Africa Part 7 - Public Hospital

Thursday, a full week in Africa.  The weather continues to be fairly mild, with occasional rain showers here and there.  Not the full downpour as in Honduras, but they do tell me they get those during rainy season which starts next month.  

A missionary woman from Colombia that works with the long-term missionaries here took me to the public hospital.  We were able to go into the AIDS ward and walk quickly through the pediatric offices.  It was definitely an eye opener, but not very different from what I expected.  We were also able to talk to the director of the AIDS work in the hospital.  While we were there one of the patients died from complications to AIDS.  I asked the director how they received their AIDS medication, and she notified me that the government purchased them.  I then asked her if they always had medication available, and she notified me that "most of the time" they had sufficient medication.  So I asked her what happened when medications weren't available, and she told me that people had to buy them off the street "hoping" that the medication were in fact legitimate medications.

Had lunch with some of the professors from the seminary and enjoyed some yummy chicken in a pine nut sauce, rice, and a local soda called Top.  Reminds me of Hansen’s Grapefruit soda.  Finding Diet soda that doesn’t cost $4 has been very difficult so far or even impossible to find – haven’t seen any at any grocery store.  Speaking of grocery stores, really haven’t seen any U.S. products at all – most items are coming from Spain and Arabic speaking countries as the writing on the packages is in Arabic.

Good long day, still helping out in the library trying to sort through large quantities of books that have been brought into the library.  We continue to categorize, organize and label the books (Dewey decimal system – so that’s requiring me to wipe off a few cobwebs and remember how that is done).

More tomorrow.

Africa Part 6

Today was a cool and quiet day.  We met with our Fong instructor, Geronimo, for the second time, and came away just as intrigued and confused as the first day.  One of the things we wanted to learn about was the history of the country.  Equitorial Guinea gained its independence in 1968.  It was a civil separation from Spain.  Spain planted a Ceiba tree and said when it’s fully grown, they would give the country back.  I found this quite interesting as we come from La Ceiba, and have Ceiba trees all around, we even flew on Ceiba airlines from the island to the mainland.

a la ceiba tree written in Psalms on the wall of a local church we attended

After our lesson we visited a couple of market places around town and picked up a few souvenirs.  We returned and had lunch with a sweet couple from Mexico that are missionaries here.  For dinner we are meeting with the caretaker of the property and his wife.  They are Guinean so we anticipate eating some very typical dishes for dinner.

In the evening Mike preached to the students at the seminary during chapel time in Spanish.  He preached on Titus and the characteristics of a good church leader.

We are having an amazing time, but we are still fairly tired, getting restless sleep, and our senses are being bombarded by all the new culture and sights.  It’s so great to see, so even though we are tired, the newness and learning the culture is fun and interesting. 

Africa Part 5 - the Rains down in Africa

Today we spent part of our day driving around downtown again.  At one point we were pulled over by a traffic cop looking for a road side bribe.  The long-term missionary here was able to chat a bit with him in Fang, shared some pleasantries, and we were able to leave without handing over any money. 

This is a sweet couple we ate lunch with one day

We returned to have lunch with several board members of the seminary.  Four of the board members are Guinean nationals, and the other is the North American missionary.  They shared their vision with us, and we were able to talk to them about medical/mercy ministry.  It was a great time of getting to know each other.  Afterwards, we went back to the place we are staying and chilled out for a while.  I can feel the weariness of a new culture wearing on me.  Between not sleeping in my own bed (the bed we are in is a full-size spring mattress – so my feet hang off the end), eating food we are not accustomed to, experiencing a culture unlike any I’ve encountered before, I am beginning to feel wiped out.  We are going to have to get back to Honduras just to recover J  The Spanish here I mostly understand – they do speak Castilian, and therefore their accent is different, they have a mild lisp when they pronounce certain words, and they use a conjugation we just don’t use in Honduras – so at times I’ve had to have people repeat something, because my ears are not accustomed to their form of Spanish.

It’s exciting to be here though…exciting to experience this very unique culture.

I was a little goofy though…today we had a pretty big rain storm, and I have “Africa” by Toto on my ipad…and yes…I played it while it was raining…”…bless the rains down in  Africa…” Mike just shook his head and laughed at me,  but I didn’t mind in the least J

Africa Part 4 - a little Fang Lesson

Today we casually woke up after an interesting night.  Sometime during the night the floor fan that was in our room bent over sideways and ended up on the bed.  When I straightened my legs while asleep it pushed the fan and knocked it onto the floor with a loud crash, startling us into a bleary, “what just happened” moment which took us a few minutes to figure out.  Then later on in the night my dream became a reality as I socked Mike in the face (my dream was of me pulling my dogs away from grabbing something on the counter).  Poor Mike…what a way to wake up!

So, a little red eyed, we woke up to a cool morning, had some coffee and invited a Guinean man whose first language is Fang.  Fang is the tribal language that people learn here – it is the language spoken in their homes, but Spanish is the language taught in schools and spoken by the government, so people grow up being bilingual.  The third language spoken here is French due to a large immigration from other African countries where French is the primary language.  For the next hour we were introduced to, and tutored on the language of Fang.  As it is a tonal language, it certainly had its challenges, and I laughed at myself the entire way through the class as I struggled to not only hear the differences, but pronounce the words as well.