Object Lessons

Tonight when the power went out, I decided that I finally needed change the batteries on my lantern (the one that I fixed with a paperclip). What a difference a set of new batteries makes! I feel like there’s some sort of object lesson to be learned from that. Here’s an idea: when you are feeling spiritually drained, you should look to the Holy Spirit for the strength and energy he gives. Or, here’s another thought. As believers, we should be the bright light set on a hill so that all can see. If we are not as spiritually fit as we should be, we will shine dimly for a short while. But when we are feasting on the Word of God and gaining spiritual strength, we will be beacons in a dark, stormy world.

Carolyn, my 12^th grader, is taking physics this year. Physics is a pretty complicated subject—one that I avoided taking. But, to help her out, I’ve decided to teach myself physics. I’m already stuck, and I’m in chapter 2. I didn’t realize how much trigonometry would be involved in physics. I can barely remember anything from precalc. Most math concepts have become pretty foggy in my brain. I guess my thought is that two are better than one. At least I can be frustrated alongside Carolyn. Sam tried to help us out with some problems on projectiles today. It was a long, fruitless hour endeavor. Hopefully we’ll have a more profitable study session next time.

Tomorrow is our harvest fest. Everyone is eagerly planning the crazy costumes they will wear. I’m planning on taking lots of pictures and will hopefully be posting them sometime next week.

Scorpion Sighting and Dog Catching

October 24, 2011

You know you’re in Africa when you use a purse to catch a dog. Last night, we had Sunday evening church with the missionaries. Their dogs got out of the gate as we were all leaving, but my carload (which included C, Sam, and the Barillas) spotted the two dogs on our way down the hill. We decided to stop and try to catch Bolt and Oreo. Well, Rachel, Sam, and Cwere able to catch the dogs fairly easily. It was the keeping them that was the difficult part. Neither of the dogs had a collar, so there was nothing to hold them with. I was driving, so I had stayed in the car in case we needed to drive after the dogs. Mark came up and asked if there were any head coverings or anything in the car we could use to catch the dogs.

I looked around and tried to think of anything we could use. Then I realized that I had my purse around my neck. I handed my purse to Mark, and then he decided they could use a belt to catch the other dog. The purse worked it magic, and they were able to catch both of the dogs and hand them over to the Loeschers who had turned their vehicle around to bring the dogs back up. I looked at my purse strap this morning and noticed that it had acquired some battle scars of red dirt from the adventure last night.

Last week, I saw my first scorpion. I was standing in the kitchen, talking and putting dishes away. I looked down and saw what I thought was a piece of meat on the floor. I thought, “I should really clean that up, but I guess I’ll wait until the dishes are finished.” I didn’t think any more about that “piece of meat.” A few minutes later, Sam walked in and inhaled sharply. I looked at her. Then I looked at what she was looking at. She was looking at that piece of meat on the floor. And then I realized it was not a piece of meat. Somehow I instinctively realized that it was a scorpion. The Barillas were visiting, so Mark came in and stepped on the scorpion for us. I haven’t seen anymore scorpions, but I’m still very careful when I put my feet on the ground.

The election results came in over the weekend. Truthfully, I’m not even really sure who own the elections, although I’m pretty sure it was the current president. Nevertheless, we’re so thankful that the country has remained relatively calm and peaceful during this time. I haven’t heard of any rioting or demonstrations. God has answered prayer!

This weekend, some friends (who live about an hour away) have invited all of the Foumban missionaries over for a harvest party. The kids are looking forward to a break in the regular school schedule. Truth be told, I’m pretty sure the teachers are looking forward to a break as well. B also invited Sam and me to spend the weekend with them. We’re definitely looking forward to that. From what I hear, she is an incredible cook. And rumor has it that they have hot running water. I have not taken a shower since August 20 of this year. A hot shower—what a treat to look forward to!

American Food

The other night, Sam went out to ask the guard (who is also our pastor) what he wanted to drink with his dinner. When she came back in, she had a confused look on her face. So I asked her what Richard wanted. She said, “Well, he either wants coffee or milk … or he told me to go away.” Since Sam didn’t want to go back out to ask him again (especially if he had told her to go away), I went out to ask Richard.

