What what! I'm a big girl now. Granted, as there's no drinking age in Senegal the fact that I'm 21 as opposed to 20 isn't really that big of a deal. But we'll get there in a little bit since we last left you off on Sunday.
Monday- Fairly standard day at the WHEPSA house. We had our morning breakfast and spent some time in the Word. Since we've finished James we worked through Habakkuk which was surprisingly more challenging to get through than James. It basically is Habakkuk's prayers to the Lord about how bad things had gotten in Judah with the Israelites basically acting no different than the pagan nations around them. To say that Habakkuk is honest is a bit of an understatement, he is pretty much whining to God and questioning the wisdom of His decisions. It's easy for me to look at that and be like "Man, Habakkuk, get it together. This is the Creator of the entire world. He knows what's going on. Stop whining." but realistically how often when something happens that I don't understand, do I say to myself "Really Lord, THIS is what you have planned for me?" but studying through Habakkuk with Andi has made me realize two things -or rather, reminded me of two things that I often forget. 1) We have insanely limited perceptive abilities. Matt Chandler put it this way, if we were to put the entire history of the Earth so far into an hour long movie, I would only be in it for part of a millisecond. So it would be like being asked the plot of the movie from my milisecond long look at it compared to asking the Director and Author of the movie. We don't know everything. We can't see the long term effects of the things happening to us. But God can. So trusting Him is NEVER going to lead you astray. Trusting your own abilities... Almost always... 2) God wants us to come to Him with honesty in prayer. It's not like He doesn't know what's on our minds anyways so trying to hide our frustration, confusion, fear, or grief from Him is only hurting us. Apart from our Bible study we also got a chance to go to the center for the handicapped here in Koungheul with Leah. I cannot even begin to tell you how humbling an experience being here has been. The people here don't take anything for granted. Those girls work hard , doing embroidery and such, for the things they need, but they are so upbeat and gracious everytime we see them. There was a little boy who lived there that I'm pretty sure had never seen a white person before because anytime he was in visual range of us he would start wailing. Cool.... My mom said on the phone that it might have been because he thought we were ghosts, I'm not sure if she meant this seriously or as another jab at how pale I am.
Tuesday- Today we had a funeral to go to for a woman that goes to our church here. We were told to wear our Senegalese clothes, which felt super strange seeing as they're pink and flowery, not very traditional funeral attire. It was across town so we took a taxi... and by taxi I mean a cart pulled by a donkey. (And by "donkey" she means "bare bones horse" -A) I'm going to be honest, it is NOT my favorite form of transportation for two reasons 1) It kind of ends up being a Toubaar parade of sorts where everyone that you pass yells "TOUBAAR! BONJOUR TOUBAAR!!" and you wave at them and they yell some more and giggle and point 2) The poor donkeys (HORSES -A) (In my defense there are donkeys also-M) are so skinny and they have cuts all across their backs from the sticks they use to make them go faster. I know I sound like a PETA freak but it makes me sad. (She can't help it she's a vegetarian. -A) When we got there it turned out to be more of a funeral reception than an actual funeral. We sat for a while and talked to one another. I'm really loving the amount of time that Andi and I have to get to know one another. She is so. stinkin. cool. (That's not fair. Marissa is stinkin' awesome too. Like, really. -A) We were talking at one point about how cute the babies here are and how Vero is going to help us break into the hospital and steal one.-total joke, no worries mom and dad, international prison is not really my style- (Except that I was being serious. I'm totally going to steal a baby while I'm here. Leah is taking me to the health clinic tomorrow. -A) Then I saw a little puffy cheeked girl that was stinkin precious (ABSOLUTELY the cutest little chubby baby ever! -A) and Vero, while making fun of the baby by puffing up her cheeks, said the baby was ugly which lead to a conversation that went something like this:
V-That baby is NOT cute. See that girl over there. She is cute.
M- You just watch it. One of these days you're going to have an ugly baby, THEN what are you going to do
V- If I have an ugly baby I will give it to my mother.
