The Final Pineapple

The day I've been dreading has come. . . . We just ate our last pineapple. The withdrawal will be hitting me soon.

We spent our last few days saying goodbye to friends and finalizing everything. It's been crazy and goodbyes in Africa are so much more of a process than the ones I'm used to, but so sweet as well. Our hosts gave both Hannah and I African dresses as a parting gift to thank us for all our work this summer.  They are just the sweetest and saying goodbye to them at the airport is going to be hard.

But we're ready to go. Hannah is as set as any 80-year-old woman with her compression socks, crutches, and "fit to fly" certificate. She's been practicing on her crutches and is getting better and better, but I hope I never forget the sight of her trying to walk with them for the first time. Picture a baby giraffe trying to take its first awkward steps- uncoordinated, nearly toppling over, the whole bit. She actually almost ran into a wall. It was hilarious. She was laughing too so I didn't feel too bad just sitting there and laughing so hard at how funny and awkward she looked.

So, though I am sad to have eaten my last pineapple and to have to say goodbye to friends early, I am so glad to be coming home. It's hard to be sad about something as exciting as coming home. I love airport reunions. It always feels like I'm in the opening scene of Love Actually. Can't wait to ride down those escalators and see my mom and dad. So Excited!

Even though we're coming home, our internship is definitely not over. I'll still be blogging until the end of the summer and keeping you in the loop on all of our work. Thanks for supporting us. See you state-side!

Homeward Bound

Well, we’re coming home . . . *cue shouts of joy from our parents* (no seriously, my mom literally squealed when I told her.)

This is all very unexpected and Hannah and I are trying to adjust our expectations from getting more research done to just trying to get home. It’s soo strange to think I’ll be home in 4 days. It’s always a weird feeling when big plans suddenly change so drastically. I’m a planner so this is especially throwing me for a loop, but at the same time, there’s a whole new thing I get to plan, so I’m loving it. My week is now devoted to taking care of Hannah (which I love to do) and planning and packing (two of my favorite things). So, all things considered, this is not so bad.

Becky (our awesome roommate) and Hannah. Day 4 in the Hospital. 

Hannah is doing a lot better. She has an infection called Erysepalis and it’s really good that we came to the hospital when we did because she definitely needed an IV drip of antibiotics not to mention a semi-clean place to stay for a week. . . there are not a lot of sterile places in this part of Africa. She is starting to be able to put weight on her foot and her blood test results are improving. Hannah is especially bummed to be leaving early but the decision was a little easier for me. I think she wanted to tough it out and not “quit” the internship, but I am just concerned about getting her the best care she needs. She was a little out of it for the days when she was the worst and she’s brave, so naturally she wants to stick it out. But, there is such a thing as the dad-trump card and alas, we are coming home. We all came to the same conclusion in the end, it was just nice to have such a firm decision and wise advice from her dad. It took the tough decision out of our hands.

Looking back on our internship, we are so thankful for all those crazy, exhausting days of research. Without them, I don’t know if we’d be ready to come home. Ideally, we’d be able to stay and finish our last two research trips, but we feel alright with how much data we’ve already gathered. We’ll be able to finish writing our papers and reports and analyzing our date from the States. It’s really amazing how God has orchestrated this all. We are sad to leave, but totally prepared to go. There’s a sense of needing closure still and we’re sad to cancel plans and not get to say goodbye to a lot of people, but from the logistics side, we’re ready.

