All is well here. I’m feeling more comfortable with the conditions. The roads with heavy unbelievably crazy traffic, people all ages walking across the streets and along the sides of streets, motorcycles passing on the left and right side. Bumpy, paved but pot holed roads with red dirt on the sides of the road so dust flying everywhere. Pastor Hudson drives like a champ.! I say he has eyes like a cat in the dark. Also the steering wheel is on the right side of the car like in England. So we drive on the opposite way we do in the US. That is weird here too.
I would love to have the stats on people getting hit by cars, trucks, bicycles and or motorcycles each day. I haven’t seen but one wreck of a big truck tonight which held us up in traffic for an hour or more. It helps me to not fear when I know so many are praying for us back home, and also I tell myself Pastor Hudson drives this every day and he has been fine all this time. Big trucks barging down the roads too, everyone wants to pass the trucks so it’s a constant passing and pulling back in your lane just in the nick of time.
They have a nice breakfast buffet here at the Colline Hotel and we will be able to finally enjoy it tomorrow. I’ve had to take my instant coffee and Mercy boils water for me.. You would love her girls, she is a so pretty, cute figure with a cute bubble tush. Reminds me of Marci’s figure and jaw line. Beautiful skin and dresses so cute. Leads song service like you wouldn’t believe . . . singing with the ladies, praising, dancing before the Lord up on stage. Her voice is huge when singing, praising, preaching, then when out of church very soft spoken, sweet almost shy acting. Good wife to P. Hudson, mom to her four boys. Keeps the house, laundry by hand outside, cooks in a charcoal little pot/stove that sits on the floor. She sits on a wicker round stool and stirs the pot. I thought the stool was for the little boys but it is for mercy. They make them in the local market place and sell for all the ladies use one.
Mercy will cook fresh beef chunks which she buys at the open market in one pan with a thin gravy. Then she puts a plate on top of the bowl of meat to keep it warm no foil or plastic wrap just a plate on top. She then cooks the rice in the same pan which she has washed out. Then she will cook the beans . How she does it all, I haven’t figured out. But it’s all in stages. Sometimes she has two little pot bellied stoves on the kitchen floor if she’s cooking several dishes. Everything is brought to the dining room table in bowls with a plate on top for keeping the dish warm or if it’s fruit or coleslaw to keep flys out of it. They are extremely creative, nothing is wasted. I could go on and on about what these homes do not have but the amazing thing is they accomplish more with so much less than us American women have in even the modest of our kitchens. No ovens, no microwaves, no refrigerator, no hot water, just the big tea kettle going all the time. The children are clean, clothes clean, husbands shirts ironed. She carries water in the house by five gallon container. Kinda like us camping or when we go deer hunting. She boils milk, which is delivered in a quart baggie at her back patio gate by a dairy delivery man.
Dirt is all over outside, so shoes come off when you enter their house. The floors are painted concrete. Their house is much better than most of their neighbors…You really have to see it to believe it !!! We have had three meals there and I have to say I’m very satisfied and look forward to going back. Everything is so tidy when we arrive. Pretty freshly starched/iron doilies on the backs of all the sofas and chairs for when we sit and rest. Fresh squeezed mango or guava juice always ready for us. I keep saying, Sweet Mercy you work so hard cooking for us are you tired, she replies, no I like cooking plus the high school girls two that live there help out after school.
The first day at their church I had to go thank heavens, only tinkle and the little girls took my hand and led me there. Well you can smell it several yards away, one concrete wall area for men and the other for women. Two stalls in the women, no doors just a square hole in the concrete floor where you squat and hope to hit the hole . . . I did my best but so glad to have my baby wipes and sanitary jell.
These ladies are sooo dressed up for church in their silk African dresses and some in high heels. Can’t imagine them squatting dressed like that but obviously they do…..
Today I spoke to the high school students around one thousand all dressed in blue uniforms. I asked them to hold one finger up and sing with me, this little light of mine, I’m gonna let it shine. They loved it. I told them God says in Matthew 5:16 that we are to be the light in a dark world so let your light shine for Jesus. I said even my grandsons sing this song back home. Afterwards P. Hudson told me the schools motto is Shine for Glory. ( don’t’ quote me on that it’s similar to that saying.)
The children and babies are my love and the young mommies. Guess you can tell I miss my girls and grand kiddos. The kids just look at me like where did you come from. I don’t think many have seen a white person before, especially a blonde lady. As soon as I smile and wave at them or hold out my arms to them, they walk over to me. Even the smallest of little ones in their mommy’s arms will see me and just stare. The kids all want me to love them and hold them. Tonight at the little mud, thatched roof church kids that did not attend the church came out of the bushes to see what all the noise was. The church members are singing and praying always when we drive up to prepare for us.
Well these kids some bringing their very young siblings like two ish came to watch from outside the open back of the church. Towards the end of the service I went to the back and greeted them, just like I did when we drove up. They began to sing and dance around with me as the drums started and singing began again. I had a baby girl in my arms, she clung onto me like a flea, and one little girl only had a bead strand around her waist, no clothes danced beside me. What a precious sight and I was loving it. Dad spotted me back there with all these young ones and got some on video. You wouldn’t believe the clothes on these non church kids. Dresses dirty, torn, too big, or no clothes, but oh so happy, they didn’t have a care in the world. Looked very happy and well fed. Moms here love their kids and feed them good. All the kids watch over one another. I keep saying I can not even imagine my Keri letting her boys do this or that or Berkley laying on a woven straw mat on the dirt floor.
Here it’s just the way . . . My eyes bug out of my head taking it all in . . .
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