Hello, my name is Blanche… lol, I went to pick up some pictures I had taken for my Ghanaian Visa, and the name on the outside of the envelope was “Blanche”. I’m hoping to spend some time visiting with the Ghana YFC people while the Friesen family is on vacation… right now the details are kinda sketchy, but if it falls through I’ll be going to (North West) Benin instead to stay in an Anii Village with a family who do oral narrative translations, they are going through the bible in chronological order, starting with Genesis and sharing the bible stories with a people group who hold oral tradition way above anything written… geee… I don’t know what to pray for to happen! Both options are pretty good to me!
Sorry that the last message got posted twice…. Sometimes I can email my messages in, sometimes I can’t… I guess the program was just being really helpful to make up for the lost messages!
I got to go to the market on Tuesday! Dude, I love the market. Market is always open, but there are certain days when EVERYONE is at the market, all the vendors in town come together, and their families… oh heck… the whole town is there, and if you’ve got anything you can sell it there. Just put it in a basket on your head and you are in business! lol. I can’t remember if I’ve written anything about the market yet, if I’m repeating myself, sorry, I write off line to save my phone units (internet time) so I can’t go back and check what I’ve written and to whom!
This market is partly indoors, mostly outdoors. The inside part runs all the time, it’s mostly fruits and veggies and meat in there… The tables are really close together and everyone is selling pretty much the same thing, you find someone friendly and they become “your” vendor, they watch for you and send their children to greet you the second your feet enter the building, they show you all the new things they have… making sure to mention that you won’t ever get it anywhere else… ;) I almost fell into the drainage pit the first time I went there… it’s just randomly in the middle of the building; full of green slime… and it’s moving… alive with bugs and bacteria…. *shudder * . It’s right beside “MY” fruit and veggie lady, and I didn’t see it because I was so overwhelmed the first time I went in.. Too much to see, too few eyes to see it with.
There is an upstairs to the market building; I didn’t even notice it the first two times I was there! I went this week; it has all household stuff, and plastics and fabrics. I bought a new pair of flip-flops for 350 cfa (my sandals couldn’t take the walking, they gave up in two weeks!) That’s around 72 cents American. However, I also bought 6 bananas, 4 tangerines, a giant fruit that I don’t know the name of but have become hopelessly addicted to, and a zucchini for 400cfa- I still haven’t really figured out the money. Things that I think should cost more cost way less… but then things that I think should be cheep are SO expensive! 750cfa for a single serving of yoghurt.. hmmm, but it sure is good yoghurt, I’ll keep paying the price.
We toured the whole market this week, it was the first time we’d been able to do it. There was so much to see in the outside stalls! There was the pottery section, the soap section (they make some crazy soap!) The “pharmacy” section where you can buy a bottle of pills (unmarked) or just two or three pills… pre-wrapped in saran-wrap! I guess you have to just hope that you remember the right colours! ~ Or you can go to the real pharmacy, you don’t need a prescription for anything, just say the name of what you want to buy and they’ve got it, or they’ll have it in an hour! And yes, these are manufacturers labels on the packages… a little safer; just watch the expiry date! There was the “restaurant” section … a bunch of ladies with fires and charcoal stoves boiling and frying and roasting all sorts of yummy smelling things, and then there was the Animism/witchcraft section, it was in a side ally off of the rest of the market, but it was really busy there too. You could buy anything from a monkey’s head to dried mushrooms, powdered bones to witchcraft seashells there was so much, as we walked through, Edith leaned over to me and said, “I just whisper the name of Jesus when I have to walk through here”.
So I bought myself a lovely Zucchini at the market… I was so happy to find one, it was nice and solid, and wasn’t dented, didn’t sound hollow.. it was good. I left it in the cupboard for an hour before putting it in the eau de javel (yeah, make sure all veggies and fruits soak in a little javex before you eat them!) And when I picked it up, it had turned into a mushy mess! I could feel little pathways running under it’s skin, something was inside and had eaten it before I could!!! So sad for my zucchini. I had really been looking forward to eating it....
You know those giant plastic bugs that you can find at the dollar store? About the size of your hand… I found one here two nights ago… but it wasn’t of the plastic variety… it buzzed around crashing into the building. Needless to say I only went outside when absolutely necessary. Tonight when I was walking over to the main building I think I may have stepped on one in the grass... normally I stick to the path, but I was trying to scare some of the really noisey bugs into quietness... it's been SO loud this week!
This morning I go up early and hiked partway up the mountain… it was beautiful… the sun was just coming out, it was actually cool enough that everyone was out working in their gardens on the side of the mountain… the terraces are very neat… these people work so hard… And the land is so unforgiving! People spend hours in backbreaking work... and the ground is filled with rocks... I am blown away by the people daily.
We are heading up to Tammariland Again for Church tomorrow, There’s a small church that was planted there that the Crockers helped to plant last year during dry season… during the wet season there was no way to get there (rivers got too big, mud holes too wide) And John (Crocker) thought that the church must have stopped meeting.. He went to visit sometime last week and the roads have cleared, he found that the church had grown so much that they had gone ahead and done a church plant of their own in the next village! We are going up for a baptism service in the morning… pray for us as we head through that mountain pass again!
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