TEST?!?!?!?!

Yeah I didn’t believe it when I first heard it too, but I have a big test coming up soon. On July 8th I will take a test to see how much Pulaar I really know. I will sit and talk will three Pulaar speakers. They have a checklist of the things that I should know and afterward they will tell me if they feel I am a Level One Pulaar speaker.
I won’t be able to start my research until I become a Level Two. If I do well on July 8th, I might have my level two test in 2 or 3 months. If I don't do as well as they expect, I will have about 4 more months of language school. If I do horribly on the test they’re going to send me into the bush and make me live by myself. I made that last part up, but there will be some changes. I'm hoping they won't be that drastic!
So, over the past few days I’ve been a little crazier than normal, and I know it won’t stop until I take the test. Sometimes I think I really need to study and I stay at home and study the whole night, and at other times I think I’m fine where I’m at in my language and focus more on my relationships and friends. It will be a battle trying to find a nice balance during the next week and a half.
I have many mixed feeling about this upcoming test. I’m really anxious to get out and start my work but I really enjoy my time with my language teacher and helping the new believer as he grows. Please pray that I can keep my mind focused and that I will be able to balance my time between studying Pulaar, building relationships with my friends, and most importantly, building my relationship with Jesus Christ.

Re-inventing the Wheel

Today, being the first day of summer, I thought I would show you something that I made a couple of weeks back. Here in West Africa you try anything to beat the heat and this new toy that I made is doing a really good job.

It all started a while back when I was talking to my Dad on Skype. I don’t remember exactly what we were talking about but the African heat was one of the topics. I explained that I have fans and that they do a good job but on some nights the fans just move the hot air and it’s difficult to go to sleep on those nights. My Dad responded “You got fans right? Make an air conditioner! You can do it like one in a car but use cold water instead of Freon.” And that got the wheels turning upstairs.

My first issue that I had to discover was how to get the air around the fan cold so that the fan would then blow cold air. I had a couple ideas and then I had an even greater idea. The internet!!!! I did a search online and I found about three different sites of people who made a contraption with cold water and a fan to cool the air. I studied them, and decided what I would do. I would put copper tubing on the back of a fan and then ran cold water threw the tubing and the condensation would lower the temperature around the fan.

The next big step was a way to get the water to move through the tubing. After making a big mess I canceled out using a siphon system and knew I would have to use a water pump. This is a whole 'nother story by itself but my friend Roy and I were able to find an aquarium store back when I spent that week in Dakar.

So after getting the pump I then searched the city of Kolda for the rest of the materials that I needed. I had a really fun time trying to explain what I wanted. I would say I’m using a fan, and cold water to get cold wind, and they would just stare at me. Half of them would look at me like I’m crazy and the other half would look at me like I was a mad scientist or something. So either way, I looked crazy…but that’s nothing new!!!!!!

So after making an even bigger mess than before I was able to get the water to circulate. The water pump wasn’t very powerful so I had to raise it, I first had a chair but then I went all out and had one of my friends make a stool for the ice chest to sit on.

This last picture is showing you the final product. If you look closely in the background you can see that I have it pointed right at my bed. Right before I go to bed I drop in about 3 big chunks of Ice and I get beautiful cold air till 3 or 4 in the morning, even if I don’t use ice it lowers the temperature slightly but when you got ice, you use it.

So are you jealous???

Oh yeah

The other day I was riding home from my Pulaar class and on the other side of the street I saw something that I've never seen before. It was two white people each on their own motorcycle . The motorcycle was loaded down with stuff like they have been riding for a long distance. When I saw them I kinda tilted my head and stared at them, you know like a dog does when he is confused. It was a sight because they looked out of place. So when they passed me they both gave me a nod. That same nod that people give in those small Texas towns when you pass each other. And that’s when it hit me - I wasn’t any different. I may not have had my motorcycle loaded down with things on my trip across Africa, but I was a white guy wearing a bright orange African outfit riding down the road on a motorcycle. I guess sometimes I forget how out of place I look when I'm traveling down the streets in West Africa.

For a final update on my health, I'm now back to 100%!! After the last blog it took about 3 more days for the swelling to go down in my neck but now I'm fine and have no sign of the sickness reappearing. Thanks again for your prayers.

MMMMMM.....Penicillin!!!!! (part 2)

I know that yall are all very worried, so I will first say that I'm a lot better! I woke up on Sunday morning without the fever and in a whole lot less pain. I still had swollen glands in my neck, but the fever was gone along with about 80% of the pain, and that made me really happy. As Sunday went on, I felt a lot of my strength coming back and I was even able to go next door to watch a soccer game on TV, but other than the 2 hours for the game I stayed inside my house and tried to keep my strength. Because I knew the next day was Monday.

