It's a Party!

This week our village friends (with the rest of the country) celebrated one of the most important days in their calendar. It is a big event. For those who can afford it, everyone gets a new outfit and new shoes. Women and girls get new jewelry and they ALL have their hair styled. Friends and relatives come from far and near to visit. People cook BIG meals and everyone tries to get a little bit of meat to put with it.

In the past, I will confess, it has not been one of my favorite times of year. Several weeks before the big day, my friends (even people I had never met) came and begged me for money to buy the new outfits. As people started to come into town to celebrate, my porch got busier and busier. Everyone wanted to see the white people, everyone wanted to visit and interrupt school, and everyone wanted free medicine. Frankly, it made me fussy. I felt a little like the Grinch.

This year, we got to celebrate in our new village and we actually have friends here now. Yesterday, I decided to head out into town to check out what was going on. I took my camera with me. I saw lots of people dressed up. Little girls were getting washed up and getting their hair done. Everyone wanted their picture taken. I finally stopped at the hut of some friends – the 2 wives of the blacksmith. With 2 wives, there are a flock of adorable kids, and they LOVE me. They like to run up and throw their little, pudgy arms around my legs. They like to hold my hand and pet my arms. One of the wives just had a baby 2 months ago and the other one is about 15 months pregnant (okay, maybe only 9 months – but her stomach is HUGE!)

I sat with them as they got everyone ready. They were trying to plant (braid) the 3 year olds hair – but she could not sit still. There was too much to see. They tried everything: threatening, bribing, yelling – nothing was working. I was playing with the other kids and taking pictures. Finally they told her that if she sat still and got her hair finished, Gulun-nga (that’s me – the twin mom) would take her picture in her new outfit. That did the trick.

As they finished with her, the 12 (ish) year old girl came out all dressed up. She wanted me to put her make-up on. For some reason, that really touched me. If only she knew that I had no idea what I was doing. Their idea of putting on make-up is not the same as ours. I managed to get it on – and it looked pretty darn good. After that, I had a full time job – helping with make-up, earrings, dresses, and being the official photographer. Busy, busy, busy. Finally everyone was ready. They were SO excited – they could not sit still. We got up and danced a little and I headed off to visit some other people. I left there with an overwhelming feeling like I belonged. I was accepted as part of the group, like an aunt or good friend.

I finished my walk through town, talking and greeting and having a great time. Unfortunately, I didn’t reach all of my friends’ houses. My time was cut short by a sick baby that needed medicine, so I had to go home and help him. Bu the whole evening, I was overwhelmed with a feeling of happiness and thankfulness that we get to be here and be a part of their lives and their celebration. There is nothing like a party to bring the world together.

Jim Anderson: Ambulance Driver

This week we got to see one of Jims other roles here in Guinea – besides that of development worker, father, husband, farmer, and missionary. He put on his ambulance driver hat.

I was sitting at the computer 2 days ago when I heard a big commotion on the porch. I was getting ready to yell out (in love, of course,) I am not working yet – you have to wait a few hours still – when I heard someone crying and moaning. That deserved investigation so I went out to find a man that had been in a motorcycle accident.



Blood was pouring out of his leg – and people were beginning to surround him. The wailing had started – not by him, but by family members. He kept yelling –My leg is broken. Everyone else was yelling – No it isn’t. Be quiet. (African bedside manner is at times hard for me to take.) Considerately, he was moved to the front yard, so he would not bleed on my porch. Anyway, I grabbed some gauze and began to clean the wound. I dug a 1 inch piece of the motorcycle out of the cut, cleaned it with soap, water, and betadine and had one of our friends hold pressure on the wound. It was DEFINITELY broken. I could feel the pieces of bone grinding in my hand as his leg shifted.


By this time, there were tons of people here. His younger sister started wailing and then fainted – causing a big commotion on the porch. Other women were crying. There was much loud discussion about what should be done. People wanted to send for a man here in the village that sets broken bones – but I convinced everyone that this was going to need surgery. (I see MANY people who end up with bone infections from broken bones that are not treated properly – and who end up even 10 years later with pus and fluid leaking from the wound.) I asked about getting a taxi to take him the 1 ½ hours away to the hospital. I was told that in a few hours, a taxi would pass through that may be able to take him. That seemed to be the only plan, but frankly, it was not working for this nurse who is too used to American standards of care. I chatted with Jim and he was more than willing to transport the guy to a big town about ½ hour from us where he would easily be able to get a taxi right away.


We began to prepare him for the trip. I gave him 2 injections – one a powerful antibiotic and then a tetanus shot (thank you to everyone who gives to the medical fund and provides supplies!!!). For pain, he got Tylenol. :^( He also started drinking some Gatorade like drink – which solves so many medical problems on my porch. :^) I wrote a quick note to the doctor at the hospital, explaining what had been done for him and then we splinted his leg with 2 pieces of wood that Jim cut for me.


It was time to load him into the truck – after convincing everyone that he should NOT wait until his wives showed up from the farm. We got him loaded in as 2 of his sons showed up – and the wailing started again. We prayed over him – and off they went. Along the road, Jim met the man who had been driving the motorcycle – but he didn’t look very injured, so they went on and we sent someone else after the driver. The road is very bumpy and filled with pot holes so the going was slow. They had to stop in a nearby town to pass on the news of what had happened and allow everyone to see him and wail.


They arrived in the bigger town and were quickly able to get transport for him to go to the hospital. We have not gotten word yet how he is doing, but are so thankful for the medical supplies that are donated and for God allowing us to be here just at the right time. We are thankful for a great truck that many people helped provide for us. And I am thankful for my husband who is always willing to switch roles and do whatever it takes! He is the best ambulance driver in town!

Some Things Are The Same the World Over

Some days, it seems we live in the middle of nowhere. We are located in a somewhat remote African village where, as my kids are fond of saying, we are not at the edge of the world, but you can see it from here. We keep in touch with our friends and family by the use of a satellite modem – which is wonderful, but expensive. There are days it is easy to forget that there is a whole world out there and it seems like we could not be more removed from everything that once seemed normal to us. People’s way of life is hard and it is a constant struggle to live. At first glance, our lives could not be more different. Often, though, I see glimpses that make me realize that some things are the same the world over.

I had one such an experience a few weeks ago. I went to visit my friend Isatu. She had recently had a baby and I wanted to pop in and check on how they were doing. I sat in her bedroom with her and we chatted. There were lots of kids outside, playing and making noise. Our conversation headed in a direction that made me remember - I am NOT in America anymore. I won’t go into great detail, for fear there may be young ears listening, but the general gist of the conversation was marital relationships and the lack there of during pregnancy and the 2 -3 years following birth that it takes wean a baby from breastfeeding. (Thus partially explaining why some men have more than one wife!) But I was jolted back to reality by what happened next.

The noise of the kids in the hall and outside got louder. The kids were fighting. I don’t totally understand what the fight was about - I was focused on our conversion. But Isatu’s mom ears were tuned in. She started yelling into the hallway – Who is fighting? Come in here. You guys need to stop fighting or I will send so and so home. Go play nicely. It got quiet for a few minutes and we continued talking. Then the noise escalated again. That was it. She called them all in – That is enough! I told you to play nicely and all you are doing is fighting. If you can’t get along, then you aren’t going to play together. Sana, give me that ball. Your friends have to go home now since you can’t get along. Everyone, go home. You can come back and play when you are ready to play and not fight.

It totally cracked me up, because I believe that I had that exact conversation many times when my kids were younger. And probably moms all over the world were having that exact conversation at that exact moment. It reminded me that most moms are the same and want the same things for their kids. We may have different education levels and different expectations from life, but we all want our kids to be happy and healthy, and for ourselves, we would love a little peace and quiet occasionally. :^)

I also had to smile the following week while I visited her again. The 2 younger boys were going to go out to the farm to see their dad. Isatu insisted that Sana (3 years), the youngest, put a shirt and shoes on first, so she sent Sori (6 years) in the house to get a shirt for Sana. Unfortunately, he chose a button up shirt and he was having great difficulty getting the shirt on Sana, mostly because he started with the shirt inside out. Finally, Isatu had to take over. She got him dressed and instructed him to get his shoes on and off they went. And I realized that not only are moms the same, but so are little kids!

