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It was December, 4th. We were leaving on a Kenya Airways flight for another video project. Unfortunately, with a scheduling mishap and the lack of advanced notification, we missed every Christmas party and children’s music concert which were scheduled the week we were gone. When I say we missed every Christmas party, I mean that to the utmost extent because we were going to an island where the no one, except foreigners, celebrated Christmas.

There was a local soccer team sitting behind us, who probably never showered, and one of them took off their shoe and stuck their foot in between the side of the airplane and Ted’s chair. For some reason the people sitting in front of us smelled of old dairy product. The mixture of scent which occurred in our general vicinity could only be given the image of a bucket of cheese, aged in a boy’s high school locker room, then found at the end of the year by an unfortunate custodian. Needless to say, it was a much longer flight in nature than duration. When the plane started to descend, I could still only see water through the window. Then a green mountain came into view, it sloped gracefully into the warm water of the Indian Ocean surrounding it. I saw the airport building fly past the window, and then the other end of the mountain plunging into the water. The ocean filled the window view again and I noticed that we didn’t seem to be slowing down very quickly. I looked past the passengers on the other side only to see the ocean view in that window too. We heard the brakes engage and then felt them engage as we squeaked to a halt. As the plane turned around to taxi back to the airport, I watched the landscape rotate. The end of the runway was in plain view with the rest of the ocean behind a patch of grass and a simple concrete barrier with lot of yellow lines and “caution” signs. We wondered if the pilot may have been cutting it close or if it was standard procedure to almost slam into the end of the runway and sink in the Indian Ocean.

As we emerged from the airplane, the humid heat and intense sun hit us like a wave. The air conditioned bus that took us to immigration was like a cold breeze on a summer day, which considering we were in the Southern hemisphere, it was. We had no trouble with lost luggage since there were only two airport buildings* and it would be a challenge to forget which one the incoming luggage goes. Outside was a lot of local ladies with yellow paint all over their faces sitting beneath a canopy tent. They were supposed to be a greeting party for tourists, but they just sat in the shade instead. We met up with one of the missionaries, whom I have named “John” for his protection, and piled ourselves and equipment into a tiny French designed taxi. We drove the the other end of the small island and ran with all the luggage to catch the ferry which took us to the main island.

The name of the island in the local language literally translates into “The Island of Death”. The local people of the island are all Muslim. Their religion is Islam, but there is also a lot of animism and spirit superstition, which easily blends with traditional muslim beliefs into what is called Folk Islam.

Mens' religious ceremony

One day, we went to film the daily lives of the people with one of the other missionaries. I will call him “Bob” After filming a group of fishermen coming in after their morning catch, we walked to the market and filmed them bargain and sell the fish, then around the town until lunch. We ate with a friend of Bob’s, who is a fisherman. His house was a rusty shack built straight on the beach, we sat outside and waited as his two wives cleaned and cooked the fish he caught.When they placed the bowl on the floor**,

I was expecting generally bland, but filling, food as I had eaten in Kenya, but as I took my first bite it was filled with a collision of flavor and a pleasant texture.

Andy on a dugout outrigger canoe

We looked at each other and then back at the bowl. It looked a bit like the food that I was thinking, “ah, here is the unappetizing green mush that we have been expecting. Those fish yesterday must have been a fluke.” We dived in despite the preconceptions. I was pleasantly surprised as the green mush happened to be laced with shaved pieces of fresh coconut from the island. The mush was also really more of a purée and it complimented the rice.

“Well rice, you certainly make me a filling little dish!”

“Au contraire my green friend! You are the star of this meal!”

Actually I would have stopped eating them if they talked, but they were quite complementary. I discovered over the weekend that people living on islands who are surrounded by exotic fruits and don’t have a lot to do usually figure out how to make interesting and delicious foods. We ate an abundant amount of fresh tropical fruits*** that we had never heard of before, and enjoyed the local specialty hot sauce that makes any meal into a burning inferno of goodness. The unexpected affluence on the island constantly surprised us when seemingly poor hosts would bring out ice cold Cokes from some hidden mini-fridge in the kitchen. The cold drinks were especially appreciated considering the island was so hot that Andy, Ted, and I would already be sweating through our shirts before breakfast was even served.

Andy filming interview at mosque

The next day, we walked around a different town and asked around to see if any of the mosques would let us film. After another failed attempt, one mosque gave us permission to film. They only wanted us to take our shoes off and wash the dirt off our feet before we entered. We obliged and then I stepped over the threshold. It was the first time I had ever been in a mosque.

