What October Has Looked Like

So these last couple of weeks have been going by really fast, and I am upon my last full week here in Korhogo. I can’t believe how fast time is passing by!

Lots has been happening. I’ve been all over town visiting people and getting last minute souvenirs, and spending every possible moment hanging out with my friends and family here. I’ve been to a wedding nearly every weekend for the past month, and played guitar in two of them. This last week I spent a fair bit of time with my church buddy CJ and her parents, visiting from the States. We climbed the hill next to my house and climbed Mount Korhogo, and had adventures in the marketplace looking for pentads. I also had a lot of good times hanging out with Chazz and Devin, who came to stay with me a few days.

This is a week of goodbye’s. It’s really weird realized that every day is my last of that day in Korhogo. Tonight I’m asking my family “for the road”, something you have to do well enough in advance so they can prepare a gift for you. Every time I talk to my friends and family it comes up that I’m leaving next Sunday, something that is hard to accept but is a reality. Saying goodbye to people you love is never an easy thing to do!

CJ’s brother Pierre left for Togo already, so he gave us some traditional clothes as a gift, and my friends from Abidjan are leaving Wednesday afternoon, and then I’m leaving just a few days after that.

I am already thinking about coming back. I’d love to return sometime next year for a short-term trip, doing a recording seminar here in Korhogo and maybe bringing some much needed equipment with me. I want to start organizing that already so that I can look for people who’d go with me.

Spiritually, God is kind of rocking my world right now. Everyday seems to show me ways in which I’m not trusting Him enough or trying to control my circumstances. With all the crazy schedules, the preparing to say by to some very close friends, trying to find gifts for people here and back home…it had made spending time in prayer and the word more difficult. Those are no excuse, if anything I should be spending more time with God as a result. It’s just been a struggle because I’m tired a lot lately, and I also have a cold again, boo. Anyways, God is still getting his messages through to me, through reading, prayer, and interactions with people, and I’m stumbling along behind Jesus, getting closer to where I’m going but not always very gracefully.

So here are a few pictures from the last week or two, enjoy! See you all soon!

Joel spent two weeks making this shirt for me!

After church with some friends, CJ wearing a similar gift

After this weekend's marriage, jamming outside

Ivorians know how to have a good time

I know how to have a good time too

Gifts from Pierre! Handmade dresses/robe

Pentad/Chicken market

Saying goodbye to Pierre

A view from the hill by my house

Devin, Me, CJ, and her mom, Marsha. I climbed the mountain behind us the next day.

Married in NioFoin!

Hey!

Well this last week an event took place that I (and my whole family) have been joyfully anticipating for a couple of months now….my brother Zachary’s wedding! Yeah I said a couple of months, because he proposed in late July, and they were married October 1^st. Pretty long engagement eh?

On Friday we all headed out to Niofoin to get everything prepared. I went in the morning, accompanied by my church buddy, CJ! It was definitely nice to have a close friend around with whom I could converse in my own language! We spent the day pretty much attached at the hip as we helped my family get things ready. Finding somewhere to sleep at night was a fun game, and after getting moved around several times, I finally settled down on a couch at a friend-of-the-family’s house (the 3^th house I’d been relocated to).

(Working hard or hardly working? Making sauce sumbara)

(With Joel the carpenter and his son, Michael. Hadn't seen them in months!)

The next morning I got ready and went over with everyone to la mairie ( the mayor’s office) where Zachary and Esther got legally married. There were a hundred or so present, but only about 30 could fit in the room, so I hung outside with most people. Then we all went to church while Zachary and Esther got changed into their other wedding clothes for the real ceremony. I stayed inside for about half of the procession, or less, but had to go outside because of the suffocating heat inside the church. I’d say a few hundred people attended, and about half had to stayed outside in the shade on plastic chairs waiting for the ceremony to finish. After it was all over the happy new couple came outside to shake everyone’s hands. A while later, after we had all eaten at the reception, Naomi, Alyssa, CJ, and Rod all left together to Korhogo and I hung around for another night in Niofoin. That night was filled with dancing (literally all night) and lots of opportunities for this “toubabou” to keep the kids entertained. It’s just so amazing to little black children who have never before seen a white person so up close…they got to learn that white people like to eat, and act silly, and do normal human type activities…just like them! So crazy right? It was fun :).

(This is my host dad, Soro Zana!)

(Panjama party with my youngest brother, Ungalo!)

(Naomi having a hard time look hard-core.)

(Leaving the Mairie, looking pretty chic)

(Ceremony begins at church)

(Zachary in expensive Baoule-king dress, basically to show that he has money)

(They were so happy to be married!)

Coming back the next day was fun, as we got roughly 25 people back in two medium sized pickup trucks, all in one trip!

(Safe passage out of Niofoin is always welcomed.)

Anyways, wedding aside…I’m sure you are all wondering about my soon-to-be arrival back in California! Well, I’m going to be arriving in Fresno around 10pm on Halloween! There is so much to say about what lessons I’ve learned here in RCI and about how that impacts the way I’m going to live my life in the States that I barely know how to begin explaining it all! But here are a few words that have acquired a much deeper and refreshed meaning for me:

Trust

Service

Sacrifice

Simplicity

Humility

Modesty

Worship

Communion

Community

Commitment

Purpose

I know that those words entail about every aspect of life imaginable…so that’s about right then! I’d be hard-pressed to think up a single aspect of my life – how I view myself, the world, God, and how they all relate to each other.

So you can expect a very different Jason when you see me next, though of course au même temps I’m the same of course. I’m going to dearly miss the friends and family God has given me here in West Africa, but also with each passing day I’m growing more eager to be with everyone I miss back in the States and to continue along the path God is leveling our before me as I walk in his lamplight.

I will try my best to get another blog or two out before I leave. In the meantime, may God bless you! Thank you so much for your prayers, and for your interest in my life! Also, please let me know how I can be praying for you!