Oh la la, c'est la sixième de Juin maintenant! Mon cœur est plein de joie a cause des choses que Dieu a me béni ces sept mois passé. Je comprende la Français beaucoup mieux que plus tôt; j'étais très inquiet avant Mai! Mais, Dieu a me donné un cadeau de la compréhension. Ma soeur, Martine, même a dit que je parle très bien actuellement! Si cela est vrai - je ne sais pas - mais j'apprécie le compliment! Vraiment, mon accent (la prononciation des mots et des voyelles) a besoin de beaucoup du travail. C'est vrai pour chacun de notre équipe, surtout moi. En plus, j'ai fait des erreurs dans ce paragraphe, probablement! Mon espoir par rapport à la langue de français est que je puisse parler et comprendre presque tous que j'écoute est lire!! C'est possible avec Dieu! (J'ai essayé la subjonctif là, c'est propre, n'est pas? Faut me corriger si tu voir une erreur!)
Ok I'm done, I'll type in English now. I was just talking about the french language and such there, hopefully google translate will be your friend and translate that somewhat well for you, if you need it to!
So this last week has been an adventure!
Stephanie had her 23rd birthday last wednesday! She was kinda bummed that we couldn't all be together (she lives in Bouaké), so we all bought bus tickets and surprised her! We showed up at the ice cream place there, and it was perfect. Her back was facing us, and so we walked right in behind her before she turned around - definitely a great surprise! Thursday night we had an awesome costume dinner/dance party for her with the old drama costumes we found from when École Baptist was a school. I'll get a photo of that up here if I can find one later.
In Bouaké, I worked hard with the Cedarville team and Chazz in gym cleaning 8 years of bird poop, dust, and cobwebs for a few hours. I even had this awesome broom tied to the end of a 25 foot long stick with which I could sweep up cobwebs nearer the roof. The rest of the time there was relaxing, and then Friday morning we took a bus back to Korhogo (except Heidi who was sick that morning).
Back in Korhogo, I went straight to my host dad's shop and then home for 5 minutes to change my clothes. Zana (my host dad) and I , along with 2 others, left immediately for NioFoin. So basically Friday was a day of constant traveling for me, and I was happy to get to bed that night.
Saturday we went to this big animistic "we're gonna build a huge cotton factory here in 2012" celebration. Actually, I'm pretty sure that was the official title of it. Or not. Anyways, it was really interesting to see the traditional beads, cowry shells, mirrors, fetishes, straw, etc that they wear to ward off evil spirits. The dances they did and the different rhythms they played were so impressive!
True "African American" balophone players:
Awesome hats, awesome facial expression:
This is Eagleman (or so I call him), Ivorian superhero:
Here are the ladies costumes, a panya, crazy hat, straw shield thing, and no shirt (which is why I took a facing away photo to show you):
These guys are, in my opinion, the equivalent of Ivorian power rangers. They do awesome acrobatics and scare away evil spirits (aka Lord Zedd and Rita Repulsa).
Here, we are eating family style in N'Ganon (the village Zana grew up in):
And this is my friend Eliza (who used to live with us in Korhogo) and her little sister Sara, having a good time:
And this last picture is of someone who thought it wise to have a load on his car many times taller than the car itself. I almost didn't capture it!
Ok, have a great week! Hopefully I won't be on the run so much.
Thank you again for sharing your life with me. It is so crazy how normal you make life sound there (and I guess it is normal now for you). I think there are very few things you will be nervous about in the future hu.
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