They began the Salaat, or Muslim prayer, and I pressed the record button on the camera. While standing in a line they began the motions. They silently muttered the same words. The Imam would make a wail-like sound, then they would change their position. They repeated the process until they were done. The men in the mosque invited us back the next day to film during Eid, the Muslim holiday celebrating the end of Ramadan. When we returned, the mosque had men and boys all dressed up wearing Kofi (prayer caps), robes, and headscarves. The room was filled with men of all ages. As they prepared to begin by getting in rows, one of the mosque leaders gave us some loaner Kofi to wear. Ted was eating up every second of it by taking pictures, and then cracked a joke about how he now had a complete case of photographic evidence that I had converted to Islam. The men began the prayers, doing it the same way they always do it, five times a day, 365 days a year. There were old men with callouses on their foreheads from kneeling with their heads on the carpet so many times. It is a source of pride for them, they see it as their proof to Allah that they have been a good Muslim and have prayed each day.

When I stood in the back of the room for one shot, I heard the women of the mosque behind a sheet that was fastened to keep them secluded since they were forbidden to participate in the main room.

After the prayer cycles were finished, the Imam read from the Qu’ran, although most of the people in the room couldn’t understand Arabic. A few older men stayed afterwards to recite the names of Allah. They put a finger on each of their prayer beads so that they would not forget one of the names. We returned to one of the missionaries’ houses to eat lunch after shooting the men at the mosque, which sounds really bad out of context of a camera.

Throughout the week, we returned to a very photogenic town, with a large minaret at it’s center. The town was built on a hill that dropped straight into the ocean, so it was a maze of narrow streets and stairways. The roofs were all flat, with construction beams coming out of them so that the people living there could always build another story if they received enough money. We asked one family if we could set up on their roof and take a time lapse of the sun setting behind the mosque, they agreed, and even let us return a few times to try and catch the most dramatic sunset.

In the video we produced from the trip we used a theme of feet. Feet are considered dirty and and despicable in Islam because the influence of middle eastern cultures. The detest of feet dates back to before the 1st century, and continues today in places, such as Africa, where people still walk through sewage and dirt in sandals or bare feet. When Jesus washed the feet of his disciples like a slave, it had considerably more cultural value, than what most westerners can identify with these days.

After he sharpened his panga (machete), we went with the farmer named “Baba Z” to his shamba (farm). On the way, an old man stopped us, and started talking to Bob in the local language. I wasn’t paying much attention until suddenly Bob started laughing, and then he turned to me and said that the old man thinks I look young and he wants to know if I am going to marry a local girl because he has a daughter. Then the rest of us started laughing. I don’t remember if I actually said it, or if I was just thinking it but, “Tell him sorry, but I don’t own any cows.”, definitely crossed my mind. Men offering their daughters in marriage actually happened a few times that week. I guess I must have looked qualified and available. After discussing more dowry options, the old man gave up and we were on our way.

We walked across a beach, then turned off onto an inland path. The scarcely tread path wove into the heavy tropical foliage. The sun glinted through the trees creating a green glow as we followed Baba Z deeper into the jungle. The environment looked like the setting from a pirate movie where they land on an island to search for buried treasure. Lemurs jumped through the trees above us and made snorting sounds. We walked around yellow spider webs with huge “Pee-in-your-eye” spiders waiting for an unsuspecting insect to catch. We stopped to film one while Baba Z was clearing weeds around his banana trees. Bob even threw it a cricket which it caught with lightening speed and tore off its legs, then started wrapping it up for consumption later. Speaking of food, we ate an abundant amount of fruit during the excursion. By the end of the trip I had probably ate at least 4 or 5 exotic kinds of fruit that I had never even heard of before. We had many that I had eaten before too; such as mango, pineapple, and coconut, but never as fresh. It was the most fresh fruit that one could possible eat, because Baba Z literally cut it off the tree or stalk and then handed it to us. He climbed up a coconut tree using footholds he had cut with his panga. To open the coconuts he cut off the external covering, then cut a small chunk out of the hard shell and let us drink the coconut water inside. When it was empty, he cut it in half and carved the meat out for us to eat.
After a few large pieces, I had enough coconut, so I saved a piece for the lemurs on the way back. We found where the largest family of them was located in the trees above, and Bob started making lemur noises to attract them while I waved the meat around in my hand. The only reason I was actually standing under the tree waving a piece of coconut and attempting to make snort like grunting sounds at a family of “arboreal primates” was because we were notified that a few have been known to act like New York City pigeons and eat right in front of humans. Unfortunately, these mammals were too wild. They responded to Bob’s grunting with a round of snorts that echoed through the trees overhead. I put the piece of coconut on top of a thick cut off bamboo trunk, then moved back to see if they would take the bait. Bob doubled his efforts of mimicking their sounds which only seemed to rile them up more. I was looking up into the trees where the lemurs where jumping around, when I saw something fall from above. My lightening quick reflexes kicked in and turned away at the last second. Something gooey and wet hit my shoulders. I looked at Andy who had been filming the whole event.

