It has come to my attention that there are a few people out there who still want to support me through finances yet do not know where to give the money. To solve this problem, I have listed the place to send it.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Questions of Guinea-Bissau
Another month has passed and it is wild for me to think that there are only 10 days left in my time here. As I reminisce on the different things I have done and learned here, different things and questions come to mind like:
-at about month 5 of my stay here, Titus’ truck changed from a key start to a key + push start (an awesome red button was placed in the dash to get the thing started). What was even more fun was the fact that the car still had to be pushed to get it started, making it the ultimate ‘push start’ vehicle.
-I learned if you have pens and stickers (thank you mom, dad and Fiona) motivating the class is super easy. (Today I made them act out a short play with props and everything. It was rad.)
-if it is under 30 degrees it is ‘cold.’
-dancing solely to the beat of a drum is legit.
-to get fruit from a tree there are four methods methods. A. throw a stick at it. B. wait for the fruit to drop. C. find a long stick and hit it off. D. get a kid to climb really high and shake frantically until the fruit drops.
-another thing is here, if you want to use public transportation, be prepared to stop about a million times. This stopping turns short trips in to long ones and makes long trips into epic journeys.
-fun fact: while it may be nearly impossible for a fellow resident of the lower mainland to picture, rain actually does not fall here for a solid 7 or 8 months. A thing I have enjoyed very much even though this has contributed to the heat here.
-how are cell phones so crazy popular if there is vertually no electricity (goverment officials and some other important people in the capital city are the only ones who actually get power).
-What are the odds of me planning my trip to miss the mango season perfectly? (I love mangoes.)
-If
-why did I think going to the beach with no sunscreen in
Questions asked/thought of while in transportation:
-how does a car lose its speedometer?
-what percentage of this car is held together by tape and cardboard?
-how long does it take for a car to lose all of its interior and become a metal shell?
-are working windows a luxury?
-why is there 10 people in this car?
-how did we fit over 40 people in this van?
-is the hole in the floor to tell how fast we are going? (this one goes well with the first one)
-where does the key go if there is no ignition?
-how do you open a door with no handle?
-so, this door comes right off eh? Neat. No seatbelts either? No problem.
-if the government put lines in the road, would it make a difference?
-how is the stuff piled on top of the car bigger than the car itself?
Ok, so most of it was questions. But they hint at some fun experiences here that I have neglected to put so far or just wanted to repeat. I figured this is the shortest way to get it all in.
In further fun news, I have officially booked all my flights and have my travel plans back home set. Friends in Toronoto, I will be there from the 16th-18th.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
a shorter blog
Well, now that I have been here for a little over 7 months, it looks like I finally learned how to condense a message (at least a bit). Here are some of the happening of the last little while:
After a three week break from classes I was ready to dive back into my last 6 weeks of teaching English. However, after just one week, I discovered I had another week off due to ‘Paskua’(Easter).
I used this opportunity to go to
I also should mention that over the course of the past month I received all the other things that were taken from my house. This had good and bad results: the good, was obviously that I had my things back for use, the bad being that now we know who the people are and we have the difficulties of dealing with what to in our situation.
I have a little less then a month left here so this will be one of the last blogs you will get to see from
I have also spent a little more time on the little Kiriol learning thing. I have typed out a couple ‘lessons’ and I was wondering if anybody would be available to make it look just a little prettier. If you think that person could be you, send me an e-mail at steve_berk@hotmail.com.
So ya,
a shorter blog
Well, now that I have been here for a little over 7 months, it looks like I finally learned how to condense a message (at least a bit). Here are some of the happening of the last little while:
After a three week break from classes I was ready to dive back into my last 6 weeks of teaching English. However, after just one week, I discovered I had another week off due to ‘Paskua’(Easter).
I used this opportunity to go to
I also should mention that over the course of the past month I received all the other things that were taken from my house. This had good and bad results: the good, was obviously that I had my things back for use, the bad being that now we know who the people are and we have the difficulties of dealing with what to in our situation.
I have a little less then a month left here so this will be one of the last blogs you will get to see from
I have also spent a little more time on the little Kiriol learning thing. I have typed out a couple ‘lessons’ and I was wondering if anybody would be available to make it look just a little prettier. If you think that person could be you, send me an e-mail at steve_berk@hotmail.com.
So ya,
Monday, April 6, 2009
This is what a cashew fruit looks like. The nut grows on the bottom of it. It is juicy but you dont swallow the fruit. You just chew and drink the sweet juices. Its pretty good once you get used to it (it is a skill as the juices stain clothing).
