Well it has been quite a few days since I've posted, so I guess I have a lot of ground to make up.
Christmas was good. After going to bed late Christmas Eve, we had to wake up early Christmas morning. At the church there was a long Christmas service and then a potluck... which of course was delicious; and some of the food items were unidentifiable, but ya just have to close your eyes and eat it. Afterwords, we retreated back to our house and opened presents. I got a book about Mali, some bowls, and a prayer rug.
In the evening I worked on the network some more with Ernie.
Friday was a full day. In the morning we journeyed over to the campground. Basically, its a rustic retreat center. The pastor leads literacy camps and things of the like. I asked if they ever do youth camps (kinda my specialty) and they said that there used to be some a long time ago, but it would just take someone to run with it and motivate people, otherwise it wouldn't happen.
later in the morning, our friend Eddy came over and taught us some more Bambara. We learned the numbers associated with their money system. confusingly, they have a different number sequence when dealing with money than they do with counting other objects and such. everything in the money system is based off of the number five instead of 10 like ours. so, in order to say 25 you would pronounce it 5 5's.
In the afternoon I gave another lesson to Eddy on the guitar.
Saturday was kind of the calm before the storm. In the afternoon I gave another lesson to Eddy, his final lesson. He came along very well and I bet he'll make a great guitar player. The rest of the day was spent packing, saying goodbye to people, and going to the market.
Sunday, we got up very early (5:30), packed up the car, and headed off to Bamako (about a 7 hour drive). Along the way we stopped and looked at a nice waterfall.
Once we got to Bamako, we spent the rest of the evening getting settled in.
Monday we took a taxi (something I'm getting used to, but it's still weird to me) over to Jessica's warehouse (the street kids ministry) in the afternoon. For Monday, we were just going to check it out and look around. Jessica is this lovely Nigerian woman who has given up her whole life to take care of these children. It's literally all she does. She doesn't have another job, she just takes care of the boys. She survives on some money that her sister sends her. She doesn't even speak their language. With all of this despair around her she still has hopes and dreams. At the moment, these kids hang out and sleep in this warehouse (think of one of those rental storage garage's. its about 20x20 feet). There are anywhere between 30-50 boys that inhabit this place. Jessica took us over to a house that she hopes to rent out for the boys. I was shocked when we walked around in it. This house has at least 8-10 bedrooms, several bathrooms, and lots of living space. Jessica has plans of providing sleeping space for up to 200 boys in this house! Some of the kids would stay there all the time and be enrolled in her program where they will be tutored by teachers until they reach an appropriate grade level for their age. Unicef has said it would provide beds, school supplies, and teachers even, but not until they get the house (and they wont provide any money for the house). The landlord was touched by the ministry and is offering the house to Jessica and the boys for $800 a month... for a 10 bedroom house!! are you kidding me? what landlord in their right mind would ever consider letting 200 boys live in one of their houses, let alone lower the rent for such a cause. God is truly working here. Sadly, they have no one to provide for any of the rent.
Jessica is a trained nurse who could be making a nice amount of money, but instead she has given up everything for these boys.
I have finally seen a holy fool in person and in action; someone who takes Jesus seriously; someone who cares more about the cause of Jesus than her own well-being.
This forces me to ask myself, how can I be like this?
Tuesday we went to a missionaries house. She had a shop in her house that she stocks with Malian craft items. so we did a little Christmas shopping.
In the evening we took off for Jessica's warehouse again. This time we passed out the notebooks we had prepared and began teaching the boys how to read and write their numbers. There is something strange and rewarding about teaching 15 year old's and 8 year old's how to write the number 1.. and at the same time awfully depressing that a 15 year old has never written a 1 before.
Our taxi driver is pretty much the coolest guy. His name is Ousman. He waits for us while we work with the kids, and even comes in and helps us teach. He knows just a little bit of English (maybe as much as the Spanish I knew by the end of high school). So Ousman talks to the boys in their language (Bambara) and translates it to English and made up sign language for us.
Wednesday (New Year's Eve) we went back to the warehouse in the afternoon and interviewed some of the boys so that we could better understand where they come from and why they are there. Ousman, our taxi driver, translated for us again. We also worked on some of their numbers.
In the evening we relaxed a bit and enjoyed the sounds coming from the street. At midnight it sounded like someone was bombing us. apparently, the people here love fireworks :-)
------------
Thoughts:
Bamako has been really exciting so far, but at the same time I really miss Kadiolo. It was nice there because we got to know some locals really well and we saw them everyday. There was kind of a sense community... what I've been longing for... and then I left.