Once we decided we were definitely going home (which for me, was as soon as Hannah and I woke up on Tuesday morning. She wasn’t better and I decided that was it. She took a little longer and some more logical arguing to persuade, but by noon, she had decided that was best too.) I began making plans to get our flights switched. Will was working on the medical insurance stuff (which we found out will be completely covered! Thank you Covenant for the automatic travel insurance you get every intern) and I was on flight duty. After calling several times and getting disconnected because of the whole calling-from-Africa-thing, I did what I always do when all else fails: Call my mom. Best decision I made all day because within 20 minutes, she had called a travel agent for advice, then made best friends with this awesome Delta employee named Robert who was determined to do whatever he had to to get us on a flight home this Sunday. Our flights weren’t booked together and were kind of complicated, but he manually searched for the best flights and then pulled a bunch of strings so that we wouldn’t have to pay a cent! Hannah and I hadn’t purchased travel insurance, so we knew we’d have to pay at leave $250 each and at one point, a representative told me it might cost up to $1800 each to change our flights, but Robert was the man and got us free flights. God is so good. Hannah and I were stressed about money (before we had our internet connection back and our parents threatened us not to make a single medical decision driven by our college-student instincts of saving money) and thinking about paying for staying in the hospital and switching our flights. But we didn’t have to pay a cent for either of those things. In the stress of this week, it is so good to know that money is not something we need to worry about. My mom then got Robert to give us all these extra privileges like wheel chair assistance at every gate, priority boarding, and the best seats so Hannah will have room to prop her leg up if she needs it. We are so set for our flight home on Sunday.

Now, I just need to spend this week tying up all our loose ends. I’ve already made my checklist, so I’m good to go. Hannah and I are in excellent hands. Our friends check on us everyday and are helping us with anything and everything we ask them to. It’s sad to think about leaving them, but when God has so clearly worked this all out, it’s hard not to trust him in this. Everything these last several days have been out of our control, but God, continuing his theme of teaching me who’s really in control, has been faithful. We are totally taken care of and we’re looking forward to coming home.

p.s. Sorry if some of you got multiple notifications of the same post. This internet connection isn't the greatest and I didn't realize they were going through. 

Need a little Prayer

So, things have been a little crazy these last few days. Hannah has gotten an infection in her leg and we've been in the hospital for three nights now. She is doing a ton better, but still not great yet. We could use some prayers for her healing quickly and for discernment about what to do to best care for her. Coming home is an option, but we want to be wise about it and not rash. 

I'll keep you all updated as I have access to the Internet here and there. Thanks for praying. 

Radio Silence

I feel so hardcore right now. I'm sitting in my pitch black apartment wearing my rain coat and headlamp because it's pouring outside (and I'm still soaking wet and cold from my moto ride through the downpour) and our power is out.... again. Maybe I'll write all my papers like this. I feel so ready for anything.

Sorry for the radio silence it's been on the blog for awhile now. We've been really busy and there are lots of things that fall in front of blogging on the list of priorities (such as my research...). But it's important to keep you all updated too, so here goes.

Exhibit A: Rainy Season. (I took this picture of the road as I was driving on it)

We finished up our week in the north last Thursday. Going into the week we made an ambitious plan of surveying 81 people. Neither Hannah nor I thought we could ever survey that many people, but, at the end of our five days, we had exceeded our high expectations. (Drumroll please..........) We surveyed 94 people! And, yes, it was absolutely exhausting. And everything that could have gone wrong did. But it was a great week anyway. God continued his theme of taking our plans-gone-wrong and turning them into great research for us. Though nothing as bad as "the incident" happened again, it got pretty close. Translators not showing up multiple times, groups coming to be surveyed unexpectedly (making us late for other appointments), our moto getting a flat, the power going out in the entire region for a whole day because a truck crashed into a power plant somewhere, rainy season raining out our scheduled meetings (see Exhibit A), and plenty of fatigue (sometimes we don't move or stand up for 5 hours when we're surveying people... it's like a marathon of questions. I'm pretty sure if a marathon is actually anything like this, I'm never going to run one.) It was a crazy week, but overall, we got some great work done.

Then we had a week in Lome to work on notes, etc. So much work to do with all this data. It's not going to analyze itself. Excel and I, we're going to analyze it. Also while in Lome, we were invited to our first African wedding, which we will attend next week. Hannah and I are having dresses made. (One of my favorite things about Africa... it costs $10 to get a dress custom made at a tailor. I got to design my own dress! So fun!)