My birthday. If the picture is large enough... note the 'candles' / matches on my cake. Hurray! (none of these people are Titus, he was in Germany at this time.)
An old blog that I forgot to post.
February ended nicely. Titus left for a three week leadership conference in
The first stop on the list was Cacini. A Brazilian named Valberto lives there. He has been there for 11 years and currently works at the school there. He also had a 24 year old visitor from
The ride there was an experience on its own. Taking anywhere between 7 and 10 hours, a trip to Cacini includes driving a whole lot on cement and then a near equal time on dirt. The vehicle of choice is a ‘Kandonga’. I am unsure of its meaning but I would not be surprised if it was Kiriol for ‘put as many people as you think you can fit in it, then stop every time you see someone on the road to see if they want to squeeze in too’. If you ever go, either sit in the front or plan on getting mighty dirty. I sat in the back and was caked in a nice layer of dirt/dust by the time I was out. The ride did have its positives though. I got to talk with some of the guys in the back and after a couple of hours somehow it ended in me giving them an English lesson. I was surprised at how well some of the guys could speak English just by working in the back of a ‘Kandonga’.
When I arrived Zalan was put in charge of taking care of me as Valberto was quite busy at the time. This had its difficulties as Zalan spoke good Portuguese and Hungarian but little English. I spoke none of his languages and had to settle for trying to talk to him in Kiriol (which is quite similar to Portuguese). Somehow we made communication work and I was grateful for the forced Kiriol practice that Zalan had to endure. Also, I was able to help out a little bit by doing some digging at the school and repairing some of the floors as the older classrooms were in rather rough shape. (I have to point out that one day we went to the beach: I took pictures, got burnt, played with crabs, went swimming, put on sunscreen and got more burnt. It was a good time.)
After 8 days of hammock sitting/laying down, reading, watching construction, helping out a bit and wondering around the town with locals I decided to make my way back to Bissau as my schedule had me going to a place named Nchumbe in two days.
This is when the commotion of the assassination of the president came in. It put my plans aside a bit, but in the end it worked out fairly well for me. I stayed in Nchumbe for 11 days instead of the planned two days and after I got a chance to visit Canchungo for two days instead of the planned 7 days. After all was said and done I got to see all the places I planned to see and walked away with an irreplaceable learning experience.
I had to go back to
It seems as though the political situation is back to semi-normality and there are currently no fears of anything going awry again. I am teaching English classes in Ingore again and African life is back to normal after a relatively eventful bit of travels.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Explosions, gunfire and more regular African stuff.
Instead of giving you the usual blog, here is my journal entry from March 2, slightly revised. I figured since I had not told you guys what my day was like, this should be adiquate: (and yes, sometimes I do journal as if I am talking to someone. Crazy? Not if I post it to others later.)
March 2, 2009
Before I tell you about my trip in Cacine that happened in February, let me tell you what has gone on the last 22 and a half hours.
Around 10 o’clock at headquarters Kevin stopped by my room before turning off the generator to note that there had been an attempt on the life of the General of the Army. He mentioned an explosion and gunfire. I figured this was something similar to the time that there was an attempt on the president’s life a couple months ago and passed it off as one of those things that happens all the time in small, poor countries in
After an hour or so I was preparing for bed thinking of how nice it would be if I had a mosquito net as the last night I was up for some time in the late hours trying to kill the mysteriously loud mosquito roaming around my room.
I woke up at around 4:24am to the worst sound. That same lame mosquito was making his rounds in my room just for the fun of it, probably taking some of my blood and giving me malaria while he was at it. After about 5 minutes of useless searching I gave up. I figured it was worth it just to go back to sleep. I lay there for five minutes thinking of how rotten my feelings were towards that mosquito. It was the worst.
I was just drifting back to sleep when at approximately 4:36 am I heard another terrible sound, much louder then a mosquito. It was somewhat familiar. If it were deeper and longer lasting I could have mistaken it for thunder, but it had more of an abrupt clap to it; a bomb. My heart rate jumped to a pretty decent speed, only to increase upon hearing the pattering of gun shots. They were similar to the sound of someone popping bubble wrap, except a little less playful. I calmed myself down fairly quickly as the noise seemed to die off after a couple minutes. I managed to convince myself it was normal African activity, plus I had the comfort of hearing the old night guard wake up and turn his flashlight on (he usually ‘guards’/sleeps near my window).
