Allo. . . .

This is a new word heard all over our village.  In fact, I am told by friends, who heard it on the radio (so we know it MUST be true) that “Allo” is one word that is universally used by most people who have phones.  We never thought it would actually happen here – being able to talk on the phone in our little village.  People here LOVE it – they can call their families scattered all over the country!  It is a great way for them to stay connected.  It is SUPER weird to walk through the village and hear phones ringing and people answering.  AMAZING!  And we love it too.  We have been waiting for this day for over 8 years.

It is so great to be able to call our kids and other families and check on them.  It is great to be able to text and call to other international workers here in Guinea without having to call our teammates, Bruce and Dawn, on the radio and ask them to text or call OR drive the 12 miles to where we could get phone reception before and try from there.  Jim is in CKY this week, and for the first time since we have lived here, we don’t have to rely on Bruce and Dawn to pass messages on the radio for us (I am quite sure they are just as excited about that as we are!)  Yesterday when he was out shopping, I think he called me 10 times to clarify different things.  Every evening, we have been able to chat about our days and I was able to call and text him as they drove to find out how the trip was going.  As I said – an AMAZING blessing!

Having said that, there are still a few bugs in the system.  I am NOT complaining here – I promise.  But you do need to understand that it is not as simple as receiving and making phone calls in the house while you sit in a chair.  We can only get phone reception in a few spots in the house, and none of those spots have enough of a signal to make it possible to have a conversation.  So, our phone sits in a window on one side of the house where we get enough reception (most of the time) to receive messages and to hear the phone ringing.  There are a few other spots that sometimes, depending on the time of day, offer the same coverage.  However, the signal is not strong enough to talk, so, when the phone rings, you are required to dash outside to the front porch, where the signal is stronger.  Most of the time, the signal is lost during the short run through the house, so you have to call the person back again.

The front porch also has its draw backs:

1.       Occasionally, we close our door so we can rest or do some work – making ourselves unavailable to the village for an hour or so.  It is a little hard to reinforce that you are NOT available, when people see you sitting and chatting away on the phone.

2.       Also, anytime people pass you (there is a small path in front of our house), they say hi and you are required, by culture, to say hi back.  This can be very confusing to the person you are talking with on the phone.

3.       BATS – these nasty, rabies-infected vermin fly outside at night and so, as you sit there chatting in the dark, you can see, hear, and occasionally feel them (at least feel the breeze they create as they fly by).  I don’t like bats.  I know that they eat mosquitos and all of that, but I can’t stand them!  I am not a big fan of things flying at me in the night – especially ones that carry deadly diseases, but I digress.

So, yesterday, Jim called often.  I was thrilled to talk to him and was so glad to be able to get information and answer his questions.  But it required a lot of running in and out.  I should note here that I often just wear short or capris in the house, but those are not acceptable dress in the village.  So, if I go outside, I wrap a cloth around me, called a dugina, so that I am not seen outside by other in my “underwear”.  The problem is that we have 3 doors in our house, and I use my dugina whenever I go out.   I can never remember where I take it off and leave it, so while I am trying to answer the phone, I am also searching for my dugina so I am decent when I go outside.

Then last night I was slightly exasperated.  I missed a few phone calls from Jim because I had accidently turned the ring tone off in one of my dashes outside.  By the time I noticed this, I had already locked up and crawled in bed for the night – so I texted him to say - sorry I missed your calls.  Sleep well.   Then I put the phone on our headboard – one of the other spots we can get a signal.  A few minutes later, the phone rang – it was Jim.  I answered it, trying to lean over the headboard in the hopes that the reception would be good.  No luck.   

So I ran, in the dark, to the other end of the house (I couldn’t find my shoes and was a little concerned about going outside barefoot because of snakes and scorpions, but not overly worried.)  I decided to forego the dugina because it was pitch black outside – and was fumbling to unlock the door.  I finally got to the porch, watching the shadows of the bats flying all around and called Jim back – because, of course, I had lost the signal on the way.   “Oh, he said, I was just returning a call from your text.  Can’t talk now – I am Skyping with Hannah.”  Alrighty then!  I was a little frustrated.  I said -OK – I am going to bed – way back down the hall – behind a locked door – I will call you in the morning.

