Reflections on Rainy Season

Living in the US, I forgot how much rain effects our life here. In the US, for most people, it might cancel a day of work or mess up plans for an outdoor adventure. (Granted, there are such things as floods that REALLY affect people’s lives, but, for the MOST part, rain is merely an inconvenience.)

We returned during rainy season and I am quickly remembering the reasons that rainy season REALLY irritates me! Lest I sound crabby, bear with me while I explain.

1. Rainy season turns every laundry day into a guessing game where you watch the sky. Trying to look at the sky before you decide to do laundry is pointless, unless it is pouring at that moment. What looks like an overcast, cloudy sky can be a day of cool breezes that never brings rain. Conversely, a sunny day can turn to a downpour within 2 minutes. It is probably better that people cannot hear what I am muttering (or perhaps yelling) as I am scrambling to pull down clothes in time to preserve any semblance of dryness that was there. I do want to maintain that saintly image I have going. So far, of the 3 days I have done laundry in the village, the rain is winning 2 – 1. (The day I "won" I just decided not to chance it and hung the clothes up in the bat filled attic).

2. Envelopes: I brought note cards and envelopes home with us from the States. Hannah and I worked for a long time today, lining the sticky part of the envelopes with waxed paper. Having only been in the country 2 weeks, there were a few that we could not salvage.

3. Boxes of matches left on the counter are pretty much useless after a few days. It can take 4 or 5 matches until you get one dry enough to light a fire.

4. Same thing with salt. If you sit with a bunch of missionaries at a dinner table, you are likely to hear "shake, whack, shake, whack, whack, shake, whack" until the person decides they have gotten enough salt from the shaker or their arm has fallen off from the effort.

5. The dampness also seeps into the wood of the doors, causing them to swell, so they are difficult to open and close. I guess the good thing is that if you are in a hurry to get to the bathroom, you don’t have to pause to lock the door – just push hard and it stays!

6. Mold, mold everywhere! Though it is better at our house now because the shutters are open and I attack it daily.

7. Driver ants: Now is the season for these little black ants that tromp across the land, biting and destroying many things. They have been known to eat a chicken and leave nothing but the bones. Lots of water also tends to drive scorpions out of their holes. Water is no obstacle for the driver ants, though. Check out this video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBTjQMtbViU

8. Lots of tall grass that makes it much harder to see those nasty snakes!

9. You can’t check email with the sattelite modem when it is raining.

10. Did I mention how much I hate it when it rains on my drying laundry???????



On the upside, there are a few good things about rainy season:

1. You don’t have to worry about conserving water. There is always plenty more where that came from.

2. It means that people can plant their rice, which means they will have something to eat.

3. Hannah loves playing in the 55 gallon drum where we catch water for laundry.

4. There is NOTHING like crawling into bed, snuggling under the covers, and listening to the rain beat down on the tin roof!

On the Road Again

Well, we are ready to take off tomorrow for home but, of course, traveling is no easy task in West Africa. It involves a whole lot of planning and work and sweat. We spent 2 days shopping for ourselves, a little for our teammates and for the house. Since we cannot buy much upcountry, we need many supplies. It often reminds me (in a small way) of what the pioneers went through. After shopping, almost everything is packed into trunks for easier packing in the truck. After I have finished that, Jim and the boys arrange it in the truck. Today, all of the loading took place in the rain.

Besides groceries, we usually take a case or two of pop, several bottles of propane (so we can run our stove), building supplies and extra fuel for the vehicles in case the stations are out. We usually have two coolers of cold stuff and bags of clean and dirty clothes and dirty linens from the beds we slept in for us to wash and return at a later date. The day before we leave, I head out to the market to purchase fruits and vegetables.

Besides all of that, we need food and water for the road (since Subway is in short supply here) and TP for those roadside pit stops. We also need an “ordre de mission”, a paper giving us permission to travel in the country. We also need money to buy gas and other things on the way – 500,000fg will usually do.

This trip Mr. Bah, our chauffeur, will be driving the van as well, since we have more than the normal amount of stuff, having just returned from the US.



The vehicles are mostly loaded. Tomorrow, we will throw in the cooler stuff, the veggies, the carry-ons, and all those little bags of stuff that seem to multiply. We will shut off the water, lock down the guesthouse, and take off. We will probably pass through 7 – 10 police/army barricades on our 8 – 10 hour trip. We have a place we usually stop to buy pineapples and watermelon (in season) but for the most part, we just try to keep going. We are so excited about getting home.

Shopping

I am an experienced shopper in Conakry now, but since I was recently spoiled for a few months with Wal-Mart and Kroger’s I just have to share what my past 2 days of shopping have been like. Thankfully, I had the foresight to leave a list behind, knowing that I would forget what I left behind in the village. So, Friday morning Mr. Bah, our chauffeur, and I took off. (I would love to explain all the reasons why we need a chauffeur and how he is so much more than just a chauffeur, but that is for another time.)