It is great for me to have those moments, because it makes me have more compassion when I get frustrated with the direction people take with the health of their kids or the choices they sometimes make. In many ways, we are the same!

Can You Hear Me Now?

Jim left this week for his conference in Burkina Faso. I really wanted to talk with him one last time before he left the country, so spent much of my Friday morning debating whether or not I should call and talk to him one last time before he flew out.

Sounds crazy, I know. Why would there be a debate in my mind since I REALLY wanted to hear his voice one more time????

Well, it is like this……

For me to even leave the house, I needed to have the boys pull the solar panels off the top of the Cruiser, where we have them temporarily clamped until Jim builds more racks on the roof. Since they were willing, I decided to go for it. They pulled them off and I headed to town to find 2 guys who wanted to go with me. It took some effort but I finally located them. Off we went.
We have no reception in our town, so getting phone reception requires driving nearly 10 miles and standing under a big mango tree. We arrived at the big mango tree to find around 30 other people there making phone calls as well. (It was market day in the town near-by so the mango tree is busy that day!)

I wandered around in the tall grass, looking for good reception and trying not to be bitten by driver ants or a snake. I finally got through to Jim – and we talked for about 30 second before the line cut. I tried again for about 10 minutes and finally decided that maybe we were out of minutes on the phone. (There is not any way that I know of to figure that out on the phone.) So we jumped into the truck and drove into the near-by town and wandered through the hundreds of people to find the last 2 phone minute cards in town – allowing me 10,000 Guinea franc minutes worth of talking. Then we headed back out to the tree. Voila – the lack of minutes was the problem. There was a big storm coming our way – but I was able to get through to Jim long enough to tell him that I loved him – and he headed off to the airport.

Our friend, Mordeca, wanted to call his sister in the capital, so I dialed the number – and rain started spitting down. As he talked, the rain came harder. I gave him an umbrella and jumped back into the truck to wait. By this time, the mango tree was pretty deserted, as most people had seen the storm coming. There were only about 5 people left besides us. Soon there came a torrential downpour. Mordeca jumped back into the truck. The next thing I knew, the back door opened and 5 people and one baby were trying to jam themselves into the back seat to get out of the rain.

There was NO way everyone was going to fit, so I got out in the rain and opened the very back door for an old lady to jump in. I was SOAKED by the time I got back in. Soon our other friend arrived. Now there were 9 of us jammed in the truck. The rain was pouring down, the lightening was flashing all around, and the truck was getting very hot and steamy from all that hot breath. It was stifling. We waited and we waited. The rain let up a little, so Mordeca jumped back out to call his sister again. I watched him standing out in the rain, under an umbrella, under a huge tree, with lightening flashing all around, talking on a cell phone, and I thought – Now THAT is a good idea!

Thankfully, he finally gave up and got back in. Not long after that, the absolutely thickest streak of lightening I have ever seen smashed into the ground in front of me, followed instantly by the deafening crack of thunder and the ground shaking! It was AMAZING and terrifying. We had been waiting out the rain by nearly an hour by this point. After that lightening streak, I thought, perhaps sitting under a big mango tree was not the best plan ever conceived. But what to do with all of my passengers???? I could hardly shove them out in the rain and lightening – especially the mom with the baby and the old lady. Two people needed to go to the nearby town, and the rest either back to GKB or to a town on the way. I decided that if I was ever going to get home, I needed to drop them all off. So, we turned around and headed back into town.

The rain was lessening some by the time we arrived at the edge of the market. As I off loaded my passengers in the rain and the lightening, I was BOMBARDED by 20 – 30 people who BEGGED me to take them to their homes on the way back. There was NO way everyone could fit. I took 7 – leaving some very fussy people in my wake. I dropped people off in the town not far from us, and ended up picking up more people who wanted to go to GKB. I arrived home about 2 ½ hours after I had left, soaked and muddy – only to find patients waiting for me on the porch.

While I head NO idea what would happen when I went to make my phone call, I knew it would be some kind of adventure – it ALWAYS is. So, it you ever get a phone call from me when I am in the village, you will know that a LOT of thought went into it and you should feel VERY privileged, because it means that that the phone call was worth a LOT of effort.

WANTED: A Subabu

We are looking for a subabu for some new missionaries (tubabus or white people). It is a FULL time job with low earthly benefits. See job description below:
Applicant:
- Needs to be on call 24/7
- No holidays or vacation
- Needs to have good hearing and understanding to figure out what the white people are saying when they butcher the language.
- Needs to be patient with their lack of understanding of cultural issues
- Needs to control their smiles and laughing when the tubabu runs to get a paper to write a word down or uses the language inappropriately
- May need to explain the tubabus sometimes strange actions to the village and possibly smooth the ruffled feathers on either side
- Needs to be prepared to get constant requests by other Guineans for help in approaching the white people with a need or sick person
- Needs to realize there is no monetary pay here on earth……

Applicants can go to the tubabus house and apply in person.

I often wonder if our friends who are designated to be subabus for us have ANY idea what they are getting themselves into. God has provided wonderful people in each of our villages where we have missionaries to be people of peace for us. A subabu is a type of go-between for two parties. In Soulemania, they have Kelifah, the pastor there. Here in GKB, we have Sayon and Mordeca, our two young believers. Sayon especially was instrumental in getting us here into the village. Now they both have full time jobs keeping us here. It is nothing formal, mind you. They are just the 2 that we call when we need anything and everything. Here are some ways that they help us:

1. If we need a job done, they either do it for us or find someone who can.
2. If we are looking for something (a vegetable, meat, fruit, bike tire, someone to fix something) they can look for it and let us know.
3. If we are having a problem with kids misbehaving, (the kids in the village, not our kids :)) we call them.
4. If we need someone to accompany us some place, they come along.
5. If we need something from the village –or want to give something to the village- it all passes through them.
6. If I need someone to interpret for someone from another people group, we send for them.
7. When we go to CKY, they take turns spending the night and guarding our house.
8. If we take them to a big town, they help us shop and signal us if they think that someone is jacking up the price because of our white skin.

Of course, the pressure does not just come from our side. Knowing the way of life here, people know who has the closest relationship to us here in the village – so the nationals come at them from the other side. This happens especially with sick people. Every week, sometimes daily, they get requests to bring a sick person to our door, asking for help. People search them out at their houses or farms and they have to leave what they are doing to come. This usually applies to people from out of town, people who are coming when I am not working, or adults who are usually fairly ill. People with sick kids from GKB already know they will be treated with no problems. People from other towns who are unfamiliar with my rules or adults who are sick (since I only am allowed to treat adults who have been treated somewhere else – this as an incentive to get the clinic finished here in town) or people who come in the morning when I am not working usually will show up with one of the guys. If they do come here first without them, and I turn them away, it is not unusual for them to return later with either Sayon or Mordeca.

I can usually tell if the guys think I will deny the request because they look kind of sheepish. I will look right at them and they smile with a "Just give me a chance to explain" kind of smile. I know the pressure is high for them. And both of them, Mordeca especially, seem to have the gift of compassion. If they bring me a sick child who is from far away, and it is morning when we are doing school, they know they have a big fight ahead of them, because I will usually deny the request until the evening. But they also know there is a small chance, if I see the child and see he is REALLY sick, that I will help right away. Mordeca will often say to me – Gulunga, its fever is SO high, just put your hand on it and see.