The other thing that looks like it will be a potential issue is that all of our friends here in the village are getting phones.  And they all want our number.  So that they can call.  Whenever they want.  They are enthralled with the phone and like to call up various people just to say hi for a minute – and then hang up.  If they call us for important reasons, that is not a problem.  But if I have to start dashing outside, just to have someone call to “shoot the breeze” who didn’t want to walk to my house, it will not be pretty.  

 Another issue that international colleagues of ours have is that people will call to talk to them, but hang up before they answer the phone.  That way, you have to call them back- and they don’t have to pay for the phone call.  We have not really given out our number yet, but decided to keep two phones – one for our friends in the village, and one for our families and missions community.  That way we will always know who is calling.  And we will NOT return phone calls that are hang ups!

So, like I said, I am NOT complaining, and we are THRILLED to have reception.  We will take it any way we can get it.  I will be thankful when I don’t have to run out the door to talk to someone, but I NEVER want to take phone reception for granted.  What an AMAZING blessing!

My To Do List

I am a list maker by nature.  I love lists….  I love to make them, I love to cross things off of them, I love the feeling at the end of the day when everything is marked off:  I LOVE lists.  I am a fairly organized person, and very task oriented.  That serves me well as a nurse and as a team leader.  It sometimes gets in the way, however, living in a society that is neither list nor time nor task oriented.  I like routine (I know, you are thinking – WHY do you live in a small village in Africa?).  

I like it when my schedule stays kind of the same: get up and have coffee and quiet time with God, talk with my husband over breakfast, clean my house, visit with people, write emails and do other business type things,  treat sick people, relax with my husband, go to bed.  I am a pretty simple girl!

Often, one of my biggest sources of frustration in the village is when I am involved in a task and I get “interrupted”.   

A few weeks ago, Jim and I got called out early in the morning to go and see the chief, who was quite sick.  We had not had coffee or eaten yet- but we went.  I assessed his status, gave him some medicine, instructed the family to take him to the hospital, prayed for him, and then we came home.  The whole event took about an hour.  But by the time we got home, there were other people waiting for us and we never had a chance to complete our usual morning routine.  Both Jim and I felt a little out of sorts the whole day.

But last week was the WORST.  I decided a few weeks back that I wanted to repaint the inside of our house.  Now, I hate painting  with a passion – all the taping and moving of furniture and prep work – but I love the look of freshly painted walls.  The whole project filled my husband with dread.  He knows how one home improvement project leads to another, which leads to another.  You know the story – we started painting and that led to me asking Jim to fill in a chunk of concrete that had fallen out of the wall around a window.   

After the painting was done and looked fresh and clean, I noticed that the light fixtures were filthy – so those had to be cleaned.  Then I wanted to hang the new curtains that I had bought in the US, but the curtain rods were too big in diameter.  I went to trade some out of the school house, but those were too long.  So we had to cut them to the right length (and by we, I mean Jim).  I also noticed cobwebs on the ceiling and needed Jim’s help to sweep them down.  And of course, fresh paint also made my windows look dirty, so I decided to wash them – but I CLEARLY couldn’t  hang dirty curtains back up on clean windows, so those needed to be washed as well.  Get the picture???

Anyway, we started painting and people kept coming.  Some were sick, some wanted to chat, and some came for other various reasons.  With each interruption, I got more and more frustrated.   Seriously, almost every 15 – 20 minutes, someone else knocked at the door.  Now, if I were a “better” missionary, I would probably have been grateful for the opportunity to serve others.  I would have looked at each “interruption” as an opportunity to show Jesus’ love to people.  

 However, that was NOT EXACTLY my response.  I got madder and madder with each knock at the door.  Finally a woman who is a bit of a “thorn in my flesh” (are missionaries allowed to say things like that????) showed up with a sick person.  She had been to my house every day that week with a different sick person, asking me to make an exception for that person and to treat them (even though I was not treating patients until the clinic opened).  This person had an infected toe – I said, “Come back tomorrow.”  She tried again – can’t you help her right now?  I said, “Listen, I am working inside and you are the 20^th person who has come today.  I can’t finish what I am doing.  You need to come tomorrow!”   

