Monday, January 23, 2012

Hello Friends!
 
We had a delightful weekend. We got to River Number 2 Beach where one of Caleb's friend's family owns some property. There we can both “rough it” sleeping on the sand and a flush toilet and shower!  On the drive there, Caleb calls the “restaurant” down the beach and 3 order fish dinner to be delivered after we arrive. (Otherwise, we'd get the food very late!)  The restaurant is a kitchen with table on the beach. Instead of going down the beach to the tables, we hang out near where we will sleep and the waiter runs the food down to us! They come back for the plates the next morning and ask if we want breakfast. By the time we are ready to leave late in the afternoon, we have to call them to come get their plates and bring us a bill for all of it!  It's been done enough times so that the “relaxed” service you always get here extends all the way through a 24 hour overnight!   The dinner is grilled barracuda, caught each night by the fishermen of the village, and either chips (French fries, as this is a former British colony!) or rice.  The barracuda, which I've never had anywhere else is my favorite fish!
 
Nevin, Caleb, Dan (a Brit who one of Caleb's closest friends- who has even visited us in Westerville), Fuchsia (Dan's girlfriend, who I'm just getting to know and really like- also from England) and I made up the group.  We sat up and visited, ate, and I turned in early under the stars!  Laying in my bedding under the brilliant stars, listening to the waves is such an amazingly peaceful way to feel a bond with creation!!! That is one of my biggest thrills here in SL!
 
Saturday we swam, read, napped, walked down the beach, looked in the craft market down by the restaurant and generally relaxed! Delightful and restful!
 
Yesterday Nevin, Caleb and I went to a Craft Market on Lumley Beach (it's actually on google earth!) to shop for a few gifts. That is always a slightly overwhelming experience. There are very few people who are shopping at any point, so it is much less overwhelming than the larger, busier markets, but here the vendors watch what you've looked at to continue following you with those items, asking you to buy, long after you've left their stall! Deciding on a price takes a lot of haggling and time! That said, there are some amazing and well done batiks, country cloth woven blankets, carved cow bone, carved ebony and mahogany  (masks, animals, and a few nativity sets!)  clothing, fabric bags, and an abundance of jewelry!   Nevin bought a few gifts and I bought some beautiful cloth bags and a 5 inch section of cow leg bone carved all the way around with a giraffe under a palm tree!
 
We walked quite a distance down the beach road to the tables on the sand where we had decided to have lunch, only to find out that they weren't ready to serve food for awhile. We turned back in the heat to go back to another beach restaurant. By the time we got there, I was hotter than is healthy and the cold water and great pizza did a great deal to revive me!
 
We got a taxi home where Nevin packed, Caleb filled his extra suitcase with things to go back to the States until Caleb arrives the end of July, and I journaled.  We hung out, eventually joined by, Gabby, Caleb's mechanic, who had taken Caleb's car for the day to take the engine apart and clean the dust out of it! Mechanic's here generally do not have garages so they either work on your car in your compound or pick your car up and take it to their neighborhoods. Caleb's new compound is too small for mechanic work! It was great to see Gabby again!
 
Caleb and I then took Nevin to the dock for the water taxi to the airport. It was sad to watch the water taxi (a 20 passenger covered motor boat) pull away with Nevin! It was wonderful to have this time here with both my sons!
 
This a.m. (Monday) I stayed in Caleb's apartment and did some laundry--by hand, but not in a river!  ;)  My friend, Cami, who is the director of Word Made Flesh/ Lighthouse (that helps the street-kids off the streets and has the children's program in Kroo Bay where the kids get Christian Ed SL style and a hard boiled egg every Saturday) came over for coffee, a visit and to learn some beading techniques.  It was so great to relax with her a bit!
 
I've spent the afternoon at the school-- reading time in Caleb's classroom and hearing poem's the kids wrote!  I'm about to walk up the hill to the nearby indoor grocery store to change some money. The evening will be spent trying to catch up on my journal and packing to leave early in the morning for a 4 day trip to Kailahun with HI! I will be away from email until next Monday or Tuesday.
 
In Callahan we will visit the Kissi Kama villages where we have funded 2 hand dug wells. It will be exciting to be back there! I have not heard whether the wells are started of not.  I will also visit several other villages where HI works!  Kissi Kama is the area where the black fly that causes river blindness has affected so many villagers. It's also the 4 villages that had never been accessible by road until the villagers themselves cleared a road so that the HI vehicle could come to their villages! The people also have to keep the road from growing back with tall weeds!
 
The 4 days will consist of 2 driving days and 2 days of visiting villages. It is a 9 1/2 hour drive to Kailahun. It is all the way across the country (which is smaller than Ohio) on very bad roads.  I will appreciate all your prayers for safe driving and for energy during these days!  Thanks!
 
God Bless You,
Jenny