“Andy, did I just get just get urinated on?” I asked.
He checked my back.
“No Tim. That looks pretty solid!” He replied, then wiped if off with a stick and a leaf.
Everyone started laughing.
“Tim, the good news is that you are officially part of a minority group. How many people in the world have been pooped on by lemurs?” Ted joked.
“Yeah, maybe I can apply for affirmative action. I can see it now, ‘Minority Rights for Lemur Dung Attack Victims’. I think it is quite catchy.” I agreed. Then we walked all the way back to town. Back at the house, I changed my clothes and took a cold shower*****.
At the end of the week, saying good bye to the missionary families was hardest for the kids. John’s boys had plenty of fun wrestling around with Andy and I during the week. Bob’s girls had asked me what turned out to be the question of the week, “are you married yet?”, and his youngest girl gave me an embarrassing gift before I left when she found out I wasn’t yet. Bob’s youngest, a 2 year old boy, will be remembered by our team for his unique and unbeatable greeting. Picture a little munchkin running up to you with nothing on but a t-shirt with his eyes as large as possible saying in a high pitched squeal, “Hiiiiiiiiii! wa’doin?”

Before we got on the ferry to take us to the airport, we looked around for souvenirs. Most of the available items were actually imported from Kenya, which made us laugh considering most of the tourists coming to the island would have no idea and buy them at 10 times the cost of what we can buy them for down the street from our houses. I decided that most of what I was bringing away from the trip was the memories and experiences from the different culture. So I settled for a small wood carving of a small brown animal, tail upturned, known as a lemur. I can be very sentimental at times.

Soon enough we were in an air conditioned airplane watching the small green island disappear into the surrounding blue landscape. A rich man and his wife were sitting next to me for the first leg of the trip. I think they must have been used to first class, or at least that is how they acted, especially when Ted leaned his chair slightly back and they began to complain between the two of them. I just laughed to myself because they were taking up all of personal room by sitting cowboy style and commandeering the arm rests. After 2 minutes into the flight, I put myself to sleep to escape their constant complaining. I woke up before we landed on a different island for refueling. There was a note on my lap that read, “wake up!”, I looked to the seats in front of me where I was greeted by the grinning faces of Ted and Andy. On the way back to Nairobi, the Kenyan Airways flight attendant came down the row and asked me if I wanted fish or beef. I was excited about returning to Kenya, so I responded in my most animated and spunk filled Kiswalhili I could muster, “Nyama Choma!” Which resulted in Ted saying, “Nice!”, from the seat in front of me, and caught the attendant smiling for the rest of the flight back. It made me feel better to brighten her day, especially since I was headed back to celebrate my first Christmas away from my biological family.

*The two buildings were called “departures” and “arrivals”.
**It is part of the culture to eat and cook out of dishes on the floor.
***The fruits we ate on the trip included: Custard apple fruit, jack fruit, papaya, mango (ripe and unripe), banana (fresh and fried both green and sweet), litchi, bread fruit, pineapple, lemon (a local kind that tasted like candy), and orange.
****An Imam is the leader of a mosque
*****They didn’t actually have any hot water because no one wants to have a heater since the island is so hot.

Exploring Old Town

We went to Mombasa last weekend, in partial fulfillment of our orientation requirements, and in partial fulfillment of ourselves and getting away from the busyness our lives are in right now. We stayed with some new friends of ours, Justin and Shannon Brown, in Mombasa’s Old Town which was built in the 1500′s. It was the closest we’ve been as a family to life in an islamic culture since Lesa, Sydney and I went to North Africa 3 years ago. Waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of the call to prayer in 12-part dissonant harmony from the dozen mosques in the vicinity, sweating it out in the oppressive heat and humidity even at 4 in the morning, reminded us alot of where we were when we experienced that original confirmation/call into missions.

