us if we were going to go to the concert. I didn’t really know you could have a concert in a village in the middle of the bush, but it turns out you can. Jenny ended up inviting us to sit with her in some “reserved seats.” She told us to meet her at her house at 7 pm, but our family’s dinner ended a little late so we didn’t make it to her house until about 7:30 pm. Well, we ended up hanging out there until after 9 when we finally left for the concert. And it turns out the “reserved seats” were chairs that we took ourselves…don’t worry, the children carried them for all of us. Well when we got to the concert it was chaos like I’ve never seen before. There were even these guards with whips standing at the entrance. And yes, they did use the whips on some people…I was actually a little scared, but I just kept smiling my big white girl smile and making sure I stuck close to Jenny. Once we got inside, which was really still outside, we set our chairs down and sat in them. Every once in a while some guys would come tell us to scoot back and we would. Then the concert started and all I could tell was that he kept singing people’s last names over and over again. The awesome part was that he kept singing my last name the most because it’s a really big Sunny name. People were walking up to the stage to pay him to say their last name…it’s a pretty big deal. It was just so funny to see the different ways they do things over here. There was no rhyme or reason to the way they got people in the doors…well except for the whips, of course…or the way people were seated inside. And the music itself is insane, not at all what I expected. We left early because the village wears you right the heck out and the concert went on until 1 am. The music was so loud that you could hear it very, very clearly back at our hut, but I of course listened to my iPod and drowned it out.

Last week, I ate my very first innards. I’ve found that once I get the intestine/whatever it is in my mouth, I just hold it there with my tongue away from it so that I kind of forget about it…you know, kind of try to trick my gag reflex. Then maybe I sing a little song or laugh at H-Mama or something. Then I swallow it whole. You don’t want any part of chewing that.

We went to the gardens last week for my first time. Until the hot season hit the girls went pretty much every morning, but now there’s not much that will grow so we haven’t gone as much. The women all go and drop buckets down into the wells (which are pretty much dried up right now), dump the water into other buckets and tell us where to carry them and what to water. It’s pretty hard work, but the water spills out of the bucket a little bit and cools you off.


Well, it finally happened. Until last night, my African experience has been relatively spider and scorpion free…nothing too scary anyway. I can handle lizards, frogs and rodents, but spiders really terrify me. Last night there were these 2 HUGE spider scorpion monsters on our porch in G-Vegas. I promptly ran back inside and stood on a chair while Denise and Sarah attacked them with shoes. Our house isn’t exactly sealed off to the outside world either, so it took a while for me to fall asleep.

New Poop...

…these are the 2 words I yelled when I walked into my bedroom for the first time after being out of town for 8 days. As you know, we have been having problems with mice. We did catch one with a trap, though! It took several tries because apparently the traps aren’t that sensitive and we kept finding empty traps with the food missing…but we finally got one!!! We tricked it by putting jelly on the trap. Sarah figured that with bread, it was pretty easy to snatch without setting the trap off. But with jelly, the mouse would have to stand there and lick it for a while…meaning more of a chance for that sucker to snap. I know…we’re becoming critter-catching geniuses. And I know what you’re thinking: cheese is the obvious mousetrap bait. But cheese is REALLY expensive here and we refuse to waste it on mice.

Well, what I found on my bedroom floor today was poop we’ve never seen before. And, unfortunately, it was much larger than the mouse poop we’ve been spotting. The only other critters we’ve seen in the house are lizards and frogs…neither of which could poop this big. I mean, it wasn’t giant or anything, but significantly larger than the mouse poop. Sooooo, we’re afraid we’ve got some rather large rats on our hands. I went around my room kicking everything that was on the floor. I mean there’s not that many places they could be hiding. Then I swept the two little pooplets out of my room and swept the rest of the house. Then I went back into my room and there was ANOTHER NEW POOP…right in my doorway. It’s as if the mystery pooper is just trying to taunt me.

I am really sorry for you that my life has taken a turn that necessitates blogging about animal poop. I promise not to dwell here, but you should know that I will probably update you on the identity of the mystery pooper and whether or not we catch him.