She looked at me like I was crazy – like she understood my words, but wasn’t sure how they applied to her – and said, “This is the first time I have come today.”  I said, “Yes, but so have 20 other people.”  Again, she looked like she was searching for why that should matter to her.  I said, “Sorry, I know that you haven’t been here yet, but many other people have.  I am working in my house today and you will need to come back tomorrow.”  She finally left.  In my own defense, I really wasn’t supposed to be treating patients, and this woman was not deathly ill, and had already had the problem for a week, so I was quite sure that she could wait another 18 hours.  

However, my attitude needed a little fine-tuning.  I felt convicted and I ended up asking God to forgive me for putting projects ahead of people – a prayer that will NO DOUBT have to be repeated many times again.  I still love my lists –and I do see value in them.  And I know it is okay to want to get things done.  But I am working to not lump everybody into one big interruption and to see each person as an individual.  In some ways, that woman WAS right.  She had not been there bothering me all day.  It was not her fault that she was the 20^th person to show up – her needs were legitimate too.  

I have a long way to go and much to learn.  But in the meantime, I will go and mark this blog entry off my list of things to do today!  ;^)

The Python in the Trash Pit (or) Why It Took Me 2 Hours To Throw Away a Small Bucket of Trash

 People have occasionally asked me how we get rid of our trash.  Obviously, it is not as easy as putting it in a big container and dragging it out to the curb (mostly since we don’t have a curb.)  We actually recycle a LOT of stuff.  Empty cans, plastic containers, and jars are given out in the village, along with used batteries (since we like our flashlights quite bright and throw away batteries that still have “fire” in them, according to our friends).  Used papers can be given away to wrap medicine or freshly fried donuts in.  And we compost a ton of stuff.   

So we don’t actually have a lot of trash.  But we do have a trash pit in our backyard where we throw away things that are not useful in the village.  It is fairly deep (now around 20 feet) and we have a cement cover over it with a hinged door that we can lock so as to remove temptation from the little village kids who are QUITE CERTAIN that we are throwing away massive amounts of treasures and like to poke sticks down into and drag up whatever they can.  (That makes me insane, knowing all of the medical waste that goes down into the pit.)  Jim (and our intern Curtis) made a burn barrel so that we can more effectively incinerate the trash before it goes down into the oxygen starved hole.

The pit is located outside our fence, back behind the magasin (or garage like structure).  When we returned from home assignment, we spent a lot of time getting the house cleaned and back in order.  We were home for several days before I ventured out to throw away some trash.  It was morning and I was busily trying to get a lot done that day.  As I rounded the corner of the magasin, I noticed that Jim had left the door to the pit open, which is a little unusual, given the marauding little treasure hunters in the area.

I was curious about how deep the pit was now– as obviously it has been filling up with use over the years.  I wondered if the 4 months of no use had allowed for more decay, so I peered down into the pit to check on it.  I saw a few bags of trash that had been pitched in but not burned, and then noticed what looked at first like an old piece of tire.  That seemed strange, because I didn’t remember throwing away a tire, but also knew that a mind can forget a lot in 4 months.  I took a closer look and it looked like a pattern on the rubber.  It was quite strange.  I stared longer, and realized that I was staring at a python.  

 Now, pythons are not uncommon in this area, but we really don’t see many snakes.  He (I am assuming on gender here) was sleeping peacefully on top of the trash.  I yelled for Jim – I think he could tell that there was something wrong.  I said, Bring a gun.  There is a python in the trash pit.  That seemed to liven his step a little.  We stared at it for a while – he really was beautiful.  However, we were not entirely certain that he was trapped in there (where he no doubt went to get the rats that live down there – probably falling in while chasing one.)  Since pythons are known for eating small animals (we have 2 cats) and have been known to kill humans, he had to go! (We even saw a python in Sierra Leone that had swallowed a whole calf.)  Jim went back inside to get a flashlight – I reminded him about a gun as well.

