First week in the mountains, day 8 is first day of internet

Monday 1.23.12 Blog Entry

So I decided I’m gonna blog every night in Word, and then whenever I get internet I’m just going to copy and paste it from Word into BlogSpot, that way I don’t forget anything, and I still don’t know when I’ll have internet next, so these could be REALLY long posts.

Well today was our first day up in the mountains. We spent most of the afternoon cleaning up our house, Derek and I and Mrs. Jason went over to what will be Derek’s and my house after our 2 day conference, starting tomorrow. The house is pretty cool. We have a locked patio, about 7’X20’, which we will turn into our hammock room, bike and motorcycle storage, and just regular storage. Off to the left of that is a 15’x15’ room which we have and will continue to turn into the man cave/bro pad. As of right now all it has is 2 couches, and two chairs, with a little table in the corner. We’re hoping to maybe get a TV in there and a satellite dish to be able to watch the African Cup and other soccer games on. That is a room by itself. Straight through the patio is the main part of the house. In there is a nice sized dining room/bedroom, we put our closets and desks right through the middle of the room to create a semi-wall to separate the two. There’s also a real tiny room off of that that we are gonna make our charging station for our computers and camera batteries, and phones and stuff. It’s only about 4’x7’. We have a nice sized kitchen, and the bathroom is through the kitchen. The house was covered in a layer of dust, so we spent about 4 hours rearranging furniture and mopping and sweeping the floors.

Jason then took us to the location that will become the soccer club. He showed us what he wanted to do, and where the fields were going to be, as well as the buildings, and huts. I’m really excited to see how it turns out. We came home and had dinner, and then I watched the Morocco-Tunisia game and was very disappointed with the 2-1 loss.

Anyways, tomorrow we leave at 6:30 AM for a conference about 1.5 hour drive away, the first meeting is at 8:30, and I think we’ll be in meetings all day, and Wednesday. I’ll be back in town Wednesday night and Thursday we’ll probably be moving into our house for good.

Blessings,

Mark


Tuesday 1.24.12 Blog Entry

Today was pretty uneventful. We woke up at 6:30 to head to the retreat center and left around 6:45. We arrived at the retreat center around 8:00. The Meeting started at 8:30, and we spent the whole day just talking about what’s going on around the country. People from each city took 30 minutes talking about what God’s doing in the city. A couple of us, being Jason, Derek, and I and 2 other guys skipped out after dinner and watched the Guinea-Mali African Cup game. Mali won 1-0. I’m now chilling in the retreat house, going to watch Jason’s World Cup 2010 Best Goals DVD. Got meetings all day tomorrow too. I’m starting to figure out what it feels like to be an adult.

Blessings,

Mark


Wednesday 1.25.12

What a day. Our first meeting started at 8:30 and we went until noon. At 1 PM me and 5 other guys played 2 games of soccer. After soccer we went back into meetings from 2:30-4. At 4:40 we left the retreat center and finally got home around 5:45. I made up a list of things I need to get. Some things on the list are: fan, bike lock, blanket, sandals, sunglasses, notebooks, and tape. I’m excited to get moved into our house. Tomorrow we’re planning on going out and buying cell phones (for international calling, and internet). The fastest Internet speed I can get it 80 kb/s, which is really slow. I might be able to Skype chat on a good day. I really wish I could have Internet right now and could update this blog, maybe post a picture or two, and maybe talk to my parents. Speaking of talking to my parents, I was able to call my dad today. It was really good hear dad’s voice again. I’ve missed talking to them. I just learned today that Joe Pa died, which made me really sad, but dad said that he’s being honored and his legacy is not being affected by the whole Sandusky thing. I can’t wait to get moved in and settled into our new house, I feel like I’m invading Jason and his family’s house, I’m ready to unpack my bags and have somewhere to call home for a while. You guys can pray for me, I’m having a tough time being in a country where I don’t understand the language. I also haven’t been spending time in the Word like I should be. Pray that God will give me a stronger hunger for Him.