Of course, there are some benefits to being the subabu. We pay well for work done at our house and we pay in full. And if you work for us, and you end up with a sore back, you get Tylenol along with the pay. No one else in town does that! If we have stuff to give away, we hand it to them. The guys usually come and have coffee with Jim in the mornings – and get lots of sugar to make it sweet. They enjoy the trips into Faranah to accompany us – hey, it’s a free ride! They both got to go to Mamou, where they had never been before, several weeks ago with Jim. They can be fairly certain that their family will get good medical care. And we employ both of their wives, which helps to provide for the family as well.

When they guard for us on Conakry trips, they make a boatload of money (about $1.50 a night) while we are gone. And we always bring back some kind of gift – a can of instant coffee or clothes or something small. And you get an up close and personal look into another culture. You get to hang out at the tubabus house and try their food and see their gadgets – since we have a gadget for nearly everything.

While we often make light of the fact that the guys are overworked, we truly do not know what we would do without them. We pray for them and love them and hope that the pressure put on them and the things they do for us will be rewarded in heaven – since we can never repay them here on earth.

Driving Miss Dawn -or- Why Everyone Should Have A Chauffer

I confess – our team has a chauffeur. His name is Mr. Bah. Sounds like something out of the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, huh? Well, before you rethink supporting people who spend their money frivolously, let me explain……. Actually, if you have every lived in Guinea, I probably don’t really need to explain. But in the off chance you have not had the blessing of visiting our fair country, let me tell you why having him is a REALLY good idea!
While we employ Mr. Bah full time and he does make trips up to the village for us, we mainly use him when we are in the capital. Driving in Conakry is unlike driving in any other place. Everyone seems to make up their own rules. Two lanes can easily become 4 four if you wish. Someone not going fast enough? Just speed around him on the shoulder on the right side. Need to turn around – just do a u-turn in the middle of the road. It is crazy out there. Mr. Bah has driven in several other African capitals – and claims Conakry to be the craziest. The longer we are here, the more we see order trying to be instituted. There are some functioning traffic lights. There are police trying to keep things in order – and doing a great job at some intersections.

Downtown, things get even more interesting. Certain streets are one way at certain times of the day. I have NO idea which ones they are. Other streets will suddenly become one way – with no warning. Parking is always tight. People are everywhere. When you stop at a light, beggars come up and try to get money. Motorcycles whip in and out of traffic.

Besides being safer, it is much more interesting being a passenger. You get to see all of the shops and what they are selling. One store we passed last week was selling bottled water and mattresses. I was intrigued by the combination. In the afternoons especially there are kids (mostly) who walk in and out of the lines of traffic selling all sorts of things – CD’s, rechargeable phone cards, plastic flowers, insect spray, off-brand Kleenex, handkerchiefs, apples, sesame seed candy (my personal favorite), jelly. That whole scene fascinates me as well. Why jelly? Why insect spray? Who makes those decisions? I suppose it is kind of like those racks you stand by in the checkout lanes in the US with all kinds of random items.

But Mr. Bah’s helpfulness extends way beyond his driving abilities. He seems to know everyone. We will say – I need to find___________________ (we fill in the blank with various sorts of things.) or I need to have _______________ done. Well, Mr. Bah will reply, I have a cousin who can get that for you. Or, I have a friend who does that. He is amazing. He is incredibly resourceful, and very patient. He will wait for several hours for us to finish a task, if necessary. He loves our kids. He never complains when we ask him to do stuff for us. He worries about us and is incredibly protective.

He calls me Mom or Mommy – a term of respect – he calls all of the team women that. Jim is Mr. Jim or Boss. I love to call him on the phone and hear him answer – Yes, Mom. (He is around 60 years old, by the way.)

We try our best to take good care of him and give him a lot of respect. We ask his advice on a myriad of things. We buy treats for his kids and diapers and medicine for his son who is handicapped. We try to pay him well. We help out when we can.
Here are 2 of my favorite Mr. Bah stories………………

1. This one I shared in a supporter update in March. Mr. Bah traveled home with us that trip, driving one of the vehicles. We stopped for lunch in a shady spot and were having sandwiches. We had received a bag of Doritos from the States and had been saving them. As anyone who lives overseas knows, things like Doritos are very special and so we tend to hoard them a little. I didn’t offer any to Mr. Bah, because I have never seem him eating chips before and figured he would not like them – as they are not rice – his normal meal. As we were getting back into the truck, he found the bag and asked what they were. I told him that they were chips from America and that he should try them. So he took a few, and then a few more. Pretty soon, he was munching away. He said, “Mom, these are really good. Someone will have to take the bag away from me.” I am sure my face matched the kids’ faces, as we watched him downing our precious Doritos.

2. The second story is from our last trip to CKY a week ago. I was out doing some shopping and stopped at a fairly nice air-conditioned grocery store. Mr. Bah waited outside for me, chatting with the security people as he waited. I got back into the truck when I was finished and said, Mr. Bah, are you ready to go? He said, Mommy, look at me. I am covered with dirt. I could see some small smudges on the front of his suit so I asked him what happened. He said, I had to urinate, and so I asked where I could go and they told me to go out behind the store. But when I got there, a big dog was there and it was not tied up and it jumped up on me and grabbed me and I thought I was going to have to call you. (As he recounted the story, his voice got louder and he got more distraught – sadly, I got more and more amused. If you could have seem his face as he told me about it!!) Anyway, he continued, I came back out and I told them, if you tell someone you can urinate somewhere, you need to tell them there is a BIG dog that is not tied up.

The poor man was so upset, and I was so amused. Thankfully, I had bought him a Coke so he could have something to drink and settle down.

He is a wonderful asset to our team and I am not sure what we would ever do without him. So, the next time you visit Conakry and we tell you we need to call our chauffer, you will understand why!

So, That Has Never Happened Before. . . .

Yesterday, I had a busy day. We did school. I cleaned the house, made supper, and exercised. I wanted to jump in the shower quickly before I saw the patients waiting for me on the porch. I grabbed my purple scrubbie ( my 99 cent Wal-Mart special) and got it soapy with a bar of Palmolive. I scrubbed down and was finishing on my feet when I felt something strange move in my hand. I flung my hand out and looked down on the floor. There, to my surprise, was a scorpion – all clean and bubbly. At first I thought it was dead, but it soon tried to crawl away.

Wow. What a bizarre feeling – to know that it had been in my hand and scrubbie as I washed my whole body!!! For the rest of the night, when I thought about it, I would feel little pinpricks on my skin. I was thankful not to have been stung. Our African friend thought that the scent from the soap confused the scorpion temporarily. Who knows? I definitely do not recommend it as a new skin treatment. :^)

Rudeness

I was contemplating rudeness this week – actually I do every time someone on a motorcycle arrives at my front door and honks obnoxiously until I show my face. As a student of another culture, it is interesting to discover what this culture considers rude. And it certainly doesn’t take many months to solidify in your mind the practices in your host culture that we Americans would consider rude.

For the most part, the people we live among are fairly polite. They greet everyone they see – multiple times. They ask about each other’s families and farms and relatives and health and on and on. If you walk by them at meal time, there is always an invitation to come and eat.
I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that the things I consider rude are NOT considered rude to them. But they have been known to set my teeth on edge.

Take for instance the motorcycle thing. Almost without fail, when someone arrives by motorcycle, they honk, and honk and honk. I am sure it is just a friendly way to say, hey, you have company! But to tell the truth, it snaps my nerves – which are often a little frayed by evening anyway. I hear them do that to each other as well, so I know it is an acceptable practice. Now I try to take deep breaths as I walk out to the porch. I have also been known to mutter under my breath "They are not trying to be rude, they are not trying to be rude, they are not trying to be rude."

Late one evening, a man arrived with a sick child. He was on a motorcycle, and true to form, honked obnoxiously several times so I would know he was there. I went out to greet him, no doubt muttering under my breath (unfortunately, it was probably not “Thank you Lord for the opportunity to serve this person”). When I got to the porch, I discovered that he didn’t speak much Yalunka, so I was able to communicate enough to send him back into town to find someone who did. Off he went on his moto, and when he returned, guess what…. the honking again, "Hey, I’m back!"

