Grass Cutter?

The other day, my friend Sue and I were discussing food. We both live on the same street as an African-run Christian guesthouse that serves meals during the day. Since we both are busy until about 1 pm and it's too hot by then to want to cook, we were trying to figure out some good meal options other than running home to make our own lunches. Sue decided to try out the guesthouse food, and informed me that she ordered a couple of meals for her and her husband for very cheap. I asked her if it was good, and she smiled and gave a very reserved, "Yes."
Then she told me that they put several chunks of meat in the soup, and it was very good meat (sometimes it's hard to find really good tender meat here). But the problem was that she couldn't figure out if it was chicken or beef. I began to chuckle when I heard this. As missionaries, we are used to eating "mystery meat". When they finished eating (thankfully they finished before asking questions about the meat!), her husband Terry asked an African friend what kind of meat it was. Before he could answer, Terry made a guess: "Was that meat Grass Cutter?" The friend answered back, "Yes".
Sue began to laugh as she was telling this story, and I was a little puzzled at what "Grass Cutter" was. I couldn't even guess at what it was, and then she told me. Grass Cutter is a large rat (sorry to those of you who might have been eating while reading this post!). People here have Grass Cutter farms and raise them for the meat. They feed them grass and other plants, hence the name. I had never heard of this before, but it totally grossed me out. (Eeeew, yuck, doesn't it just churn your stomach?) Sue and I laughed hysterically over her "Grass Cutter eating" experience. She warned me that if I wanted to go to the guest house and eat, to ask before ordering "Can you give me chicken or beef?" No kidding. I think I'll stick with cooking lunch for myself for a while.

Out With the Old, In With the New

When my mission organization sets up a house for a new missionary, it is furnished, but the missionary must replace the furniture within a period of time. I was very anxious to start replacing the appliances in my new apartment because the fridge wasn't very cold and was really rusty, and the gas stove was smoking and lighting on fire in places it shouldn't have been lighting on fire! So within two weeks of arriving, I went and bought new appliances for the kitchen. Now, we had to decide what to do with the fridge. There wasn't an empty apartment to move it to and so our organization decided to sell it. Two young Nigerian men came and bought it, delighted to take it home with them! The thing is that they didn't have a truck to transport it, but they did have a motorcycle. So they and Bala, the young man who works with me, loaded it up on the back of the motorcycle, strapping it on as it wobbled precariously back and forth!














It was awfully funny to see him drive away slowly with this big thing on the back!















And replacing it is my beautiful new and very tall fridge. Yes, it may look huge, but it was the most cost effective.



















And it has a handy freezer at the bottom of the fridge, which is sectioned off by drawers for those of us who lose things in our freezer on a weekly basis and need some organizational help!



















Bala told me later as he looked at the new fridge with delight, “Mary, I just want to dance!” It may be a small detail in my life, but getting a new fridge is a victory for today. Yeah, I think it's worthy of a few dance steps!

In Black and White

A few things I see on a typical afternoon at my house:

The beautiful bougainvillea plant climbing the wall in my backyard.



















The huge house being built on the other side of my walled-in backyard. Unfortunately, this means a lack of the privacy I am enjoying right now.


















The hen and chick who somehow got into my backyard and couldn't get out. My neighbors keep chickens (a fact that I am made aware of every morning by their rooster), so this pair got over the wall and couldn't find their way home. After a few tries of my own, I asked a friend to come and escort them home.
















Fresh baked oatmeal cookies to end the day...
















...and the view from my front porch- the perfect place to enjoy my oatmeal cookies!

Welcome Home

After a few weeks of absence, I am finally back to the blogging world. Sorry to those of you who wondered where I was (or am I assuming I have regular readers?), but moving and adjusting took priority over blogging. Plus, getting on the Internet here isn't always very easy.

I have moved into my new apartment and have gotten everything unpacked (just unpacked, mind you, not organized). I am slowly acquiring new furniture and appliances, and it's beginning to look like home. I've also been enjoying cooking in my extremely large kitchen and the smell of baking bread sure does help it feel homey!