The drive to Mombasa from Nairobi is like this: 2 hours of the worst roads followed by 6 hours of the best roads in all of Africa. We left around lunch time on Friday, stopping along the way to treat ourselves with snacks and sodas and a sit-down Kenyan-style meal, and arrived at the Brown’s around 10pm. We didn’t sleep too well, though, as it was all we could to do stop thinking about the heat as we lay sweating on top of our beds, under the mosquito nets, with fans blowing on us.

The next morning we did a little grocery shopping, ate lunch out, and spent the afternoon teaching at AIC Tudor, a large church in the Tudor area of Mombasa Island. Lesa and I had been invited to give a workshop on worship to the worship teams of this large church. It actually went pretty well, we decided to focus on what God says about worship in the bible and how important it is to Him, apart from our individual forms of expression since the Kenyan style of worship is vastly different than our western style. Lesa and I both had some serious points we wanted to get across, without sounding like we were judging their expressions of worship but wanting to help them raise the bar. We talked about God, about worship, sang some songs together, talked about practical steps in preparing a worship service, then opened it up for questions. From the questions we were asked (like “how do we coordinate the singers and the band when starting a song?”) we could tell our objectives had been subtly achieved, in getting them to take worship seriously and wanting to strip away the distractions that drive Lesa and I crazy like keyboard/guitar players taking the entire song to find out what key the singers had started in. “Great question,” we responded, and demonstrated how hard it is for an instrumentalist to pick out the key when the singer starts first, but how easy it is to prompt the singer with a pre-determined chord and key. We sat down afterward with a few instrumentalists and singers and went through some of the handouts on piano and guitar and worship leading we had written.

I know this seems like common sense to you westerners, but the traditional African style of music is largely vocal and rhythmic, not based in keyboard or guitar, so as they try to add these instruments (which for some reason they feel they must add) and a big loud sound system, you get a lot of chaos unless the guitarist or keyboard player is also the worship leader or is highly skilled. We hope what little we had to offer will help the church in the long run, and we’re looking forward to doing more of this kind of thing in the future.

On Sunday we had been invited by the AIC coast area bishop to come to his church and lead some songs and give the Palm Sunday message. We left Sydney with the Browns, who have 2 little girls, and the rest of us drove to AIC Chamgamwe. Not really sure what to expect or what would be required of us, we overprepared but were thankful. We expected a 3 hour service in Swahili and were not disappointed. We led a couple songs, I gave a message on worship and how Jesus’ death ripped the temple curtain and moved worship from the temple to our hearts, how the Father is seeking people to worship him with heart,soul,mind. It was my first time giving a message in an African church, though not my first time speaking with a translator. I actually spoke for maybe in a minute in swahili, greeting the church and introducing my family. Beyond that I can’t think fast enough to not bore the people to tears.

After church we had lunch in the pastor’s office (ugali, sukuma, chai, even some bread-and-butter for us wazungu [white people]). We went back to the house after this and crashed. Late afternoon we went out with the Browns and toured through Old Town. Most of Old Town has streets too narrow for cars, and is full of women covered head to to toe in black, men in white robes and skullcaps, children running all about between prayer times. Mosques everywhere, ornately carved wooden doors on everything.

We spent the next day, our last day, at the beach. You can’t go all the way to Mombasa and not go to the beach, right? We paid a daily rate at one of the hotels and swam in the pool and ate at the hotel. We also hired a local boat captain to take our family out for a bit on a big dugout outrigger sailboat. When we’d had enough we returned to Old Town, where the boys and I grabbed a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled taxi) to go visit Fort Jesus, a 16th century fort built by the Portuguese.

It rained that day, and in Africa when the rains come, so do the termites. Something about the rain that hatches their eggs or frees them from the ground, and suddenly the air is full of these little flying bugs. The first time this happened at our home in Nairobi we thought a plague had come upon us, as these little guys head immediately for your house and squeeze through every crack in every door or window, often leaving their wings behind. We would awake puzzled to find a big pile of wings at the threshold of our doors, until we figured out this is a normal part of life here. In fact, flying termites are a delicacie, and when they come it is like candy that is flying through the air to the children.

Termites... yum!

