Well the past three weeks have been pretty busy. I’m sorry I’m not more faithful about keeping up with my blog. It’s been a really rough few weeks, but it’s been good nonetheless. I have so much I’d like to share with you all, but I’m just going to try to hit the high points to give you a little deeper glimpse into our lives here.
Bouki’s
Here is a quick overview of what a bouki is. A bouki is the ceremony where they name a new born baby
. The bouki usually takes place a week after the baby is born unless they have to wait for family to travel from long distances. Preparation for the bouki starts days in advance. Close friends and relatives help by preparing extra food. The morning of the bouki several men will go around announcing the birth of the child and that there will be a bouki that day, they also ask for money. These men ac t function like our daily newspaper by getting the word out. Then people come and give gifts to the family and a religious leader names the child and a sheep is slaughtered. The child’s head is shaved as a covenant that the child will follow the road of its grandfather and milk is added to the water used for shaving because the Fulani are “cow people.” Then the meat from the sheep is given away to the people in attendance and everyone celebrates.Jemma’s Bouki
Three weeks ago Thursday was the bouki for Jemma’s baby. The night before had been a hot night so we had set up our cots and mosquito nets up outside. We often sleep outside, but this night had a few extra surprises for us. Since the bouki was going to happen the next day there was a lot of activity that evening. Linds and I had our nightly ashia with the kids like normal and this time we shared some bubble gum too. For the most part this went really well, but one boy named Ibram decided to drive me crazy. Ibram is 15 years old and knows what to do with gum but for some reason he decided to take his gum out of his mouth and proceeded to stick the gum to my arm. I, however, was not impressed with his decision. I was very upset and gave him a piece of my mind, half in Fulfulde and half in English. Ibram then proceeded to mock me and repeat what I said. Then he told Lindsay that she was good and that Say-u-doh (ME!!!) was bad. I had just about had it. He finally left and a little later he came back and asked for some tea and I told him no. Then later he came back and asked to borrow our tea pot. Linds told him that he could and it put me over the edge. I just went and sat in our hut. I had officially hit a huge wall of culture shock. I lost focus on why I was even in the country. Then people started coming to our hut check on me because the Fulani don’t understand or see a need for alone time. So, I left. I quickly realized that I was in the bush of Africa and had absolutely no place to go and it was dark so that meant I couldn’t even go sit in a millet field because I wouldn’t be able to find my way back, so I went to the squatty. That’s right; I went and cried my eyes out in our bathroom area. Dad and I had a long talk before I was ready to come out, but after crying and yarping for over two hours I finally emerged from the squatty. I came back and found Lindsay had already set all of our stuff up and was in bed. She had even set out my malaria medication and had made my favorite flavored water for me. Then I crawled into bed and talked to Linds for a while. We would have fallen asleep at a decent hour, but Ibram and all of his little boy friends had set up a little ashia party of their own about 15ft from our beds and they were making quite a racket. They had never done this before, but since the bouki was then next morning I guess all the boys were able to stay at our compound extra late. Linds and I were up really late talking since we couldn’t sleep.
The morning of the bouki I had woken up around 6:15am and decided that it was too early after our late night so I rolled back over and fell back to sleep. About an hour later a man with a megaphone came strolling into our compound announcing the bouki. I about died! He came into our compound and made a beeline straight for my bed. Now let me add a few details to this embarrassing moment, we always sleep in our skirts out of respect for the culture, but when I sleep I move a lot and my skirt gets all tangled and it rides up. This usually isn’t a problem because I am covered by my sheet and when I wake up I can fix my skirt before climbing out of bed. However, this morning I was in a rush because the megaphone man was making his way towards me. I couldn’t get my skirt fixed fast enough so I jump out of bed with my sheet still around me and stumble into our hut which was thankfully very close. By this point Lindsay is cracking up at my desperate attempt to get away, she had woken up before me and was fully clothed and ready when the megaphone man came. So, that’s how the morning of the bouki began. Linds and I hid out in our hut for breakfast, which consisted of a granola bar and some beef jerky. While we were eating breakfast people began arriving. Before long our compound was a happening place. All of the women were inside the compound hanging out under the tree passing the baby around and the men were outside the compound under some little cabanas and trees. The Hausa women prepared food but since it was Ramadan only the children and women who were pregnant or breast feeding ate. Around 10am the Imam (a Muslim religious teacher) began saying a prayer and after every section everyone would spit into their hands and wipe it on to their faces and say something in Arabic. This is a symbol of the blessings that have been said from their mouths being applied back to themselves. Then the name of the child is announced and the women make this noise that is similar to a scream but very very unique. Jemma’s baby was named Nana Hinda-tu. Then it was time for the sheep to be slaughtered. A sheep is slaughtered as a sacrifice to Allah so that Allah will know the name of the baby. According to Islamic tradition if Allah doesn’t know the name of the child, he or she will never be allowed in to Al Jenna (kind like the heaven). Melissa was holding the baby right before the sheep was killed and the grandma of the baby game and woke up Nana so she would know that the sacrifice was happening otherwise it doesn’t count I guess. Then it was time to kill the goat. I was pretty excited for this part so I ran and grabbed Lindsay’s camera and videotaped the whole thing. First, they slit the throat of the sheep and let all the blood drain out. Then, the made a cut around the ankle of the sheep and pulled the skin away from the meat with a reed and then the man blew into the reed and the sheep swelled up real big. It was like a sheep balloon. This helps them skin it and it worked really well. They skinned it all in one piece. At the very end they chopped the head off and the four hooves. After that I lost interest and started playing with the baby again. About half an hour later the man that killed the sheep brought the head and the hooves over and sat the right beside where Lindsay and I were sitting. As it turns out the head and hooves are just supposed to be close to where the baby is and since we had the baby most of the time they got put next to us. It was a little creepy though. At one point the head started bleeding again and the man had to come back and get the head and cauterize it with the fire. By this time it was close to 1:00pm and everyone either headed back to their compounds to sleep or they slept at ours. I decided to join them and I took a nap in our hut.
