Monday, October 19, 2009

A lot to absorb in the last two days!

Dear Friends,

What a day! It is only noon and I've seen a big lizard crawling on an outside wall and a little lizard. Had I seen the little lizard first it might have looked big, but not after the BIG one! Just now I heard knocking, knocking on the metal gate and thinking that it was the engineer come to finish work on the loose tiles in my living room I opened the gate. There was an Arabic woman talking at me very quickly in --Arabic, of course! Then behind her I could see a cart drawn by a donkey going down the street. I called the man from the college who seems to have been assigned the unfortunate fate of helping me and had him talk to the determined woman. She is apparently going up and down the streets reading the water meters which are inside of the house. My meter happens to be inside the landlord's garage and I have no access to it. Minutes later I could hear her knocking and knocking on the other side of the compound -- I don't think the landlord or his family is home.

So I think that Patris is equivalent to a waiban -- the person at a college assigned to work with the foreigners. He is long suffering as my list of issues seems to be to be never ending. He is very patient and very kind as all of them have been. To give credit where credit is due, my first waiban in China was also patient and kind. It was after he left the college in China that things went downhill.

Yesterday Patris' older sister took me to the Catholic service in town. It is a morning service. Okay, this confuses me. The Protestant services are in the early evening because people work on Sunday morning -- so why is the Catholic service in the morning? Who knows. Her children were in school until 2:00 in the afternoon. It always throws me when the week is different in another country -- how ethnocentric can I be?

The singing was amazing at this service. Beautiful voices blending together. There was a woman directing the singing from the front. The singing at the Catholic services in Belfast was beautiful too, but it was called the Entertainments and was a ministry of a choir, this singing seemed to be the whole congregation.

I accept in myself now that I love liturgy. I love the stillness and focus it brings to me. In this church there were all of the Catholic trappings, the icons, the candles, what I imagine were the stations of the cross on the walls, and the prayer kneelers. The kneelers however were unpadded wood -- I hurt. Liturgy helps me go inward and outward at the same time. It is mystical and mysterious at the same time.

One of the things that I will briefly mention here is that the church service this morning, and the one I went to in Nairobi, feel/felt free. As far as I know the state does not control the church -- the services did not have a feeling of being controlled.

I am aware after a week that Africa speaks to me more than Asia did. I cannot explain this in rational terms yet. It is just so. Maybe some of it is that because it is less developed here I sense that the pace of life is different. I also notice that many of the women are of a more realistic, or more Western, size than the diminutive Asian women. I may be able to find ready made clothes here. I think it is some other things too, and I imagine that these things will be revealed to me in good time.

I am aware of the issue of of public transit being one of the things which is not well developed. I am feeling quite dependent right now on other people for most everything because I am not independent in my modes of transport. In China I was able to flag a taxi or walk in five minutes to the subway system or take a bus not far from my apartment. I have been told that I can call the college and ask if someone is available to pick me up and if not to ask if someone would call a taxi for me. Now, get this: someone suggested that at some point I might want a car. Apparently reliable, gas efficient Korean made cars run almost $20,000 US dollars. Hah!

Patris' sister also took me "grocery shopping" on Sunday. QFC doesn't exist here, at least not that I have seen. I am just not sure where I am going to find supplies that I need to cook. I always think of the dry staples and then the fresh stuff. The staples, like lentils, don't get purchased as much where the fresh stuff like milk, yogurt, fruits and vegetables are several times a week. There is an ex-pat family that lives nearby me, unfortunately they will be leaving in three weeks. The wife came over last night to see if I wanted to go to church with them. I had to wait for the washing machine but I think she will introduce me to the "souk" (marketplace) on the way to the college. She said she could help me get to know some of the shop keepers. I think this is a good idea. And maybe I can find out where the staples are.

I did see my first KFC yesterday. It was very different than in the US or China. It was dusty and looked old. But it was a KFC.
Blessings,
Debbie

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