Topic: Immersion
Thank goodess Bro. Sylvain forgot his camera otherwise you'd all probably hav some pictures of me and Ted dancing Togolese style!!
This morning was the culmination of a week of preparation. The house is full of brothers and fathers of the Marianist community. Many from Lomé, others from nearby villages, others from Sotouboua, and still others from Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire. Three Noviciates were inaugerated into the Marianist community this morning. There was mass of about 300 people, then a big celebration for everyone. The brothers fed everyone!
In addition to this Kara was already a buzz for two other reasons. Les Evalas starts Monday. Les Evalas is the boys form of initiation. Guys around the ages of 20 - 26 wrestle in traditional form. Boys of all ages stage their own wrestling matches throughout as well, but unofficially. On Thursday the President will be in his home village of Pya (Pee-yuh) to watch the finals. We are going to see this as well as go see Les Evalas on other days throughout the week as well. So add this hype to the hype here at Chaminade and then throw in the fact that THE soccer player of Togo was in Kara yesterday playing in a match between two local teams.
His name is Adebaier(sp?) (Ah-day-bye-eur). Last time we were in Lomé I saw his house and it is huge and fancy. There's not a person here who doesn't know him. Ted and I went to the "stadium" yesterday just after the match started. IT WAS PACKED. Hardly even standing room. So our only option if we wanted to see what was going on, was to join the people who cwere balancing atop the 20 foot wall. We walked all around looking not only for a spot for two on the wall, but a way to climb up it. Finally we found a way and climbed up. It took a while to figure out how to balance on the narrow wall. The locals though it was pretty funny but were were just trying not to fall. The wall was about 7 inches thick, so standing, only about half my foot fit on it. We got decent enough view though and were able to catch the two goals of the game. One was by Adebaier after a hand-ball penalty in the 18 yard box. The crowd, whether for one team or the other, went wild. It ended 1 to 1.
So the past week has been very busy and exciting...and troublesome. It seems flashdrives and hard disks are not compatable here, so all of my documents on my computer cannot be transfered to this computer. Its a headache. Especially because I have several friends who are asking me for my american music but I have no way of getting it to them. Ill keep playing around when i have time, but in the mean time I am rewriting some things like my french journal :/
But all in all, things are going well. ted and I have bought Sawdust, and we have clay and we have the price of cement. So our next step is to get the mixer and hire our friend to make the mould. Since Evalas is this coming week and many of our friends will be gone we may have to wait to build the stove for a couple days. We have recruited several students/friends to help us. We also have our design nearly all sorted out.