Everyday Life: Staying Connected

I don't have wi-fi at my apartment.  Instead, I use a clé.  It looks like an ordinary USB drive, but when I plug it into my computer, it gives me internet connection.  Ooo!  Well, actually, there's another step to the process.  I have to buy credit.  Every boutique sells cards in various amounts (which can be used for either internet and phone).  You buy a card, scratch to reveal the code on the back, enter it in the window that pops up and voilà!  Connected. :)

Q&A: Adjusting

So, how long have you been there in West Africa?
Last Saturday marked 18 months.  Crazy!

Does it feel like "home" yet?
No, not really.  I can honestly say that I'm at the point where I have embraced my life here - not that I enjoy every moment or love everything single thing about living here.  But I am here right now, and this is the life I'm going to live right now.  The good, the bad, the ugly.

What were some of the biggest difficulties/struggles initially - like, maybe during the first six months?
Where to start?!  Well, I got here during hot season, so I was sweaty all the time, I had a heat rash that didn't go away for weeks, and I was just so. tired.  I actually came home from class each day and laid down for a nap - something I never did in the States!  I also really disliked feeling like the village idiot almost every time I attempted to do something - even the simplest everyday tasks.

What are some interesting things that are different from the US, but have become more or less normal to you by now?
The small change thing (which I've already told you about).  Very little personal space.  Eating from a common bowl.  I'm sure there's a ton more, but I can't think of them right now.  Probably because they're normal. :) 

Can you share some specific examples of progress you've noticed?
When I first started one-on-one language sessions, my conversations with Marie-Claude basically consisted of, "So, what did you do this morning (or last night)?"  Slowly, I was able to give and understand more details, then I was able to express more and more abstract ideas, and eventually explain my opinion (and understand hers) on a range of subjects.  That's been really fun.

What are some things that are currently still hard to live with?
Traffic, if I'm on foot, that is.  Especially the guys on motorcycles.  I do not like the way most of them drive!  (I've almost been run over a few times...)  Also, I get super tired of flirty guys.  "Just leave me alone, for Pete's sake!"  On a less trivial note, I still haven't gotten used to the begging children.  Every time I walk past them, I just...don't know what to do.  I feel so helpless in the face of all the needs around me.

What do you miss most about home?
My family and friends!  And good Mexican food.  And California scenery.  California will always be the prettiest place in the world to me.

How have you dealt with the adjustments, the stress, the difficulties?
Um...well...sometimes I'd kind of just curl up into a ball inside and try to shut out the world for a bit.  That wasn't necessarily the ideal approach, I suppose.  Other times I'd do something crafty, or watch a movie and have popcorn, or read a good book.  I talked to my Mom (and a couple close friends) a lot.  It was helpful - probably essential! - having those trusted people to process things with.  And I listened to sermons in English to stay encouraged and fed, because obviously I got very little out of church in the beginning.

What do you wish you had known before you came?
Hmm.  Not sure...

If you were to hop on a plane and fly back to the States tomorrow, what would be the hardest adjustment(s) in reverse?
I think I'd be overwhelmed.  "Everything is so clean!  And orderly!  And there's so much stuff!  And people just take it for granted."

What have you learned from West Africa (or West Africans)?
A lot!  One area that comes to mind is sharing.  I think the Western world tends to place a high value on personally owning things, but here it seems less is "mine" and more is "ours".  I can definitely grow in that area.  Another thing is prayer.  Wow.  Although I don't want to make a blanket statement, in my experience, prayer is real strength of the African believers.  They just open their mouths and pour out their hearts to God as if it's the most natural thing in the world.  I love that.  Something else that comes to mind is patience.  Things tend to take longer here - preparing a meal, for instance - and people tend to be okay with that.  And I'm learning to slow down (at least...sometimes) and just take life at a moment-by-moment pace.

What do you love most about West Africa?
My friends - my teammates, my host family, the helpers at the language center.  And mafé.  And chebu yapp.  And the colorful clothes.  And the value placed on hospitality.  And the thunderstorms.  Someone else said, "...For every difficulty here, for impossibility, for every little thing that makes you raise your eyebrows and ask Why?, there is something else that makes you smile at its beauty, wonder at its simplicity.  There is a rawness, an openness, the simple humanity of needing one another.  And because you have lived and breathed these things, because you have embraced them and come face-to-face with your own prejudices and weaknesses and inadequacies, you are forever changed."  Life here is messy, but that messiness has its own kind of beauty.

