February

A couple of pictures of my dogs. Bobo with rice on her nose. Somba learning to sit and doing a great job of it. She's about a year old but has had no training at all so we've got a lot of work to do with her.

And the scene of the bus stop (I wait under the tree on the left) near the home of a Bible study I have out in the bush. These little kids are always hanging around there. They're cute but don't speak any English (they don't go to school). I asked them their names but they give the first name AND surname and are so long and complicated I have to try to shorten them to one syllable but I still forget by the next week. I'll have to make little badges for them with their names on, they'd love that.

Phew, that first month went fast!! Today is Clean the Nation Day. The last Saturday of each month is set aside for cleaning so there are no shops open and no transport. It lasts from 9am till1pm so there are no ministry arrangements. We're supposed to spend the time cleaning the place up but of course we keep our area clean all month long so we get a morning off. Rubbish here is a big problem. Imagine living in a country with no wheelie bins!! Rubbish is either dropped in the street, taken by each householder to an area in the street where there's a bit of open space and burnt or just dumped, or on the main roads rubbish is collected. The collection is done by tractor pulling an open cart. The men sweep rubbish from piles onto an open sack then toss the rubbish onto the cart. You can imagine that only half of the rubbish actually lands in the cart then half of that blows out again when the tractor pulls away. It's funny to watch but also sad that the people aren't educated in basic hygiene.I've been trying to take photos of the birds that visit our garden. Sadly I didn't manage to get any of the hornbillls which were just beautiful. They've all disappeared, maybe migrated to somewhere with more water. One day alll the birds started making a huge racket so I rushed outside to see what was upsetting them. A vulture had landed in the tree that over hangs our garden. I love the vultures, there are loads of them here. I managed to get him to pose for a photo. Gorgeous isn't he?

On the subject of animals I want to tell you about Billy. His troop raided the peanuts from a village and the villagers killed his mum. Billy was found still clinging to her so he was taken to my Bible student (she is a nurse from Britain and also an animal lover). Some time later a dog attacked him and damaged his skull. There aren't any facilities to xray animals here so my friend the vet took him wrapped in a blanket like a baby to a human hospital and with help from a friend of his they managed to use the xray machine there.

As he was still suckling he was raised by a nursing cat and sometimes behaves like a cat. It's against the law to keep monkeys in captivity here so Billy has complete freedom but chooses to stay in and around the garden.

I was working with a sister who wanted to find a return visit. The streets don't have names or numbers so this can be really difficult sometimes. We walked and walked and eventually found the lady. We then had the challenge of getting back to her car and ended up wandering through the abbatoir (is that how you spell it?). You can imagine the smell was gross but there was a huge colony of vultures. I kept stopping to watch them, the sister must have thought I was crazy.

Outside are all the animals waiting for slaughter and across the road are the "butchers" shops. Terry says I should buy from them as they're probably selling the meat cheaper and fresher than anywhere else but I can't bring myself to do it. I'm used to buying meat from fridges in cling film, not from the dusty side of the road in 30 degree heat.

I actually made a breakthrough this month as I bought "fresh" fish from the market. This is also an experience. Again there are no fridges or cling film or even water, just fish on a dirty piece of lino and flies, flies and more flies. I've been buying smoked fish for the animals so I plucked up courage and bought a huge fish to fry African style. It was delicious and we all survived the experience so that's one hurdle accomplished. In the supermarkets meat comes in three . . . can I call them cuts?? . . . Cow Meat, Cow Meat with Bone and Minced Cow Meat. They are more expensive than the markets so at the moment meat is an occasional treat.

Butchers aren't the only businesses that are different to Europe. This is our local car repair garage. The car boot there is his tool box. I was in a bus (called gele gele) and we stopped off at one of these places. The guy came out and asked if the driver had a pair of pliers. They hunted around in the tool box under my seat and finally found one. I'm of the opinion that there is only one complete tool kit in the whole country and they just keep passing the tools around. We asked the local plumber to fix a leaky toilet for us. He hung around in there for a few minutes then reappeared to ask if anyone had a spanner.




The gele geles and taxis are how we get around. Normally the fare is 7 dalasis (around 14p) so they're cheap enough. The problem is we're never sure how long the journey will take. The gele gele will leave, not at a certain time, but when it's full. On a quiet day this can take ages and sitting around in the heat waiting can be tiring. One evening we were coming home from the Kingdom Hall and we got into a taxi. This should take us to the gele gele stop which takes us home. Anyway, the driver wanted to charge us for 4 people even though we were only 3. Terry told him we would only pay for 3 and why should we pay for 4?

Because there are 4 seats and no one is taking the other one.

But another person can get in, we don't mind.

Another person might disturb you.

Just drive. We're paying for 3.

We drove maybe 50 metres when the taxi stopped dead (broken down) so we had to get out and walk back to the taxi rank and get another one. This took us to the gele gele stop without a problem but 4 men had to get behind the gele gele to bump start it. It's hard work pushing in sand so they had to give up and we had to get another gele gele. Remember the Africans don't queue so we stood politely at the back and allowed everyone else on but the second gele gele was already half full so there were no seats left for us. This was the last gele gele running so we had to get a taxi but we had to pay a higher amount because it wasn't on their normal run (this is called a town trip). We got home ok eventually but it's all so unpredictable. Another evening coming from the Hall the taxi was stopped by a policeman for only having one headlight. The driver had to pay a 50 dalasi bribe so that we could continue. He complained all the way that the policeman wasn't interested in whether he had a broken headlight, only in getting some supper for himself.

There are 7 local languages here but one of the most curious is African English. For example they use the verbs "to on" and "to off". They on the light, off the fridge. I asked was it possible to on and off your clothes but they say no, you remove your clothes, not off them. I was laughing too much to get any more sense of that conversation.

Another one is that in Wollof they don't have words like son or daughter, brother or sister, only male offspring, female sibling etc. I got chatting with a man at the market and he asked was I here with my family. Yes, I told him, I live with my husband and son. He asked was he a boy son or a girl son. Errrr, he's a boy son, a girl son would be a daughter. He was surprised that our English was different to his.

It isn't all difficult though. We have a brother and sister staying in a hotel and they invited us over for a meal. We were able to use the pool which was a nice treat. Terry has turned 60 now but still looks pretty good.