I asked Richard in French what he wanted to drink, explaining that Sam hadn’t understood him. He answered in English: “I said coffee with milk.” In French, coffee with milk is “café avec lait.” Lait rhymes with away, which explains why Sam thought he said, “Go away.” We all had a chuckle over that, Richard in particular. But Sam still refused to bring him his dinner that night but made me do it.

Our poor guards have had to suffer through our American cooking. We had some rather interesting concoctions last week. A few weeks ago, C asked the men if they could pick us up some canned chicken when they headed into a bigger city. C was thinking of the chicken that’s similar to tuna. One misunderstood and bought canned processed chicken (think chicken flavored Spam). We decided to try it a few times last week. The first time, Sam thought we could make it into a decent chicken salad. And then we opened the can and saw the processed nature of the meat. Nevertheless, we forged ahead with the salad. The chicken was so processed that I think we put a full teaspoon and a half of pepper in to counterbalance the salt. Overall, we decided that the chicken Spam tastes like bologna. I proceeded to call the concoction “Spam salad.”

If a Spam salad sandwich wasn’t un-African enough for the guard, we proceeded to make Kraft-style macaroni and cheese later in the week. We decided to fry the chicken Spam, thinking it would taste like hotdog. It didn’t. Richard let us know that he did not like the mac-and-cheese.

While the guards may think our cooking is odd, nothing we make can compare to what some of the nationals eat. When Sam and I came home from school, C told us to head to the backyard to see what the neighbors were cooking up. And lo and behold, our neighbors had gotten a snake in the village and were preparing it for lunch. They held up the snake skin for us so that we could get a picture. Thankfully, they did not offer any snake to us.

Threatening Notes

Today I received my first threat note. After church, Sam and I walked into the house while C was still talking to some ladies outside. When I walked into my room to drop off my stuff, I noticed a note on my bed. It said, “BEWARE OF ME you will Regret it!!!!!!!!” (note: I included the punctuation and capitalization as was written on the note). I quickly walked out of my room and into Sam’s. When I told her about my note, we noticed that she had one on her bed too.

I then decided that I did not want to be in the house where the note leaver could still be waiting. We hurried outside to C to let her know of the notes. I was feeling pretty unsettled. When I told C that we found notes on our beds, she just kind of smiled and asked what kind of notes. We took her to Sam’s room to show her the notes and then realized that nothing had been taken from the room. Sam’s computer was lying in the open and had not been bothered. To calm us down, C said that the notes had been dropped off before we left for church. She then asked us who we knew that would leave such a note (especially one which, like Sam’s, had misspellings on it). It finally all clicked in our brains. Eddie had sent the notes with A (who had spent the night). He was trying to play a joke on us. He did succeed in scaring us, so Sam and I decided to turn the tables on him.

We called Carol and asked her if she would help us prank Eddie. We explained the notes that he had left and asked if she would just tell the kids that the ladies (Sam, C, and I) were coming to spend the night due to some threats that we have received. Sam asked Carol to mention in particular that Eddie would have to give up his room and let Miss Sam sleep there for the night. Carol loved the idea and agreed to let the kids know.

Less than five minutes later, my phone rang. It was Eddie, calling back to apologize. He was absolutely terrified to let me know that he was the prankster. I tried to keep a straight face, but because I was laughing so hard, I kept having to cover the phone. I then handed the phone to Sam to let him tell her. Once again, he barely managed to squeak out an apology. When Sam finally heard the apology, she yelled out, “Rachelle, you can unpack your bags now!” And when she couldn’t stop laughing, she handed me the phone, and I let Eddie know that we actually knew that it was him.

In Sam’s note, Eddie misspelled the words warning and sincerely. I think Sam is going to assign Eddie those two words as his two spelling bank words for the week. As Sam said, “You can’t prank the pranksters!”

The notes Eddie left for us

CHEESE!!

