The Last Sunday
Its sad to be counting off the last days.
Yesterday was a Big day! In the morning I went with Marvin on four (yes 4) studies! We didn’t even have time for door to door.
By the time we got to the last study we had to take a local taxi to get there in time. That is an adventure in itself. You negotiate a price to where you are going before getting in. You pay according to the number of places you take in the taxi. They can stop and get others along the way if they want. Then you hold on and pray!
Now as to the packing in of studies: Marvin & Penny work on the premise of the airlines. They have to count on a lot of studies canceling on them so they often have more booked than they can fit in. If no one cancels … Yikes! Marvin had actually had one study that canceled for Sunday, but one got moved from Saturday. Thus the panic.
Penny and Leslie had less success – more cancellations, so they took some time to do some shopping and site seeing. Leslie got some pictures of a local knife sharpener at work. They walk through the neighborhood calling out their trade. People that need their services come out and call them over. This man was happy to have his picture taken (many are not. They think you are going to make money off it somehow. Or at least that they should!).
One of Penny’s studies – Eudoxie – wanted to prepare lunch for us. She said she would prepare it “to go”. So she made us Kedjenou poisson. This is a fish dish, which could be only fish, but in this case had fish, shrimp, crab, snail and a few other good things! Yum!
Meanwhile, while they were doing all of these good things, Marvin and I made it to the last morning study – just in time to miss the rain. Rain. …. or rather RAIN! It pounded down in torrents for over an hour! We started the study in the courtyard under a roof. As the rain got hard we moved inside. Now this is a fairly nice place, but part of it is open to the tin roof. We could barely hear each other speak. We moved closer and closer until finally we were almost touching heads. Marvin almost lost his voice trying to be heard over the rain!
When the study was over and Penny & Leslie had driven over to pick us up, the rain still had not stopped. We figured that we were on our way home anyway, so we dashed through rain to the car. …. kind of refreshing, actually.
We did another study in the afternoon, but we stopped early as we had been invited to another side of town for supper. A couple of ones that Marvin & Penny had studied with in Bouake wanted to have us over. This was Ayi Guillaume and his wife Djenebou, Aya Martine (whose husband, Felix, couldn’t make it), Guillaume’s sister Suzanne, Djenbou’s niece Eliza and the babies.
It was an mind-boggling supper. We had Attieke Poisson braise, Poulet braise, Cheps (Rice with pepper, carrots, eggplant, cabbage and sauce) and Aloco poisson grille. The pictures will say more than I could describe. But they still don’t come close to the taste. We are enjoying our African food. … but … they are well-oiled dishes! In spite of our walking a lot, and sweating gallons, we will be putting on a few pounds here!
Posted in The Really Big Trip by jimt with no comments yet.
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