A Long, Hot Day
Another big service day! Up at 6:00 am, breakfast at 6:30, text & Bible reading at 7:00. Out the door at 8:00. Home for lunch & siesta at 1:00 pm out the door again by 3:00. Finally home for showers and supper at 7:00. Quite the day! We are seeing more of what the territory is really like now. The first couple of days we were in a more ‘favored’ area, but now we have seen some of the poorer ones. Some that don’t even have locks … nothing to steal! We had our service arrangement in the open market today. To the tune of wild music in the background, we divided up into groups and said our prayer. Today Marvin and I did 8 calls in the door to door work and then 2 studies in the morning and 3 studies in the afternoon / evening. Lots of door to door, eh? We were in less favorable territory for the door to door work. I tried a couple of calls but got pretty much the same reaction we get at home. sigh. Marvin had one good call there. As to the studies …. gold! We had a second study with Ange (if that doesn’t ring a bell, go back a read the rest of the blogs!). He didn’t come to the meeting last night, but he was very apologetic. He just forgot what day it was. We were about 10 minutes late for his study today and he was Continue Reading →
Posted in The Really Big Trip by jimt with 4 comments.
Safety First!
We, in Canada – especially in smaller areas, take safety for granted. We lock our doors – if we remember – and occasionally pay attention to a “boil water” notice on the radio. No big deal. In the cities we pay attention a little more, perhaps not walking alone at night. Here safety is a big thing. Every dwelling is locked up tight. Almost every property has a wall around it for protection. When a new place is being built they will first build a wall around the property, otherwise their building materials will disappear before they can finish! Only the very, very poor have no locks, since they have nothing to steal. Many communities are “gated”, that is there is a gate to access the area and there is a guard (sometimes a couple of them) that open the gate for those who have business there. They carry clubs. Other guards roam about in the community. The missionary home we are staying in is in one of these. That is the first line of defense. The next line is the wall. The wall here has a door in the back and one in the front. In the front there is also an entrance for the car. The top of the wall is spiked to make climbing difficult. Although the home here does not have it, some walls also add broken glass or razor wire to the top. The gates all lock from inside so that they can only be Continue Reading →
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A less Manic Monday
Today we did some shopping in the morning and service in the afternoon. It was mostly the grocery run this morning, like last week, but we also made a trip to the Cocody market. This is where we were trying to pick up a few things for souvenirs etc. Wow! Its a scary event. The second they see white people coming everyone is calling out to you “come here, come see my things” “lower prices, best prices” “why aren’t you coming here” “what are you looking for? We have it?” And a thousand other things that I probably missed. There are no prices, of course. They will give you an extreme price and hope that you just pay it. As tourists we would think it wasn’t that expensive, but Penny knows better. We were very glad for her protection. She can haggle with the best of them! There is a huge disparity here between the rich and poor. Marvin & Penny’s territory seems to include a little of both (perhaps not extreme in either direction). The picture here is not in their territory but it shows the contrast. A beautiful building in the background and squatters huts in the foreground. Today we worked in the poorer area of town. So far we had been on the high end, so to speak. Today we got to see the other side. (actually, Leslie had been there before, but I had not) Still, the same basic attitude. People have a sense of spiritual Continue Reading →
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From feast to feast
And here we go again! Saturday was mostly a study day. Leslie and I had two Watchtower studies to do. One for this week and one to get ready for Monday night’s family study. Yikes! Then it was meeting time again. Remember the “Sunday” meeting here is Saturday at 5:00 pm. (Supper most nights is between 7:00 and 8:00 …. and I’m getting used to it!). We were both able to comment again and Marvin got me to say the closing prayer. I thought this wouldn’t be too bad as there were only about 40 or 50 people there when we started the meeting. Imagine my surprise when I got up to say the prayer and the place was almost full!! Probably about 100! I think some of them even understood my Anglo-Montrealais accent! After the meeting everyone heads outside and talks for some time until finally they drift gradually away home. It is a happy congregation (everyone must shake hands with everyone – both before and after the meeting. ) They sing loud and give generous commendation after the meeting (even for strange anglos that try to pray). After the meeting we were all invited to Serge & Elizabeth Seri’s for supper. They have 12 living under their roof, with only him working. They are very hospitable. They use to have the book study in their home and they still have service arrangements there. For our supper they set up a table outside, banished the children to the house Continue Reading →
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Being there
(NOTE: this is the second of three posts. Somehow it came up first. The order should be “The Really Fun Trip” “Being There” and “Water Blogged”. So we had arrived at Mammy Wata (http://www.mammywata.net/index.html to see more). What a great time we would have here. The setting was ideal. Marvin & Penny had prepared us for the worst as they had never been here. “We will stay one night and then see …”, “I hope there aren’t rats running in the ceiling, it keeps you awake”, “There may be a lot of mosquitoes, but we can sit under the mosquito net on the bed and play cards”. Best to be ready for the worst. All for naught. It is wonderful. Very few bugs (tons of ants, but they don’t count), only a couple of mosquitoes, and no rats (that we saw, anyway.) Tons of lizards, but we like lizards! Nestor and Aruna …. these are the ‘boys’ that looked after us. They are not boys (and we didn’t call them that), but they are the hired help that serve and look after the people that stay in the bungalows. Nestor is the prime ‘guy’ and Aruna helps him. They probably serve most people hand and foot most of the time. Penny told Nestor right off that we were not used to having servants and would probably not require their services very much. So they mostly disappeared. Of course, they were watching from a distance. We would finish a meal in Continue Reading →
