Weekend Survey

Dirty faces after the long ride

We had a bit of an adventure this weekend. On Saturday four of us took off on our crappy Chinese motorcycles (I say that with the deepest affection) for a three day cross country language survey. The country director of our organization is paying us a quick visit and we decided to take advantage of his experience to get a better picture of the linguistic situation in this area. The plan was to do some basic linguistic survey to assess what languages are spoken by whom around here and how we can reach the most people when we begin our language projects in the near future. People here have formed communities around small isolated mountains and when asked what language they speak they tend to answer with the name of the mountain, the name of a larger language family or even the name of ancient pre-colonial kingdoms. All of that is really cool, but it makes it nearly impossible for someone from the outside to know how many languages we are really talking about, especially when many groups that seem very different claim to understand each other, or groups very close to each other claim not to. I won't bore you with the details, but from a social linguist's point of view, it is a complicated, exciting, intimidating, beautiful mess of a situation to try and understand.

Because it was only a three day excursion, the trip was a l0t of fun. (Any longer and it would have moved from "fun" to categorically unpleasant.) Bryan and I were on one bike while our director and a guide were on the other. We just took a change of clothes and mosquito nets but our little Senkes still groaned in protest (much like their riders) at every ditch and pothole. We rode through miles of tall yellow grass and scrubby forests and occasionally had to cross rivers of sand. When we reached a village we had come to survey we would meet with whomever the community leaders thought appropriate, usually on rope beds under a tree, and talk for a couple of hours.

It's hard for me to know what all to say about this little trip. There were so many things that were fascinating to me about the people and places we went but I am completely at a loss to describe or explain them. Nothing dramatic happened on our adventure and there were no life changing encounters with people. The whole things was just so much fun to me. I think I felt like it was one of the first times I was really getting into what we have come here to do. We have spent so much time just trying to establish ourselves so we can actually live here that it felt really good to be out doing a bit more of what we came for. It's hard to explain. If felt good though. (Even though my bum is still a little sore.)

Dust

Last night when we went to bed it was so excruciatingly hot and still that I fell asleep with a soaking wet kanga wrapped around my back and stomach. The air was so parched though that it was dry within an hour. At this point in the year almost all remnants of the last rains in November have disappeared and everything looks thirsty. The stain left on the ground by dirty dishwater is covered in trembling swarms of mud-colored butterflies within minutes of it being tossed out. Candlelight showers are getting better and better as our bathwater, brought on donkey carts each day from the hafira, gets browner and browner. My nasal passages have been cracked and sore every morning and I have to slather in lotion after every shower to keep my skin from looking like the the bark of all the leafless trees outside. We have even heard UN reports of lions on the main road out of town, only ten kilometers away. People wonder if they are moving in to look for water.

I left my watch in the shower last night so I don't know what time it was that the wind picked up. Now that we have our tent staked into cement, we have been sleeping more soundly through the occasional wind gusts. But last night things got crazy. In my half-conscious state I felt like the mouse from one of my childhood story books who took his bed out to sea and got caught in a storm. It felt like we were trapped between the open water and a invisible coral wall. The wind would roll in like a tidal wave, wide and long and loud. But once it hit our tent it would shatter up into a hundred smaller waves crashing into each other from different directions leaving us bobbing around, trying to keep our heads above waterless air. The tent shuddered and shook so violently that the poles themselves screeched and threatened to snap. Tent straps rattled, cans of bug spray clanged around on the floor and the curtains knotted themselves together, allowing dust to spray freely in through the windows. A couple of times I thought I saw flashes of heat lighting, but that may have been my imagination. Like my mouse alter-ego, I eventually just pulled the covers over my head and closed my eyes as tightly as I could. I really did. It went on like this all night long.

This morning we stepped out onto a different planet. Chairs and wash basins were strewn around the yard and a chunk of our fence had fallen over on one side. Half the Sahara was deposited in our kitchen (okay, that one really is an exaggeration) and our poor chickens looked like they had lived through a tornado. The really bizarre thing though was the dust still hanging in the air. Mountains we can normally see at least four tiers of had completely disappeared in the haze. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the yellow full moon setting on the horizon, but later realized it was actually the sun rising out of the dust.

Bryan and I walked around this morning a little dazed and a little amazed. Just when we think this place is beginning to feel like home, we have humbling moments of wondering, "Where in the world are we?"

Chicken Poop for the Woman's Soul

Oh my goodness it's been a while since I have done this.

So many of you have asked for details on the Kili climb that I have delayed blogging until I could put some thoughts down about our hike, but now I realize that I might never blog again if I wait for that. Hopefully I will write about it here eventually, but until then I can only leave you with the words of a friend (who has also climbed the mounatin) which so completely capture how I also feel about the experience: "It was the greatest terrible thing I've ever done. It has made me humble and given me reason to boast. It was far too expensive and worth much more than it cost. I would do it again, in a heartbeat, but never again in this lifetime."

We have been back home for four days now, and unlike you might expect after weeks of tropical weather and mama's cooking, we are so happy to be here! Our two room cement kitchen building is finished and I cannot tell you how dramatically this has improved our quality of life. No more cooking in the sun and wind! The only probably with having no doors right now is that our chickens have a tendency to sneak inside and make a mess. We only have two chickens now instead of the original three we left. Apparently, while we were gone, a "wild mountain cat" (we suspect some kind of genet) came down from the hill, snuck into our compound a pulled a rooster out of the coop. This has apparently traumatised our two remaining fowl enough that all they seem interested in doing is cowering in our kitchen and pooping all over the place! About the tenth time I have shooed them out they give me the most offended ruffle of the feathers and march across the road to our neighbors house where they spend all day sulking.

