Today was a mixture of the expected and the unexpected, but all good.
The day started off differently than usual when I requested leftover rice for my
breakfast instead of an omelet. Last evening’s rice dish was really good, but I
couldn’t eat much then because I was so full from other things I had eaten
earlier in the day. So I decided I’d request a second chance on the rice this
morning. That provided a very satisfying start to the day.
As expected, around 8:00, Matthieu, Moïse, Justin, Bamoussa and I
gathered at the church once again, this time to all focus on the 15 or so folders
of data still waiting to be typed into the dictionary database. The four Djimini
speakers spent their time checking the words that had been collected, crossing
out ones where the participants had misunderstood the topic, correcting the
spelling of those that were misspelled, adding words that the word-collection
groups had overlooked, and so on. I focused on typing the words into the database
that had been checked and approved. Justin divided his time between the two
tasks, first checking the contents of a folder, then typing the data into the
database. We made good progress, so that when 12:30 rolled around, I had five
folders of verified data to take with me to work on typing in the afternoon.
(As it turned out, I got four of them entered; the other will wait until
later.) At this point it looks like, come Monday morning, everything will have
been checked, and we’ll spend the first part of the day completing the data
entry. Maybe we’ll be done with that by coffee break.
The noon meal was another unexpected part of the day today. I’m never
sure what I’m going to be served here. There is quite a variety of dishes that
have made an appearance at one time or another—from yams (boiled, mashed, or in
a stew) to manioc (usually in a couscous-like form known as “attieke”) to
potatoes (boiled, in a stew, or served as French fries) to rice (with oil and
tomato like last evening and this morning’s breakfast, or with some sort of
sauce/gravy to pour over it, sometimes simply with cooked leaves of some kind),
almost always accompanied by some sort of meat, fish being the most frequent—so
when I show up for a meal, I’m never sure what I’ll find in the pots on the
serving table. When I checked out today’s “menu,” however, I discovered that it
was white rice and a peanut sauce with some tender meat in it. I love rice and
peanut sauce, but this was the first time it had been served since the evening
of the day I arrived. Everyone at the table today could see how much I
appreciated the food I was eating for that meal!
Another surprise came my way when I was told that Moïse would be taking
me to church in another village tomorrow. It’s apparently far enough away that
he and Matthieu have arranged for a friend to come and pick me up in his
vehicle instead of making me ride that distance on the back of a motorcycle. “Oh,
and by the way, could you preach the same sermon there tomorrow that you
preached at the other church two weeks ago?” I agreed to do that, so I’ll be
having another very interesting cultural experience again tomorrow, I’m sure.
The day was full of surprises, another one coming as we were wrapping
up lunch. The two priests who have been my hosts here announced that, since
this was my last Saturday in Dabakala, they were planning a special meal for
supper. They promised to provide special food and drink and make this a
memorable occasion. True to their promise, a rotisserie chicken, chopped up and
garnished, was added to the serving table for the evening meal, next to the
leftover rice and peanut sauce and a couple of other dishes I had no interest
in. A large bottle of Coke was my special drink, while most of the others
shared a bottle of wine. I quite enjoyed a second round of the rice and peanut
sauce, and the addition of the chicken and soda made it a very special meal.
It turns out that two others from here will also be traveling on
Friday, so I’ll have companions to go with. One will be going only partway to
Abidjan, but the other will be going the whole way, so we’ll be able to ride
together for the whole journey. When I left home, I was mentally prepared to
travel both directions by myself, but God has graciously provided someone to
travel with each time. That is very special, I think.
The final surprise of the day came in the form of a thunderstorm that
evolved into a prolonged, ground-soaking rain. The storm brought with it a
significant drop in temperature that has me feeling on the verge of “chilly.”
Even though this is the time of year when I was expecting to experience a lot
of rain here, the climate in this area has ended up being different than what I
had expected. The daily weather reports have shown rain every day down on the
coast, where Abidjan is located. So the fact that it was raining when I left
there a few weeks ago is not surprising to anyone here. But at the same time,
our weather here several hundred miles further north has been mostly a mixture
of clouds and sunshine, with only an occasional rain. The rains I have
experienced here have been mostly light and short-lived. This evening’s was prolonged,
with significant accumulation, so I’m expecting the ground to be a bit muddy
when I go out in the morning.
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