It took us over an hour to drive downtown due to traffic. I then shopped at my 2 favorite stores which are right across the street from each other. The shelves were fairly well stocked, which was great. The problem is that I never know which store will have what, and at the better price. I might find powdered sugar at only one store (and then not again for 6 months) or it might be at every store I go to. I found a jar of Jif peanut butter for about $15. I didn’t buy it, though I was begrudging my $2 jar that the customs man took from me!.

Shopping here is, to say the very least, random! (As my teammate Dawn Cluckie said, it really would be best to go to all of the 5 or 6 stores that we usually shop at to price everything and then go back to buy, but that is just not feasible. It would add a day to the shopping experience.) We stopped at another store where I can buy cheese at a decent price. Mozzarella was only about $10/lb. Then I went to another store to order meat. (We don’t know if there will be a warthog available when we get home or if we will have time to butcher it.)

Today, we shopped again in the rain. You can keep your head dry by carrying an umbrella, but slugging through the market sewer water pathways just makes me cringe. Makes me want to go home and take a de-wormer. In the market, I haggled over prices for medicine and IV fluids to take back up to the village and then off we went to the pharmacy. I found 2 things I was looking for there that weren’t available in the market. Then off to another store that you almost have to experience to believe.

You walk in and 2 feet from the door you bump into a counter where most people come and ask for what they want and have it handed to them. We usually buy so much that the owner allows us to squeeze through the 18 inch opening and go behind the counter. Two feet behind the counter there are 2 ½ aisles – each about 2 feet wide (that may be stretching it) with shelves that are piled floor to ceiling with stuff. Behind the counter and in the aisles with you are 5-7 people who work at the store. Eight feet into the store it narrows so there is only 1 aisle that squeezes into a back room. When the electricity is off, they give you a flashlight to see.

I know there must be rats in there, but there are usually cats around, too. The thing about this place is that it is fairly randomly arranged. I can tell that the thought was to put like items together, but then whatever didn’t fit on the shelves just gets put anywhere. Usually, one of the boys working there helps and carries the stuff I want up to the counter until it is a heaping pile. They are usually very helpful and scale the shelves to get stuff down from the top or run off to another store house if what I want is not there. Then we need to add up the price so the boy helping me will call out the items: “10 rolls of toilet paper!” and the guy calculates it in his head “100,000 fg.” (equal to about $20) and then adds it into the calculator and on we go, usually reaching 1.5 to 3 million franc by the time I am done. All the while we are adding, there are 3 to 10 customers asking for things and trying to pay because they certainly don’t want to wait for my order when they only have a few things. (This is not unlike having 5 things in your cart and being behind the person who can’t see over the top of their cart because of all the food!).

The two brothers who own the store are fun to be around and usually give Mr. Bah and me free pop. :^) We made several other stops: to buy screen for the house, to pick up stuff for teammates, to buy rabies vaccines for the cats, to pick up the meat order (which had been packaged for me in 1 pound baggies and frozen flat so they would fit well in a cooler. Isn’t that great service!!!) and to check one other store that has way high prices but randomly marks things 60 to 80 percent off, which I can then afford.

We arrived home and carted it all up to the apartment so I could throw stuff in the freezer and repack everything into trunks for easier hauling upcountry. Despite it all, it felt good to be back! Who needs consistent prices and conveyer belts and wide aisles and carts and clean floors, anyway? That takes all the adventure out of it!

The Trip Home: The Endless Journey

Our trip back home was filled with excitement – and a lot of stretching emotionally. We spent the night in Indy at a hotel with Gary and Jean (Jim’s parents) and were able to have supper with them and my mom and dad as well. Tuesday morning – we were up and excited to go. Off we went to the airport, dragging 14 trunks and 10 VERY heavy carry-ons (yes, the boys did have those 10 pounds of cheese). We checked in and went thru security, tripped up for a few minutes by the cheese and some summer sausage, which they let pass) and some peanut butter (which they did not). Thankfully, that was rescued by the Kansas grandparents, who are no doubt enjoying it on toast now. SO much for my in-country breakfast menu. . . .

We hung out and then flew to Atlanta, where we ate a final salad (and drank that last iced tea) at TGIFriday’s and boarded the plane for Brussels. The flight was LONG (about 8 hours) but no one was very tired, since it was only 2 am when we arrived. By this point, I am usually feeling a little punchy. Too little sleep, too much time sitting, too much food at weird hours. . . . We arrived in Brussels at 8:30am (around 2:30 am our body time) and transferred to our gate, passing through security again where we were tripped up for a few minutes by a rope the boys had a the bottom of their backpack (it took a few minutes to verify that it was legal and not a lethal weapon) and some shampoo bottles that had to be measured to verify that they were indeed under 3 ounces. There we sat and slept, blissfully unaware that our baggage was being piled up somewhere and forgotten, since the Indy guy never checked it all the way through, like he was supposed to. (Good thing I am not bitter.)