What have you learned about God through this whole process?
He never changes.  I can cling to Him and to His promises when my world seems to be just a swirling mist.  He's so much bigger and more amazing than I could have ever imagined.  He always knows what I need, He is always with me, and nothing in this universe can ever separate me from His love.  I always knew that in my head, but the last year and a half has worked those truths a lot deeper into my heart.

Auntie Corner

Because the three older ones all have birthdays this time of year, and because they're all so cute...

 

 

So they're standing with my friend Abigail, who's only slightly taller than I am.  (Which means those kiddos are getting waaaay too close to my height!)  Man, do I miss them.

 

 

"It looks like he's proud of his little belly."

 

 

This is the day Mom had to change him into a slightly too-small outfit that Sarah said looked like "the baby version of skinny jeans".

 

 

A boy and his Steve (according to my bro-in-law, "All stuffed monkeys are 'Steve'.").

 

 

 

Isn't he just too cute?!

 

 

"I love to work out.  Just kidding.  I take naps."

 

Yes, my loves, Auntie Rachel is head over heels for you.

Friday Thoughts

~ Recently I saw "A" walk past "B" and swat her on the shoulder.  "B" had been sitting alone with her head down, probably still grieving the loved one she had lost not too long before.  "A" said, "Hey, why that face?  Be happy.  We [as believers] should always be happy."  My knee-jerk reaction was indignation.  How insensitive!  Even after I calmed down, though, my mind kept going back to the incident.  Do people see that we really know the Jesus who lived in our world and fully experienced both joy and sorrow - at times intertwined through the same moments?  Or do we give the impression that following Jesus means a plastic mask, a fake smile, a glib Praise the Lord?  Brothers and sisters, that. is. not. what people need to see.  They do not need to see phony happiness.  They need to see real people following the real Jesus.  Let's be authentic in our joy and our sorrow.

~ Some people are self-absorbed and need to be woken up to the struggles or suffering of those around them.  Other people go through life, picking up the world's troubles like a kid collecting sticks for a campfire.  I tend more towards the latter.  (That's not to imply that I can't be selfish, because I can.)  I'm learning that as soon as I start picking up other people's troubles, I need to hand them to the Lord instead of trying to carry them around myself.  He's the only one capable of handling them.  My shoulders were never meant to carry the weight of the whole world, the moon, and half of Jupiter (to paraphrase one of my favorite authors).  I clearly can't feed every hungry child, keep a friend from losing her job, or stop the Ebola outbreak.  I need to let God be God.  The letting or trusting is, of course, for my benefit not His - He will be God regardless.

~ One aspect of human love is the desire to protect.  For instance, mothers love their children and so they seek to protect them from harm.  I don't think this is anything but natural.  I've been wondering, though, if we sometimes expect God's love to be the same way.  Yes, God as a loving Heavenly Father wants only the best for His children, but...do I automatically assume that means He'll protect me from difficulties?  That I'll be insulated from bad things?  Much as I might like to believe that, I know it's not true.  I can't act like He's obligated to "protect" me (in the sense of keeping me from situations that hurt) when I remember that He didn't protect His own Son from the pain of the cross.  If He allows pain in my life, it's because of His love, not apart from it.

~ Somehow His presence was enough in spite of my fear.  I read that on someone's blog a while back (I don't even remember where), and it really struck me.  As we're trying to walk with the Lord, we may not always experience the complete absence of fear, but regardless of what we feel, we can know and choose to believe that He is with us and that is enough.  Always.  Always.

~ I've been thinking way back to 2013, when my NTM status was changed from Awaiting Assignment to En Route.  The whole process had been rather drawn-out (through no fault of my own), so it felt like a momentous occasion to finally be En Route to West Africa.  And then, of course, the day came when my status was changed to Serving in West Africa.  Although geographically I've arrived, in a lot of ways I still feel "en route".  Not quite there.  On the way.  The longer I'm here, the more I realize how much God has to teach me, both about living in West Africa and about following Him in general.

~ And on a more business-y note, I'd really love to feature more grace stories in the future, so if you have one you'd like to share (whether it's your salvation testimony or a particular experience through which you clearly saw God's grace), shoot me a message.  Even if I already shared one of your stories back in October. :)

This...

 

This is a girls' pizza party I had the other weekend.

 

 

This is the way we make our pizzas, make our pizzas, make our pizzas...

 

 

This is the assembly "line" of pizzas waiting to be baked (my oven wouldn't hold more than three personal-sized pizzas at a time).

 

 

This is when we went out onto the balcony to see what we could of the wedding (reception?) being held right in front of my building.

 

 

 

This is some of the guests arriving.

 

 

 

This is when we were watching for the bride.  (We saw her arrive in a gloriously poufy white dress, but unfortunately I couldn't snap a picture of her in time.)