The other great thing we got to do in Lome this week was speak to a Community Development class at a university. Hannah and I prepared a talk that went over the basics of our major and the research we are doing this summer. It was such a cool experience. There were over 60 people crammed in the classroom to hear us and ask us questions. They all were totally on the same page as us too. They got all the theory that is behind everything. (I'll write a blog post sometime soon about what Community Development is, because it's really cool and I want all of you to know about it too). And, most of the students weren't Christians, so it was a cool opportunity to share our faith with them. We can't talk about Community Development or the Chalmers Center without tying everything back to God, so it was great to get to share our hearts with them. One student asked us why we would come to Africa from America where we already have everything we need there. I saw that wide open door, and I took it. We explained exactly why we are here and about how we are called to care for others. It was a great time to share ideas and talk with like-minded people who care about development.

This week, we're back up north for another intense research trip. We've only been here a day and have already been rained out of doing some surveys. Oh well. I think we'll still get some good research in. On our taxi ride up here, we learned how many living things can fit into a five person car. Any guesses? Seven people and two goats. That's how many. And there probably would have been more if we Americans hadn't insisted on having (and having to pay extra for) our own seat/seatbelt. Americans, we are crazy with their wanting-to-follow-laws-and-not-die-and-such stuff. Just ridiculous we are. 

I'll write again soon and explain a little more about what I'm doing here. I realize it's probably confusing.

This week pray for:

~Good research and less everything-is-going-wrong moments
~Safe travel on the roads (lots of motos and taxis for us)
~That our last month here would be as productive as we need it to be
~For the people living here. The poverty is really staggering.

Thanks!

The Incident

As promised, here is the terrible story of yesterday’s ordeal. So it started out as any ordinary day. We were planning to leave for the north at 10 AM to stay there for 6 days giving surveys. Hannah and I were rushing around in the morning running errands to make sure everything was ready. (We had run out of Nutella and we weren’t about to spend 6 days in our tiny apartment without some form of Chocolate, so we fit in a run to the store.) We had to hurry, but we were packed and ready to go at 10. We then got a text from our translator saying that he would be “delayed” because he had to help Will (our boss) with something in the morning. We weren’t too fazed by this. The three of us had originally planned to meet our first group at 2:30 PM so we still had plenty of time to get there.

            Then an hour and a half went by and we were still waiting. At this point it was getting close to the point when we would miss our meeting. We tried to reach Mawousse, but he wouldn’t pick up. We figured he must not have made the appointment with the group after all and knows that we don’t need to be up there until later. Another hour passes and we get a text from Mawousse saying he will be coming soon and he is sorry, but he had to work for Kwasi (our other boss and pastor of the church we thought we were meeting today) after he finished working for Will. Hannah and I were a bit confused, but still fine because we figured he had our schedule figured out.

            At 2:30 PM, we call and finally get a hold of him and he promises he is on his way now. At 3:00 PM, he rings our doorbell (that’s 5 hours late if you’re keeping up with the math). Mawousse apologizes for “the delay.” (I’m really starting to hate that word. I think we have different definitions of what “delay” really means.) We say it’s ok and we thought we had a meeting at 2:30, but he must not have scheduled it so it’s ok. He then informs us that, no, he had scheduled it, everyone came and waited for us, called him wondering where we were and he said we would instead be there at 5:30. “Deep breaths, Kristin, deep breaths.” That’s what I was telling myself to avoid a culturally inappropriate scene in which I lose my cool. My organized, on-top-of-things, ethical researcher personality is freaking out at the thought of having wasted people’s time. I know it will only be worse if I question him, so I just ask for the facts and say we need to get moving if we’re gonna make it there by 5:30. I knew there was no way we would make it there in three hours, but we had to try. Our reputations as good researchers had already been slashed and trampled on and all we could do now was try to show that we are very respectful of the time they are giving up by trying to be on time.

