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.

One Man's Trash

One thing that amazes me here in Africa is that very little gets wasted. That is a great thing because waste is one thing that nearly makes me insane in the US. We can hardly stand to know how much grocery stores and restaurants throw away, as we watch people go hungry here in the village. So that is one blessing here in Guinea. I rarely throw food away. Even when I cook chickens, people want the broth and bones to use for their rice and sauce. Of course, it took me a little while to feel comfortable offering that to people – but they love it and the broth contains great nutrients for their kids.

But even beyond food, many things we would dispose of in the US gets passed right out my back door. Almost everything gets snatched up. Cardboard boxes – you bet. Batteries that you think are too dead to use – I have many takers. My national friends tell me that they don’t consider a battery dead until “water” is leaking out. 2 -3 inch pieces of glass that we cut to make the windows fit – they are destined to be glass for picture frames. Tin cans – play things and “cooking pots” for little kids. Glass jars – women love them to put oil and salt in. Plastic jugs become new water bottles. Old bike tires – the tube can be cut into strips for tying things and the outside becomes a “car” for a little boy to roll down a path. Old clothes – hand them out. Someone will use them. Big plastic bags become rain slickers for kids or mattress protectors from bed wetters. Fuzzy toilet lid cover – voila – a new hat. The village doctor loves the kid’s old school papers to wrap medicine in. And when you buy bread o the street, it comes wrapped in torn pieces of cement bags.

OF course, there is a limit. Old, used medical gloves become a new balloon. I really try to stop that but the kids break the locks on the trash pits and dig them out to play with them. The concept of germs is just not happening. Even old pregnancy tests become play things – I am sure it puzzles them why the white woman gets really FUSSY when she sees those in their hands and takes away their newly acquired toys!

I am sure we are a mystery to the villagers – giving away perfectly good tins and jars and batteries. But in the end, everyone is happy and we have no landfills here. It is recycling at this best!