Even so, it is good to be back. Our Arabic is a little rusty, but still seems to work; people are happy to see us and we are happy to see them; the coffee is still strong, the tea is still sweet and the sun is still hot. Just like we left it.

At the start of this new year I can't help but remember six months ago when we first came here. I told Bryan many times that I felt like I was at the beginning of a dating relationship. I was curious and interested and trying to make a good impression, but also guarded and cautious. If you don't let yourself fall in love in the first place it doesn't hurt so much when it all goes badly in the end. This is a big year for this country and people are making all sorts of predictions about what will happen and what that will mean for us. We are praying for peace and taking it all a day at a time. But coming back from a month away has made me realize the first few dates are over. I'm invested now, and not too proud to say I don't care. There is the risk of a broken heart this year. But I thinking (hoping? praying?) that instead, just maybe, this could be the beginning of something really beautiful...

Kilimanjaro

Tomorrow morning Bryan, Abigail and I start our week long trek up the tallest mountain in Africa. We took these pictures in fleeting moments when she was briefly bold enough to show her face. I am excited and scared out of my mind as I get ready to undertake what I expect will be the hardest physical challenge of my life so far. We welcome your prayers and good-luck thoughts as we set out! And we will be thinking about those of you we wish were with us every step of the way...

Eids-giving

You might be surprised to learn that our own little town in this far-strung corner of the world was full of holiday spirit on Thursday. Stores were closed and children were out of school. Kitchens were stashed with all sorts of good food and roads were full of people traveling to spend the day with their families. Town itself felt deserted but you could feel happy energy buzzing out of almost every home you passed. For the handful of Americans in town, it was fun to bask in the atmosphere of a good home-cooked lazy family holiday provided by all our neighbors and friends who were celebrating Eid.
Despite being very far away from our own families, we managed to pull off a pretty impressive spread ourselves. The organization next door has a few American staff and they had a huge turkey and green apples flown in on one of their supply planes. We bought up all the sweet potatoes and black-eyes peas in town and googled home-made pie crust recipes. Seven of us spent all day in the kitchen cutting, mixing, stirring and improvising while blue-grass music blared out of someone's laptop in the background. We invited friends and co-workers over to share in the feast and when it was all said and done, people from five different nationalities gathered around the table. And it was SO good! In good ol' American fashion we all ate until we couldn't breath and then jumped up and down a couple of times to make room for pie. In fact, I think we all got a little drunk on tryptomene because we all started acting so silly. We had so much fun.
I think it was so good because it caught us all by surprise. No one there was related to each other and the whole premise of Thanksgiving had to be explained to the newbies. The only inclement weather outside was a duststorm and the closest thing to a football game was a world cup qualifying match that might have been playing on a satellite TV several miles away. But it really felt like Thanksgiving. A little in what I imagine was the original way. You know, "We are all just surviving and we are thankful we have each other or we are all going to die" kind of way. But it was mostly the other way. The little bit hokey, warm fuzzy, "We are with the people we love, in a place we love, eating food we love and we're so thankful to God for these blessings" kind of way. Now that's a good Thanksgiving.


Our friend Jarrod was a Thanksgiving first timer and didn't pace himself...

Post Script

So, if you haven't read the blog before this one you might one to do that first. I wrote it a little too soon. An hour into our "quiet" afternoon, another fire came pouring over the hill behind our house (right behind) and we spent another couple of hours lighting other fires to try and save our newly thatched tukul and tent. Once again, we were blessed, but this one left me shaky. Our compound is now surrounded by charred earth on three sides.

Wildfire

Shortly after breakfast this morning I heard what sounded like loud wind heading our way.
This didn't bother me that much as the wind really has been unbelievable lately. It has been blowing through in unexpected gusts, blasting around the side of the mountain like it is running for its life, knocking chairs and kitchen ware off of our porch in it's hurry to get somewhere further away than here. The walls and floor of our tent bulge all around us then buckle violently back out in a way that makes me too nervous to sleep. (Last night I asked Bryan, "Why does this wind scare me so badly?" He answered "Because our house is made out of fabric.")
But the wind never hit our tent this morning. I looked out in the direction of the noise and saw a wave of dark black smoke and realized what I was hearing was fire. Lots and lots of fire. We watched it for a while hoping to see it die down but within half an hour a tsunami of orange flames that would occasionally burst as high as thirty feet in the air was rolling towards our home. Our neighbors (who lost their entire compound to fire last year) had a team of guys out starting smaller fires to try and head the wildfire off. Bryan lit a handful of grass on our camp stove and ran out to join them. I ran inside and started packing go-bags just in case - passports, laptops, my bible and family photos (and if you must know, a little bit of make-up and a favorite bra. In this part of the world that loss would hurt.) The black sky was full of ash and dozens of hawks trying to catch small animals fleeing the heat. It looked and sounded and smelled so awful.
Amazingly, the fire seemed to die down almost as dramatically as it started. Other than the singed hair on Bryan's hands and arms, we were ultimately untouched. The afternoon is now completely still and quiet, and other than the crispy blackness right outside our gate, you wouldn't have even known the fire was here only hours ago.
I expect there will be a time that we will loose things to fire. It seems to just be a part of life here. But this morning I just kept thinking, "Not yet. Please not yet." Some days this place just feels insane! Days are blisteringly hot and dusty while nights can feel freezing. The shockingly intense rain and thunder have been replaced with equally amazing wind and fire. All of it sweeps in so unexpectedly. And all of it seems so extreme. All you can do is pack up your underwear and pray.
And as scary as it can sometimes be, I have to admit, I kinda like it.