I am certain by this point I was muttering loudly – but probably no longer under my breath. As I chatted with Mordeca (our friend and a believer) and he translated for me, I discovered that this man had gone all the way to the big town near us (an hour away) with his sick child to shop, but never bothered to take him to the doctor or hospital. He simply dragged the child, with a high fever, back up here to see me. My frustration grew. It was already dark. I was tired. He had left a town where there were many doctors and much medicine, to return to the village so he could get free medicine from me! (They are from this village to begin with.)

I argued with Mordeca. “Why should I see this kid? They had the opportunity to go and get medicine somewhere else but refused because they wanted it free. What happens when a kid gets sick here in the village and I am out of medicine because this man refused to pay – even though there is a lot of medicine in that town?” Meanwhile, the little boy was just watching me. It was, I confess, not one of my better moments. Back and forth we went. Finally, Mordeca said, “Gulun-nga, you are right. What he did was wrong. But are you going to make this little boy suffer because his father made a wrong choice? I wekile." (That is a Yalunka phrase that has a bunch of meanings – take courage; take heart; or it can be said as kind of “buck up and deal with it.” Mordeca and Sayon have occasionally used it on me when they see me getting tired and fussy on the porch at night when there are still a lot of patients to see. He was meaning it in a nice sense of the word.)

I could feel myself beginning to soften until the horn honking dad spoke up – “Yeah,” he said, “ I wekile” in a tone that sounds suspiciously like “buck up and deal with it.” I took one look at him and then looked at Mordeca – who wisely told the father that it would probably be better if he stopped talking at that point.

Mordeca (who seems to have been given the spiritual gift of mercy) said, “Look at this little boy – he has a fever, you have to help him.” I finally consented, mostly for Mordeca’s sake, and for the little boy – certainly not for the horn honking, rude dad.

Another rudeness issue I deal with in interrupting. This happens often when I am on the porch – usually surrounded by a lot of people – and someone new arrives. Even if I am deep in the middle of a conversation about medical issues, I am expected to stop talking and greet them – even if this is the 10th time if has occurred in the last 5 minutes. It is ALWAYS difficult for me to interrupt my conversation with a person I am trying to focus on to greet. The problem is that it is usually not a “Hey, how is it going?” It is a “Hey, how is it going? I am bringing you this sick person who has been sick for 10 days with a fever and runny belly (diarrhea) and. . . ” So, I put my hand up to stop them and say, you have to wait until I am done. I have no doubt THAT is considered rude here!

As Americans, we provide endless hours of entertainment to the village by our strange language and ways and things. People love to come and watch what we do. They can sit for hours – staring in the back yard through the fence or trying to look inside the house when we open the door or sitting on the porch, just watching and waiting for something exciting to happen. In general, gawking in America is frowned upon. But here, that is just part of being in a village. They do it to each other. Fighting with your wife – no, problem, an outsider can offer a solution. Fighting with your neighbor – everyone is all over that.

I know I have not even begun to scratch the surface of the things they consider rude here in this culture. A big one is the inappropriate use of the left hand. That hand is used for bathroom services – so it is very rude to hand someone something with your left hand. That is slowly becoming ingrained in us – so much that I struggle when we go to the US and have to hand someone money at the drive-thru with my left hand. Thankfully, they are gracious with us – and don’t make a big deal when we mess up.

Not greeting someone and asking about their family, life, health, cows, farms, etc. is also considered rude. So we make an effort to slow down our Western ways of thinking and take the time to visit with people.

I have no doubt I commit numerous acts of rudeness on a weekly basis – mostly out of ignorance. That makes me TRY to give grace. I am working on it and making progress.

Just don’t test me by arriving at my house – horn a blazing!

It only takes a minute for your whole day to go down the well

Just yesterday morning, Jim and I were having a spirited discussion about organizing our time and the debate about working from a list and also being available for what God want us to do – Jim being less of a list maker, and me being an avid list maker. It is incredibly frustrating for me to arrive at the end of the day – but be far from the end of my list. We ended up talking about what he wanted to get done that day, and off we went.

About 1 hour later, a Fulani man came running up to ask for help. He said there was a man trapped down in a well. The man had climbed in to dig the well deeper, but apparently had not been down there very long before he sat down and became unresponsive to the people at the top of the well, calling to him. They were very concerned and wanted help.

Jim, the boys, Sayon and Mordeca (our friends who were here working on Jim’s garden) ran off with a long climbing rope to see what they could do. When they reached the place– over a mile away – they found an extremely narrow and deep well. With the sun overhead, they could see the man huddled at the bottom, gasping for air. He would not respond to the people yelling to him from the top.

What followed in the next 8 hours was a frustrating and fascinating interaction with another culture. Several people tried to go into the well after him, but got part way down and were unable to breathe because of the lack of oxygen. Jim and the boys were able to hook up a ventilation system with a little 12 volt fan, a tube, a plastic cookie sheet, and a motorcycle battery (MacGyver would have been proud) – in an attempt to pull air out of the well, which would in turn force new oxygenated air down into the well. The man in the well was a well digger – and his friend refused to go in after him. I am told the people there were beating him – in attempt to shame him into going down. There became a fight – why should a Yalunka person go after him, when he was Fulani. Soon the governmental man in charge over the area showed up. Someone took off on a motorcycle, going from village to village, looking for another well digger who would be willing to go down after Musa ( as we learned was his name).

After a while, they began throwing milk and then gasoline down the well. Why would they do that????? We came to find out (when it was all said and done) that people here believe that, in some wells, there are evil spirits and if you go into the well, the evil spirits will steal your breath and kill you. They dumped the milk and gasoline down in an attempt to appease and distract the evil spirits into letting go of the man.

Meanwhile, with each passing hour, our hope of him being brought back up alive was diminishing. The boys related to me how agonizing it was to watch as no progress was made and to hear him gasping for air, and then have that followed by periods of silence, and then the gurgled breathing again. I paced around the house (I got a lot of cleaning done with all the nervous energy), pleading with God to spare the life of Musa – who does not yet know Jesus. I had given Kaleb one of our 2 way radios during one of the trips back to the house for supplies, so we were able to check the progress occasionally.

On the last trip, Sayon and Mordeca came for a pulley and a climbing harness. They were able to rig up a pulley over the hole and lower a well digger that had been found in a bigger town. On his second attempt, he was able to go down quickly, tie a rope under the arm and up over the shoulder of Musa, and be pulled back up. Then the men were able to pull Musa up from what was becoming his grave. Musa arrived at the top alive, with a weak pulse, but unconscious from the lack of oxygen (undoubtedly made worse by the fumes from the gasoline!). Jim was able to call me on the radio to ask what they should do for him medically. Within an hour, he was waking up a little and sat up on his own, and drank a little milk. Jim and the guys began the walk home, along with the dozens of villagers who had gone out to watch the show.

Many people stopped by our house on the way back to thank us for the work that Jim did. It made a huge impression on them that he stayed for the whole time. The area boss guy also thanked Jim for what he did. Today a delegation came from town and from the well village to thank Jim for everything – bring with them a very large rooster as a gift (who crows SO loudly that he is going to find his way into a cooking pot very quickly!) They reported today that Musa is up walking and talking and eating and has no recollection of what happened down in the well.

The whole experience - which had a great ending (praise the Lord)- was an interesting peek into the lives of our friends and neighbors. It brought up an incredible discussion about Jesus’ power over evil spirits, and how as believers, we don’t need to fear the evil spirits. We were excited to see the faith that is growing in our 2 friends here. And we are thankful beyond measure to know that Musa is alive and well. We are trusting that God will use that experience in his life to bring him to the Jesus road.

And I, for one, and thankful that Jim threw aside his to-do-list for the day and followed what the Lord brought before him.

