Floods and Hospitals

…Are two of the things my day consisted of.

            God's protection was the theme of my day, how about you?

            My friend Sandy invited me to go to the International Christian Fellowship with her and some other ladies.  There are people that go to that church who aren’t associated with Dakar Academy, so I thought it would be a good idea to spread my wings a bit. : ) there are also people who go to the DA church that aren’t associated with the school.. but anyway, I don’t think I will have many opportunities to attend ICF because it is pretty far away, so I would need to either take a taxi or find somebody who is willing to drive there, so I told her I would go with her!

            I’m just going to start at the beginning, and it will probably be a LONG post, so grab a cookie and some milk or tea or coffee.. whatever suits your fancy!  : )

            I woke up today at 6:30.. which I was kind of upset about because I didn’t need to be awake until 7:45, but I couldn’t fall back asleep!  And I didn’t sleep too good the night before because it was raining all night so I kept worrying that I was going to wake up in a pile of sewage (I have heard stories, it has happened).  SO  I got out of bed and got ready for church and started walking to Sandy’s apartment (about a 15 minute walk).  It was a REALLY good walk!  It felt wonderful outside, there weren’t many people around, and it was just lightly sprinkling (about a minute after I stepped into the apartment building, it started pouring)  Thank you Lord!!  Towards the end of the walk it started lightning and thundering that REALLY LOUD  thunder that Africa is so blessed with.  I really should invest in an umbrella, but I keep telling myself that would be silly since the rainy season will be over next month.  I think I’m just going to tough it out.

            I also decided on my walk that Dakar would be a MUCH prettier city if people didn’t throw trash wherever they wanted.  It is so sad.  Especially when I see stray cats and dogs digging through the trash.  I just want to give them a hug, but I don’t want to get rabies.  It’s a major dilemma that I face.  : ) 

            Okay, so I got to her apartment building and climbed the 5 flights of stairs, and waited a few minutes for the other ladies to get there.  The first woman who got there is a teacher at the school for deaf and blind children.  She is Senegalese, and she is only 24 and she has a 15 year old son… yup you read that right.  Solve that riddle.  He’s actually her adopted son and she’s not married and doesn’t think she ever will be because of the caste system and the fact that she’s a Christian.  It is so sad because she is so sweet and as a bonus, she’s pretty!  And I just met her today, so I’m sure her resume only gets better!  ALSO, she knows French, Wolof, Pular, (both of those are African languages), Sign Language, AND English.  So… if you know of any single eligible Christian guys… that speak any of these languages… send them on over… and if I don’t like him, she can have him! Just kidding!  …kind of : ) Anyway, I really like her.

            The second lady was Sandy’s next door neighbor and the first thing she said to me was “I don’t usually speak like a robot, I just have a cold.”  She was hilarious the whole day.  She is from Mali and her husband is British and she works with World Vision.. maybe they both do, I’m not positive.  After Sandy had provided us all with umbrellas, we ventured out into the pouring rain to find a taxi.  My first taxi ride ever, and I’m pretty sure I will remember it forever and always!  Well, maybe not the first one, but definitely the second one.  The way taxis work here is you flag one down.. or if you are a Toubab (white) they just honk at you every time because they think they can get more money out of you.  After they stop for you, you tell them where you want to go and you negotiate a price with them.  Everything is like a game here.  So, he told them a price and they asked for lower.. he said no and drove away but then stopped after 5 feet and accepted the lower price. 

            We got in and were on our way!  It was still pouring rain, and I was kind of nervous because I could not see through the windshield, so I don’t know how he was seeing!  Anyway, we made it to church safely and they asked him to come back after church got over.  He said he would.. more on that later.

            By the time we walked from the car to church, we were soaked (good thing I wore my water shoes today.. they didn’t really match but by the end of the day, I did not care) our umbrellas didn’t really do any good.  Actually, I was already soaked even inside the car because I rolled my window down.  I was either going to get wet from sweat or rain, I decided I would rather be rain wet than sweat wet. 

            Once we were inside, the thunder got even louder, and then the power went out.  So, we just had an acoustic guitar and a little djembe drum thing for worship, but I really liked it.  At the DA church, they have a weird synthesizer thing and they sometimes write their own music, which is cool, but every song sounds the same and they all sound like beach boys songs.. okay enough rude talk. I really do like the DA church! 

            The lady sitting next to me was getting dripped on..  it turned out she had chosen the seat under the only leak in the whole building.  Okay probably not the only leak, but still!  Horrible luck!

            The pastor of this church just lost his son, and he stood up in the beginning and was talking about how when good things happen we say “God is good” which is true, but the two statements don’t go together.. his point was that God is good always, no matter what the circumstances are, but we only seem to realize it when good things happen.  It was really powerful coming from him considering what he is going through. 

            After church, we went out to the parking lot and saw a couple of HUGE snails.. everything is bigger here.  We looked for our taxi man and couldn’t find him anywhere, so we found another one and he wanted double the price that we paid to get there.  They said no and we waved down probably 5 more taxis and right when we told them where we wanted to go they drove off right away.. we didn’t know why.  Finally, one of them said he would take us. 

