18 May 2010

jouer au foot


On Sunday afternoon, a couple of us went to the soccer game over by the other church in town that IBR is with.  It was great to be able to get away from our house and do something different.  The game was between IBR and Torakabougou, but we lost again.  But this time it was 5-2 because we were actually really loud and cheering for our team.  These are just a few of the photos that I took that afternoon.  It was super hot and exhausting so we sat in the shade under a huge tree, and drank their water when ours was gone (I hope I don't get typhoid again)! (ha)  Since being in culture shock it has been harder to find the motivation to actually want to go out and do things so because I felt really good, it was a pretty darn good day. Then Sunday night, the electricity kept on going off and on and off and on.  There was no electricity all night and therefore no fans.  There are a few times where we actually slept inside with no fans, but we were tired of it...real tired of it, so we all piled our mattresses outside on our front porch and slept till 6 am and then moved inside and the fans were back on then.  Last night, the same thing happened.  Everyone was frustrated, even the students and Uncle Joseph.  But we didn't bet it would stay on all night so we all tied our mosquito nets outside and moved our beds out too.  It was so nice that night, except for hearing the donkeys and roosters right next to our porch!  It's true that when you are use to something and don't have it, it changes alot of things and can be very frustrated...like electricity.  Its hard when the water is turned off for a period of time as well.  Then I remember how thankful I have it here when it is all back on.  

Remember, to be grateful for everything you have, no matter where you live!

Photos above: Me, Abel, Michenzie; Courtney and Kadiatou- Court is trying to learn to drive the moto

15 May 2010

more thoughts

So I have been going a bit crazy lately.  The other night I had another dream where I had a baby.  Most of it was very unrealistic and couldn't happen in reality but the part of it that felt so real made me almost be able to feel what it's like to have your own child.  I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about what it's like to hold the child you held for 9 months in your belly, and to then see her and say "she's mine".  It's kind of a crazy thing.  And the more I find myself filled with passion for children, the more dreams and other things come up.  

Somehow I know that children are in my future...somehow...

We've also recently hit culture shock.  The weird thing is, most people don't know they're in it and don't recognize it, so our professor was surprised.  But we talk about culture shock so much as we are trying to relate and live in an African culture, and we taught that at our 3 month mark everything would start changing.  And, it has.  We become more irritated with little things, people bother us, I want to sleep more than anything, I'd rather stay inside somedays, I find it really hard to be motivated to do anything, we are very "bored", homework is so much harder to do and we end up turning it in days late because we have no motivation, and then again the heat doesn't help still.  

In many ways it sucks, and I wonder why I'm here.  But I don't wish I was at home, because this is where God called me to be at this time and I want to be all here, all of me.  But in the end, and overall, I know I am learning alot and growing and it is going to be a GREAT experience and foundation for whatever I do later after graduation.  The edge program is very unique and I've never seen another program like this before.  We're learning how to live in community even if we don't like each other.  We're learning that we aren't just visiting here but we're actually living life here.  We find that everything we experience and see through our own cultural view, is completely different to what the Malians and seeing through their culture.  There's so much to learn about a culture before you start presenting the gospel respectfully.  It seems overwhelming to me, but when I continue to remind myself that I'm doing it for the glory of the Lord, everything is joyful again.  

I continue to love the relationships we are building here.  And if I miss anything, it's not where we live, it's not what it looks like, or the other small things, but it is the people.  

Thank you to those who read this, its encouraging to me.

01 May 2010

special treatment

Today at our "malian" picnic, I had some more unrestful feelings come up, as well as the team did.  As an American, many countries (I don't think all) are given privilege.  We are given sort of a special treatment in whatever we do, in many ways.  Today especially sort of bugged me.  We went to the picnic in this small van that packed in over 20 people sitting on wood benches in the back of the van.  It was so much fun and I was laughing so hard I was crying, and all the girls were asking me why I was crying!  Every time we hit a bump, our wooden bench would come up or move so we started going forward onto the people from the other side.  It was very interesting.  We loved it!

When we left, we were given privilege to leave first (I think its because we also looked really exhausted), but they had this nice 4-door pickup Toyota (i think) for us to ride back in.  I'm talking, an American pickup, except it was stick.  The thing is, we didn't want that, that was to easy for us.  Instead we wanted to ride in the van with all the others.

Another issue that has bugged me a bit is that because we are Americans, we are considered "rich" of course, so when big events happen like this they expect us to pay more than our share!  So for gas to get us to the picnic, they made us 4 toubabs (white person) pay for HALF of the total gas out of all the 20-30+ people!  In many cases we find people asking us to pitch in or to help this person, but its more of an expectation that we will, not just a question of "you don't have to, but you can't".

At first it wasn't a big deal, because yes we have alot more money than them, but then again we are on a strict budget as a team (according to what we raised) and barely have any money left at the end of the month to buy groceries.  It has become more irritating now, as it continues to happen in small ways.  Because of the language barrier with some people as well, we sometimes don't have a choice in what we say and end up going with the flow.