Housekeeping in Guinea

If you have even an ounce of perfectionism in you when it comes to housekeeping and having things in order, then perhaps Guinea is not the place for you! If God does call you here, you will spend endless days in frustration over the state of your house. Not that housekeeping in America is a breeze, but it does seem that there are not as many things working against you. On a constant basis, I fight one or more of the following:

Desert dust: every day, but especially during the months of December – April, when the rains are non-existent, there is an endless stream of dust that flows into the house. Within a few hours of dusting, you can usually return and write your name visibly on whatever surface you just dusted. Of course, all of that dust lands on the windows too. Windex is rather pointless for cleaning our louvered glass windows. You just need a bucket of water and some soap. After washing my windows and dusting, I enjoy walking around, looking at the surfaces and enjoying their dust free appearance, know it will be short lived.

All of that dust also lands on the floors, along with all the dirt trudged inside by my family. In Niaya, I had someone who swept and mopped all week, but do not have that privilege here yet, so it is up to me to stay on top of it. On top of that, our great room floor was not finished correctly, so in my daily sweeping, I end up with piles of cement dust. When it rains, the dust is less, but I then am left to deal with mud. Also, the rains bring out flying termites – a treat to the national kids who catch them, pull off their wings and roast them as a tasty snack. The white lady is less pleased with their appearance as she is left to contend with hundreds of them who fly around the lights at night, dropping into every container imaginable and then who are gone by morning, leaving behind piles of paper fine wings everywhere. On those nights, it brings to mind the plagues of Egypt – I guess I should be thankful they are not frogs.

Another reason for the constant sweeping and mopping is all the medical work that I do on my front porch. I have established a “pus corner” here on the new porch, where I do all of my lancing and cleaning of wounds. I have an endless stream of visitors as well, with little kids peeing and occasionally pooping right on or just off of my porch. Even if you are inside the porch, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is happening when you hear me yelling “Hey, this is not a toilet” at someone.

Last but not least, I have piles – not of the Biblical sort – but piles none the less. I have a pile of stuff that I want to give away in the village, a pile of stuff that I need to sort through, a pile of stuff (usually in a trunk) of stuff I need to take back to CKY when I go next time, and always a trunk going of stuff that I need to give to my teammates the next times I see them. That is usually full by the time we meet – even in a week. It is full of books and videos that we trade around, meds that Mindie might need, or a grocery item that someone is short on, things that I want to pass on that someone might be interested in. And then we have paper piles – lists of emails I need to write and things I need to chat with my teammates about, list of groceries needed for whomever is going to CKY next, a pile of medical papers of sick people who are coming back to see me, my to-do list for the day.

All in all, I still LOVE a clean, neat house, but am much less anal about how my house looks than I used to be – mostly to preserve my sanity. My kids might not notice, but it is true. Not if I could just get them to pick up after themselves and experience the joy of a clean, neat room. . . .

Some things I really like about Frigi

Do you have those people that you just really like to be around? They make you think or laugh or smile inside? Our mason, Frigi, is one of those people.

He has been a friend to our teammates for several years – I think even since they arrived in Soulemania -but we have only really gotten to know him in the past 2 years that he has been working on our house. Of course, for much for much of the first year, I didn’t see him much, as Jim was here building and I was in Niaya with the kids. But starting a little over a year ago, I began to get to know him as I spent more and more time at the house. And the more I am around him, the more things that I find I like about him. Here are just a few of my favorites.

1.
I love to hear him answer when I call. Whether I am asking him if he knows where Jim is or if he is thirsty or hungry or if he needs something, whenever I call – “Mr. Frigi?”, he answers with, “Oui, Madame” in this great singsong kind of voice. A few months ago, he started calling me mom – because I take care of him, he says. That always makes me smile.

2.
I love how much he wants to please Jim and do a good job for him. He likes all of the guys on the team and works hard to please them, but I think there is added pressure because Jim used to be a mason and he wants very much for Jim to approve of his work.

3.
I love how every day he comes and thanks me for the lunch meal and for taking good care of him while he is here in the village working (he lives in another village where our teammates live but comes up for several days at a time.)

4.
I love how patient he is. When he finishes work, he takes a bucket of water and soap and goes out to a little enclosure in the back yard and bathes before going to the hut of our friend where he sleeps. One afternoon, he came to ask where his bucket was. I was busy on the porch with about 20 patients and told him I would get it for him in a few minutes. I got distracted and probably 30 – 40 minutes later I saw him sitting quietly on the porch with all of the patients, just waiting for me to take the time to help him. I felt horrible. I said, Why didn’t you remind me? Well, Madame, he said, you were busy and my needs aren’t as important so I can wait. I wanted to squish his guts! (For all you non-Andersons out there, squishing someone's guts is a good thing.)

5.
I love how he takes care of his wife. He hires workers to go to her farm so she doesn’t have to do that. He says he doesn’t believe that men should beat their wives and that they should help out at home because the women have a lot of work to do. . . that’s almost unheard of in a village guy – even among some American guys. ;^) And he loves to take gifts home for his family. Usually we take him home – so he likes to stop off and buy her some fire wood (the kind that burns quickly so she can cook as fast as all the other women and not be made fun of) and he likes to stop and buy peanuts and crackers for his kids. If our boys are with us, and they shoot a bushfowl, that becomes another gift. Once he bought a big fish and we put it at his feet in a bag, but the truck broke down and by the time we arrived at his house- it was smelling very ripe!!!

6.
I love to see him loitering in front of our house after a full day of work and a bath, in hopes that the boys (who have usually gone hunting) will bring him some “beef”. IF it gets late, he says, “If the twins come back with something, can they bring it up to me??? “ And they always do.

7.
I love that he is such a great person to ask cultural questions to. Since he does not live in our village, he has a different perspective than our friends here. So I can ask him questions and be assured that he will really think over the answer. Sometimes he is hesitant – wanting to make sure he does not offend us. He tries to be honest. He will say – Madame, I really don’t know the price of this or that. I want to be straight with my answer for you.

8.
I love his politeness. If he coughs or sneezes, he always says “pardon.” He apologizes for being late or for causing any trouble for you – whether real or imagined.

The one thing that makes me sad is that he does not know the Jesus road yet. But we are praying for that. In the mean time, we look forward to his visits. His work here is almost finished, and we will miss him a lot.

A few Random things said around our house lately that were probably not heard around yours

Can someone please bring the yogurt in from the car? I think is it done curing……

I make my own yogurt and it is a great snack for the kids and awesome on homemade granola for breakfast. I used to have an oven with a pilot light, but don’t have that now, so have tried to figure out ways to cure the yogurt to make it set. Recently, a missionary friend shared a tip of setting it in the car, because it gets so hot in there. I decided to try it – and it worked great!!! Yeah for solar energy!

Someone shot a porcupine – do we want to buy some meat?

Last week, my friend brought some meat that was for sale. That happens fairly regularly and so we have to make a decision about whether or not to buy it. We try to determine if it is fresh (if I can smell it walking down the porch steps- that will be a “no”), if the price is good (just what is the going rate for a kilo of porcupine?), and what kind of meat it is. We had a little trouble at first with this one because they were using a name we had not heard before. Fortunately (?), the foot was still attached so we were able to figure it out.

Now, I know my mom fixed porcupine when I was a kid (remember, I grew up in Africa)- so I have eaten it before. But, those of you who know me well, know that I don’t relish the job of butchering meat. (Remember, I like to cut it up and then put it in the freezer and forget it for a while and then pretend that I bought it at the store.) Anyway, our freezer is fairly empty and we are trying to stretch the meat we have to last until 2 ½ weeks from now when we go to CKY. So, we decided to go ahead and buy it. My husband graciously butchered the meat for us and put it in the fridge. But I kept thinking about it – all the while, feeling the bile in my throat. (The quills had been removed and the skin burned so that smell was in my mind.) But, since “I’m every woman”, I tried my best.