            This was the start of our 2 hour journey.  Normally it would have taken about 20 minutes… The taxi turned down one road that was blocked off because it was flooded.  No big deal, there’s other ways to get there.  He starts going the other way and on the other side of the street is a RIVER where there is usually a road.  He turns down another road, flooded.  Another one, flooded.  We are passing by people bailing bucketfuls of water out of their homes… and cars with their engines completely submerged in water.  There are chunks of the road missing… which is actually normal, but these were huge crater sized chunks missing. Finally, he turns down a road that just has a little bit of water covering it.  By a little bit, I mean about a foot.  There is a really brave car on this road, so our taxi just followed that car and went through a REALLY deep section of water.. I thought we would either turn into a boat or sink for sure.  But right when we got to the end of it, I was so relieved, until a bunch of water splashed me right in the face.  Yuck yuck yuck!  AND my window wasn’t even down cause it didn’t work in this taxi!! So it was the taxi man’s window.. all his fault!

            He finally gets on the high way and I’m thinking we are home safe. Wrong.  We go for a little while, and on the other side of the dividers we start to see some accidents.  Then we come to a point where all the traffic is backed up.  I thought maybe it was just because of an accident, but as we are sitting there, cars start turning around and going the wrong way on the high way,  and people are walking on the side of the road.  The taxi man yelled at somebody walking by and they said that teenagers were blocking the highway because their homes were flooded so they were upset.  They were burning tires in the middle of the highway.  I still don’t really understand why they decided to do THIS in their anger, but they explained it to me that Senegal just got a new president who promised to fix this flooding problem, and he hasn’t fixed it yet so they are trying to make a point..

            So anyway, by this time, the taxi man is so frustrated and says he will just take us back to the church where he picked us up.. which I don’t understand how that is logical since we were pretty close to home.  Anyway, they told him no.  They decided our options were to walk through the demonstration or go somewhere else and wait it out.  Sandy was not in favor of walking through the burning tires.. or even around them.  So we got out of the taxi, paid him double for all his trouble and walked to the hospital that was about a block away.  We went inside and they were sweeping water out and it smelled horrible in there.  Makes me feel REALLY good if I ever need to go to the hospital.. but Sandy did say there was a different hospital that most people go to that was more westernized.  Then, this guy comes along with a backpack full of spray stuff… probably sanitizer.. but he’s just spraying it on top of the yucky water… so THEN this group of four guys comes rushing in carrying a woman who is screaming her head off.  Later, we found out from the radio that she had fallen in a hole and the riot police sprayed her with some chemical.. or something. I didn’t really understand. 

            We went back outside and things were finally starting to calm down.. so we found a taxi who would take us home and we made it back safe and sound!  Crazy day.  Sandy’s husband and kids had gone to the DA church because the kids wanted to… they were the smart ones.  But anyway, they had a yummy lunch waiting for us when we got home!  And then her daughter made this REALLY good mint tea with mint that she had grown herself!! She put cinnamon and vanilla and butter and sugar in the tea!  Such a little gourmet chef!

            We played some uno and talked for a while and then I went home.  I was so tired,  I thought I might fall asleep on the way home!  But, I saw one of my student’s families driving on the road, so that was fun!  They honked at me and waved and at first I couldn’t figure out who it was so I probably gave them a pretty mean look, but then once I figured it out, I felt so bad so I turned around and waved! Hopefully they don’t think I’m a grump!

            Anyway, after this day… I don’t really feel prepared for this week at all.  I am exhausted and I didn’t get as much done yesterday as I would have liked, so please pray that I will have enough energy to power me through this week! 

            Quick update on yesterday, if you are still reading… your cookie and drink are probably gone by now!  Fruit man came so I’m stocked up on mangoes for the week.. I think I talk about mangoes in just about every post.  Then I went grocery shopping with my FRIENDS and got a new huge bottle of water.  Praise the Lord for gentlemen, because I didn’t have to carry it up the steps again! But this one had a handle on it, so that makes it a lot less awkward.. but I still like the gentlemen rules.

            We went to the vegetable stand right next to one of the grocery stores, and there was the most adorable little 2 or 3 year old African boy.  He was eating a dirt/germ covered lollipop but he was just the cutest ever!  I wanted to steal him and keep him as my own especially after watching him for a while.  There was a tub of dirty yucky water and he kept splashing himself with it, dipping his lollipop in it, sucking the yucky off, dipping it back in, rubbing the lollipop on all sorts of dirty yuckies, sucking it… and then he got on the prayer rug and did the prayer thing.  Then, his dad went across the street and the little boy tried to follow him!  Across a busy road!  Thankfully, Travis was there to rescue him but I just wanted to snatch the little guy right up and keep him for.ev.er.

            Also, I got some laundry done yesterday and learned never to hang it on the clothesline outside before wiping the line off.  So much dust.  My sheets now have a nice line of dirt right down the middle.  But I was NOT going to rewash them, so I just put the dirty side of them so they wouldn’t touch me.

            Okay, now I’m done and I’m not proofreading this… so I apologize for any confusion that results. : )

xoxo