For all those who want to.

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.

Financial aid can be sent to:

WEC International, 37 Aberdeen Ave., Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, L8P 2N6.

*If it is in the form of a cheque, it is best not to have my name on it at all. It just needs to be addressed to WEC International with a separate note saying that it is for me... that way the tax stuff works out properly.

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 Canada has a better economy and trading system, why is it so much harder to buy a monkey in there? (Mardu, one of the guys living with Titus, bought a monkey for I think the equivalent of 8 bucks.)

-why did I think going to the beach with no sunscreen in Africa was a good idea?

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 16^th-18^th. Edmonton friends and family, 22^nd till the 28^th. Everybody at home, I will be back home on the 28^th. Haza! It is still a month away, but that is pretty close... right?

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 Gambia with the pastor’s son. This was an interesting look at a slightly more economically developed area. I only stayed for three days because all the development meant steeper living prices.

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 Africa. I am looking forward to another month of Cashew’s. I have made it a habit of mine to grab one to six on my way in or out of the house for a light snack. It is nice and practical to have a Cashew tree right outside my doorway.

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, Africa has been treating me pretty good. I have not seen rain in 5 or 6 months, every day is a little over 40 degrees and I am soaking up the sun. All is well and I am looking forward to my last little stretch of teaching English, learning Kiriol, eating fish and rice, drinking walga (tea?), ‘chiling’ in my hammock and other African related activities.

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 Gambia with the pastor’s son. This was an interesting look at a slightly more economically developed area. I only stayed for three days because all the development meant steeper living prices.

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 Africa. I am looking forward to another month of Cashew’s. I have made it a habit of mine to grab one to six on my way in or out of the house for a light snack. It is nice and practical to have a Cashew tree right outside my doorway.

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, Africa has been treating me pretty good. I have not seen rain in 5 or 6 months, every day is a little over 40 degrees and I am soaking up the sun. All is well and I am looking forward to my last little stretch of teaching English, learning Kiriol, eating fish and rice, drinking walga (tea?), ‘chiling’ in my hammock and other African related activities.

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 Germany and I was left to fend for myself in Guinea-Bissau. The plan was to use this time to see what the other missionaries are up to and to check out some of the differences in different parts of the country.

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 Hungary named Zalan who arrived in October. Zalan’s job was to build a couple classrooms and library for the school.

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 Bissau last weekend for a weekend prayer conference/meeting. It was the last time all WECers would be around before I left so they put on a bit of a farewell party for me. I felt bad about this because it was only 2 days before a WECer, who had been here for 26 years, was leaving. Of course her farewells were more elaborate and properly done, but the shadow of my 8 month stay pales in comparison to the plethora of years she had spent here and it just did not feel right taking time out of her farewell to mention that I was leaving in 2 months. Oh well, I guess that just shows that the people here are plenty nice.

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.