I pressured it (gagging as I put it in the pot) and decided to make barbeque beef with it. The “meat” was tough, and I was still feeling the bile in my throat as I prepared it. But I pressed on! It was a crazy busy night with sick people on the porch and so I sent the boys in to heat up the meat. Unfortunately, one of the boys said (really loudly), “Is this that porcupine?” which horrified Hannah, who then refused to eat it. (I do much better with her if she doesn’t know what was being served.)

Frankly, I was thankful for an excuse not to eat the meat either, and fortunately, I had a little bit of leftover chicken in the fridge, so Hannah and I split that. I realize completely that it is all a mental issue ( really, what is the difference in chicken or beef and porcupine, other than the fact that it is a rodent. :^) ) – but I figure as long as I know that, I am okay. Last night, we got some deer meat – which now needs to be pressured into – you guessed it, BBQ sandwiches. :^)

Can someone please pull the clothes off the fence and fold them?

Up until last week, I had no clothesline. So all of our laundry was hung up over the stick fence in the back yard. It actually worked okay and was a lot faster than using clothespins. There were some hazards, like splinters in the underwear, but as long as you were careful, they could be found and tragedy avoided. Then, last week, my husband gave me a gift of love and put up my clothesline. It is great.

Yesterday, I did about 5 loads of clothes and my lines were full of clean clothes, flapping in the breeze. It was a beautiful sight. I need to buy more clothespins in CKY – I have some plastic ones that are quickly dying – probably due to the fact that they were cheap and can’t take the equatorial sun beating down on them. My neighbors no doubt wonder why I would waste good rope that could tied up a cow to hang my clothes on when I could just throw them over the fence or lay them on the ground to dry, like they do. White women are very needy! :^)

I couldn’t bring the bandage for you to wrap my leg because the cow ate it.

I heard that excuse for the first time last week, when I was doing wound care on a little girl with a sore on her leg. It struck me so funny – the African equivalent to “the dog ate my homework.” When I care for a bigger wound, I put medicine and gauze on the wound, and then wrap it with strips of cloth – like the old bandages from WW 1 and WW 2. Each patient gets 2 – so we can rotate and they can wash one and have the other in use. The system works great – except if there are cows wandering through the village – which there always are.

They are fairly destructive and will eat just about anything! Life here for medical things is just rough. Often I am told that a child’s medical carnet (a little booklet with a record of vaccines and medicines) cannot be produced (for my viewing pleasure)for a variety of reasons: my kid dropped it a. in the fire b. in the water c. on the road. Or, my kid peed on it (that is by far the most often heard excuse.) Or, I lost it.

I have been pleased to see that my villagers are quickly catching on to the fact that they MUST bring back the piece of paper I give them with a list of the medicines that they have received here, or I will not see their child again. I hear them telling each other to not lose it and bring it back – as I am treating other patients. Now, if I could just get the cows to cooperate!

See For Yourself

Remeber Mama Beri from this post? Enjoy.

A Few Random Things Said Around Our House Lately That Were Probably Not Heard Around Yours.

Can someone please bring the yogurt in from the car? I think is it done curing.

I make my own yogurt and it is a great snack for the kids and awesome on homemade granola for breakfast. I used to have an oven with a pilot light, but don’t have that now, so have tried to figure out ways to cure the yogurt to make it set. Recently, a missionary friend shared a tip of setting it in the car, because it gets so hot in there. I decided to try it and it worked great!!! Yeah for solar energy!

Someone shot a porcupine, do we want to buy some meat?

Last week, my friend brought some meat that was for sale. That happens fairly regularly and so we have to make a decision about whether or not to buy it. We try to determine if it is fresh (if I can smell it walking down the porch steps, that will be a “no”), if the price is good (just what is the going rate for a kilo of porcupine?), and what kind of meat it is. We had a little trouble at first with this one because they were using a name we had not heard before. Fortunately (?), the foot was still attached so we were able to figure it out.

Now, I know my mom fixed porcupine when I was a kid (remember, I grew up in Africa) so I have eaten it before. But, those of you who know me well, know that I don’t relish the job of butchering meat. (Remember, I like to cut it up and then put it in the freezer and forget it for a while and then pretend that I bought it at the store.) Anyway, our freezer is fairly empty and we are trying to stretch the meat we have to last until 2 ½ weeks from now when we go to CKY. So, we decided to go ahead and buy it. My husband graciously butchered the meat for us and put it in the fridge. But I kept thinking about it – all the while, feeling the bile in my throat. (The quills had been removed and the skin burned so that smell was in my mind.) But, since “I’m every woman” I tried my best.

I pressured it (gagging as I put it in the pot) and decided to make barbeque beef with it. The “meat” was tough, and I was still feeling the bile in my throat as I prepared it. But I pressed on! It was a crazy busy night with sick people on the porch and so I sent the boys in to heat up the meat. Unfortunately, one of the boys said (really loudly), “Is this that porcupine?” which horrified Hannah, who then refused to eat it. (I do much better with her if she doesn’t know what was being served.) Frankly, I was thankful for an excuse not to eat the meat either and, fortunately, I had a little bit of leftover chicken in the fridge, so Hannah and I split that.

I realize completely that it is all a mental issue (really, what is the difference in chicken or beef and porcupine, other than the fact that it is a rodent. :^) ) but I figure as long as I know that, I am okay. Last night, we got some deer meat – which now needs to be pressured into, you guessed it, BBQ sandwiches. :^)

Can someone please pull the clothes off the fence and fold them?

Up until last week, I had no clothesline. So all of our laundry was hung up over the stick fence in the back yard. It actually worked okay and was a lot faster than using clothespins. There were some hazards, like splinters in the underwear, but as long as you were careful, they could be found and tragedy avoided. Then, last week, my husband gave me a gift of love and put up my clothesline. It is great. Yesterday, I did about 5 loads of clothes and my lines were full of clean clothes, flapping in the breeze. It was a beautiful sight. I need to buy more clothespins in CKY. I have some plastic ones that are quickly dying, probably due to the fact that they were cheap and can’t take the equatorial sun beating down on them.

My neighbors no doubt wonder why I would waste good rope that could tied up a cow to hang my clothes on when I could just throw them over the fence or lay them on the ground to dry, like they do. White women are very needy! :^)

I couldn’t bring the bandage for you to wrap my leg because the cow ate it. . . .

I heard that excuse for the first time last week, when I was doing wound care on a little girl with a sore on her leg. It struck me so funny – the African equivalent of “the dog ate my homework.” When I care for a bigger wound, I put medicine and gauze on the wound, and then wrap it with strips of cloth, like the old bandages from WWI and WWII. Each patient gets 2 so we can rotate and they can wash one and have the other in use. The system works great, except if there are cows wandering through the village, which there always are. They are fairly destructive and will eat just about anything!

Life here for medical things is just rough.

Often I am told that a child’s medical carnet (a little booklet with a record of vaccines and medicines) cannot be produced for my viewing pleasure for a variety of reasons:

My kid dropped it

a. in the fire

b. in the water

c. on the road.

My kid peed on it. (That is by far the most often heard excuse.)

I lost it.

I have been pleased to see that my villagers are quickly catching on to the fact that they MUST bring back the piece of paper I give them with a list of the medicines that they have received here, or I will not see their child again. I hear them telling each other to not lose it and bring it back as I am treating other patients.

Now, if I could just get the cows to cooperate!

We Are NOT In Kansas Anymore

Most days, I love living in another culture. I am thankful that I was blessed with a childhood in West Africa . Perhaps that, and the four generations of our family that have served in this part of the world, fuels my love of the people and the languages and allows me to celebrate how God has uniquely created this place and these people. I am fascinated by the way people do things, and the language they speak, how they express themselves and what excites and encourages, as well as what bothers and discourages them. It is amazing to me.

Just this week, Jim and I went to visit the doctor who supervises this area. There were about 15 of us –all squashed into a little room – people sitting on stools and broken chairs and exam tables or just standing. The whole experience was intriguing to me – from the discussion that bounced back and forth between 4 languages (I only understood 2 so was lost at least half of the time), to whom got to sit where, and all the unspoken, but obviously understood, hierarchies of power and influence. I met both of the doctor’s wives. “This is my first wife and this is my second wife.” (We are SO not in Kansas anymore.)