Blessings,

Mark


Thursday 1.26.12

Just when I think I’m about to start getting settled in life hits. This morning we had breakfast around 9, and then Jason took us out to get phones, I got a Knock-off Nokia that can take 3 SIM cards, which I will need, and came with a 1 GB memory card for about $60. We then picked up the head coach of the soccer club, and went to the President of the soccer club’s house to meet him as well. The President, we’ll call him Matt, is a local West African. He is one of the most selfless, servant hearted, humble men I have ever met. Everything he does is for others, and he never looks to gain anything from it. I’ll talk more about him later. We spent about an hour at Matt’s house and I understand now why him and Jason are such good friends, they both LOVE to talk. After our time at Matt’s house we had to go to one of the players’ houses. Unfortunately his father had passed away a couple days earlier and so we needed to go to their house to sit with the family and just show that we were supporting them in their hard times. We visited with the family, and since it was around lunchtime, they served us rice, with a fish and potato sauce, it was really good. We then sat with them and Matt and the deceased man’s brothers and best friend sat and said a lot of things in the local language, which I haven’t learned yet. Just as we were leaving, the head of Education for the entire region (of which there are only four in the country) came, so we had to stay as honored guests. Jason told me that we were there just for show, but since I don’t want to botch up what he said I won’t say any more. We were finally dismissed by the head of education and the family, because we needed to leave to get back to the house. We then went to Matt’s coffee shop (yea he owns a coffee shop and a few other things) to watch the Cote D’Ivoire-Burkina Faso game. It was a really good game, Cote D’Ivoire won, but I can’t remember the score. Oh Today was also Derek’s birthday, so after the game Mrs. Jason had a cake made and the Jason’s kids had presents for Derek. It was an overall good day, it was really good to see the culture and way things are done to keep honor in this society, even with the passing of a person. Everything really strives on shame and honor, more so then I ever was aware of in Morocco. Well again it’s that time, bed time. I’ll write more tomorrow.

Blessings,

Mark


Friday 1.27.12

Another busy day has come and gone. Today we went shopping in the nearest large city, myself, Derek, Mrs. Jason, their oldest son James, and Matt. Matt came along because him and Jason had just bought a pump for the well that they’re building at the soccer club. Remember that short list I gave you a couple days ago of some of the things I need? Well this is where I knocked out most of it. We spent about 3 hours walking around a crowded open-air market. I got everything I wanted and a little more. I bought 5 soccer jerseys. 1 Cote D’Ivoire, 1 Chelsea (the grey one with blue square that fades into the grey), and 2 Cameroon jerseys, 1 of them is a Yellow and red striped Eto’o Jersey, the other is their typical green jersey. Derek and I are going to hang them up in the Bro Pad/Man Cave at the house once we move in. We were both able to find fans, curtain material, a water cooler, and many other things we were looking for. It was a lot of fun trying to barter on the price. Oh I also got some really cool Adidas running shoes/indoor soccer shoes. They’re white with red stripes down the side. I got them for $20. I think we finally got all of the start-up stuff we need for the house, meaning everything not food. It looks like we’re gonna move in tomorrow, since it’s their family day, we are going to try to get out of their way and let them have a good family day without two college kids hanging around. We came back, and Jason had made rice with a pork curry. It was REALLY good. I think I’m going to really enjoy the food here. We then went over to some colleagues house to watch the Morocco-Gabon soccer game. You probably know who I was rooting for. Somehow Morocco found a way to lose the game in the last second of extra time. I was really mad, cause Morocco should have easily beaten Gabon. So after the game to get some steam out, Jason, James, Derek and I played Medal of Honor, European Invasion I think it’s called, and spent from 9PM until 1:30 AM just blowing each other away. It was a lot of fun, we’re all extremely competitive. I found a really good gun, and let the game in kills almost every time. Now I know that killing people is not something I should be proud of, but when it’s a video game and against friends it really is fun. I promise I will never go out and kill someone for fun, or cause I was desensitized by the violence of the game, but it was a good stress reliever. Well after 4 hours of intense warfare I’m beat, it’s time for bed.

Blessings,

Mark


Saturday 1.28.12

We’re finally moved in. Today we all got to sleep in. Today is usually Jason’s family’s family day, but they were cool and let us two college agers spend the day with them. We had brunch at 11. Mrs. Jason made crepes, they were really good, and then we took Derek’s stuff over to the house and did some preliminary unpacking, basically throwing everything out of our bags to try and find our swimming trunks. We then picked up the rest of the family, they took us to this beautiful water hole. We spend about an hour there before we had to turn around and come back to watch the Guinea-Botswana game. They dropped me off at the house, I got changed and then met Jason over at Matt’s Coffee shop where we watched Guinea DEMOLISH Botswana 6-1. It’s was awesome, the coffee shop exploded with ever Guinean goal. Todd is back in town now, and so it’ll be nice hanging out with him again, and Derek and I spent the rest of the evening after the game unpacking and making the house actually look like a house. Oh we also went out to dinner with Todd and got Spaghetti, they actually have some pretty good spaghetti here. Well I’m tired, sorry I’m being so quick in my posts, but I do these at the end of the day and I’m just exhausted. The internet has been down for the past 5 days, but Jason said it’s now back on at his house so hopefully I can get this uploaded by tomorrow, and hopefully throw some pictures in too. Talk to you all tomorrow.