It was late evening before things started to pick up again. I woke up to find that there was a small band assembled outside close to where all of the men were gathered. They had several different types of drums made out of animal hides and some clarinet/flute things too. As the sun started down, the party started up. The sheep was almost cooked and a variety of other dishes were ready to eat. These dishes included rice and sauce, millet and sauce, bean cakes, fried millet, and of course chutum! We didn’t get to stay for the rest of the festivities that night because we had to leave early and help clean someone’s house the next day that lived three hours away. It was a really good time though.
Formal Language has Officially Ended
About two weeks ago was our final language session with Apollos. I’m not sure how much I’ve told you about this man, but he truly was a man after the Father’s heart. Every day we would meet together and he would start us off by petitioning the Father. He was so refreshing. He also leads a small gathering on the weekends and was making indigenous songs for the Father. We were able to go to his house on several occasions. Once his wife invited us over for dinner and she made us a traditional African meal with rice and sauce, fruit and hakko (cooked leaves). Hakko is probably one of my least favorite food items here in Africa. They just pick certain weeds out of the millet fields and pull the leaves off and cook them up and eat them, but Apollos’ wife’s was the best I’ve ever had.
We were able to learn a lot from this man. One day, after one of our language sessions, he came with us out to one of the villages to help with some teaching. We were probably in the village for three hours and we were able to see what a difference having a Fulani share with them actually made. Together they used a combination of Fulfulde, Hausa, French and even a little English to get the full meanings of everything. The switched back and forth between the languages effortlessly and Apollos was able to explain things better than we ever could by using Fulani logic and proverbs instead of western ones. As we sat there I couldn’t help but remember some of the things I learn in Malone’s classes about indigenous communities for the Father and think that this was what it would look like here. It would consist of two big mats, one for women and one for men. There would be one man telling stories that applied to them and answered questions that they would ask. They would use multiple languages because that’s what everyone knows and if someone didn’t understand in one language they would just switch to the next. There would be someone making ashia towards the back of the mat and they would pass it around to keep everyone awake. It would take place outside under a big shade tree where you can feel the slight breeze every so often. Occasionally someone would grab a stalk of millet and roast it over the ashia coals if they got hungry. It would start in early afternoon when the first people got there and it would last until all the questions were finished. People would come and go as they needed and children would wonder in and out too. When telling a complicated story everyone would draw in the sand help further explain things. The atmosphere would be relaxed but everyone would be very attentive. They would meet on whatever day worked best for them and they would talk about topics like multiple wives, yarping, persecution and “swimming.” Everything about that meeting seemed effortless and focused on Dad.
We had our language evaluations the next week. Fulfulde is one of the hardest languages in West Africa and for the difficulty and the amount of time Linds and I have been in the country Apollos said we have done really well. Just when I thought I’d be sick of language and I almost cried to know it was over. I felt like we learned just enough to know we don’t know much. We do have enough language to communicate just about anything we have to with enough charades and sound effects. There is just so much more I want to learn.
Daniel with the Chief
Last Monday, instead of having ashia with the kids like normal, the chief and his wives came over and had ashia with us and kicked the kids out. We made some light conversation and then the chief brought out his copy of the Good News. The chief has the Good News in Hausa and we have our English copy and we have a limited amount of common Fulfulde to work with. The chief began flipping through the Book and asking what certain books were about. He happened to stop on Daniel and I thought it would be easy enough to explain so I started in on it. We told him how Daniel was a follower of the Way and that he yarped to Father many times a day then bad men got upset and told the king that everyone should yarp to the king and not to Father. Daniel still continued to follow the Way so the king had to throw Daniel into a hole with lots of big cats, then Father sent His people to hold the mouths of the big cats so they didn’t eat him. Then the next day the king found Daniel and he was not cat food so the king said everyone had to yarp to the Father that Daniel followed. Needless to say it wasn’t exactly word for word out of the Book and we had to use a lot of hand motions and sound effects for words like lion’s den and many others, but I feel that we got the main point across…Daniel followed the Father and He protected him. I felt that this was really a significant story for them because they live in fear of persecution everyday and it has been especially an issue for the chief.