A- So you're telling me you're going to give your baby away if it's ugly?!?
V- Yes but that won't happen because my baby will be pretty like me.
M- You're going to have an ugly baby for sure and then you're going to call Andi and I and we're going to come and get it.
So basically when Vero has an 'ugly' baby, Andi and I are adopting it. Either way I'm totally adopting a little African boy. No question. Andi will tell you about our boyfriends, Surgey and Antoine in our next blog, which should explain my decision.
That evening, while I was taking a shower, there was a really loud crash outside that sounded like an explosion of something electric-I was kind of hoping it was the amplifier that the call to prayer guy uses (Ah, if only it were that easy. -A)- and then what was seriously the most torential downpour I've experienced in my life. And the room we slept, since we obviously couldn't sleep outside, had a tin roof. It was awesome and made me excited for rainy season, but it also killed our Internet, hence the lack of posts since then. (Vero didn't want to run outside in the rain and unplug the "light box" aka the Internet hook up before the lightening got a hold of it. Obviously, if you're reading this you'll know its been fixed. -A) (Or that we're at an internet cafe... which at this rate is more likely. Like everything else, the people who fix the internet are in no particular hurry-M)
Wednesday AKA MY BIRTHDAY- First off thank you to all of you who sent me birthday texts they were so wonderful :) I can't wait to have internet again to see the messages there. Andi and I took it pretty easy. We went and got peanuts and Cikilop (chocolate covered cookies with coconut and marshmallow) and during lunch the girls got together and bought me a pineapple soda which was delicious and so sweet of them. Leah told us that most people here don't know how old they are much less when their birthdays are so the fact that they made a big deal out of mine was really really special. (It was a pretty wonderful day, I must say. These precious girls went out of their way to make it awesome. -A) My birthday present to myself was a call to both my parents and Sarah. There were about a billion people I wanted to call but seeing as the calls are a little more than a dollar a minute I thought I would keep it to three short calls. It was SO good to talk to her though. Getting to communicate through facebook and emails is great but there is something about hearing a familiar voice that made me so homesick. We started plotting out our joint 21st birthday party for when we get back and all of the things we're going to cross off our college bucket list next semester. (for example: impulse trip to the beach to watch the sunrise, start an epic prank war, run in the Muddy Buddy and Warrior Dash, and taking Will and Britton camping because somehow they have managed to have gone 20 years without ever camping. So much for rugged manliness) To say that I miss her would be a huge understatement. Andi and I then went to church choir practice with Sophee and it was gorgeous. Ugh. If we were staying here longer I would 100% be joining the choir. (Really, words cannot describe the sound these people make. Its stunning. I recorded a bit of it with my phone, so hopefully some of you can come close to understanding what I'm talking about. Surely this is what angels in Heaven sound like. -A) While we were listening to them sing one of lady's sons was staring at us and she put him down so that he could come over to us but he got about halfway then thought better of it and went to play with the drums. Andi says it's a guy thing. Haha. When we got back we had a special birthday dinner of SALAD AND FRIED EGGS!!! (AND FRENCH FRIES!!) AHHHHH woooooooo. Gosh. It was so good. Andi even got to have chicken. (WHOOP! Best. Chicken. Ever. Sorry Dad but I had to get excited about something OTHER than fish! -A) It was a good birthday for both of us. The best part of the day for me was right after I got out of the shower Andi said "Vero, Sophee... Kaiyea (which means 'come here') we have something for you" Which of course I took to mean that Andi and I had something for the two of them, because I'm an idiot and had already forgotten that it was my birthday. We went into Vero's office and there was a cake with a huge candle in the center. They all sang me happy birthday and Sophee decided that would be a good moment to start tickling me. It was so so soo soooooo sweet. Not the traditional (American) birthday cake but still delicious. All in all it was an incredibly humbling and wonderful birthday. Thanks Andi Pants for making it one of my best ever :)
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