My mind was turning back towards sleep as another explosion could be heard followed by more gunfire. The second one got the heart palpitating at its peak rate for the evening, but again I was able to convince myself that it was alright. The pattern of explosions followed by gunfire continued for a decent hour and a half or so with short breaks in between. Explosions and whatnot got less concerning as it went on.
The field leader stopped by while it was still dark and mentioned that it would be best to pack the bags incase we had to evacuate. I thought this was a brilliant idea and packed up my stuff and put it outside my room.
I do not think many of us got much/any sleep that night after the first explosion. We got together when it started getting light outside and the different missionaries exchanged information. At this time it was confirmed that the General of the Army had been killed and that there was an attack at the president’s residence. We soon learned that the president and his wife were also killed in the attacks. In case the night’s explosions were not indication enough; this was confirmation that it was not an every day activity for a small, poor African country and that we should probably try leave
The streets were not the same as usual. Instead of the noise of people yelling for Toka-Tokas and the bustle of morning activities, there was silence met by the odd motor passing by. As the hours passed the streets became slightly more littered with people and I had breakfast. We decided to wait in the mission until we got some more information.
We left after we heard that it was possible to get out of the city. I went in the first vehicle with a silent/crying Nathan, I wondered what he thought of the whole situation at about 6 years old. We took back roads and got redirected a bit but eventually we made our way onto the right road (after driving a bit the wrong way on the street and passing the median at the first possible spot).
It was strange driving on the roads being the only car in sight. Every gas station was closed and we were low on fuel. By the time we got to the exit point it was clear that they were not letting anybody through. The guards were under orders not to let anybody at all through the road, and of course it was the only way out of the city.
After 2 hours of waiting and a decent amount of talking on the mission leaders behalves, we had a guard come out with us to the car, make sure everything was all right and lead us through. Apparently the bible college that the missionaries who we are staying with started was sending out the soldier’s cousin to
He drove with us across the line and got out. While he was in the car I looked at his aging gun and noted how it could use some polishing and how the tip had broken off a bit.
The only other real check point a soldier at the post was a Christian and we were let through immediately. In the end we all made it down to Nchumbe safely and that was good. For me it was not even that different of a time as it was directly in my plans to leave for Nchumbe at approximately 10 o’clock that morning anyways (we left at about 9:48).
Nchumbe is hot. The people were not joking when thy said it was the hottest area in
Despite the heat, Nchumbe is a pretty cool place. I am pretty sure it is actually the middle of nowhere, just a plot of land a bunch of kilometers off the main road. They turned it into a
I got a tour of the area and ate my first cashew fruit. They look a little like a yellow or red apple with a nut growing out the bottom. They are soft and juicy and you do not eat them, just get the juice out. The juice pours out as you eat it and you have to be careful not to get it on your clothing as it stains. Duly noted? Dearly noted? Meh. Noted.
Oh ya, I gotta mention, I ended up having my birthday in Nchumbe. I got to open some sweet presents sent earlier by my family which was rad. They baked a banana bread cake for me there. Instead of candles I had two matches. It was nice because it meant no wax on the cake. Hurray! The gifts here were sweet. Dutch Blitz can now be enjoyed here and my new mug is the talk of the town. Haza.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
EXCITING
Here it is folks, another month another blog. Except this time, instead of my usual boring stuff this one is full of all sorts of excitement like shooting a wedding (taking pictures for those who are not so hip with the camera scene), break-ins, theft, sickness, visitors from Britain and all sorts of missions related events that will keep you at the edge of your seats. I thought that after 5 months or so, life in Africa would slow down a bit and I would leave you all with nothing to read except copy and pasted information from previous blogs about my English classes but this one has all sorts of humdingerish events. (humdingerish is not a word but humdinger is… I look it up. It means remarkable or extraordinary or wild like that.)
In reality it was not terrible exciting of a time. The whole health thing just consisted of me ripping out part of my toe nail, getting a bit of malaria and having vitamin deficiency which lead to a swollen throat. What was unfortunate about it all is that it all started up within two days. Right after I sent off reports of how remarkably good my health has been so far too. I remember as I wrote it humoring myself as I wrote about my health thinking it to be bad luck. Oh well, at least each problem had a simple solution and I was back to health in less than two weeks.
The real unfortunate part of it all is that the night it was decided that I my headache was more than just a headache, my house got broken into as I was at the night gathering for church. A couple of people entered through a door my roommate forgot to lock properly, broke through my door and promptly searched for and found my electronics devices. This consisted of my laptop, both cameras and my iPod. Their unfamiliarity of these devices could be shown by the fact that they forgot to take the chargers for each one, rendering them useless after a couple hours of use.