Well, Justin and I decided we need to know what the big deal is with people loving to eat termites, so we rounded up the dozen or so that were crawling on his kitchen floor, and threw them into a frying pan with a little oil. I called the boys to the table, and we feasted. I think anything that small and fried in oil can’t be too bad. Neither did the boys as we all enjoyed several of the crispy treats.

We’re back in Nairobi now, trying to wrap up our lives here as we’ll be leaving in 3 and a half weeks for America. I’ve got a video and web project I’m trying to wrap up, Lesa has the big “the King and I” production in 2 weeks, and we have a house to pack up. It’s a strange mix of emotions, like the ones we felt moving here, knowing we’ll be right back, but feeling a little anxious about coming to America. Like we don’t really know how we’ve changed until we experience the “reverse culture shock” of re-entry. Anxious that everyone will be wearing space suits or speak some new language or have a completely new cultural cues (tv shows, movies, etc) that are a part of every conversation that suddenly we don’t know about. But we’re most excited to see everyone and catch up relationally with you. Sharing meals and lives and swapping stories. That’s the African way!

Island photos

The amazing thing is that you will find this story across Africa, particularly countries where it may get you killed to follow Jesus. The more extreme the persecution – obviously the less likely the people will get to hear of Jesus – the more likely Jesus will speak to them personally through their dreams. In other words, God will redeem his people in spite of what any government or religion might try to do to stop it.

So, Ted and I had an amazing time in this last country, hearing these stories, and he did a great job writing about this, so I’m going to plagiarize him for the rest of this post:

The sense of being behind enemy lines began when we got off the plane. Immigration was immediately suspicious of us and it took a favor from the US Embassy to be released from the airport. A friend and I came to this North African nation to meet some very interesting people. They call themselves workers. They have jobs, genuine and profitable businesses and services, but in their minds and hearts they are all about another work. What kind of people are these workers and what gives them the courage to live in a place like this?

A ladies’ Bible study has been meeting at the house of our hosts. At some point in its growth, the question was raised as to whether or not a secret church should sing out loud. Worshiping together in this manner, they decided, was well worth the risk of being caught. But the decision to sing was costly. Before we had arrived, a hostile neighbor, suspicious of the workers’ true intentions, lifted a cell phone over the wall and recorded some of the singing. As we pulled out of the driveway on our way to visit another worker, we received word that a radio broadcast across the city had exposed the meeting and several ladies had already been kicked out of their homes and beaten. One lady’s five-year-old son was missing. We heard that the police were coming and would arrest any woman attending the study, and in light of this news the next meeting was canceled. We continued on, riding in the back of a pickup truck, wondering what was behind the eyes of the masked women and robed men we passed along the street.

Persecution for your faith is not a light burden, but there is one far heavier for these foreign workers. They believe in the Gospel of Truth so strongly that not only are they willing to risk their own lives for it, but, grasping tightly to the knowledge of eternity with a loving God, they are willing to risk the lives of the people with whom they share their faith. “The war for souls is very real here,” I thought. I felt it as tangibly as the blazing sun on our backs. “This whole country is caught in one of Satan’s greatest deceptions. And here, I am the enemy.” Just then, as if to confirm my thought, a wad of spit landed with a smack in my friend’s face.

We’ll be talking about that one for a while, my friend and I. Knowing him, though, there will come greater injuries in the war for souls than merely being spat on. Later that day, as we sat and talked to another worker, a sizable rock came sailing over the wall and landed inches from her feet. She didn’t even flinch, but smiling knowingly looked up at us and brushed it off saying, “we get these “gifts” all the time.”

The next day, relieved to hear that the believer’s five-year-old boy had been found, we visited a local woman who was a friend of our hosts. In studying the culture they have found that a mark of an honorable rich person is the giving away of food to the poor. So, they went out this day to give, and we went with them. It was a quick visit, and we had been invited to bring our cameras. Shortly after we left, the neighbors, suspicious of us and angry over the cameras, came and harassed the woman, dumping out a large gunnysack of flour she uses to earn a living.

We talked to a group of men about Islam and their country. They claimed religious freedom, but it was easy to see that only the foreigners have that freedom. Anyone from this country naturally has to be a Muslim. I asked if they knew any local Christians. “No,” was the simple answer. How would it be for a person of their culture to become a Christian? “It would be very bad,” I was told, “I’m sure you would feel the same way if a Christian became a Muslim. If a person is a Muslim they should stay a Muslim.” But what if a person of their culture, I asked, had come from somewhere else and had always been a Christian? Would he be accepted? An icy pause was the response followed by a resolute, “They would never come here.”