            We get to the taxi park (also known as my least favorite part of all of Togo. It’s insane. You drive in and 20 men literally swarm your car asking where you want to go and trying to grab your luggage and put it in their cars. I’m really good at not letting them touch any of my stuff though.) and it is 3:45 before we get going because everyone is fighting over us and we literally had to strap a motorcycle into the trunk because Mawousse was bringing it up north for Kwasi. I think this whole taxi park scene was God answering every prayer I’ve ever prayed for more patience . . . The monochronic American in me was not happy. But we got on the road and I asked Mawousse to call the church facilitator and move the meeting back because there was absolutely no way we would make it there by 5:30. He called and said that the church facilitator would try to get people to come, but they were all very disappointed that we missed our first meeting and he did not know if anyone would come. Then, a little piece of me died inside. All Hannah and I are here to do this summer is research. We want to be good researchers with integrity who respect the time and opinions of those we are researching. We aren’t here to give them anything but our listening ears and the results of our research at the end of the summer, and we couldn’t even give these people (who need SO much) that. The church facilitator said he would call back if he got anyone to agree to come. There was nothing I could do at this point but wait and pray, which I did.

            I’m currently reading Radical by David Platt and decided to read chapter three in the taxi ride. (Side note: If you haven’t read Radical, you really should. Every Christian American should read it. It will shake you from the daze you don’t realize you are in, or at least it has for me.) So as I’m reading it, I’m reading how we so often limit the work God is doing to what we as capable (but finite) humans can accomplish. Yes we are great at things, yes we can do a lot, but we can do NOTHING compared to what God in His infinite power can do. Platt challenges his readers to ask God to work in ways that prove His greatness. If we only accomplish what we could have accomplished in our own power anyway, we are tempted to steal all the glory for ourselves. If, instead, we call on God to do His will in such a mighty way that it could only have come from his great power, we readily give the glory to God. It makes so much sense and is so challenging at the same time, especially to someone like me who prides herself on all she accomplishes. It was very humbling and I began to pray that God would reveal his glory, not my own, through my time and work in Togo.

            By this time, I was feeling a lot calmer about the whole situation. There was nothing more I could do and God had everything under control anyway (as much as I would have liked to have it under my control as well. . . but we’re working on this so called “need-for-control” problem, aren’t we?) So when we get closer and Mawousse calls the church facilitator again, we learn that no one else would come meet us because they had given up a lot to be there (it was there market day) and they could not afford to come again. C’est la vie. I just prayed that God would redeem the situation despite our irresponsible planning.

            What happened next was enough to crack the fragile shell of my temporary calmness. We arrived at our apartment and decided to have a meeting with Mawousse to go over the survey and schedule the next few days (a.k.a. make sure nothing like this ever, ever happens again). Just as we sat down though, Janine, Kwasi’s wife, calls Mawousse and again asks where we were. She then said the worst thing a young researcher with high hopes and big dreams of being a good researcher can hear. She and all the women were still waiting at the church for us! I have never felt so terrible. They had been waiting since 2:30! It had been FIVE HOURS!!!!! I’m can’t even begin to understand this African culture, the amount of miscommunication and poor planning it took to create this situation, the irresponsibleness of it all, and the damage this would do to our reputation as researchers. Mouths still dropped to the floor in shock, the three of us hopped on motos and raced to the church.

            We pulled up and everyone started clapping and laughing. There were about 12 women—some who had been there since 2:30 and some who had come at 5:30. We apologized profusely. They have this rule in their group that if they are late to a savings meeting, then have to pay a small fine. As a joke, they had the money pot out for us to pay our fine. We were more than happy to oblige this rule and quickly dropped in our coins (I would have dropped in the entire contents of my wallet if I thought that would have helped the situation at all) They all thought it was just the funniest thing though and laughed and laughed with us. They were laughing because it was funny. I was laughing out of hysteria because there was nothing else to do at this point in our unbelievable, ridiculous day.

            It was now 7:30 and most of the women wanted to be interviewed (though some left a little later as soon as we said they were of course free to go). We then let Janine and Mawousse explain the whole mix up and reason that we were late. I then asked to say a few words that they translated for me. I apologized profusely and said we had no idea they were waiting for us all day and we never would have let that happen if we had known. We respect their time very much and we are so sorry that we wasted it, especially on a market day. They all made gestures that sad it was ok and they were not mad. I then told them how much it means to us that they would be willing to wait all day just to meet with us and how touched we are that our sisters in Christ are so selfless. I think that patched things up as best they could be patched and we started the interviews. We were able to call our other translator who came literally on two minutes notice and then double-timed the interviews.