 

 

This is something Africa does extremely well: colorful outfits.  (Aren't they amazing?)
 

 

This was a "Hey, I guess we aren't the only ones craning our necks to see what's going on down there" moment.

 

 

 

This is the wedding party.  Or part of it at least.

 

 

 

This is everyone, back inside and happily chowing down on the pizza.

 

 

This is the aftermath of said pizza party.

 

 

This is a little "friend" we had in class one day.  She was a pretty hyper thing, dashing here and there and everywhere for...well, pretty much the entire session.  Needless to say, Marie-Claude and I were slightly distracted that afternoon.

 

 

This is Batman, aka Germain.

 

 

This is because my dad says you should always sprinkle a bit of yellow cheese on your pizzas for color.

 

 

This is the gecko I found outside of the classroom one day.  Michi, Ruth, and I were sitting outside and I saw the little guy run across the cement.  I chased him down and scooped him up.  Michi, I think, was somewhat disturbed by the fact that I picked him up.  I held him up next to her and was like, "Look, just in time for Valentine's Day!"

 

"Yeah, you should kiss him," Ruth suggested.

 

"That's frogs," I laughed.

 

"Oh, no, in Germany we kiss geckos.  All of our fairy tales have geckos."

 

Ha.  Ha.  Ha.

 

(For the record, no kissing was involved with this little guy's appearance.  I just held him for a while and watched him flick his little tongue out over his lips...and his eyes.)

 

 

This is the fanciest meal I've made in a while: fresh, crisp green beans with orange segments, sugared almonds, and a Dijon vinaigrette.  Yummy!

Language Funnies

Did you know that...

What we call "goosebumps" in English is called chair de poule [chicken skin] in French?

The word for bat (chauve-souris) literally means "bald mouse"?

Here's a couple expressions that make me laugh...

Casser les oreilles - literally "to break the ears".  It's a way of saying someone is making too much noise and getting on your nerves.

S'occuper de ses oignons - literally "to take care of one's onions".  Telling someone to take care of their onions is the equivalent to saying "mind your own business".  I've also heard se mêler de ses oignons ("to mix one's onions"), which basically means someone is getting involved in something that isn't their problem.

And here's some homophones to wrap things up...

La foi/le foie/une fois - fath/liver/once

Le hockey/le hoquet - hockey/hiccup

Le maire/la mer/la mère - mayor/sea/mother

La pâte/le pâtes/la patte - dough or pastry/pasta/paw

Le poids/le pois - weight/pea or dot

Le sel/la selle/celle - salt/saddle/this one

Le ver/le verre/vers/vert - worm/glass/toward/green

Everyday Life: Small Change, Big Deal

It's one of those sometimes-funny, sometimes-slightly-frustrating parts of everyday life here: the relative scarcity of small change.

Give the girl at the checkout the exact change?  She'll be noticeably happy.

Pay with a slightly-too-large bill at the produce stand?  The vendor will often hunt around, sometimes even going to neighboring stalls and asking if they have the change he needs.

Forget that you don't have small change until you go to pay the taxi driver?  He'll usually be...not impressed.

You may even find yourself hoarding your small bills and coins at home so that when you go to the supermarket and they ask, "Do you have the change?", you can truthfully say no.  (Supermarkets are more likely to have change, so I prefer to keep mine for situations where I really need it, like taking the bus or buying something at the produce stand.)

...And those of us from the U.S. are used to trying to get rid of our extra coins. :)

Live Like That

"If I allow a reaching-out God total control of my life, what will I be doing?"

 

The obviousness of the answer scares me a bit.

 

I'd rather it wasn't so straightforward, because of course the flip side of the coin is that if I'm not reaching out, He doesn't have total control of my life.

 

I've found myself in a somewhat reflective mood since the beginning of the year.  The end of E2 is finally in sight off on the horizon, and I've done a lot of thinking over the past year and a half.

 

 

...What kind of impact have I had here?

 

...Have I been a reflection of Jesus' love?

 

...Has my worship been more than words, but actions?

 

...Has my life given evidence of what God's grace can do?

 

...When people see me, do they see Him?

 

 

It's humbling to ponder those questions.  I've failed many times in many ways.  As I think about the remainder of my time in E2 - and to what lies beyond that - this is my prayer:

 

Lord, help me not to hold back.  To live abandoned to You.  To give this life all I have.  To live and love so that others can see and know You.

 

On Joy

I started this journal two years ago.  More than a few times, I thought how ironic it was to have a journal with "JOY" splashed across the front cover and verses about joy on the pages inside, because honestly, very little of what I wrote had anything to do with joy.

