Living

I'm finding it increasingly more difficult to find the balance between living in the midst of all of these stories and writing about the living! I don't know how the days pass so quickly but they certainly do. Updates:
1. Lucy is at about 80% health and steadily improving. She is amazingly grateful. Humbling, indeed.
2. Prince leaves this afternoon for his father's memorial service. Yesterday, Prince brought Jim back from meetings at about 2:00 p.m. Jim forgot that he was going to call me if he wasn't coming home for lunch. Well, of course this was the day that I got the best-ever head of leaf lettuce. It was fresh, crisp, and good-sized -- rare in these parts. Christian (the produce guy) was so proud of it! So, in celebration, I had fixed a huge salad for lunch -- shredded fresh ginger root and fresh lime juice was the dressing -- using what I have is a fun adventure! So, when Jim walked in with Prince (Jim was just going to say "hi" before he went back to his office) Jim saw the table set and the salad bowl filled and said, "big ogologo wahaala!" -- ogologo is a word for "tall man" and wahaala is "problem" -- I doubt they're ever put together in that way so Lucy and Prince burst into laughter. Anyway, Jim was full from his lunch meeting, Lucy was too sick to eat, and Prince had not eaten so I said, "Prince, please sit down and eat lunch with me! Lucy can eat a cracker." Prince took one look at the salad, turned to me with a funny smirk and asked "Is this food?" He certainly has had most of the ingredients before but never together and never without rice or gare -- they eat high carb, heavy food. Prince was a trooper and ate a plate-full of salad. But we had a lot of laughs over lunch. Like -- he said that if his mother had given him this food for breakfast when he was a boy he would have told his friends that he had not had breakfast! So, I explained that Nigerian men are not alone is this belief and that Jim used to call salads "chick food" but now he's well trained. More laughter. When Jim brought out Salad Cream, a sweeter version of Miracle Whip, Prince began to actually enjoy the salad!!
3. Names around here continue to amaze me! I went to a fellowship, yesterday, of Christian workers and the names included -- God's Time, Gospel, and Praise. But imagine this, an Indonesian man told us that he had been with another company guy and they'd met a Nigerian man and asked him his name. He said, "God knows," and the friend of the guy we were talking with kept saying things like -- "I'm glad God knows, but I don't know it. Please tell me what your name is!!" Reminded Jim and me of the "Who's on first?" routine! (His name IS God Knows.)
4. Our first Bible Study for couples started small. The night didn't work for some folks. So we'll try another night and see what happens. But we still had a great time of cross-cultural fellowship over our Bibles and in prayer. Listening to another person pray in a language I don't speak is, somehow, quite meaningful! God is amazing!
5. I attended a Friday fellowship yesterday. It's one hour of worship (our clapping hands are the only instruments), prayer, and a short teaching with Christian workers on the camp. I was told, "meet us under the mango tree." After figuring out which tree that would be, I got there late and was still early! Usually there are 15 - 20 people but this Friday the camp was abuzz with work because two new families arrive today. So it was about 7 black guys and one white woman. But I loved it! I almost wept just hearing these guys pray -- crying out to God with such gratitude for their health and their ability to work and then begging God for the salvation of others around them and for the rescue of this nation. They were so thrilled that I was there; I told them that I plan on being there every week that I'm here and that I will try to bring others with me. Jim can't attend, though he would love to, because he has meetings (which we now know include lunch!) on Fridays.
6. Last night at a party with residents I had a great visit with a French guy who's married to a Nigerian woman. They've been here 10 years and are soon to be transferred. He said that he's looking forward to living in another country but that he somehow feels, deep down, that he'll never find a place quite like this. We had a great visit about politics, the census, the upcoming election in 07, the future of the nation, etc. Totally intriguing!
7. After Prince gets back from the memorial services, I'll tell you more about the whole thing. It's really quite a lot of pressure on him as the first issue male -- paying for food for the feasts with the whole village, buying gifts for the village in honor of his father -- two days of music, dancing, and memories. Whew, it's gonna be a heavy time, I believe. Just thinking about Prince, makes me grin -- he's told me so many stories already -- like the way he was fascinated with cars at a young age. His father could tell. So, they had an old, cheap car and his father was afraid that Prince would try to drive it sometime. So, the dad put the only key on a chain around his neck to keep it safe. One time he handed the key to Prince to go to the car and retrieve something. Prince quickly grabbed the stuff, made an impression of the key in a damp bar of soap, and returned to the house. Then, he saved money for a verrrrrrrrry long time and paid a blacksmith to make a key. He waited until his father left one day to another village (without the car) and his mother had trekked to a farm to work. Yep, he successfully drove the car ... until a co-worker of his mother saw him, told his mom, ... big trouble from Momma! BUT his father had forgotten something, returned home, saw that the car was missing, reported it to the police, ... yep! Big wahaala! The punishment Prince received was equal to child abuse in the U.S. It definitely taught him something, but the wrong something. He learned that he could endure anything up to death. So, he took the car again about a month later, and then again, ... which lead to his career, beginning at the age of 17, as a driver. The money he spent supporting his father, mother, siblings, siblings' education, etc. caused his father to long-ago forgive him for his naughtiness!
I'll have more pictures posted by tomorrow, I hope.
I'm tellin' you, I love this place!