We boarded the plane for CKY and tried to settle in. By this time, we were definitely tired, but sleep on an airplane is hard to come by. We were seated in front of a very nice Lebanese family with 2 small children. Hannah played with the kids while she was not sleeping. Thankfully, the flight was not super full and we were able to stretch out some. We landed in Dakar to off-load passengers and the pilot reported a problem with one of the generators, but said they had parts and a mechanic there so not to worry. We were on the ground for about 2 ½ hours during which we loaded a few more people and then were off again. The flight into CKY from Dakar is only about an hour and 30 minutes and as we started to make our descent into CKY, the pilot announced that we needed to turn around to Dakar, as the problem had returned and there was no one to fix it in CKY. At that point, there was much frustration, because of being so tired and after 2 weeks of being delayed by visa issues and 30 some hours of traveling, we were 30 minutes from home and we had to turn back. OY!!!

They offloaded us at the airport to “wash our faces and hands and relax in the lounge” while they fixed the problem. It was 7 pm at that point. By 11pm, we were told that the problem was not yet fixed and they were going to feed us and take us to a hotel. So, off we went to the restaurant in the airport – dragging those carry-ons up and down stairs until I thought my arm was going to fall off. They finally found seats for everyone and about 40 minutes later, showed up pushing the carts of airline food – which, frankly was a great option because the one plate of food we saw at the place contained a fish (head and all) and I was fairly certain that I could not face that at 11 something at night. They fed us and then transported us to the hotel.

With every move from place to place, there was much pushing and shoving and jockeying for position. It was a little frightening! The hotel was okay – it had electricity and air conditioning and only a few roaches. We fell into bed exhausted and, except for a quick phone call at 8 am to find out about the flight, we slept until 12:30pm. We got up, had lunch that was provided by the airline and then slept a few more hours. The kids swam, we ate supper and then were off to the airport and left after a fairly short wait.

We arrived in CKY at 11:45 pm in the pouring down rain. We have this part down fairly well by now and have a guy who helps us navigate the airport, so, after customs, Hannah and I waited with the large pile of carry-ons while the guys waited for the trunk. And waited. And waited. Pretty soon the airport was empty – not a good sign. We went to fill out a claim – giving the information to a man not used to using the computer program – so he typed n the information and then deleted it and then typed it in and then took it out. By this time, I was near tears again. There was another man who had his luggage gone through and stuff was stolen. He was told “that happens sometimes – it has happened before.” It was probably a good thing that was not me because I probably would have slugged someone.
Bruce was there to meet us. We arrived at the guesthouse and fell into bed. We were blessed by internet access at the guesthouse that allowed us to send a plea to our HQ and Josie to help with the baggage situation – they were wonderful. Thankfully, they all arrived on Saturday.

When it is all said and down, we are no worse for the wear – and will be a little more cautious in the future about checking bags. We even got to meet that great Lebanese family and we hope to contact them when we come back to CKY the next time. We survived another trip to Africa!!! PTL

Contemplating the importance of CHEESE......

We'll come back soon, you hear!!!!!!

So, the last 24 hours have been filled with all those last minute details - cleaning, giving back things we have borrowed, paying bills, trying to fit in all the little things that we want to take back. Mostly, it all fit but....... there was no space for cheese. Yes, you heard me correctly. Cheese. Why is that important you ask? Well, we have paid over $15 per pound in Guinea, so it is so much cheaper to take it with you.... Tacos and pizza (or at least our versions) are just not the same without cheese. Alas, even with everyone wearing several layers, we were still out of room. But with much cramming and stuffing, tonight we were able to get 10 pounds of cheese in. Whether or not they let us on the plane with the over loaded carry-ons remains to be seen. Last time, they tried to take cheese away from me in Paris - but I am not above pleading with the officials if it calls for that. :^) We will let you know if we make it through - with the cheese intact! Can't wait to set feet on African soil.

Work finishing our new well

Here are pictures of the final rings being dropped into our new well.

Waiting and Waiting

It is amazing how a little 3 inch by 2 inch sticker can so disrupt a life...........
We are still in the US - supposedly waiting for the Embassy to get more stickers so Jim and I can get a visa to return to Guinea. The kids already have theirs. We were about 2 hours from walking out of the house to go to Indy when we found out it wasn't going to come through. Honestly, it has been a hard time. The delay is NOT the end of the world, certainly, but it is hard to spend day after day in limbo. Mentally, we are already in Guinea with our teammates and friends there. Physically, we are sitting in Fort Wayne (actually Cleveland at the moment) trying to figure out what to do next.
On the down side, if we don't get those visas this week, we will lose around $12,000 or more in lost tickets and over weight baggage. Also, the work on the house and school stuff will get a little complicated.
On the up side, we have been able to see people and do things that we had missed since we were due to leave last week. We got to go bowling (exciting, I know) and play Rook and Dutch Blitz (I have finally met my match in that game) and the boys and Jim got to fly a little Cessna. Currently, the boys and Jim are hanging out with Grandpa Leinbach. Hannah and I came to Cleveland with Grandma to love on the niece and nephew a little more (and see Glenn and Josie). Now, when Reagan, (2 years), understands something you are saying, she says "Oh, I get you." Cracks me up.
Anyway, we are waiting and praying and trying to rest - all the while anxious to get back to life as we know and love it!!!!