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The Really Fun Trip (or a trip within a trip)
We’re back to Abidjan now. What a great 4 days we had! Let me try to fill it in …. We headed out Tuesday morning at 6:50 am (Ick!) in order to beat the traffic. Apparently we did, although I would have considered it deadly, back to back, kill or be killed traffic. (We heard today that after we left the traffic locked up good. Cheers for leaving early!) It took an hour to get out of the city and then another hour to get to our destination: Mammy Wata in Assinie Mafia (Google that one!) Along the way we went through other towns lined with little shops selling all manner of local goods, foods, crafts, furniture …. if it can be sold, its there! We will probably be back to the shops next week and will try to get some pictures. We went though areas where there are coconut groves and also “Palm nut” groves (you can see them here gathering that crop). Some of the areas are beautiful – others scream of poverty. The huts that the fisher folk live in are (by our standards) deplorable. All along the road (in city and elsewhere) you are constantly approached by people selling whatever they can find to sell. You can buy a phone card or toilet paper at your car window, making Ivory Coast the world’s biggest drive-through shopping center! We finally arrived where we would park the car and proceed by boat. We weren’t sure where exactly to Continue Reading →
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Water Blogged
“ The greatest fun I had was playing in the waves! Imagine going into the ocean in big waves and finding it refreshing instead of freezing! You actually don’t want to come out because you get too hot when you do. How’s that for a new experience? I have always loved waves, but it has been years since I have been anywhere that had good waves and I could stand the temperature. I think we did a bit in Musquodoboit Harbour, but really it has been since we were in the Magdalene Islands. Apparently most places here you can’t go in swimming like this. The undertow is too strong. We had to be careful here too, but we still could easily go in to our waist. In the morning the waves were quite calm, but in the afternoon they were savage! I was constantly being picked up and thrown down. Sand-burnt and scraped up knees …. and loving it! When will I ever get to this again! After our frolic in the rough waves in the afternoons, we would go over to the lagoon where the water is calm … like swimming in a lake. There the de-sanding could begin. Let me tell you, the sand goes everywhere …. and I do mean everywhere!
Posted in The Really Big Trip by jimt with 4 comments.
Just Another Manic Monday
Monday is shopping, cleaning and cooking. Just a light day really ….NOT! We started out with a quick trip to Bethel. We had a parcel to drop off and Marvin had some things to pick up. Its a beautiful Bethel (although we didn’t have time to tour it really) and we got to meet Steve & Becky. Then is was off to the market. That is, for fruits and vegetables. Open air, tons of beautiful produce and all manner of people. A young man begged us for money and was chased off by all concerned. Another desperately wanted to rub my shoes down with a dusty brush. Hmmmph. Just did them myself a few days ago! While the girls got the food, Marvin & I went across the street to see his “guy”. Marvin’s got a “guy”. He is a Lebanese man who runs a liquor store but also does very fair money exchanges. I cashed in some of my Euros for CFA. Now we can start spending! Back across the street we see one of the local “garbage trucks”. How would you like to have his job? Hey, its a dirty job but someone has to do it! Then we went to the SOCOCE. Everything you want (but can’t afford) under one roof. We got the home supplies and extras for our trip tomorrow. Penny kept saying “just don’t look at the prices”. From there we went on the hunt for material. Did you like my new shirt? Its Continue Reading →
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Service Day 1
We survived! … of course that thought may be premature. What a day! We haven’t actually been in service before! We just thought we had. We set out this morning a little after 8:00 am. And when all was said and done (and we were long done) it was after 7:00 pm. Back to back studies all day. We got off easy, just riding on Marvin & Penny’s coat-tails. No actual coat-tails involved. Way too hot! Actually, the heat wasn’t too bad today. It was mostly cloudy so we were spared the worst. Still, I sweat profusely all day and, at one point, thought it might finish me off. Then the wife of Marvin’s study took pity on me and put a fan on me for the whole study. Yea! Saved. The morning started with a little door to door. Very little as there were many studies to do. The presentations are very complex here: “We would like to share a message from the Bible”. That’s it. They listen or they don’t. More often than not they do. And to think of all the work we do trying to tailor presentations to convince people to listen to us for at least a minute! The Bible study work is quite different too. We tread so lightly, terrified of scaring our studies. We treat them with kid gloves and cheer for any minor progress. Here, to our untrained ears, it almost seemed like hitting them between the eyes (in a very nice Continue Reading →
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First Day
So here we are …. first day in Abidjan. It is actually quite nice temperature wise. Of course, we didn’t budge out of the house all day and we have air-conditioning in the room. But it was a cooler day. I was glad to have socks on in our room. Bouba is the guard dog.He mostly sleeps and makes bad attempts to catch the multitude of lizards climbing the walls. … they laugh at me ’cause I am intrigued with the lizards. There are so many of them that it will wear off in a day or two. Meantime I am helping Bouba to hunt them. We have everything unpacked and in its place (did you expect less?). Now we have ‘our place’. Yea! We are drinking lots of water (and supplementing it with other drinks too!). Penny is feeding us far too well! We went to our first meeting tonight. We both managed to comment, although I doubt if anyone understood us. I was brother “Ford” and then “Kim”. After the meeting we got that all straight. …. I think. Of course, I remember very few of the names of the brothers and sisters. Its an extremely friendly congregation. We shook hands with almost everyone. Leslie was kissed by most of the sisters (one even kissed me! ick!) We had to pay attention to understand everything, but it went well. Pizza & brew for supper, so all is very well. Tomorrow is a big service day (pray for us).
Posted in The Really Big Trip by jimt with 4 comments.