Today when I woke up, I felt even better. My headaches were gone. I still feel and see that my glands are swollen but a noticeable amount less from the past two days. I went through my regular morning schedule and then went off to my language class. Had a very nice and smooth class, after class I had lunch at a restaurant in town and I returned home, in which I will stay in the neighbor the rest of the day.

The next couple of days I try to keep very calm and peaceful, sometimes that is very hard to do some times when you in Africa, but I will try. The next couple of days are also very important because on Thursday, the 12th, the whole Fulakunda team (4 adults and 3 children) are going to The Gambia. There we will have some team meetings, do so much needed shopping and relaxation, and get to speak some English (Gambia is a English colony). Please pray for the next couple of days so that I will be able to regain my health back to normal so I will be able to enjoy our time in The Gambia. Also pray for our travels and the many new faces and people that we will meet on this new adventure.

Thanks again, for your prayers, I have really felt them the past two days.

MMMMMM.....Penicillin!!!!!

Over the past 5 months, my health has been a lot better than I thought it was going to be. But as we all know, things don’t stay perfect for ever. Over a week ago I started having some pain in my neck, mostly when I swallowed. I didn't think much of it and just took some flu medicine and some immune busters. The pain that I would experience would be strong one day and then the next day it would feel almost gone. This went off and on for almost a week. I starting asking around and many people have had the same thing and they all told me to get this medicine called "Anjil." So I went to the pharmacy and asked the dude there and he confirmed and gave me the medicine. He told me the dosage and that it will take a day or two for it to start working. So after that, I went to go have lunch at a local restaurant and by the time I got home the pain had worked its way over to one side of my neck and it was starting to get really swollen. So I went home, read the information, (the papers inside the box are in French and English which helped out alot) found out that I got some penicillin. I was just about a day too late on going to the pharmacy because that night my neck got real swollen, I had a real bad fewer (102.5), and lost all my energy.

As I'm typing this its now, it’s the next day, and I woke up with the same pain. As the day is going on I'm starting to feel relief from the medicine but still in the back of mind is the thought that there was a miss communication somewhere down the line and I have the wrong medicine. Please pray for my body as I'm trying to recover from this illness, and please pray for my mind, that I can still be aware of my surroundings and continue to keep my testimony. I don’t know how but everybody in the neighborhood knows that I don't feel well and if I step outside for a second I get three or four people asking if I’m OK.

I can see the change!

When you’re an American living in West Africa you experience change and/or something different every day. But over the past couple of days I have experienced this change to a whole new level. About 3 months ago I started playing soccer (or football) with some of the kids my age in my neighborhood. I have a very fun time playing and the other kids all seem love playing with the white guy!!! I know it wasn’t a good picture but from that last blog you can see that the area that we play is just an open space, no grass, just dirt! I never played soccer before on the dirt so quickly filled the stereotype that American’s don’t play soccer, but over time I gain accustomed to the dirt, was able to bring but my soccer skills from my pee-wee days, and slowly I began to regain my confidence. My confidence was the easy thing; the next thing that I had to do was gain the confidence of the other kids. And over time I have seen the change in the eyes and by what they tell me. I am no longer token white guy that has to play because he bought the ball, I’m still not to the point where I think they truly accept me as one of them but I’m gaining respect. Which brings me to real topic, the friendships that I had made because if it. Once it gets dark, for the Africans, it’s the time to go home, wash up, answer the call of prayer, and then get ready for dinner. The last few time that I’ve played, I stayed after sat on a log and discussed religion with one of the other guys. He knew a good amount of English so the conversation would be about 75% Pulaar and 25% English and we are able to communicate very well. He is a very smart kid; I believe that he is in line for being a leader in the local mosque. I was surprised when talking to him seemed to have been educated about Missionaries. He was the first person that herd use the word missionary and after that he quickly asked about my family and I was able to talk about how hard it was to be away for my family and the choices that I had to make to do so. He seemed very eager to tell me what the Koran said and he was very excited when I accepted the question of “When you speak Pulaar really good, if you teach me the Bible, can I teach you the Koran?” I pray that the relationship that I have will continue to grow and I will be able to share with them what I believe. I pray that over time, my relationship and trust with the people that I play soccer with will grow. And that it will give me the opportunity to share with them about God’s son.

Also on another note, with the first day on June came the rainy season. And believe it or not, the first heavy rain of the season was on June 1st. The change that is happening because of this is also a whole new experience. I smell the rain in the air, the wind is much stronger, and even the dirt has changed. It used to be very sandy and very close to the color of sand on a beach and now the water has made it to be almost like the dirt on a baseball field, the orange tone, the getting stuck to the bottom of your shoes, I love it!!!!