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!