Christmas was good. After going to bed late Christmas Eve, we had to wake up early Christmas morning. At the church there was a long Christmas service and then a potluck... which of course was delicious; and some of the food items were unidentifiable, but ya just have to close your eyes and eat it. Afterwords, we retreated back to our house and opened presents. I got a book about Mali, some bowls, and a prayer rug.
In the evening I worked on the network some more with Ernie.
Friday was a full day. In the morning we journeyed over to the campground. Basically, its a rustic retreat center. The pastor leads literacy camps and things of the like. I asked if they ever do youth camps (kinda my specialty) and they said that there used to be some a long time ago, but it would just take someone to run with it and motivate people, otherwise it wouldn't happen.
later in the morning, our friend Eddy came over and taught us some more Bambara. We learned the numbers associated with their money system. confusingly, they have a different number sequence when dealing with money than they do with counting other objects and such. everything in the money system is based off of the number five instead of 10 like ours. so, in order to say 25 you would pronounce it 5 5's.
In the afternoon I gave another lesson to Eddy on the guitar.
Saturday was kind of the calm before the storm. In the afternoon I gave another lesson to Eddy, his final lesson. He came along very well and I bet he'll make a great guitar player. The rest of the day was spent packing, saying goodbye to people, and going to the market.
Sunday, we got up very early (5:30), packed up the car, and headed off to Bamako (about a 7 hour drive). Along the way we stopped and looked at a nice waterfall.
Once we got to Bamako, we spent the rest of the evening getting settled in.
Monday we took a taxi (something I'm getting used to, but it's still weird to me) over to Jessica's warehouse (the street kids ministry) in the afternoon. For Monday, we were just going to check it out and look around. Jessica is this lovely Nigerian woman who has given up her whole life to take care of these children. It's literally all she does. She doesn't have another job, she just takes care of the boys. She survives on some money that her sister sends her. She doesn't even speak their language. With all of this despair around her she still has hopes and dreams. At the moment, these kids hang out and sleep in this warehouse (think of one of those rental storage garage's. its about 20x20 feet). There are anywhere between 30-50 boys that inhabit this place. Jessica took us over to a house that she hopes to rent out for the boys. I was shocked when we walked around in it. This house has at least 8-10 bedrooms, several bathrooms, and lots of living space. Jessica has plans of providing sleeping space for up to 200 boys in this house! Some of the kids would stay there all the time and be enrolled in her program where they will be tutored by teachers until they reach an appropriate grade level for their age. Unicef has said it would provide beds, school supplies, and teachers even, but not until they get the house (and they wont provide any money for the house). The landlord was touched by the ministry and is offering the house to Jessica and the boys for $800 a month... for a 10 bedroom house!! are you kidding me? what landlord in their right mind would ever consider letting 200 boys live in one of their houses, let alone lower the rent for such a cause. God is truly working here. Sadly, they have no one to provide for any of the rent.
Jessica is a trained nurse who could be making a nice amount of money, but instead she has given up everything for these boys.
I have finally seen a holy fool in person and in action; someone who takes Jesus seriously; someone who cares more about the cause of Jesus than her own well-being.
This forces me to ask myself, how can I be like this?
Tuesday we went to a missionaries house. She had a shop in her house that she stocks with Malian craft items. so we did a little Christmas shopping.
In the evening we took off for Jessica's warehouse again. This time we passed out the notebooks we had prepared and began teaching the boys how to read and write their numbers. There is something strange and rewarding about teaching 15 year old's and 8 year old's how to write the number 1.. and at the same time awfully depressing that a 15 year old has never written a 1 before.
Our taxi driver is pretty much the coolest guy. His name is Ousman. He waits for us while we work with the kids, and even comes in and helps us teach. He knows just a little bit of English (maybe as much as the Spanish I knew by the end of high school). So Ousman talks to the boys in their language (Bambara) and translates it to English and made up sign language for us.
Wednesday (New Year's Eve) we went back to the warehouse in the afternoon and interviewed some of the boys so that we could better understand where they come from and why they are there. Ousman, our taxi driver, translated for us again. We also worked on some of their numbers.
In the evening we relaxed a bit and enjoyed the sounds coming from the street. At midnight it sounded like someone was bombing us. apparently, the people here love fireworks :-)
------------
Thoughts:
Bamako has been really exciting so far, but at the same time I really miss Kadiolo. It was nice there because we got to know some locals really well and we saw them everyday. There was kind of a sense community... what I've been longing for... and then I left.
No comments:
Post a Comment