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.