Back Online

Well, after a month of non-existent and then sporadic internet . . . . it is wonderful to be back online. I am working on a post with pictures and stories, but until it is ready - here is a little bit of life that I have learned in Africa over the last month:

• when carrying items on your head - bucket of water, gourd of grain - you can steady said item with both hands or your right hand . . . but never the left hand alone!
• quote from a friend: 'there is no medicine for hot season . . . except patience!'
• my friend has told me: 'the clouds in hot season are like a pregnant women, growing larger and larger, until they birth water and thus the rainy season'. I love the word picture!! And given how we long for the coolness that comes with rainy season, the picture of anticipation is also apt!
• my friend's love of showing off to their other-ethnied neighbours that I can greet in all languages . . . I feel like a puppet sometimes when they call someone over, tell me a language, and then request that I greet them in said language! (I could do without this one - but they think it is fun! . . . to each their own.)
• I discovered one day that my friend knows the sound of my truck - she was in her courtyard as I drove through the neighbourhood and as I rounded the corner she was standing in the road clapping her hands and chanting that 'Khadiza had come!'. At least now I know that my visits are not tolerated . . . I am accepted in this household!
• cute little old men in the marketplace love to play games . . . asking for or taking what I have purchased, to tease me that they will keep it
• walking through a new marketplace and my friend who speaks Djarma, translates a conversation between the seller of what I just bought and another market-goer. Upon seeing that I was intently buying, said market-goer came rushing up to speak with the seller: 'What did you sell that for? You know, these people have lots of money, you should charge them a lot. Oh, you asked for that price - well, I guess, that is the real price though!'. Of course neither of these two knew that my friend understood their little conversation!
• I also found that certain items carry a significance of a certain ethnie - that day in the marketplace, I was looking for a gourd with a neck. It is used by the Fulani to shake their milk into butter. It is either used exclusively by the Fulani - or identified enough with their ethnicity - that as I walked through the marketplace holding said gourd, people began to greet me in Fulfulde.

I have also learned of some sadness as well, because of the famine:

• my friend's cow has died
• some of my friends and their neighbours are hungry

Please pray for my team as we walk through Niger in these days - there is joy in our lives as we live amongst the people - learn their language, their expressions, their joy in life. But, there is also sadness these days as we walk amongst a people who hunger physically. The requests for food and aid are many these days and oft-times it is hard - the need is so great, but we cannot help everyone we see, nor everyone in our network.