It was interesting to note that during that same night of unfortunate events Isa (the 85 year old lady here who has been here nearly from the start), fell and broke her leg.
The next morning, as I was reporting the name brand and what not to a local from Bissau (the capital city is pretty much the only place for such electronics and even then there are only three locations where you would normally find them, at least three places where you can develop digital pictures, I never found out which was accurate. Either way, it was a promising find.) someone came into my house and told me that my laptop and my good camera had been found. Apparently those items were slightly too large to conceal and get away with.
So really, in the end I am just minus some music that I can do without and a camera that can take video (my good one cant). So it was a fairly eventful 24 hours but I got some of my stuff back so it was good. And to improve situations even more we discovered that Isa’s leg was not actually broken, it was just a bad fall. A couple days after the getting some medicine for malaria the headache was on its way out and when we discovered that the throat problem was not going away it was advised that I take some vitamins and that problem was also resolved after a few interesting days of trying to teach English with minimal speaking.
To explain my note about the British visitors I will just say that they stopped by Titus’ place for a short bit. All nine of them had children much older than I am but it was nice to have some English around the house. It was a great time and their sense of humor was much appreciated as I could finally understand some of the jokes that were being told. Another huge bonus was the extra special food being served for them meant that I got to eat like a king for a couple days. I also went on a bit of a tour with them and got to learn a few things about Ingore that had not been mentioned.
Oh ya, and I shot a wedding before all the other stuff happened. The pastors younger sister was getting married and there was nobody to take pictures so I went down with my cameras and took a whole bunch of pictures. It was a pretty rough situation as the room was super dark but flash could not be used due to the crazy amount of dust. I did manage to get a couple pictures with the help of Almamo (pretty much the most ‘western’
In the end it really was not as crazy exciting as I tried to make it in my intro, but perhaps it got you pumped up enough to finish this read. Sorry to if this was tricky to read but I wrote this while being quite pressed for time. Perhaps I will post another blog soon explaining some of the places that do not make sense and having a lot less brackets to explain things after writing them.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
In Bissau again.
I said that I was going to try put in a nice little update mid month this month. So here I am, blogging away. I will begin by describing a bit about how my new year started off.
January first I was just sitting around the house when Mora came in and said something to the effect of “Go to Titus’ house,” at least that was all I could understand (the actual conversation lasted a couple minutes). When I got to Titus’ house Titus asked me if I was packed. I, having no clue to what he was talking about, responded with a truthful no. I soon discovered that I was supposed to be going with the youth/young adults of the church to a nice little village near by that has one of the Church plants inside. (In all fairness, I had heard of the trip before, but I was unsure of its exact time/if it was actually going to happen.)
Luckily, the trip was only for 3 days so I did not need to pack much. I was soon off to the village in a van, very tightly packed with singing young people. One girl was able to sing much louder than I thought was humanly possible. When I looked back to see who it was, I was shocked to find out that she was a few rows back. I was happy the ride there was much shorter than the ride to the village for the wedding.
Once there we had a funtastic time. They killed a pig and it tasted delightful. The meat lasted the whole time too. I was fed quite nicely. The portions they gave me put the 2 liter portions Titus gave me when I first arrived to Ingore to shame. I should have taken a picture of one of the meals they expected me to eat. The first time they sent me the ‘Salad bowl’ of rice I attempted to finish it. I nearly did too, even after being approached by several courteous people who expressed that they did not actually anticipate that finish it and it was quite alright if I was not able to empty the bowl.
I was given my own room, some sort of storage room, for sleeping. I did not sleep much as my body is not used to cement. From what I gathered, other people did not sleep too well either. The second night, we stayed up as long as possible in attempt to outfox the floor from its malicious plans to cause more sleeplessness. I was able to last with the others until 5 when we decided it was time to pack it in and get some sleep before the 6 O’clock meeting. The floors malevolence was escaped but on the downside I missed the 6 O’clock meeting. (Nobody woke me up).
Throughout the three days there was a bunch of drum playing and dancing. I liked this. I tried to play the drum for a while but gave up when I realized my sense of rhythm was a little ‘off’ according to the locals.