When he came back, he only had the flashlight and a long metal tube.  He felt certain that he could kill it without “wasting a bullet”.  Not one to doubt my husband, I was never-the-less a bit unsure of this plan.  I possibly said something like “Really, are you SURE?  Because we only have a few hundred rounds in the house?”  But alas, his caveman instincts won and we both lay on our stomachs to get closer to the bottom of the pit.  He shoved the metal into the snake – got him on the first blow – and held it in place.  “There”, he said.  “Simple.” 

 I said, “Isn’t that the snake hissing?”

Inconceivable (that might be a paraphrase :^)  ),  He said,  “The snake is dead.”

He twisted the metal a little more and boom – the python was gone – under the trash.  He stabbed and stabbed and I stabbed and stabbed.  We were fairly certain that with all that stabbing, we had mortally wounded the snake and that he would surely die.

Jim wanted to be certain.  So, much to my dismay, he put on heavy boots, lowered a ladder down into the pit, and went down after it.  Using a pickaxe, he dug and dug.  He was quite a sight down there – pickaxe in one hand and a machete in the other.  No luck – NO sign of the snake.  By this time, about 2 hours has passed since I had gone out to throw away my little bucket of trash.  I thought – THIS is why everything takes so much longer in Africa.

We hauled the ladder back up, assuring ourselves that he would surely die in the pit.  We plugged up the few little holes that he might possibly escape through and left.

Throughout the day, I went back and checked – no snake.  I thought – well, I guess Jim was right.  But I worried every time I let the cats outside.

The next morning, I went out again.  Sure enough, there the python lay on top of the trash again – like nothing had happened.  Seriously????  He didn’t even look injured.  I yelled for Jim – this time, he decided on his own to bring the gun.  He lay back down on his stomach, put the gun into the hole, and shot.  This time there was no doubt.  However, we are fascinated by snakes and were curious to see how long he was – since he looked about 10 feet long down there in the pit – so we wanted to haul his body out.   

By this time, Sayon and Mordeka arrived for their morning coffee.  They looked a little dubious about the whole “retrieving the dead snake” thing.  “You don’t want to leave him down there?” they asked.   We were certain that we wanted to see him, so they obliged us and pulled him out. He was only 4 feet long – though I decided that he was CLEARLY much longer in real life and that probably, when he died, his muscles contracted and shorted him a good foot or 2!  (See, I could have been a fisherwoman as I have heard that the same thing happens when you fish.)

And THAT is why throwing a small bucket of trash away can mess up your whole schedule!!!

5 Things That the Jungle Does to Your House When You Are Gone For a While

We recently returned to our house after a 4 month absence.  We knew our house would be filthy – it can turn that way in a few days when you are living in it, if you don’t stay on top of it.  So we were prepared – or so we thought.  Here are a few of the things that MOST disgusted me on my return….

1.       Mold – it was on some of the walls and the cupboards (and even in our truck).  The humidity and the heat together make a perfect petri dish for growing mold.  It gets on clothes and shoes and leather books and belts.  I even found it on some of my pots and pans.  Thankfully I have bleach to make it go away.

2.       Geckos and spiders – they are not so much nasty as they tend to startle me.  When I reach under a cupboard, or open a door, and one scurries out, it makes me jump.  And spiders create webs.  I HATE the feeling of walking through my house and having cobwebs catching on my face and body.  Ewwww….  Now, both of those creatures eat mosquitos, so we only evict them if we have company coming who do not appreciate the finer points of their character (or if the cat catches them and eats them.)

3.       Dead mice in the washing machine – for some unknown reason, our washing machine seems to attract mice – who then die and harden on the tub.  I have no idea how they get in there – thankfully I have a husband who removes them for me and runs bleach through the machine.  All said, the dead mice are better than the live ones.  We had one of those as well - the cat was afraid to go into the tub to get him, and I didn’t want Jim to get bitten, so we sent him through a spin cycle until he got dizzy and Jim could grab him by the tail with a pliers.  The cat enjoyed playing with him before she killed it, though the mouse didn’t run very fast and tended to lilt to one side, making it NOT as fun as an unspun mouse, apparently.

