Week 3
Day 14 - Monday, March 13
As tempting as it is, I know if I do not journal, everything will all blur together and I will only remember colors not times and places. This morning started around 5am when the sound of the Hotpec children singing their morning worship songs reached a volume audible in the older girls' dorm. I actually slept pretty soundly on the top bunk from about 1am-5amish, with a catnap until about 6:30am. For fear of mosquitoes (and any other creatures or transmittable anythings) I wore sweatpants and my ninja shirt with my wool socks. So far I am staying ahead of the itching bites game which is a definite praise!
After making my way out of the dorm I found myself being examined by kids of all ages, although mainly the younger ones. "Auntie are you going to bathe? Are you going to brush your teeth? Oh Auntie your fingernails are dirty! Do want to borrow my toothbrush?" Were the most memorable statements. One has to be willing to admit the irony in being questioned about my personal hygiene standards while having a sleepover at an orphanage in Africa. Just another reason to love these kids and treat them with the dignity and respect they deserve: the standard in many ways is held quite high here. After prayer and worship time everyone has their morning chores to attend to before the more difficult projects are attended to: everyone is bathed, fed, brushes their teeth, and cleans their sleeping area. Add on their chores and everything is finished before 9am. Which for this many kids is quite fast. Last night they loved having us stay. I opted out of playing full field futbol and lent a boy my shoes. I take a grinning pride in the fact he said that was his best game he ever played :).
The kids were for the most part gone when we arrived because they had gone to a birthday party at Mile 16. When everyone returned it was evening and they were all exhausted. Most of them went straight to the dorm to rest before evening prayers at 8pm. I joined the younger kids for this and was blown away: at least four memorized songs with a bunch of verses, ten different topic areas for specific prayer said out loud for about a minute each, and then ten various Bible passages recited out loud together. Wow, you go ahead kid! The most memorable were the prayers to let any attack that Satan is planning against them or their family or their sleep, that in Jesus' name it would not prevail. Amen and amen!
Some of the girls took great enjoyment in my lack of dancing skills and while I don't believe I improved it wasn't due to any lack of effort on their part to teach me. The giggles were numerous and the sweat was dripping--classic marks of time well spent. Once it was time to settle down we ended up watching two movies with the older girls. Because they speak English they can understand it but their English is rooted in pigeon English so a slower pace is necessary. The movie was too fast for most of them but language is not the only thing to be learned from movies so they still very much enjoyed them.
There are a few rules R and I must follow in order to be wise when we visit: always apply liberal amounts of bug spray, use hand sanitizer relatively frequently, never eat any food that is made there, and always ask permission to stay from "Daddy and Mommy," who run the orphanage. On the hygiene note just one example is that as someone who loves to pick kids up and swing them around, carry them on my back, or just cuddle a kid it is a raw reminder every time when I am reminded via scent or dampness that these kids use the yard as their bathroom, they don't use toilet paper, and they don't wash their hands except for right around meal time and that's without soap.
Emmanuel picked us up at 9am as I was carting around my favorite little fellow Courage. My little guy walked me to the car holding my hand then when he wanted to get in and I told him no he burst into tears. Thankfully his tears were erased when he was told a biscuit (cookies) were waiting for him at the dorm. Once home we ate leftover spaghetti (yum!) then gathered supplies for another sponsor letter gathering trip. Today we went to Small Soppo and Tole, then over to Bueatown.
In Small Soppo we stopped at by far the nicest residence we have been to yet: running water in the house, painted walls, tile floors, clean inside and outside, and in a small neighborhood community of apartment homes. It was quite lovely. The student, Ayaba Blessing, is a darling 8 year old who loves to dance. She did well on all of her tasks. Then the back story I hear later: her mom died of cancer three years ago, her five other siblings are from a different dad, her eldest sister who was at one time living in the streets now raises all of them but two years ago she was also diagnosed with cancer and is only barely able to cook for the family. She has been unable to walk to the market much less work so while on the outward appearance Blessing's living situation looked like it was totally fine, the two bags of food Toya left them was the only food they had in the house and they had not been sure how they were going to eat. Whoa.
Then it was to Tole where I chased and played with some munchkins after making cards. Then to Bueatown where we eventually ate puff puff (fried dough). Then home to crash.
Health wise I have been well but today I did a little too much swinging of kids. My back is at a level 4 pain and definitely stiff. Hopefully if I take it easy and stretch it will go back in place soon. This week will go by quick. I will miss my new friends. They ask when I will return. I have no idea but I know who does :)
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Day 15 - Tuesday
1pm - VBS Prep meeting. Theme: God Can Save Us. The story of Gideon and the 300 men and the story of Peter being brought out of prison by an angel. The verse is Psalm 28:7a - "The Lord is my strength and my shield: in Him my heart trusts and I am helped."
3pm - Meet with Kiara and her mom inside a cargo crate turned office/storage for a sponsor video and cards
3:45pm - Work on food prep. Onions, garlic, potatoes, green spices, and take care of dishes
4:30pm - Run errands to pick up food supplies
5:30pm - Enjoy rice and beans for dinner, relax, eventually crawl in bed
9pm - Write this and fall asleep soon
Peace and blessings
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Day 16 - Wednesday
Everyone needs to move into the church. If we stay on the steps of the school They might think we are trying to have school and burn down the building. You can't leave your water bottles out of your sight, I know it sounds extreme but They might poison the water. They threatened to burn down the teacher training school near Mile 16. Seems ironic to have "secret school" in a church teaching about Bible stories.