Moving only four hours away might not seem like such a big change, but this is a little bit of a different part of the country with a different outlook and stronger cultural heritage. I went from a city of 800,000 to a city of 5 million. The driving rules here are even slightly different. So adjusting is taking a little bit of time. I've felt a little like a deer in headlights over the past couple of weeks just living in such a huge city and hearing so much more of the Hausa language being spoken.

But one thing that has helped is all the lovely “welcomes” by friends and neighbors. My missionary neighbors, Tom and Heidi, and Terry and Sue, have helped me with so many of the little details from how to work the European semi-automatic washing machine (we are all a little stumped about it at the moment) to who to get to sew my curtains. I couldn't survive without their help and especially without their friendship.

Another wonderful welcome I have received is from Bala, the young man who helps me with the cleaning and shopping. He is helping me learn more about culture and how to live here. Moreover, he is a friend to me and he gets me to laugh on a daily basis!

The other day, I got an unexpected welcome. I was sitting on the bench on my front porch and two dogs came to the gate and stopped, as if they were waiting to be invited to come and visit. So I put my hand down and they came trotting up with enthusiastic welcomes for me. Now, if I'm ever out on the porch, they will come up and lay down on the porch and go to sleep, content to be in my company. That was a very special little blessing from the Lord, knowing I have two neighborhood dogs on my side! I don't know what their owner has named them, but I can tell that one of them is the mother dog and the other one is still a puppy, so I just call them Mommy and Baby.

There's many more stories I have about my house and the little adventures I have had over the past couple of weeks that I'll keep posting. Thank you for praying for me as I continue to adjust and be welcomed into this new life!

The Move

Today I am moving to a new city four hours north. I've finished my Hausa class after 10 weeks, and am ready to move into my new house. I have been waiting to make this long, hot journey since November 2006 when I realized God was calling me to serve in this particular city. So my car is packed up and I'm leaving behind a multitude of wonderful friends who I will come and visit from time to time, but I'm looking forward to meeting new friends and finally unpacking my boxes. Some of those boxes have been packed for five months! I think I even forgot what I packed in many of them! So it will be like Christmas. Hopefully I will get the time and opportunity to post in the next couple of weeks, but if you don't see a new post soon, just know that our internet situation in this new city isn't really ideal. Hopefully it's more ideal than I've heard it is. For now, have a wonderful next few weeks and I'll write soon about my new house!

Words Can't Describe

Sometimes it's hard to describe my life in Africa to my family and friends back in the U.S. There's funny, bizarre things that happen that I don't even know how to describe, or that even seem normal to me after readjusting to life here. But I have a friend who has recounted a priceless and unique story about a particularly funny and bizarre event that happened to her in her life as a missionary with a camping ministry in Africa. Beware, this story has to do with rather large rodents and is a little out of the ordinary for the average missionary experience, but it might give you a taste of the unique events we face from time to time. Enjoy!

Reconciliation Update

Many of the former street boys I used to work with have been reconciled to their families after living at our center for several years. We were concerned about how these boys would readjust to living with their families, especially when some families are so poor. My friend GayLynn and I went to visit four of these boys at their homes about a month after they went back home. They all live in the same village and go to school together, so we went to see all of them in the same visit. When we arrived, two of them came running to meet us on the road. They had been very discouraged before they moved back home because they thought they wouldn't have many friends in their new school. But one of the first things they told us on our visit was that they have many friends and they enjoy living at home! We saw each of their homes and met their parents and other family members. We had also brought chocolate chip cookies, which these four growing boys wolfed down in no time! The wonderful thing about our visit was that these boys were obviously very happy. As you can see by the picture, they are great friends; they see each other almost every day. We drove into the village market area with them and bought them sodas while they laughed and gave each other a hard time in typical "boy" style in the back seat. We had such a great time with them, and at the end of the day they each wrote a letter to all their friends back at the center telling them how they are doing. And they each signed their letter "big boy". I think living back home makes them feel more independent and grown up, since many of them have more responsibilities at home than at the center. We really praise God for the things He is doing in these boys' lives and the way He has helped them readjust to home life.