            Here’s where God answered that prayer about using my work to reveal His own glory. Absolutely everything that was in my control that day utterly failed, but He used it anyway. Hannah and I gave a total of 9 interviews (when we had only planned to give 6 that day) and realized that our survey is smoother than we thought and takes less time to give than we planned. What the heck? How is that the ending to this terrible story? Utter failure renders wild success. That’s obviously a God thing. (Man, it was rough getting there though. God is so quick to answer these painful, sanctifying prayers.)

The rest of the women who couldn’t wait then said they could meet us before church the next day because they were so eager to be interviewed (probably just because they had waited so long, not because we’re awesome or anything). So this morning, we went to the church at 7:30 AM and interviewed 7 more women that we weren’t even originally planning to interview on this trip. Talk about Grace. We totally messed everything up, but got great and abundant research out of it anyway. God is good.

Now, Hannah and I really hope this counts as our “failure” for the internship. There’s a running joke that our professors won’t count our internship a true success until we fail at something. . . or everything, we can't be sure. We are definitely to perfectionists and overachievers of our class and they lovingly want us to learn the valuable lesson of failing. LESSON LEARNED!!! I hope. I really hope this counts and we can never have to go through anything like this again. I’ll keep you posted.

Keep praying for us. We’re through day two of interviews and have already done 29! It’s going really well, with the exception of “the incident.” That’s what I’m gonna call it from now on, “the incident.” We hope to get about 50 more before Thursday. Pray for good interviews, honest answers, stamina in the long hours, and for people to feel loved through the time short amount of time we are spending with them. Also, I encourage you all to pray a scary prayer this week. We don’t often enough ask God for the hard things (like patience and for His glory to be so huge, we are lost in the shadow of it). So that’s your challenge. Pray a scary prayer and watch how God answers it. I’d love to hear about them.

            

History in the making...

What happened today will go down in the history of terrible stories of Community Development interns. It involves a lot of miscommunication, hours of waiting for multiple parties, lots of valuable time wasted, more hysteric laughter (see previous post) and God proving himself good through it all. Details to come. We're in crazy survey mode right now and all I have time to do is sleep (skipped dinner and everything...praise the Lord for cliff bars).

This is a request for prayer for tomorrow especially and the rest of the week. We are trying to meet with two different savings groups to survey them. It could go smoothly or it could go like... well like today did. And let me tell you, we DON'T want that again. So pray for the coordination of a lot of people to come together so good research can be done, people can feel valued and heard, and God would be glorified. For real, he deserves it.

Story of My Life....

So today was just kind of ridiculous. I would say frustrating, but it was all so funny that that word just doesn’t fit. All day, Hannah and I were steeling glances at each other that wordlessly said, “Is this seriously happening right now?” Whether it be for good reasons or bad reasons, so many things made us ask that today. We spent the day in Lome interviewing church facilitators. We’ve done this in the north, but never in the city, and it was… an adventure. Our day started out with Will picking us up in his truck where he had fresh chocolate croissants waiting for us. Yes, the alternative spelling for that last sentence is b-e-s-t-b-o-s-s-e-v-e-r. Then, we get to his house and realize (because I forgot to check my texts, whoops) that we are an hour too early for our first meeting. We were planning to meet our translator, Mawousse, at Will’s and to borrow Will’s moto so we wouldn’t have to pay for three motos to drive us around all day. Will had to leave as soon as we got there, but Mawousse wasn’t getting there for another 30 minutes at least, so Will left us his keys which we were to then leave with his landlord so he could get back in later that day. Will peaced out and Hannah and I waited for Mawousse.

When he got there, he asked for the key to Will’s moto….. you would think that one of the three of us Americans would have thought of this, since it was the whole reason we had gone to Will’s in the morning, but alas, we did not. Hannah looked through the house anyway incase there was an extra key, she found one that said “Italy” on it and excitedly shouted down to us to ask if it was the right one. Mawousse and I just kind of looked at each other and shook our heads. “No Hannah, but thanks anyway!” Mawousse then showed me his key as an example of what it would look like. It’s a strange little circle key that just seemed to mock me. You see, yesterday, Hannah and I borrowed Will’s keys and wondered what the strange little circle one was for…. We even asked someone what it was because we were so curious. Well, now I know. And I don’t appreciate the way I feel it mocking me. I then knew for sure that Will had it with him and we wouldn’t be able to borrow the moto. There was now no point in having had Will pick us up and leave us his house keys…. except we still got chocolate croissants out of it, so I think it was worth it.

