September 3, 2010 - N'Djamena, Chad

How things are now

I can’t believe its been so many months since I’ve posted. That is mostly because I have hardly had any chances to use the internet, but also because I have been super busy since we’ve been back. There have been so many things that have needed to get done that to think of just sitting around and writing has been an impossible luxury. Finally I feel a bit caught up so I am finally trying to write some things concerning the past few months as well as whats happening now.

To sum things up: In July we left for Chad and spent 2 months there: I got to know Jean-Patrick’s family and friends there, and we had our wedding! Then we made the trip back, we got back the last day of September. October was exhausting with too much to do and so I am glad that its November now and we have that behind us. I was so happy to come “home”, but it has been a bit overwhelming since then.

We moved straight away into the house that we are able to rent. I am so thankful for this blessing. I have almost always lived at my place of work, and last year I lived on the base – like living in dorms. So now to have our own house to live in is amazing!

When we moved in it was almost totally empty. The base had loaned us a mattress to sleep on, so it was great that we didn’t have to sleep on the floor the night we got back. And a friend loaned us a couple of plastic chairs and a little low table, so we didn’t have to sit on the the floor and eat off the ground. They even left us a meal for that night. The house, as most houses here, doesn’t have any built in shelves or closets or cupboards. None. It also doesn’t come with a fridge or stove in the kitchen. Up until now we still have all of our stuff on the floor. Its hard to keep stuff organized when there isn’t anywhere to put it but the floor. And the one kitchen counter is overwhelmed with dishes and food. We have ordered a few things from a woodworker (an armoire for clothes, a kitchen table, and a frame for our bed that is now on the floor) but we have to wait a few weeks for these things to be made. Hopefully we will be able to order some wooden chairs and some kind of shelves soon, too.

We had to retrieve all of our things out of storage and bring them to the house. Then there was lots of cleaning to do. Then trying to organize as best as possible. And trying to keep the house clean and rake all the leaves in the yard from time to time. All of this on top of the work it is just to live here. It is a lot of effort to have to get food at the open market, cooking with no modern conveniences, doing laundry by hand, and trying to deal with what has been some terribly sweltering weather lately.

So things are feeling a bit more settled now. There aren’t any more boxes to unpack (though I wish I had places to put all the things I unpacked) and I have a lady that is going to be coming every Friday morning to wash clothes for us. Meanwhile we are back into our “work” with me helping at the school and Jean-Patrick has been back at the baby malnutrition center and working with the kids' club group. I am looking forward to starting Bambara lessons soon. Thanks to wedding presents we have enough money to get a fridge and a stove, and even a couch. We will be going to to capital soon to find these things. And once I can find someone to drill holes in the cement walls to put some nails in I will be able to hang a few things and it will really feel more like home.

going to Chad

Its finally here! Tomorrow we leave to start our trip to Chad where I will meet my future in-laws, file papers at city hall, wait awhile, and then... get married!!!

I am very excited and a bit nervous, but most important - I'm ready.

We will leave and travel all day by bus to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. We'll stay there a couple days before taking another all day bus trip down to Lome, Togo. From there we'll take a plane to N'Djamena, Chad - Jean-Patrick's hometown.

We plan to spend 2 months in Chad and hopefully the wedding will be early in September, but we have to wait until the papers are filed there until we will know the definate date.

Too Cute

last day of school

It was a couple of weeks ago now, but we had our last day of school with an all-day celebration. Here is a picture of the lunch that many women worked on all morning to prepare for more than 500 students and teachers. Everyone was instructed to get into circles of 6 people, then a bowl of food is brought and placed in the middle (on the ground) and everyone eats from it together with their hands. Oh, in the bowls was rice with cabbage, fried yam slices, and beef - which brings us to the next picture...

This obviously is a photo of a cow's head and feet. These were sitting like this for awhile just off to the side of where lots of kids were hanging out and walking by. I may be the only one who found this unusual or disturbing. The day before I saw these pieces still attached on the cow being lead by rope into the school yard awaiting its fate. Not long after this picture was taken I saw a man take the head and roast it over a fire. I think I'll stick to the not eating four-legged friends thing.

I could have put cute pictures of the kids, but you've seen those already. I thought this behind the scenes stuff was more interesting.

bazin

This is us in our new bazin outfits, the picture is from when we were at a celebration in Bamako.

Bazin is the special fabric of Mali. It is made white and can be dyed into all different colors. Its a lot more expensive that regular printed coton African fabric. It starts out really shiny and stiff, but that goes away after it gets washed. Its also really hot to wear because of all the starch in it. Some people really want it to be shiny and stiff though, and they starch it and then get people to hit it with wood to make it shiny, they actually bring thier clothes to a place where someone's job is to hit bazin with wood all day. I don’t quite understand how this works, why hitting the fabric with wood makes it shiny again, but somehow it does.

To get a new outfit, first you go pick out the fabric you want, you bargain for the price and buy it. Then you decide what style of outfit you want made. I drew a picture of what I had in mind. Then you take the fabric to a tailor and try to explain what you want him or her to make. Since these have embroidery we had to go to a shop that does both sewing and embroidery. At the shop you can decide on colors and styles for the embroidery, too. The tailor measures you and finally you can leave. A few days later you go back and what you get back is never quite what you imagined, but hopefully its close.

kids at school

Here’s a picture of some of the kids at school sitting on the steps right outside the classroom. We sing songs the first thing every morning, so that’s why they’re clapping. I know a lot of kid’s songs at this point. I’ve learned plenty of new vocabulary from the songs, too, along with them.
There are only 6 weeks left of the school year. We are practicing a special song for a big end-of-the-year party on the last day, June 30^th.