So who does come here? Who are these “workers” who so willingly leave the safety of their homeland and embrace great risks for their faith– risks that missionaries have not regularly faced since the early days of Missions when death from malaria was so common? Who are these that find in their heart an ability to love the people as God loves, who grieve the sight of so many lost souls, who value faithfulness to God’s truths more than anything?

They are surprisingly ordinary. They have no more ability than an average person. They have no more courage than what God gives them for any given day. They are very simply those who have responded wholeheartedly to their Father’s instruction for them to Go. They are Christians.

After breakfast, we walked a couple of blocks to the “Medina”, which means city in Arabic I guess. It really means the old part, I gathered, as the buildings and streets got really old and really narrow. In the center of the medina is the mosque, and spoking/spiraling out from there are a specific order to the shops. In this medina, there are 2 main alleys through it from the end of Ave Bourgiba. The one on the left is crammed full of tourists and vendors desperate for your business. If you go down the one on the right, you’ll probably be the only westerner there, and the vendors aren’t out for blood. Instead of trinkets, they’re selling clothes and shoes and sunglasses and stuff we get at the mall. Anyhow, this particular day we went the tourist route, and I have to say I’ve never seen anything like this place. Any touristy trinket you could hope for could be found here, everything from decorative metalwork to miniature “boubly boubly”, which I found out later is actually called chicha (again, more on that later). Anyhow, B left us there on our own, so that he could go back to the apartment and meet some more workers who were collecting more of his stuff. The 3 of us had a blast exploring the medina on our own. There were lots of side alleys you could turn on and get completely lost, and we saw several really cool Arabic style doors like the one on the right with Ryan looking back at the metalworker.

Anyhow, if you stay on the main alley, you eventually run into the mosque. We weren’t sure if we could go inside, they seemed to be charging admission, but a nice (?) if not a little persistent man named Mohammed offered to give us a special view over the mosque. I read about stuff like this in the guide book before I went… people who offer to give you a tourist photo opportunity which requires you to walk through their carpet shop and then put on the high pressure sales as you try to leave. Anyhow, we tried to lose this guy in the crowd of people but he must get that every day and knew how to find us. This guy wouldn’t take no for an answer, and we hadn’t even been in XXXXX 24 hours yet and were still pretty overwhelmed with the culture shock. Whatever the reason, we decided to follow him. We wound around all these crazy streets and got completely separated from the rest of the tourists, and felt pretty nervous we might not be able to find our way back. Sure enough he took us through a 3 or 4 story berber carpet shop, right up onto the roof, with an excellent view of the mosque and the medina (see photo to the left). Well, we offered to tip him for his time, but he insisted on no tip, and said he would take us back. On the way back, I knew this guy had some angle he was going to work on us, but tried to make friends anyway and worked up enough courage to carry on some small talk in French. I’m pretty sure I had to have him repeat everything 3 or 4 times in French until I could understand, even then he would get tired and just use broken English to communicate. Obviously his English was better than my French. Anyhow, sure enough, before he took us back he wanted to take us to his father’s perfume shop “just to show it to us”. Although he wouldn’t let us walk out without buying something. I found a couple of bottles for Lesa, and negotiated a price in French (I felt confident in my french numerals). He still wanted a tip for the tour after that.

After escaping the medina, with a few souvenirs, we hired a taxi to take us to B’s apartment, actually Cafe Cote-du-Cote since that was the easiest landmark to describe to a taxi driver. The ride should have taken 15 minutes and cost no more than 4 dinar. We were taken for a tour, instead, despite my repetitive “Je vous aller a cafe cote-du-cote!”. In the end, it took over an hour and cost 24 dinar. I didn’t have enough of a grasp of French to argue with him so we paid it.

We went and grabbed lunch with B, eating shwarmas again, then spent the afternoon packing his place. For supper we took taxis to another worker couple’s house, I’ll call them E & S, to avoid using their names on the internet. We took some several suitcases full of supplies and toys for their family. Notice the ancient Roman aqueduct in the background as I cross this busy street with some of the suitcases. It’s incredible to think of the history and the stories this country has to tell. Early Christianity had some very important people and events that came from XXXXX, and this place switched hands more times than… I don’t know what.