This marked today. I have not seen Them but the threats They bring are real. I hope we don't have to deal with anything first hand. Lord Lord. This morning we walked to the school and climbed into the big passenger van--the school bus--and headed out on our rounds. By the time we made it to Tole we were 23 deep and only two kids were stacked. Have I mentioned seat belts are not a thing here?
VBS kicked off with some games. The teachers want them to play handball whereas I am more prone to just run wild with a solid game of tag. We went to the stairs to start singing when we were moved to the church just a short distance away. There were quite a few babies, able to walk but unable to communicate, that joined us and made quite the show of tears and occasional wailing. Fun fun. One little girl about 3 years old knocked out asleep in R's arms. Today we had a few deaf kids join us and that was a new experience to watch them communicate. Dennis, the teacher/pastor who is deaf, is awesome with kids so I find myself pretty engaged in learning. Buuuut despite my enthusiasm language skills continue to be an obstacle I have yet to overcome. It's still fun to pick up a few things at least.
Our afternoon was spent at Hotpec. The evening ended with me playing goalie on the big field, hooting and hollering whenever the ball came near me. It was safe this time because two of my main protector boys were playing: Dominion and Achiever.
I've been quiet the last two days. I know it's in part because my back and today a headache. Hopefully it's nothing more than dehydration.
Tomorrow is VBS and who knows what else. An adventure probably :)
(Insert sign language for goodnight)
Ps. The air quality here is surprisingly poor--exhaust, dust, and smoke makes for a rather nasty mixture. When we always drive with the windows down I suppose I ought to get used to it but for the most part I'm affronted each time when all of the sudden the fresh mountain air turns black, brown or gray. My ears always have grime inside of them each day and no matter how often I wash my face I feel like a new layer of dirt gets picked up even overnight.
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Day 17/18 - Thursday/Friday
I never thought I would say this but at 6:55am on the bus ride to Yaoundé it is 100% true: THE WORSHIP MUSIC HERE MAKES ME INSANE. That's aggressive I realize but seriously. It's suuuuper repetitive, the back beat Never changes, one song turns into twenty with the same rhythm, and the words are very basic. Holy. Smokes. I already tried earplugs but they aren't even good enough to keep out the sound because each pair of seats has an individual speaker. Can't be mad they are playing worship music...can I? Gahhhhhh. So I went with the headphones and music blaring. I proactively took some ibprofen for the potential headache and my back. One hour down, five to go--yay!
Sorry :) I'm a bit salty this morning but I say it with a smile. Let's see, how was yesterday?
8:30am - Walk to the school to get on the bus. Israel is my bus buddy. He sits on me and we go through some variation of adorable cuddle moments to him biting me to him trying to go out the window to him bear hugging me and laughing. God bless the crazy boy.
9am - Pick up the kids, a few here and there. The majority of them come from Mile 16 where there is a deaf community.
10am - After grimacing and wincing through every pothole trying not to hit my head on the steel bar above me and pray my hips aren't permanently damaged (not quite sure what it is about the bus that kills my back, but whewee it is effective!), we arrive to the field in Tole. We unload and head to the field to play...duck duck goose because we have them too tired out before the program they will all fall asleep. Yep. Seriously. I was a tad salty about that too but that's because in my first world arrogance I hadn't taken into account that these kids don't have many calories to burn so while the fun and games and running wild can be laughter filled for a moment the repercussion is exhaustion and hunger because there isn't enough food to give them if they work up an appetite. Whoa.
10:30am - recap our lesson of Gideon and his 300 men then teach them about the story in Acts 12 of Peter walking out of prison. It was neat to see the deaf girl retell the story for all of us. Her face was so animated! The kids love learning the sign language. Most of them couldn't quite do the verse by memory but they gave a good effort.
12pm - Load up the bus and head back to Buea. Get dropped off on the way to pick up our tailored clothes: six pieces for about $30. The pants are sweeeeeet. Take a taxi home.
3pm - Head to Hotpec. Attempt to play futbol for a bit with the older kids, drop down to the babies, then throw in the towel for being very functional and go hide in the girls' dorm which ended up being a great decision because then Avis shared her notebook of songs and sung the one she had shared two Sundays ago at church. I hope we can learn it at home. She wrote down my Conviction poem. Then she, Solange, and I chatted about all sorts of things. It was good.
6pm - Get picked up by Uncle Emmanuel. He's my favorite driver. He cares very much about taking care of us and not in a creepy way. It's like we are his kids. Eat potato soup, sweet potatoes, and bread along with a Planet cocktail soda. I love those. Who would have thought I would come to Africa to overdose on doughnuts and soda? Classic.
9:30pm - Packed with all of our dirty laundry and sheets to wash down here and tucked in to go to sleep.
4am - The alarm went off waking me up from just another one of my crazy nights of dreams. I would say most nights I have slept pretty soundly but the dreams have been off the charts. I've kept track of them in my travel journal since I've been documenting the daily stuff here. A ton of HWBB dreams which make me happy. All sorts of variety. Some entertaining outdoor basketball games. I guess that's what happens when I am only given futbol to play. Handball is definitely not my thing. If I'm going to run, throw, catch, and tackle, I want to reset each play and enjoy good old football.
I have 200 photos and 35 short videos. Uploading those ought to be just a Blast. Ha.
Here's to capital city adventures and rocking out to music. Internet soooo soon!
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