"This is Africa!"

Last week Ruth and I were invited to our pastor’s house after church for lunch. It was my first meal in a Burkinabe home. We had rice with sauce, and some chicken- it was delicious!
I have had no trouble understanding the French translations of the services, but when someone asked me recently if I can understand what the pastor says I had to think about it for a moment before I responded “no. I don’t understand him at all. Is that bad?” and then I realised he preaches in Mooré. Of course I can’t understand him!

Monday morning bright and early Ruth and I took the bus to Ouaga. Our new car came in perfect time because our truck broke down Saturday afternoon and couldn’t be repaired until late Monday..The bus was pretty much the same as before except this time they oversold the seats. Ruth and I didn’t get a seat but once someone got off Ruth was given the seat they’d had, and then someone gave me a seat sitting on a box by the steps to the door. It was comfortable and I had a great view of the landscape we were passing by!

One of our stops in Ouaga was picking up my other missing bag. Thankfully everything was there, and it wasn’t too much trouble to get my bag. And of course we also got the new car! It’s wonderful! And an answer to prayer!

This week I had lots of new adventures at the orphanage. I played in a couple of soccer games with the boys. No organized games- although they did invite me to play in their league game on Sunday. I thanked thme but declined that level of competition although it would be an adventure unto itself, is a little out of my league and I’d much prefer to watch. I also went to a league soccer game. I got there late due to a miscommunication with the child that had invited me. But I arrived. I had thought I wouldn’t have trouble finding our kids, but I couldn’t find them anywhere! So I just found a spot where I could see the game and settled in to enjoy! Soon enough a guy from our church found me and we chatted while watching the game. The soccer was fantastic! And none of the players have any formal training. I can’t wait for the next game this Sunday.

Another first this one on a sombre note. One of the orphanages sponsored widows passed away, so the three of us went to her funeral. She was the wife of a prominent pastor in Yako, and so the turnout for her funeral was amazing! She had a wonderful send off, singing and dancing.

This weekend was the distribution for kids in our sponsorship program whose sponsors had sent money for Christmas gifts. We loaded up the truck with all kinds of gifts, included sheep and goats and headed out. Saturday we visited the villages surrounding Yako, and Sunday we visited Yako’s different sectors. It was really special to visit the children at home. Some we had write letters, and draw pictures for their sponsors. We took pictures of them all. It was a really cool experience. One family even asked us to wait to leave, while they had everyone in the family run around and catch a chicken for us. We of course didn’t expect or need anything in return, but their gratitude for the opportunity their sponsorship offers was evident. Through their gifts yes, but also just in their actions and words. The mothers would say over and over again “thank you, thank you, god bless..” I of course was just a messenger. But it’s beautiful, to see what a difference it makes for them.

You would not believe the cold spell we've had here. I know, i know you're all in snow and negative something degrees. But it's cold here! At night i've had three blankets on my bed, and a couple nights I even shut a window. Now I'm not complaining, it could be colder. But for here- it was cold! There were a few days where I wore a sweater all day, drank tea every chance I had, and soon as I could changed out of my skirt into sweats and threw on some socks. It's been windy on top of the cold weather. And as cold as I've been I know the Burkinabe people have been suffering a lot more than I did. So everyone has been grateful that we've snapped out of the cold spell and it's warming up a bit. Now I still sleep with 3 blankets, but I haven't been waking up shivering! And i only wear my sweatshirt until about 8:00am, and then i'm okay in just a Tshirt.

So in Canada we have beautiful crisp white fresh snow. Here we have Burkina snow. C'est quoi? Dust! Dust is everywhere. When we were out doing distributions I got coated in so much dust I thought I had a beauitiful tan..If you've been out on the roads and then blow your nose, you'll for sure blow out dirt (gross, sorry for that.)

Yesterday during the day I helped in the office doing some paperwork with Adyara. She had done home visits and done small write ups on some children we keep files on. These were written in French, but needed to be typed up in English. So we worked our way through a stack of papers, Adyara dictating in French and I typing in English. You might think it would have been boring, but I really enjoyed it! She’s a pleasure to work with of course, and doing simple translating was kind of fun! I couldn’t do the same from English to French but it’s a good start from French to English I figure.

Yesterday evening Liz and I were standing in our kitchen, when we noticed the boys had all been grouping in one area of the courtyard. Curious as to what they were scheming we decided to investigate. We didn’t expect what we would find! One of our sheep (we keep sheep, goats and chickens in our courtyard), has been injured. When we walked up we expected to find them playing with maybe a big gecko or something. But no. They had killed the injured sheep!(Warning maybe you want to stop reading here?) I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sight of that decapitated sheep for the rest of my days. Liz and I were stunned for a few moments but then we sort of ‘got into it’ as much as possible. We watched as they skinned, and gutted the sheep. Sheep have the biggest stomach ever! Two actually. When I didn’t see the lungs come out I asked about them. One of the boys reached in and pulled out the lungs, still attached to the heart and oesophageous. He tossed the lungs at me tauntingly, so I grabbed them! They were slimy of course. But interesting! Then, Abraham, grabbed the oesophageous and blew into it, inflating the lungs in my hands. I have to admit I did squeal like a girl, and do a little dance. But then I just burst into fits of laughter. We all laughed about it for a long time. They cleaned out the intestine, and stomach and we watched. It’s fascinating. They’ll use everything. To eat: traditional meat, intestine, kidney, tongue, eyes, brain, stomach. The hide will be used to make a drum. We’ve been invited to dine today at lunch- and have accepted the offer. I can’t say how much I’ll eat (I’ll let you know in my next post!?), but as they boys kept telling me “This is Africa!” so Africa I will enjoy.

A correction to my previous posting.
The word I had written as Masara is actually spelled and pronounced Nasara. As you can imagine, living here is quite an exercise for my ears with all the new sounds. It did sound for the first while like Masara to me, until I started listening closer and realised it wasn’t! The origins of the words are in fact Mooré, but dates back to when the first missionaries came to Burkina. They talked about Jesus from Nazareth. So the Mossi people started calling the missionaries, and then white people, Nasaras after Nazareth.