Anyhow, E & S have a beautiful home, at the end of a palm-lined street, with 3 bedrooms and 12′ ceilings. I could almost envision myself living here like that, where as B’s apartment was not some place I could imagine raising a family. After a good meal, good fellowship, and prayer time with E & S, we played wait-for-a-taxi-and-hope-you-make-it-there game again. Cam and I got back to the hotel and weren’t able to sleep and stayed up till 2:30am talking.

After we landed in XXXXX we went through customs and I tried a little French small talk with the customs officer. They speak French in XXXXX, but I’m pretty sure the guy didn’t think I was speaking French because I learned French with a rural Illinois farm town accent.

We took 2 taxis to B’s apartment (taxis are only large enough for 2 passengers, plus luggage), and since I was the only person in the group, besides B (who spoke arabic), with language skills (ha), I was doomed to always ride in the “other” taxi for the week. Just getting a taxi and negotiating a fare at the airport involved what looked to be quite an animated debate, that even involved the police. Somehow my taxi made it to the same place B’s did, and we arrived at his apartment around lunch time. These pictures are of the outside of the apartment (landlord lives on first floor, B’s apartment was directly above him, with access to the roof).

Looking out his window, I could honestly say I couldn’t believe I was in Africa. Middle East, maybe, but not Africa. It is really quite a culture shock when you go some place like that if all you know of the world is the U.S. Everything is painted white (at least in XXXX) with blue trim, and everywhere you look there are satellite dishes. Notice in the photo on the right the large pile of garbage at the end of the street. This was there trash dump, and occasionally a truck would come by a scoop some of it up to haul it off to an even larger dump, probably at the end of somebody else’s street. Mangy stray cats are everywhere and nobody seems to use garbage bags to, uh, bag up their garbage. It just kind of blows around and is out there for the world to enjoy finding out what you had in your house that you no longer want.

Since it was lunch time (about 6am body time I think), we went down the street to a small restaurant in some sort of market where we had shwarmas, which is pretty similar to a gyro, and quite delicious. On the way to lunch we passed a mosque and I got to hear my first call to prayer. I’m not sure what time it was, but all the mosques seem to have synchronized their watches because if you are close enough to town to hear the call to prayer you can probably hear multiple mosques doing it simultaneously. It’s kind of a spooky sound when you hear more than one at a time because each imam (?) has his own pitch that he’ll sing it at, and they make some crazy dissonance by singing over top of each other. You’d think if they synchronize their watches they could use a pitch pipe as well.

After lunch we wandered around the market while B caught up with several friends. It was amazing how the language is a blend between French and Arabic, and that B seems to carry on pretty well in conversations. He says it’s all small talk, but that in this culture is really important to be able to small talk well. B creates instant credibility with people he meets by speaking their particulary dialect of Arabic.

We went back to his apartment and started packing dishes and stuff while some other “workers” (codeword for missionaries) came by to get supplies we’d brought for them or to purchase furniture or appliances from B. Surprise of all surprises, one of the workers was “TN” (name witheld for security), who Lesa and I went to college with! Small world… it only took 3 hours from our arrival in North Africa for me to run into someone I knew pretty well. Crazy!

After packing for a while, we split again and waited outside Cafe Cote-du-Cote for taxis to take us to our hotel downtown. This became a big part of our trip, waiting for an open taxi, watching 2 of our group take off in it, then waiting for another taxi and hoping I could communicate well enough to get us to the same place. Another interesting thing about Cafe Cote-du-Cote, and other cafes here: They don’t seem to be really in the business of serving food or coffee, the main business that happens there is smoking chicha (more on that later). These pictures were snapped while we waited, and waited, and then eventually crossed the street to wait beside some kind of interstate or limited-access-highway, which didn’t seem safe but proved to be a lot more efficient at finding a taxi!

I don’t know if it was my French, or that I just looked gullible, but our taxi ride took twice as long and cost twice as much as B’s. But I didn’t really care, I was thankful we found ourselves in the same place, considering I didn’t have a single phone number or way to get ahold of anybody should we have been separated. Anyhow, we walked several blocks to our hotel. It’s old (1920′s or earlier) and not fancy, but at least we had our own toilet and it had toilet paper (which is rare in a country where “the hose” is the norm).

Outside our window I can hear arabic music and lots of people milling around… very tired… must shut eyes…