We've been in Guinea for a week and a half now. It definitely feels like much longer! Life in Africa is a lot of things...but one thing is for sure... although life is "simpler" it is also much more complicated in many ways. Take cooking for example: we've had to learn to cook with only the produce that is available in this region and very little pre-prepared products: that means no canned soups, no box mixes, no microwaves. This means our first attempt at meal making was a huge fail! And the unfortunate part was that when we realized dinner wasn't working, we couldn't just go grab Subway or quick warm up something. We were just out of luck! We've had successful meals since then, which means that even if a meal is nothing special it feels like we just climbed Mt. Everest... It's such a huge accomplishment!
Brandon was able to play soccer with some of the neighborhood kids, that is until the mosque's call to prayer rang out and all the kids had to stop playing soccer to go home and pray. I've heard of halftimes, but...
And I have some friends in the neighborhood... a little boy across the street, about 2 or 3, runs to greet me whenever he sees me. He stands and looks at me until I shake his hand and say "bonjour" and then he runs away smiling. Almost every time I leave the house, without fail, this happens.
I start French lessons this week, hopefully tomorrow. They'll be taught by one of the English professors from the university in town. I'm so thankful to have a chance to learn the language--knowing more French will be a huge help as we continue to live here. Please pray for me as I try to learn. I'm not anticipating it being easy!
Thank you for your continued diligent prayers. We hope our blog posts don't bore you!
-Hannah
You don't know me, but I love reading your blog posts. I grew up with Brandon's dad. I was Lori Gould and graduated from ICA two years after Bill. I really feel for you guys learning to cook "from scratch". I'm sure your family or the missionaries are a great help with that and there are some good cookbooks just for west african missionaries - have you found them?. My quick family favorite was "macaroni and cheese on top of the stove" - just cook the macaroni and stir in the shredded cheese (of course you'll have to shred it first!). I still like it better than the boxed stuff.
ReplyDeleteHannah, good luck with the French lessons! I can imagine they will be tough. Just remember to call damm le grou. I think that is his African name. I wish I could taste some of these meals!! Hope you are having a good time. Praying for you guys.
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