Language is another things that I love to discover more about. I don’t necessarily enjoy the painful process of learning another language, mind you. Speaking like a toddler when you are an adult is frustrating and embarrassing much of the time. Being in the middle of a deep discussion and realizing that you don’t have a certain word that you need (either because you forgot it or never learned it) can make you want to beat your head against the wall. On the other hand, when you do learn a new word, and use it correctly, it can be exciting. Just yesterday, I used the word “yellow” correctly for the first time when describing medicine and the lady I said it to was excited. And it is always fun to meet people who haven’t been around us, because they are AMAZED that a white person can speak their language. Those who are new to us will say, “DID you hear her? She said Hi. Wow, she said that well!” Makes me smile.

In some ways, though, we have been in the country almost 5 years, I feel like we are back at square one because our new village is surrounded by other ethnic groups – so many people have to bring an interpreter with them so we can communicate. Here is a typical discussion:

Why are you here?
My child is sick.
How is your child sick?
His body is warm and his belly is running.
How long has he been sick?
Not only since today.
How long is that?

And on and on we go.

Of course, I speak in Yalunka , which is then translated into another language and then the reverse happens, so the whole process takes a very long time. Lately, I have to smile when our friends Sayon and Mordika help me. The patient will answer and they will say, “Gulun-nga, you heard what they said” and will proceed to translate and I am thinking in my mind, if I heard what they said, I wouldn’t need you to translate for me. :^)

They repeat the same thing to my patient. I will ask a question and they will to say to patient, “You heard what she said” (which obviously they didn’t) and proceed to translate.

I am also intrigued by what is considered important or insulting or what causes joy or sorrow. Here is a great example. Last week, I went back to our old village with my teammate, Dawn, where she led a Bible study with the church ladies there. Dawn has been teaching on marriage and this time, we were discussing what God expects from a husband so they could be informed and help their husbands honor God. (This week is about what God expects from wives.)

I love to sit there with them and hear what they think about different subjects. So, Dawn asks the question "In your culture, how can a man show love to his wife? If he sees his wife is very busy with the kids and the cooking and the farm work, how can he help?" I was thinking about how an American would answer that question. Maybe he could take the kids for the afternoon or offer to make supper or take the family out to eat. . . . I loved what my friends in Niaya came up with. They discussed it for a while and decided that the best way a man could show love to his wife was to hire people to go out to his wife’s farm and pull grass so the rice didn’t get choked out. I LOVE that! What a wonderful expression of the difference in cultures!

We continue in a learning role, studying our new culture and observing and questioning and listening. We're amazed to learn that so much of what we do as people reflects how we have been raised and our culture. How wonderful that we are not all the same! More and more we gain a deep appreciation for our friends here, for their hard work and perseverance. And we find ourselves thankful that we are not in Kansas (or the US) anymore because, while not always easy, it is a huge privilege to be here!

The blind leading the blind. . . sort of.

As I mentioned in my last entry, languages fascinate me. They confound and frustrate me as well, if I can’t get my point across, but I love to learn expressions and the undercurrents of phrases and sayings. Even in English, I wonder where certain sayings come from – like a bird in the hand is worth 2 in the bush or a stitch in time saves nine. How did those sayings start?

I love to hear sayings from other cultures. For instance, if a Yalunka wants someone to listen, they say, “Stand up your ears!” or to look at something, they say, “Stand up your eyes!” If a child dies, a mom will often say that her child was “taken from her hands” or that her baby “didn’t last long in her hands.” If you are worried, angry or frustrated, your liver is warm or is not sitting down. When you are released from worry, your liver “cools” or “sits down.” (

s I mentioned in the past, to a Yalunka, the liver is the seat of your emotions – used in place of our “heart”. But interestingly, the temperatures differ. To have a warm heart here means you are upset – while for Americans, a warm heart means you are affectionate. To a Yalunka, a cold heart means you have peace, while in our culture, to call someone “cold-hearted” has a negative connotation.

Here are a few more examples:

If someone is crazy, they will say, “her head is not sitting down well.”

If someone is blind or deaf, they say their eyes or ears are “not there”.

While we would say that someone “fell” sick, an African might say that a person was “held” by a sickness.

I had an interesting discussion with Sayon the other day. He was sick. I wrote down a medicine on a paper and how many pills he needed and I told him to go and buy medicine in the market that was coming that day. I followed that by saying, “please, when you buy the medicine, bring it to me because sometimes what I write and what the person selling the medicines sells you is not the same.”

Sayon has heard my speech before. It goes something like this “PLEASE do NOT just go and buy medicine in the market for your child, because, while that person selling the medicine probably has a good liver (translation – they are a good person), they are not a doctor, and they don’t know what medicine you should take. And kids and adults are not the same and don’t take the same strength of medicine…… and on and on I go.

So, he said to me, “Yes, I will bring you the medicine because it is like this: Usually, the person selling the medicine is like a person with no eyes because he is not educated. And the person buying the medicine is also like a person with no eyes, because they are not educated. So you have two people with no eyes who grab each other’s hands and fall into a hole.” I started to laugh. I said, we have that same saying in our language – the blind leading the blind. It amazed me that the same expressions surfaced – worlds apart.

We have also been amused to discover the expressions they use to excuse themselves because they need to go to the bathroom. I have heard Americans say – “I need to go and talk to a man about a dog(or horse)”. Our friends here might say, “I need to go greet my in-laws.” Our guard told us the other day when he returned from the bathroom “Sorry, I had to go and post a letter.”
They can also be very emphatic about things. I treated a little girl the other day and I told the dad that I wanted him to bring her back in a few days so I could see if she was better. He looked at me and said, “If I am NOT dead, I will be back in a few days. If I am not DEAD, I will be here.” I thought, alrighty then. I guess that is about all I can ask for, isn’t it?

Medical cases always bring new expressions too.

If a person has diarrhea, they will say that their bellies are running. I have been told that people have things “walking” in their bellies or “snakes” in there. If a baby has an ear infection, they will come complaining that the mom’s breast is coming out of the child’s ear – for which our teammates coined the term “nipplitis”. (The explanation is that the infection is usually so bad that there is pus draining from the ear, which looks like breast milk, thus the mom’s nipple has fallen into the ear.)

And so goes the school of language and culture. It keeps us on our toes and certainly keeps us humble.

When will she ever learn????????

I got that look again last weekend. I get it on a regular basis since I have moved here. It is a sad, kind of pitying look – a kind of unbelief that fills people’s eyes as they contemplate how someone who is at least somewhat educated (enough to be a “doctor”) could have made it this far in life without some basic knowledge of how to survive. This week, it was about cassava…….



Cassava is a root vegetable that is similar in texture (but not taste) to a potato and is widely eaten here. It can be boiled, or eaten raw. It can also be dried and then eaten like that (kind of like gnawing on chalk) or pounded and made into powder, then added to water and eaten as a glue-like porridge. The skin is poisonous and has to be removed before eating. It has hardly any nutritional value – but can be filling. The only way I like it is boiled and then served with butter and salt. We are offered it often(raw) and the nationals are always amazed that we eat it. Since I don’t personally know how to cook it, last week I asked my dish lady to cook some that I had been given so we could eat it. She looked at me and said, “Is it the kind that can be cooked?”. Obviously, I had a dumb look on my face because she went on to say, “You know, Gulun-nga, not all cassava can be cooked.” Another dumb look on my part. “Did you ask the people that gave it to you if it could be cooked?” she asked in a patient tone. I hung my head and shook it. Trying to redeem myself, I said “Wait.” and ran inside to get it for her to look at, thinking that maybe she could tell by the look (even though it all looks the same to me). No luck. You can’t tell by looking at it – only by knowing the kind you planted. So I gave it to her to keep and dry, and she walked away, kind of smiling to herself – that sad, pitying smile that tells me she is wondering how I manage to survive.