It's not like I went through a two-year slough of despond.  I wasn't exactly depressed, either.  Joy was just...missing.

I looked around at some of my friends who seemed to radiate joy and peace and contentment and all the rest.  But me?  That's not where I was at.  I couldn't fake it (and didn't want to).  How was I supposed to get joy for real?  I mean, it's not just some switch you can just flip on inside.  Was I missing some secret?

Sort of, yes.  (Except it isn't really a secret if you read your Bible.)

Giving thanks.

Telling the Lord "thank You" for the big things, the little things, the hard things...even if I don't feel happy.  (Because happiness = only a feeling.  Joy = a fruit of the Spirit [i.e. evidence of God working in me].)

Looking around me, looking at today, training myself to see His blessings, His gifts - and then thanking Him for them.

And so I started, listing them down in my journal.  Sometimes it was a struggle.  Sometimes there were weeks between entries.  Sometimes it felt hypocritical - to thank God even for those things I really didn't like.

Joy still seemed hazy, out-of-reach.

But...

He kept on giving.

And in spite of myself, I couldn't help but see.  Couldn't help but see His gifts.  Couldn't help but see Him.

Slowly (like, nearly two years), almost imperceptibly, a change was taking place in my heart.

Thankfulness brings joy.  We don't have to feel happy, necessarily, or pretend to like all our circumstances.  We just have to see, to believe that God is only good and that as a good God He gives good gifts...

A thousand and a thousand gifts heaped one on top of the other, all pointing towards the Giver of joy.  And as we receive those gifts with open hands, we open our hearts to His joy.  To Him.

This...

 

This is my little buddy who I hadn't seen in two weeks.  (Since Leah was staying here, I didn't get over to see J&A, and it felt like forever!  Well, maybe not quite forever, but definitely too long.)

 

 

 

 

This is Mafé Monday...

 

 

...and Chebu Guinaar [chicken] Friday.

 

There's a little hole-in-the-wall place right by the classroom, and the lady sells two different plates every day.  We've got her schedule figured out now. :)

 

 

This is because math is so much more fun in French!  Just kidding.  I just discovered the book lying around at the classroom one day and skimmed it during break.

 

 

This is what happened when I baked a batch of brownies in a slightly-too-small baking dish.  (It was someone else's pan, not the one I usually use.)

 

 

 

 

This is the clean-up from the brownie disaster.  Not that the brownies turned out bad - they were fine, it's just the bottom of my oven was a disaster!

 

 

This is a happy sign of dry season: a colorful variety of vegetables available.  Clockwise from top left, we have cabbage, eggplant, navet (which means turnips, but they aren't quite like the turnips I'm familiar with back home), carrots, sweet potatoes, limes, chile peppers (orange and green), and okra.

 

 

This a smaller-than-normal clementine (about 2/3 the size, I'd say).  Extra cute!

 

 

This is the evidence of some tiny critter that apparently was snacking on my almonds.

 

 

This is a trio of African teas.  Yummy!

 

 

This book (which I was using for French) made me want to go into linguist mode, with that whole side-by-side translation thing going on.  But thankfully I didn't have the time to get myself into such an undertaking, because if I had, I'm sure I would have quickly remembered why I hated that semester so much.

 

 

This is Michael being his usual entertaining self.

 

 

This is Hailah wanting to take her own picture.

 

 

This is a girls movie night at Ruth's.  So fun.  So good.  Just the thing after all-day meetings.

 

 

This is when she licked the ice cream spoon (and I caught her on camera!). ;)

 

 

This is my "new" journal.  (New meaning I just started writing in it.  I've actually had it for over two years.  And it wasn't new when I got it. :))

 

 

This is a Christmas card that arrived...a month after Christmas (and nearly two months from the date it was postmarked).  Yay for mail, no matter when it comes!

 

 

This is because the lock on the front door broke (as in, got stuck and wouldn't let the door close) one afternoon when Leah was there by herself.  Thankfully Norbert was able to replace it...front doors that lock are always a good thing.

 

 

This made my day: mail from kids at my home church.

 

 

This is the new look of Spare 'Oom.  (When Leah left, she took the spare bed frame, since there weren't any extras in storage at the Mission.)

 

 

This was Leah's welcome dinner.

 

 

This is Veronique and her little friends.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is waiting for dinner.  Which was difficult, because the food smelled so. good.

 

 

 

 

This was our keynote speaker...and her official translator.

 

 

This is cake-cutting time.

 

 

This is us girls...or at least some of us. :)