The Sunday I got back we discovered that a woman in the church had died. Instead of a morning church service, we all went to her house. There were many people already there sitting on any and everything that they deemed suitable for sitting on. They stayed there for most of the day. The actual funeral service was at 4 because the family had to arrive still. Each time a different family member arrived they would make a sound that was a bit of a mixture between a cry and a song. Perhaps they were ‘wailing’. Whatever it was, it was a horrible, beautifulish sound. It seemed to fit the occasion well. The funeral itself did not take long. A few words were said, a prayer and a single song “Because he lives” in Portuguese (from what I could understand it was pretty much word for word the same).
The woman who died was a bit of a younger woman. Her death was due to the poor medical situation out here.
School is still going well. I just went through a rousing edition of “Sleeping Beauty” with my classes. The English was a little advanced for most of the students but I figured I would give some of the smart kids a challenge. Plus, it was nice for all of us to get a change in pace from the work book.
Now I am in
Monday, January 5, 2009
Hello from Ingore
It has been a little over a month since I was last in
The last month and a bit have been fairly good times. I taught English in the School until the 19th. Everything went quite well. I even made exams for my classes. There was an average in the mid 70’s and there was a decent spread in the marks. I was happy about this as it was the first real test I had given to them, or to any class for that matter.
Near the end I was also getting a bit better at the whole ‘teaching English thing.’ The class even gets to have a bit of fun while they learn now. Well, at least we have fun in the morning class. The afternoon class does not really have the English comprehension to get things going, but they are all good sports anyways.
I broke out the guitar for the last two weeks and taught them some good old Christmas Carols. I figured since I do not have 104.9 ‘Christmas FM’ to spark the Christmas season I was entitled to some Christmas joy in class. They were fond of this, the general favorite was “O come O come Emmanuel” all though, it did take a decent amount of time to teach them. Their songs do not have the same rhythm and stuff so it is a bit of a stretch to teach them old English songs.
I also made them draw some Christmas scenes. Due to their lack of drawing in the past, they were sub par in comparison to what would be anticipated for people their age in
When school ended the guys at Titus’ house figured it would be nice to set up Christmas decorations and stuff. We festooned Titus’ house with all sorts of wild Christmas decorations that he got for free from some American who already went back to the States. Apparently, he left all of his stuff behind and nobody wanted the box full of Christmas stuff. Titus saw the opportunity for a festive Christmas time and took it and it made for a lively Christmas time.
Kevin, the field leader and Anna, his wife, came by for a week to have a bit of a vacation. It was fantastic to have them around (and I am not just saying that because I know they read my blog). It was really nice to have a couple extra people to speak English with for a week. I soaked in understanding conversation like a Canadian soaks in sun rays on a warm summer afternoon. Denis and Almamo also came down for the week and were very nice to have around because they speak good English and are both quite joyous people in general.
Christmas itself passed a little differently then it had in the past. For one thing, it was substantially warmer. I heard it was quite the ‘white Christmas’ out in my neck of town (Canada) but here I find it difficult to even describe snow. I am yet to see a fridge in Ingore and seeing as the temperature rarely gets close to 10 degrees, snow is quite the wild concept for most.
I was able to preserve the bit of the Christmas giving and receiving. My parents had sent me a solid batch of small gifts to open. I managed to save them until Christmas day and had a good time opening them. Plus I got some nice surprise gifts from Titus and Kevin and Anna. After, I used the rapping paper to wrap up the gifts that I bought. I was surprised to see how excited Mora got over the toothpaste and toothbrush I bought him (don’t worry I also got him a watch… toothpaste did not seem like a proper Christmas gift), he is quite the excitable fellow. Other gift giving went well.
I also have to add that although this was a nice restful time for me, Titus did not seem to take much a break. He seems to be consistently showing me how much work it can be to be a missionary in
New years was very different for me as well. I was curious to how we were going to sync the time because there was no TV to have an official countdown. When I heard that we were going to have a church service for the New Years celebration I figured that was how they solved that problem. I was wrong. There was no countdown at all. I was surprised to find that the 2 and a half hour service went right through the New Year. There was not even a pause in the sermon to say, “well, it’s the new year now.”
It was only after we had the closing song that someone mentioned the New Year. At this tired eyes brightened up and suddenly the church was full of handshakes, hugs and all sorts of cheerfulness.
On a side note, I am pretty sure I broke my previous record of longest church services with hardly understanding anything. We were quite close to 4 and a half hours long. We stopped just shy of the half hour maker, apparently they were not paying attention to time markers. I am sure we could have passed it if we tried.
Well this looks like a decent enough read. I will save a couple stories for when I get to
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