One of the harder things to get here is dairy products. I haven’t drunk a glass of milk since I left the US. I miss milk. I miss cheese. I miss sour cream. I don’t miss yogurt. (For some reason, I just do not like yogurt. I have tried and tried. It must be a texture thing because I like frozen yogurt fine.) But, earlier this week we got what ranks as an early Christmas present—we got CHEESE!!!

On Thursday, I opened the fridge and saw what looked like cheese. I ran to find Sam. She was just as excited as I was. We ate at the Loeschers’ for dinner and had tacos, with CHEESE!! Today, we made pizza, with CHEESE!! Yeah, it’s just a little bit exciting!

Today was also a great day in that we got our oven fixed. This morning, Sam and I attempted to light the stove. Yes, it took two of us to do the task. And it’s a good thing I decided to use a lighter instead of a match this time. When we lit the burner, the flame burst out of the burner and ran down the side of the stove. (Did you catch that—it went down the side of the stove!) Thankfully someone came by to check out our stove. Apparently our regulator was not working, so too much gas was being sent to the stove. God was definitely watching out for us. We were able to figure out the problem before anything terrible happened.

Tomorrow the presidential elections will take place. We are having church at 7 a.m. in order to allow the church members time to vote and to ensure that everyone is home before most people get out to vote. Please pray for peace and safety.

Oven Adventures

Recently, we've been experiencing a little difficulty with our gas-powered oven. Some connection is off, because the oven is receiving more gas than it knows to handle. Here in Africa, most oven aren't equipped with working pilot lights. So anytime one wants to cook or bake something, a match is required. For those of you who don't know me too well, I'm terrified of fire. I can't even handle holding the sparklers at evening weddings. Even ovens tend to frighten me. Naturally, the thought of lighting a burner horrified me. My first week in Africa, I often had to ask one of the Loescher kids to help me out.

Well, little by little, I have conquered my fear to the point where I can light the stove top burners or even the oven here at the house. Yesterday morning, I walked into the kitchen to heat up a cinnamon roll or two for breakfast (and you thought I was roughing it here!). We don't have a microwave here, so all reheating happens on the stove on in the oven. I turned on the gas to the stove and heard a WHOOSH of sound--and I'm pretty sure it was that loud. I turned the knob on the gas tank down a little and tried again. WHOOSH again. I decided to eat cold cinnamon rolls that morning.

C and our house helper looked at the stove today, trying to see if there was anything they could fix. They didn't find anything, so I'm definitely trying to steer clear of the oven for now. Sam does have lighter with a nice long handle, but I've been trying to save that for her and use matches myself. Today I definitely took advantage of the lighter. The one time I lit the burner, the flame extended to about the size of a dinner plate!!

Tonight I was working on making carrot cake cupcakes for a birthday party we're having tomorrow. Thankfully these were only in addition to the cake and were not the actual birthday cake. My first tray of cupcakes didn't turn out so great.

Please try not to laugh...

Remember, I never claim to be a great chef. I never took a cooking class. Maybe I should have.

Some Pictures (I Know, It's About Time!!)

My view from school!



The beautiful scenery of Cameroon



My giraffe--just think, someone will buy it thinking that it was painted by a Cameroonian.



The crazy elementary kids!

Week 7!!

I realize that I owe you all a post; however, with life settling into a routine here in Cameroon, I feel I don’t have much news to share. Of course, life in another country is not all about the adventure and danger, so I guess this post will just share life as it happens.

As I speak of life being routine, my housemate walks into my room, turns off my lights, and turns the head lamp (that’s on her head) to the strobe setting. Maybe I should rethink that comment about life possibly being boring. With the three of us in the house, it rarely is boring.

School continues going well. We are finishing up week number seven of the school year. It’s crazy how quickly life moves by! Tuesday I taught 4^th grade for the other teacher while she went up to help with the prison ministry. I love all of the kids here. They definitely have made teaching an interesting, unpredictable experience. And they’re always good to bring me some laughs. My girls watch videos for most of their classes. Elizabeth has discovered that her history teacher often repeats certain words. So after each history lesson, she proceeds to share his most-used words of the day. Today, I think he said “then” 18 times. He also likes the words, “obviously” and “of course.” Naturally, we have started noticing each other’s idiosyncrasies in class now.