I have gotten that look before – when people ask me if I have a peanut or rice farm (I have planted peanuts and harvested rice a few times (for a few hours) –though would be hard pressed to feed my family at it), if I can beat and fan rice (which I can’t without spilling it everywhere), or if I can carry water on my head (which I couldn’t if my life depended on it – at least not without holding on to the bucket and spilling more than half before I got to my destination! – unlike my friends, who, along with their kids, heft large, open tubs and buckets of water onto their heads with no effort and trot off down the path without even looking – and they rarely fall – amazing!). As a side note – I have often wondered why these little African girls can carry water on their heads without spilling. Is it genetic or is it training from a young age- or is it both????? But I digress –



Washing clothes is another of my downfalls. Since we only recently (last week) brought our washing machine to the new house, most of my laundry is done by my friend who schleps it off in a big laundry tub on her head three times a week. She washes it with bar soap made in the country and scrubs the life out of them on an old time wash board – which does NOTHING to extend the life of the clothing. She loves the money she makes, and I love having clean clothes. I do miss the smell of Tide, though, I must confess, and am thankful that it is dry season so she can no longer wash them in the river/swamp (there was definitely NO clean smell of Tide there!) Now she does them in the well water at her house. Anyway, I occasionally wash things out by hand – delicate things, unmentionables, etc – which I would like to survive more than a few months. So, I was in the process of washing some items the other day and my dish lady was again watching me. I basically put soap in the water and on the garment and scrub it between my hands for a while. None of it was drastically dirty. But she was fascinated. I scrubbed for a little while and then decided to call it good. “You don’t know how to wash clothes, do you?” she asks. “Yes, I do. This is getting clean,” I retort. “Are you finished already?” she wondered. Embarrassed, I said, “Of course not.” And went back to my scrubbing. Thankfully she left soon after that - sad smile of pity in place -and I stopped with my scrubbing and rinsed and hung them.



Basically, I am fairly useless in all things that it takes to survive here in the bush of Africa. They don’t even think I know how to cook, since I give away all of my jars and tins cans (village recycling) and they think that EVERYTHING we eat comes out of those. When I think about it, just about every meal involves something that started in a can or jar – veggies or tomatoes or mayo or a sauce or oatmeal or jelly or peanut butter. But I chuckle to myself when they say I don’t know how to cook, because I think of how time consuming cooking is in my day here in Africa – and how easy it is to cook in the US. And I think, if you only knew…………



But , bless their hearts, they seem to love me anyway and trust me to take care of their kids. I may not know how to grill peanuts, but I can treat a baby with malaria. I may not know how to beat rice or wash large piles of clothes by hand, but I can deliver babies and clean and bandage wounds. So maybe, just maybe, there is hope for me yet.

What's In A Name?

I was contemplating names the other day, and I realized that I go by many. I did have a nickname as a child – I won’t tell you what it was. :^) My mom still calls me by that occasionally. Of course, I have gone by Dawn as long as I can remember. :^) In 1992, I added the name “wife” to the list, though Jim does not generally use that when he needs me for something. :^) I am not sure I could respond well to “WIFE – come here!” In 1995, I added the name Mommy – which morphed into Mom and now occasionally (by the boys) Mere –which is the French version. Upon entering Guinea, “Madame Anderson” was added as the formal, respectful French name for a married woman. As I entered the village, I acquired 3 new names. I am referred to by the nationals as either “doctor” or “Gulun Nga” (twin mom) or Madame. Recently, since the boys are getting taller than me – they refer to me as gbo-nga (the big kids mom ) as they have nicknamed the boys “gbo.” (In Yalunka culture, you are referred to as the mom of your first born – kind of like saying – oh, you are so and so’s mom.)



Over the radio by my teammates, I am referred to as GKB (formerly as Niaya) Dawn to distinguish me from Soulemania Dawn (Cluckie). And my teammates kids call me “Aunt Dawn.” Of course, this summer, when my “official” blood niece called me Aunt Dawn for the first time, it was an incredibly sweet sound and will still get the child just about anything she wants!



Three years ago, I also added “n to” (pronounced with a long “o” sound) to my names, which means “my namesake” and my little namesake loves to call to me as she runs up for me to hold her. Her mom told me the other day that she tells everyone that her “to” moved to GKB.



One other name that I love is when I am called “mom” or “mommy” by our 60ish year old chauffer, Mr. Bah. He refers to all of the team women that way as a sign of respect and it is very sweet. When I call him, he answers with “yes, Mom” and it brings a smile to my face. And then a few weeks ago, our mason, Frigi, whom we have work with for almost 2 years and is one of my favorite Guineans, started calling me “n na” – my mom. He said I have become his mom now. It was very sweet as well.



My contemplating left me very thankful that I have avenues into each of these “segments” of life that have bestowed different names on me. Occasionally, on a bad day, though, you might find me hiding in response to one of those names being called out loud – especially if it is the 10th or 12th time I have been called in a very short time. But generally, I love them all.

Well it is that time of year again. . . Christmas and New Years parties and Female Circumcision?

Unfortunately, in the part of the world where we live, those all seem to go together. Since this is read by many people of various ages and walks of life, I will spare you the details of the whole event, which are gruesome, in my opinion. Suffice it to say that female circumcision is widely practiced here, even though declared illegal by the government.

Much of my understanding of the process has brought a great amount of frustration and anger. I have a limited knowledge of the beginnings of the tradition, except that is was started to prevent women from having the desire to cheat on their husbands. Of course, that was many years ago and it has evolved into a “coming of age” type of ceremony. It is practiced by women on girls between 11 and 14. (As a side note, boys are circumcised at the same age as a passage into manhood.) As I stated, I felt only anger about the “tradition”, which leads to a lot of complication in childbirth, both for mom and baby.

In the old village, most people knew how we “white” people felt about the whole thing – and usually avoid talking about it with me – though I did have a few close women friends who would discuss it. I, of course, knew the subject would come up in the new village, and wondered how best to approach it. I hate the practice, but also realize that I am a guest in this country and need to conduct myself in that manner. Two days ago, I heard the dancing and the partying and the gun shots that signify something big is happening in the village and I wondered if it was that time of year. Indeed, Monday morning, I saw numerous women walking back and forth on the path behind our house and I knew what was happening.

My opportunity came just a little while later as I chatted with some of my new friends. I started by asking what was going on and went on to explain that “white doctors” and many African women from other countries do not believe in the practice because it can lead to problems with childbirth (also due to a host of other reasons that I could never begin to explain in another language.) They just smiled, and said they had heard that on the radio as well. They laughed and said, yes, those girls are in pain now, because it hurts so much. That made me mad. Why would you laugh about that? If you had been subjected to that as a girl (the girls have no idea what is going to happen to them), why would you do the same thing to your daughter?

While I feel anger about the whole thing, I also am drawn to watching the whole scene (not the actual ceremony but the events surrounding it). I suppose it is a bit of a morbid fascination, like rubber-necking at a car accident. I watch the women dancing and singing and celebrating, and I realize that they have no clue about the complications that can follow. They are simply celebrating woman hood. Secretly, there have been times when I wished a lot of girls would have immediate complications, so I could point out exactly why I hate the practice (not because I want the girls to be hurt, of course.) Saying that it complicates childbirth is just too vague and with consequences too far away – especially in a fatalistic society where everything that happens is just chance. They were even so pleased about the whole event that they brought the “practitioners” who perform the ceremony to meet me.

And last year, I was shown another side, when one of my best friends in the old village had her daughter circumcised (one of Hannah’s friends). She was terrified for her daughter but saw no alternative if her daughter wanted to get married some day. It is the only way they know for a girl to become a woman in this society.

And so, on I go, educating when I can, and praying for understanding for the women and praying even more for the little girls. Maybe, just maybe, in my lifetime, there will be another way for the women to feel that their daughters can become women.