            Mawousse then decided that the next best alternative would be to take his moto… it’s more like a dirt bike than a moto though. That’s important for the story to make sense. So we lock up at Will’s leave the keys with his landlord and catch a moto for me as Hannah hops on the back of Mawousse’s. We then took a really pretty moto ride to the university. The campus is very lush and tree-covered, which is a nice change from the usual city atmosphere. We pulled over on the side of some random road and waited for the church facilitator we were supposed to meet at 9:30. The next 40 minutes was characterized by confusion, impatience, and gawking. Confusion because we were trying to reach the church facilitator and describe to him where we were (but the best landmarks were unidentifiable buildings and trees, so… that when well). Impatience because we literally waited 40 minutes on the side of the road. And gawking because there was literally a herd of cows that we saw off in the distance slowly walking towards us. They were the strangest cows I had ever seen, and to be on a university campus, it was just so juxtaposed. They walked with in 2 feet of us and I couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous the whole situation was.

            Just as we sent a text to our church facilitator saying we were leaving because we were late for our next appointment, he showed up. We had a great interview with him though and I’m glad we stayed. He is studying English at the university so we didn’t need a translator for the first time in over 25 interviews. It was lovely. I actually understood everything he was trying to communicate! Celebrate the little victories, that’s my motto.

            After the interview, we went to get back on the motos. Hannah and I have the habit of always switching seats to subconsciously keep things fair, so I went to ride with Mawousse this time. Only, it was a little more difficult than I was expecting. Hannah, by a stroke of luck had chosen to wear pants that morning which is why she had such a successful moto experience the first time. I, unfortunately, chose a maxi shirt. Word to the wise: floor length skirts are not the easiest things to finagle when trying to ride a moto, especially this moto. Because it was a dirt bike style moto, the back of the seat is a lot higher than a regular moto, but doesn’t look it, that little deceptive thing…. So I went to get on the back (mind you, Hannah, the church facilitator, Mawousse and two moto drivers are all watching me…) and I didn’t quite make it. Between the mess of skirts and my failing depth perception, I nearly wiped out. Thankfully, I was wearing my Chacos (always ready for anything in those) and with some uncoordinated looking hop moves, managed to save the situation. Attempt two was also a failure, but by the third time and with my skirt gathered as modestly as I could manage, I got on. Whew.

            I thought that would be the end of my moto troubles… but I was wrong. All motos have this exhaust pipe on the back right-hand side that is scalding hot. You have to remember to get on and off on the left side to avoid getting burned. Hannah and I were told that we won’t be truly “Togolese” until we get our first moto burn on our right calf, and I am SO determined not to. Hannah fell victim last week and has a wicked burn that is still healing. (In her defense, her water bottle fell and she quickly hopped off the right side to grab it, forgetting for a moment the impending doom that awaited her on that side… an honest mistake.) So I am constantly aware of the exhaust pipe area and steer clear of it. I didn’t think that this bike would be different, but instead of being on the back right, the pipe was on the upper left, RIGHT where my leg was. Poor planning, bike designers. Seriously? Who does that? So as I was getting off, I burned my upper left leg, of all places. My cat like reflexes saved me from a bad burn, but still, it’s there and I’m mad at that sneaky exhaust pipe.

            From there we met two more church facilitators. One of them gave us each literally a liter of soda, which was so kind, but simultaneously terrifying. I knew I would have to finish all of it to not seem rude, so my tactic was slow and steady. I’m not a huge soda drinker to begin with, so this was a test of my will power and stamina. I made it though. Just in time. And all I could do to help Hannah was look at her in pity as she still had half of her bottle at the end of the interview. They told her to finish it so we could leave, and she drank as much as she could, but just wasn’t gonna win that battle. She gave up and tactfully made some joke about how it was so good but she is so full and they let her go. Whew.