Blessings,

Mark


Sunday 1.28.12

Woke up at 8:35 this morning and went to church at 9:00, but since we’re now on African time, we didn’t get started until 9:30. Church went until 11:00. We sang some songs in the local language, I already have a favorite, and we sang it twice. We had songbooks, which made it easy to sing along. We then spent about 20 minutes praying about various things such as federal and local governments, the M leaders in the area, and strength for the locals and persec. being placed on them. The pastor then gave a sermon in French on Luc 12:16-21, the parable of the rich farmer, who was too interested in his crop to share, and built bigger barns for himself. The point of the sermon was that our time can come at any minute, so we need to make sure that we are ready to stand before God and face judgment. The whole sermon topic was brought forth by the passing of a pastor in another part of the country. After church we went shopping, because Sunday is market day in our town. We bought our dish soap and laundry detergent, plus our veggies and some other food. For lunch I got meat sticks, (brochettes, actually just cubes of meat on a skewer) which have quickly become my favorite food here, besides chawarmas in the capitol, but it’s close. We then went home and started cleaning the kitchen and getting the kitchen ready for everyday use, by giving everything a home.

At 2, we went to meet with Jason and Kurt and some local brothers and ate rice with chicken and a tomato paste. We then spent some time in prayer. After that I went and got my phone number for my international calls, which makes it cheaper per minute to call, $0.10/minute compared to $0.50/minute with my current number, which means I can call mom and dad more often. I also learned that I don’t pay to receive calls just like in Morocco, so if mom and dad call it doesn’t cost me at all! Ironically, they called my local number while I was getting my international number. Hopefully tomorrow we’ll be getting our internet USB sticks, which will give us 80kb/second internet speed, which is the fastest we can get out here. That is really slow, in comparison I think dial-up is 256kb/second, although I might wrong about that. It’s slow enough that I could probably go make breakfast and get back in time for the page to load. Hahaha

I then went to Jason’s house cause I thought he said they had internet last night, but it wasn’t working today, so I guess I missed my window to get stuff out for who knows how long. We then went to our other colleagues’ house to watch the first half of the Equatorial Guinea-Zambia game. When I left their house at halftime the score was still 0-0 and I don’t know what the final score was. We came back and finished cleaning up the kitchen, and unpacked all our groceries, and finally have the house pretty much ready to be lived in. We just need to put a few finishing touches on the Bro Pad/Man Cave. We’ll try and get out a tour video soon. I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it public but I’ll do it as soon as possible. Oh I also took my first bucket shower yesterday.

I should probably update you all on our living situation. Town power is only on for a couple hours every couple of days here during the dry season. So we have a solar panel and batteries that we run off of. Currently our house is not connected to town power, but the head of the power company lives in our courtyard and has offered to give us free electricity if we buy the wire to hook our house up. So right now we’re just running off solar. So we have no fridge, and the only time we use electricity from the batteries is in the evening/night. We turn the one outlet we have on for a couple hours in the evening to charge our computers and phones. The lights we try and keep to one light at a time, and turning lights off if we’re not in the room. We don’t have running water either, we have to get water from the well and walk about 20 buckets of water (not at once) to our 60-gallon drum on our porch about a 100-200 yard walk. We then need to conserve that water over the course of the day for flushing the toilet, taking showers, doing dishes, filtering for drinking water, and at least once a week we’ll need it for cleaning the house, cause it get really dusty. Other then that I think it’s pretty much just like your average house. Although, we did kill two huge spiders today in our bathroom. I think we got all of them, it’s kinda freaky taking a shower and looking up to see a huge spider staring at you from the ceiling. Hahaha

I think the most annoying thing about life here is the fact that we always have to keep an eye on anything of ours that isn’t locked up, and even then still be aware of it, or it’ll disappear. I bought a padlock for my backpack too. I lock the too zipper things together so that no one will open it while it’s on my back. Thankfully I haven’t had anything stolen yet, hope it can stay that way the whole way through my stay here.

I should also mention that since town power is out and there are no streetlights, the night sky is AWESOME! There are so many stars. Not as many as in the Sahara desert but there’s still a lot. I hung my hammock up on the porch, but wished I could have set it up out in our courtyard cause then I could lay in it and fall asleep looking up at the stars. One day I’m going to fall asleep in my hammock, it’s extremely comfortable.

Well I should probably close it up now, this is a really long entry. I’m going to stop typing, and probably lay in bed. I think there’s a discotheque open tonight, cause we are hearing all sorts of music, but the nearest discotheque is at least a half a mile away, so we’re not quite sure what it is, but whatever it is it’s loud. Well I’m gonna head to bed, tomorrow we have plans to lay out the property to see how we’re going to fit everything we want on the property for the soccer club. The only thing on the property right now is the well which is still in the process of being dug, and the house of the guy who will be watching over the property.

Blessings,

Mark