4.       Sticky plastic – stored plastic, no matter how clean it was before you stored it, always seems to get a sticky film on it. It is so gross.  A lot of my perfectly good Tupperware (not the brand necessarily) got sticky and a little yellow.  I am sure there is a perfectly good scientific explanation for it – but I just want it to go away.  Hot soapy water and a scrub pad seem to be helping.

5.       Snake in the trash pit – come on, really.  Not that it couldn’t happen when we are here, but for some reason, a python felt that he was allowed to invade my private living area (which is big and MUCH broader than my house…).  We really hardly ever see snakes, and this one took up residence in my trash pit – but that is another whole blog entry.

Overall, the adjustment has been pretty easy. We are getting smarter as we get older and are figuring out that we will NEVER remember all the things that seem so obvious to us at the time.  Like remembering to throw a switch to get power into the house, or making a grocery list to leave behind for your return, or writing down how much fuel you have stored for the generator, or how much you paid your guards before you left….   

Of course, once you write all of this down, you have to remember where you put the paper (that was about an hour process for us.)  But at least we wrote it down this time –well, maybe not how much fuel we left behind – but we covered the rest of it.  All of that forgetting may be the effect of the jungle on the brain, but I always leave a fall back to blame – my current excuse is the antimalarial that we take.  

(Not that I have any idea if forgetfulness is a side effect, but it is working for me at the moment.)  Each time we return, the surprises seem less and we get back into the groove a little faster than before.  But the aforementioned things I can ALWAYS do without.

Ways to tell that you are in an airport in a foreign country and no longer in the US

-          Women are usually wearing more clothing that actually covers their bodies.

-          The air-conditioning , if present, is usually a little weak (or maybe it is just that it is blazing hot outside).

-          No toilet paper in the bathroom – you can sometimes ask for it – but it is better to just bring your own.

-          Food options are usually limited.

-          Often the people at the x-ray customs place will argue with you about what you can or cannot take through, but then they usually let you go through anyway.

-       Unattended baggage is NOT a big deal.  We sat next to an abandoned bag for about 2 hours in an airport on this trip, even reported it to someone, but no one was overly stressed about it.  It was a far cry from the US where the announcement about unattended baggage being removed plays constantly.

-          There is an incredible chorus of different languages that surround you.

Road Travel Ramblings

When traveling in a country like this one, traffic is usually a good sign.  We love to see traffic, because it means that people are out and about, and not afraid to do so.  On the other hand, traffic that is suddenly NOT moving – especially when you see cars turning around and heading the other direction, likely means that there is a mob or protest just up the way and you should make sure BEFORE you head in that direction.

-          I am not sure why the chicken (or duck or goat or sheep or cow) crosses the road nor do I care, but I would SUPER love it if they didn’t choose to do it as I am barreling down the road at them.  Of course, RUNNING across beats standing in the road, staring at me as if they are unimpressed by my big truck any day!

-          Gas at the gas station – TRAVEL BONUS!!!

-          You can buy an enormous amount of fruits and vegies on the road, so prepare a place in advance for all of it – otherwise you will be forced to put them at your feet or stuff them in all the little nooks and crannies, which makes opening the doors a little tricky at the end of your trip.  Also – NEVER, NEVER travel with bananas – it NEVER ends well for the people or the bananas – which start to turn brown and emit a very nasty, sticky liquid!

-          Next time I travel with tomatoes, I believe I will wash them and put them in a bowl with onions, garlic cloves, salt and cumin, and see if I can create salsa with the help of the potholes.

-          Red dirt on the pavement (what little pavement there is) usually signifies a pothole up ahead – it is a good “caution” sign to slow down – it means that the pavement is worn away and the dirt has come through….

-          If you are traveling with me through a town and you hear me yell “stop”, it is likely that I have spotted either fried sweet potatoes, or cassava balls (my 2 main vices when I travel) and should not be cause for alarm – though I REALLY love those so you would be well advised to stop!

-          I do want my Guinean friends to know that we realize that only putting 5 people in the space provided for 5 people IS considered a waste of space here, but we white people like personal space and are a bit partial to seatbelts in a one to one ratio.