“Swimming”
Last week we had our first “swimming” session. Originally we thought there could be up to 6 candidates, but then only one showed up. To make the experience as reproducible as possible we did it in the river right outside of town. We woke up on Monday morning and headed to the river. We walked because that was the most reproducible way to do it and it was hot! We met the follower on the bridge and we followed him down the river a ways so that we wouldn’t be in plain sight of everyone. Persecution is still a big fear for them. After a short hike over the bridge, across the countryside of West Africa, and through the keebbe (stickers that get stuck in all our clothes) we found a lovely little cove for the event to take place. Melissa had asked her supervisor to officiate the occasion so he wore a boubou and did the whole thing in Fulfulde. It was quite wonderful. The follower went under the water head first because that’s the way it’s shown on the Son video and they were familiar with that way. Plus, many of them don’t know how to swim and it really scares them to have to go backwards into the water and it never really says how it’s done. It was a really cool thing to be able to watch and be a part of. From here on out that follower will be the one to officiate it for the next candidates.
My Heart
Well, as I mentioned earlier, I hit a huge wall of culture shock a couple of weeks ago. And that probably the best way to describe it….a WALL! I felt like I had hit the end of my rope and couldn’t see the point in staying any longer. I felt beat by the language and the children. I just broke down. I would have called my parents or Frost, but our phone was almost dead and I wasn’t sure where it was. For a little while, as I sat in the squatty potty, I thought I might literally be losing my mind. I caught myself thinking that everything was just stupid and there was no point in being there. I missed my mom, my dad, my grandparents, my friends at college and my professors at school too! What’s the point anyway when everyone is afraid and no one really cares? Thankfully, I caught myself in this thought pattern and I knew it was not from the Father. Then I got ticked at Dad for sending me out into the middle of flippin’ nowhere for me to break down in a squatty potty and give up. As I bawled my eyes out and yelled at Dad, He spoke softly to me. He reminded me of His love for me and His love for the Fulani. I then realized that He hadn’t sent me to the desert to kill me, but to grow me. I then proceeded to make a mental list of all the good things about the Fulani. I wasn’t able to come up with a whole lot, but I came up with 10 really good ones. Then I remember why I was actually there. I’m not here to change the world. I’m not necessarily here to spread the Good News among the Fulani either. I’m here to learn what spreading the Good News looks like. I’m here to learn what it takes and even to learn what culture shock looks like. I’m here to grow and learn, and that’s exactly what I’m doing. Some days I’m better at it than others, but every single day I learn something I didn’t know the day before. Our efforts have been blessed too. The people in our homestay compound are now followers and we were able to watch someone “go swimming.” We’ve shared our personal testimonies multiple times and we’ve shared stories from the Book with no preparation. I am very thankful for all of these experiences.
I’ve also been thinking a lot about my future. I recently realized that in less than eight months I will be done with college (if all goes well) and I’ve been worrying about the future. I know worrying is not what the Father has planned for me, but I struggle with it still. My life hasn’t exactly worked out how I had planned. When I graduated from high school I thought I would be married by now and be on my semester abroad with my husband, obviously that didn’t work out how I planned, but I’ve been blessed to get to know Lindsay instead. I also thought that I would major in physical therapy because I wanted to go into sports medicine so I could rub hot guys’ muscles and then I quickly learn biology was not my thing and instead I’m getting a minor in Social Work. I’ve learned that I love to help people. Even the things I thought I had planned for next semester are already falling through. I thought I was going to need to take Jan term, but I don’t. Malone once told me that we are to be so flexible we are fluid and I thought I was very flexible, but I’ve learned recently that I only fake flexibility. Deep down I want things a certain way and when they don’t turn out that way I get mad. It doesn’t matter whether Dad has something better planned or not…my pride gets hurt. So I guess I’m telling you all of this to ask for your yarps. I’m not necessarily asking you to yarp about my future (although I would appreciate it) but rather to yarp about my flexibility, because Dad has my future in His hands but I’ve been fighting for my way so long it’s hard to know what His will really is. Please yarp that Dad will break my pride issue and for me to submit my plans to Him and to joyfully accept His plan for my life and as things change (and things will change for sure) I will do so fluidly.
I have so much more I want to write, but I realize this is already quite long and it’s getting late. If you’d like to know anything specific that I haven’t answered yet, please email me at krissy_tlw@yahoo.com. Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please continue to yarp for the Fulani and our team here.
Love always,
Krissy
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