Nice Grill

What do girls from Texas do when they move to Africa and every meal has to be made from scratch? Build a grill. I’m serious; I’m going to build a grill for our yard. I’m not really sure exactly how I’ll do it (suggestions are welcomed), but I’ve already purchased some parts. We’ve been in the capital all week for training and since there are grocery stores in the capital, we always go stock up when we’re there. Well I’ve been talking a big talk about my little building project so I decided to do a little perusing while we were at the store to see what kind of materials might come together to result in a nice little charcoal grill.

I found the perfect thing! It’s a metal grid and the tag even says “grill” on it. Actually there are 2 grid pieces and they have handles on them. I think you’re supposed to put your food between them and then hold the whole contraption over a fire. Each piece is probably 16”x18” so I’ve got the makings of a pretty nice grill. Between the grill I build and the kiddie pool Abby & Sarah set up last week we should be having a sweet Fourth of July party.

And for realsies…suggestions for building this thing are welcomed. Rocks and sand are the most immediately available resources, but I can hunt some stuff down if you’ve got ideas.

Team Retreat

Our Desert Triangle team is part of another larger team called the Oral Peoples Strategy Team. There are 2 other girls who are partners and then 1 guy who’s on his own. All of us live similarly to each other: spend most of the time in a village ministering to that people group and a couple of days a week at a home in a little bit bigger of a town. Each of the people groups we are working with is oral…meaning there is not really a written language and/or the vast majority of people do not read or write. This means that the best way to get our message across is through storying, which is a really awesome process that I’m learning more about.

Well our big team, along with our supervisor, had training in the capital all week, but first our supervisor took us on a team retreat. The place was amazing. We stayed in little huts that weren’t really huts (in the sense that they had electricity and running water). They were the cutest little bungalows! And there was a POOL! And it was all next to a LAKE! And everybody staying at this place ate all their meals in this cabana looking thing…it felt like something out of a movie, real tropical-like. The temperature was nice and cool and we had a great time of just hanging out, playing hilarious games, worshipping together, and eating “normal” food.

Three Hours

During one morning of our retreat, we had the opportunity to just spend time with God for 3 hours. I’ve gotten to do this twice before at training so I was really excited when I found out that’s what we’d be doing. And it was so good to just pour my heart out to Him. We talked about a lot of things…most of which had already been discussed…but He was faithful to show me some new things that I hadn’t paid attention to before.

I told Him that I’d never been more uncomfortable in my life because it’s in almost every aspect: physical, mental, and emotional. But spiritually I’ve never felt stronger. I told Him that I felt like I was turning a corner with the whole “culture shock” thing, but that I still struggled almost every single day. As I told Him about each of my struggles, He answered me with a question: When have you EVER clung to me this tightly? And then I told Him that if struggling every single day was the only way He could get me to cling to Him this tightly every single day then that was okay. Then I asked Him to help me mean what I said.

As hard as this past few weeks has been, I wouldn’t trade any of it for the closeness to God I’ve experienced. I am desperate for His Word, desperate for prayer…desperate for Him. He has given me great comfort and peace in knowing that He called me here. And He doesn’t do things for no reason, which means He is at work here and all I have to do is be with Him and obey, joining Him in that work. God is so good.

Eating for Jesus

Whenever you eat in the village, you never really know what you’re gonna get. Most of the time it’s pretty good, but it can be a little iffy when meat is involved. My first meat experience really surprised me. I usually have no problem eating weird stuff…I mean, hello, I can’t turn down a dare. But when you’re already hot and feeling a little queasy, it becomes a little more difficult. Thankfully, my teammates are awesome and when the pile of meat was dropped into the middle of the bowl, they flicked the “good” meat to my side. I mean, they are really awesome because this meat-flicking meant that Sarah ate what we think was a heart and Abby ate what was either part of an intestine or some sort of valve. I owe them one.

Water Bottles

So this post is just about the fact that my life now seems to revolve around water bottles. At our house in G-Vegas, we have 2 stainless steel drum water filters. I don't know how much they hold, but they're big. And our lives consist of constantly refilling the filters, filling up about 30 old 1.5 liter water bottles, putting some in the fridge, putting some in the freezer, and making sure we have a cooler full of them whenever we go anywhere. I thought moving to Africa would be moving to a simpler life...nope! It is so high-maintenance to live here. We literally plan things around and according to the water bottles.

In other water-related news...I finally tried brushing my teeth with the faucet water and guess what, no digestive repercussions...so far so good, anyway.