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!