Then, we made a friend in a jewelry shop. He asked if Hannah and I were married… that’s a default red flag. I was on edge, but I decided later that he was really just trying to be nice. He then tried to get me to try on silver earrings (which I realized later he was trying to give me as a gift. So sweet.) A little while later, we came back and he gave Hannah a silver bracelet, which he refused to let her refuse and promised to make me one too, since I didn’t want the earrings. When he was just fitting one on Hannah, I was a little concerned that this was the first step of his elaborate marriage proposal plan, but then he offered me one too and it felt more normal. Being in pairs is so nice sometimes. It makes situations way less awkward. So, as we left, I decided the scales had tipped from being a creepy situation to being a really sweet one where we made a new friend.

            From there, we were only supposed to see one more church facilitator, but Mawousse pulled a fast one on us and snuck another in. He’s so great and without him, we would probably be doing way less research. We always get tired and want to go home, but he keeps us moving. We had a great interview with her but it was past 1 PM and we thought we were going home so we could finally eat some lunch and type our notes. Nope! No rest for the weary or those who work with Mawousse. Back on the motos we went. Only this time, Hannah rode with Mawousse (which she volunteered for with the memory of my skirt fiasco still fresh in her mind. What a sweet friend) and they literally nearly tipped over. It was kind of hilarious. I tried not to laugh, but we all know I’m terrible at not laughing when I’m not supposed to be laughing. No actual tipping though, just near tipping, so it was all good.

            So we got to the next church facilitators shop and he did the unthinkable… offered us a sachet of water (they sell water in little sachets, or bags, on the street. It’s about 2 cups worth). I wanted to burst at the thought of drinking anything else, but we took them to be polite. I used my slow and steady tactic again and we ended up having another great interview with him. And it was really thoughtful of him to offer us water, I don’t want to seem ungrateful, it’s just too much hospitality in one day really isn’t good for one’s bladder.

At this point, Hannah and I just wanted to get home. It was 2 PM and we hadn’t eaten lunch and after drinking so much, I just really wanted to use the bathroom. Mawousse then informed us that we were near Kwasi’s house (Kwasi is sort of our boss here) and we must go for a visit. This was one of those times when I knew it would be culturally inappropriate to refuse, though I did kindly say we needed to hurry home. So, we took yet another moto ride to Kwasi’s around flooded out streets. I was just kind of laughing at everything at this point. It was so ridiculous. My burn was hurting, we were hungry, it was hot, and I was beginning to judge a little less harshly all the people who just go to the bathroom in the street. I think I know how they feel now. There’s not always a bathroom when you need one, so they just go wherever they want. This is something that really bothers me about Togo and I’m trying to get over, so this experience gave me a little more empathy for them. A little… but not enough for me to get over it. I know I have especially high standards for hygiene, cleanliness and sanitation issues, but come on people! That’s just not okay.

            Anyway, I’ll get off my soapbox and wrap this up. We sat at Kwasi’s for maybe 15 minutes, just chatting. This was after Mawousse pulled his moto into Kwasi’s house because there “are a lot of robbers here.” The cherry on top of my day. Finally, after I literally laughed out loud out of a little desperation when trying to transition the small talk to how we need to be leaving, we had our chance. Hannah and I each hoped on regular motos (with hopes of never having to ride the deathtrap dirt bike again) and rode off into the sunset. We made across the city to our apartment where we thanked the Lord for indoor plumbing. It really was a great day, just sprinkled with little moments of ridiculousness.

            To top everything off, I burned my finger on a match when I tried to light the stove for dinner. Two burns in one day. Glad I’m still laughing at all this. Happy for days with hard work and lots of excitement. I think it was that chocolate croissant that got me through. Or maybe God’s strength. Probably both…. A winning combination.

            So keep praying for us. We head up north this Saturday to give our survey to as many people as we possibly can in 5 days. It’s gonna be a little intense. And it’s our longest stay up there yet, so pray for stamina. Good research and stamina and more growing. Those are my prayer requests this week.