I think Cameroon has brought out my creative juices. Yesterday I was in a productive mood, so I decided to try to fix a battery powered lantern in my room. I figured out that a small metal piece had broken off, so the power wasn’t able to be conducted when the switch was turned on. I pulled out my tweezers and a paper clip and set to work. A few hours later (which included a break for dinner), I successfully turned on the lantern. Sam used it last night and said that it stopped working. I think it just doesn’t like her because the lantern turned on fine for me today. I think it will be fine as long as I don’t jiggle it around too much. The paper clip, of course, is very fragile.

Today I was able to attend the prayer meeting at the new church plant in Foumbot (a town about 30 minutes away). I went with C to a one-on-one Bible study she’s doing with a very new believer. It was so exciting to see how God is working to change lives. We were talking about baptism, and it was thrilling to hear Tatiana clearly explain back to us what one must understand in order to be baptized. Pray for the church plant. There are only about 4 or 5 regulars that attend on Sunday and on Wednesday. God is doing a work, but we must be faithful to continue to persevere.

An interesting week

On Tuesday of this week, Sam and I moved into C's house. (C is a single lady who has been here about a year.) We were definitely still a little weak from being sick the day before, but we decided it was just best to get the move done. I still have not yet put everything away. Of course, my excuse is no longer that I’m not feeling well. It’s just procrastination at this point.

School went fairly well last week, all things considered. We obviously canceled school on Monday since most of the Loescher household was sick. Then on Wednesday night a missionary family that lives a few hours away came down for a visit. One of their daughters is quite musically gifted, so she spent Thursday giving many of the kids music lessons, either piano or flute. Unexpectedly losing two days of school really messes up lesson plans. Thankfully, I only plan out one week at a time. Because the girls watch videos for most of their classes, there’s really no way for me to catch them back up. But I’m not too concerned about finishing the books or anything. People are more important than a day of school.

Yesterday one of the moms took me up to the soccer field for another driving lesson. Driving is coming along very well. Yesterday I worked on shifting between gears (mainly 2^nd and 3^rd).  I probably drove around the soccer field 30 times practicing. We definitely attracted many stares. But we weren’t the only ones who thought of practicing driving at the soccer stadium. As we were about ready to leave, a taxi came up and started driving around the field. I think the plan is one more week at the stadium, and then I’ll hit the roads!

Presidential elections are coming up this weekend. Please pray for peace in the country. We’re not really sure how people will respond between election day and the day the results come in. We’re trying to prepare the best we can in case we have to stay put in our homes.

Thanks for your prayers!

Don’t drink the water!

(written September 27, 2011)

Maybe you’ve heard it said of other countries: “Don’t drink the water.” Well, I learned that the water can definitely affect you. Monday morning, 5 out of the 8 of us at the Loescher’s house woke up throwing up. And unfortunately, I got sick the worst out of everyone (probably because the Loeschers have built up some sort of immunity to the water and such out here). Since so many of us were sick, we knew it had to be food poisoning. We racked our brains, trying to figure out what we all had and finally decided that it must have been the water. We had some African kids over for lunch, and we think they may have filled a bottle with water from the tap to take home. We think that they then forgot to take it home, and some of us ended up drinking it for dinner.

I ended up spending all day in bed, moving only when my body absolutely required it. Carol gave me some medicine for nausea which I ended up throwing up. Finally, in an attempt to calm my stomach, I asked her to give me it in shot form. After Carol gave me the shot, she went to get some duct tape to help shut our door. Eddie, who was the only kid not sick, thought the duct tape was for my arm. “Mom!” he exclaimed, “don’t use the duct tape on Miss Rachelle’s arm! We have bandaids somewhere!” We definitely had a laugh over that!

Today we’re back at school. We had a late start (9:00 instead of the usual 8:00), but I’m still feeling a little weak. Sam and I joked around this morning, saying that we felt like old women. Any time we bent down, we would feel really dizzy. But God gives grace every day!