November 2007 - Lettuces and Lingo

My diary tells me that it's been only been a month since I got to Djibo but it feels like at least three already. It seems like a year ago that I last walked on a pavement or ate a crunchy salad.
Letting go of England and diving into deepest Africa has been a bit of a shock. Not that I hadn't been expecting it – I've been thinking about it for years. But actually doing it is a bit like putting down Vogue and picking up National Geographic. It requires a whole new mindset to take it all in properly.

Firstly there's the people – lovely, jolly, smiley (usually) people everywhere, calling out to me wherever I go – every morning it's 'Jam Waali Sama' (Did you sleep in peace, Sama?) which requires a ping-pong-like round of answers and reciprocating greetings. Everyone in this town seems to know me already. I'm 'Sama, jeyoowo Sambo', which means, 'Sama, the owner of Sambo'. The women in particular like repeating this over and over to me which is quite amusing and perfectly forgivable at the moment when any real conversation with me isn't an option. It hasn’t stopped them trying though, and I don’t know who gets more frustrated when barrages of questions are all met with a polite shrug and a 'Mi nanata Fulfude'.

Thank God for non-verbal communication is all I can say. Smiles, nods, head shakes, nail polish and football are trans-global languages. The last of these is not one I'm all that familiar with, I hasten to point out , but being faced with fifteen Fulani kids in your yard with no translator around requires desperate measures. They all just trickled in one afternoon and sat down on the bench opposite me expectantly. It was a good five minutes of being stared and giggled at before I remembered I had a blow-up ball in the house. By the time Steve got home, the yard was consumed in a cloud of dust, we’d had one hurt arm and a wailing baby. I hadn't noticed the poor thing was strapped to his sister's back until she went flying in a scrum. Accidents aside, it was great fun and a relief to be able to engage meaningfully with some of the locals.

Evidently, I have my work cut out for me trying to learn Fulfude over the next few months. I'll be piecing it together with the help of Steve and a local lady, Haoua. And quite a few neighbours too, no doubt. It shouldn't be hard to find things to talk about. Almost everything I've set my hand to do here has become a point of discussion. There's not a person within a five mile radius who doesn't know I'm trying to grow lettuces, and there are various opinions going around about whether I'm feeding the goat properly. Judging by the size of his belly I think he's doing ok, although it has been said that he's on the skinny side.

Apart from getting to grips with the language, I'll keep on grappling with the challenge of just being in this new, dry, rural place. I'll do my best to get used to having feet that are always dirty and a loo that's the other side of the yard and just a hole in the ground (the biggest challenge yet, I think). I'm looking forward to keeping chickens and hearing the comments on Steve's new ground-breaking chicken house design which we hope will be a success and an inspiration (after it's been the inevitable butt of a few jokes). I'm anticipating a great Christmas (we're planning a feast and outreach for the neighbours with the local church) and we're looking forward to seeing more of God's power at work in this place. It's encouraging that some of the people who have asked for prayer have been healed of their sicknesses, and I am sure that there is much more from where that came from. Between that and the lettuces, there's lots of sowing to be done and a harvest to be reaped, so that's plenty of gardening to keep us busy.