Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Trench Smelled of Coconut

The subject line is cathcy eh? Ok well today was a day full of blog worthy moments, so I thought hey lets tell the people! Today is our Black Bush day, and if you didnt know this already, I love Black Bush. We took off for the polder, which is where the buses pick you up, and waited for the bus. It took about 20 minutes until a bus came around. As we were waiting a young girl came up and started talking to us. I knew that I knew her from somewhere but couldnt quite place her. I found out when she got off at the same stop as us to go to my Bible study Shabahna's house. Yes, it was her sister. I have only seen her about 15 times since my arrival, but why would I know who she is? So we had our study with Shabahna and then her lovely mother gave us custard. If you have never had custard, I am sorry. Its amazing! After that I started taking pictures, I tried to take a picture of Shabahna, but everytime I took a picture her eyes were closed. We tried about 20 different times, with no success. Also they have lots of young animals at their house, kittens and puppies. I really really want to take one home. If I was staying longer I would be the proud owner of a kitten right now. Dont know why but I have had the strangest urge to have something soft and cuddly recently.

So we made our way over to our new return visit, which is a school. Abi met a woman named Kay a few weeks ago who is a teacher there. She is very interested in having a weekly class with us teaching it, talking about the Bible. So today was our first day going over and talking to the kids. As we walked into the school yard all the kids came running up to us, asking our names. They are all so sweet and respectful. Very different from what you see in the schools in the States. So we found the teachers and they got us all set up in the classroom. There were about 35 kids that came, all different ages. So they did their normal introduction of welcome to our school, then all sat quietly and waited for us to talk. We asked them if they knew what God's name is, all of the kids answered by saying Jesus. So Abi had one of them come up and read Psalm 83:18, he read it and then we asked again. They all said that it was Jehovah. After that I had volunteers come up and pick animals from the pictures then I taught them the signs for it. We all had so much fun, they were so excited to learn signs. I really wish I could hear what some of their parents have to say when they go home and they tell their parents that God's name is Jehovah. I am sure there were some interesting responses:)

So we made our way to a woman's house that said she wanted to prepare lunch for us. We arrived in time to see the woman walk outside with a freshly washed cup with water still in it, she took it over to her husband where he was pouring coconut water into the glasses. Uhoh, what are we to do? Dont want to be rude, but dont want to get a parasite and die. So after we took the glasses from her, she walked back inside. So Abi thought ok I will take the glass over to the trench and try to get rid of the water sneakily. Anybody ever see Abi try to do something sneakily? Yea its pretty funny. So I hand her my glass as she walks over to the trench and dumps our water in the trench. The best part was how loud it was. She thought hey I will dump it in water and it will be something they wont notice. It was loud and she realized how loud as she walked back and saw Dana and I laughing. Then Dana got rid of hers by walking over to the flower pot and leaning over it pretending to smell it and dumped the water in the pot. She looked so proud as she walked back. Then the food came, it is something called belangie. It is strained eggplant, it has the consistency of snot, everytime I try to eat it I start gagging. So I forced it down with rice and water. So we finally got the food all down and headed out to more return visits.

We started the long trek to Johanna, we thought we would be walking for a while. Thankfully a man in a truck, that wasnt creepy, stopped and aksed if we wanted a ride. So we hopped in and he took us to our next return visit named Annisa. It is Dana's study so Abi and I sat back and watched the funny movie playing that had a man singing and dancing for his elephant. I want to find it and buy it before I leave. So we ate more there and then left. A few minutes down the road we noticed two young boys throwing rocks from one side of the river over to the other bank. We decided it looked like fun, so we joined them. We had a competition to see who could throw the farthest. They won...not surprising though. We are girls you know.

We finally got around to our last study of the day, we dont know their names. We thought they were deaf, we still dont really know. Last week the woman hid on the opposite side of the fence in the garden. It was one of those moments where I wish I had my camera out and ready. She didnt know her son was going to let us in the gate and didnt quite know how to react when she figured out that we knew she hid from us. So this week we stood in front of the gate and Abi waved her purple water bottle around so they would see her. The funny thing was that as we walked up we heard her talking! Yes she was having a real conversation with someone, who? We dont know, probably dont really want to know. So the woman saw Abi and she walked inside, she repeated this process about 5 times. Finally we understood that she was trying to ignore us and we were done trying.

So we started walking down the road when we saw little goats running over to us. I got to pet a baby goat! Its mother sat there and watched very carefully and when she decided we were done with them she called them back over to her. Funny that the next door neighbor noticed us playing with the goats, so the little girl brought out her own goat for us to play with. They were so cute, I am thinking about bringing a goat home with me. I thought I wanted a monkey, but I think its a monkey that I want now. Well as you know, we got home, otherwise I wouldnt be writing this blog. So I hope you enjoyed it:) Bye

3 comments:

  1. Well if you make that school thing a regular thing don't forget to count the 35 bible studies... well you might have to split them with Abi but still plenty togo around :)

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  2. I think you getting Tired cause This don't make sense.
    "I thought I wanted a monkey, but I think its a monkey that I want now"

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