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.