Africa was pretty cool and stuff.

  

It would be impossible for me to tell everything that happened in the last two months in only one post, so I thought that I would just briefly outline what we did in Africa and then post some more stories as I write them. Yeah? Sweet ;)

In some places, I will leave specific names out for discretion purposes. 

So... what did we do?                                                                            

Our time in The Gambia was split into two main parts. For the first three weeks our team of ten worked alongside a Nigerian missionary family who run a Christian primary school in the village of Mansajang. A few of us (me included) taught, others of us helped with maintenance, and the rest helped wherever else was needed. I was put in charge of the levels class, the highest class in the school. In my class were 11 students ranging from ages 11-15 who were in grades 1-5. Each student worked at his or her own pace in workbooks and would take a test whenever they finished a whole book. I definitely wasn't looking forward to teaching, but I really fell in love with these kids. Talk about stress, though. I would get out of school and be completely drained. It really takes everything out of you to sit with a 15 year old who can't read and try to teach them out of a 1980's curriculum that has been photocopied so many times that the words are barely visible. What I realized, though, is that it wasn't the teaching that the kids were in such desperate need for; attention is what they needed most. Sometimes the students would call me over saying that they need help, but really they just wanted me to sit with them and watch them work. Since 90% of the people are Muslim, having a lot of wives and kids is pretty highly valued. Because of this, the kids get little to no attention at home... so they treasure it is offered. Working in the school really made me appreciate how I was brought up and the education system that I had. If these kids leave the school and know how to read and write, they are so far ahead. These three weeks were stressful, but at the end I left wishing I had more time there.

The rest of our time in Africa was quite a bit different. We traveled up the river about 15 kilometers to a more remote village where the unreached tribe lives. We stayed on the YWAM base there and got a chance to help them make progress on some of the projects they needed help on. One of the bigger projects that the base is working on is planting trees. Deforestation is becoming a problem in the area because many people are cutting down the trees to use as firewood and to build fences. Since there are donkeys, cows, goats, and sheep running around all the time eating everything they see, and with the climate being so harsh, trees have a really had time starting out. We worked alongside the staff there to fill about 400 bags with soil and planted seeds in each one. Their vision is that they are going to give every compound in the village a tree to plant along with some education on how to help the tree grow. This YWAM base has such a bold and faith based approach to ministry which I will be doing a whole other post about, but they are bringing such physical and spiritual life to the area. The base is also the only place close by that people can come for emergency medical attention, which I also was able to take part in. One off the coolest parts of what the staff is doing is that they have started a model garden that other residents can walk by and get ideas on how to grow and maintain their own prosperous garden. Another project we helped start was the building of a brick house that will be used as a longterm home for one of the families living there. So, the work was way different, but we really got to see physical progress being made. I also really liked the schedule because we worked in the morning, had lunch and our group meeting, then had the rest of the day to go out into the village and mingle with people the rest of the night. I, again, had a really strong connection to the boys who would come over all day every day.

Where did we stay?                                                                            

Room #1

Room #2

Bathrooms?                                                                                  

Typical

Luxury

Washing machine, shower, dishwasher                                              

Food                                                                                                    

For our main meal every day, we had someone from the village cook us up something that the locals eat. We all sat on a mat around a communal bowl and ate with our hands. The food was actually realllly good most days. It was always rice or some other grain as a base, and then some kind of oily sauce with bitter tomato, casava, fish or beef, cabbage, and scotch bonnet peppers to pour over the top.  For every other meal we ate what they call tapalapa, which is the cheap locally made bread with various fillings.

I have some really cool stories and more detail that I will be writing about over the next few days. I'll just say that my time in Africa was nothing like I thought it was going to be, but God really used us to bless those we went to serve.

Some randoms for the road                                                                   

LOVE!