Thanks . . . But No Thanks! Or wait . . . Maybe I Will Take It!

People are always giving me "stuff."  The thought there is that if you are a teacher, you are either 1. desperate for free materials you can use in the classroom, or 2. so resourceful that you can take junk and make something useable from it!  I am going to "go with" the latter rationale.


We have a wonderful "guest house / hospitality coordinator" on the compound, and G. lets "no grass grow under her feet!"  She has been cleaning out the storage units here, which is no small task.  There have been hundreds of people who have lived here over the past 70+ years of the history of Galmi Hospital; some have returned and reclaimed their possessions, and some not. If you are a parent of grown children, you probably have "storage issues" yourselves.   We used to think, as you may, that when the children have their own homes, then they will take it all.  Hahaha!  All I can say is, "Have fun with that delusion!" Anyway, G. has been cleaning out storage areas around the compound, and I have been the recipient of some of the contents . . . 

Dozens of Paper Tubes

Clothes Pins

Hundreds and Hundreds of Pipettes

Over 1500 Wrapped Straws

Miles of Adding Machine Paper Tape

But yesterday, I "hit the jackpot" with this gift. . .  

Over 200 Plastic "Slides" Holders

 IF you don't know what these are, you are probably very young!!!  Go back in years from "smart phones," computers / internet,  "downloadable cameras," . . . yes, keep going . . . back from "online scrapbooks,"  "scrapbooking" as an art form, . . . back up from Costco inexpensive photo developing, . . . and arrive at . . . (drum roll) . . . the world of SLIDES!!!  NOT water slides, NOT "slip 'n slides," but just SLIDES!  PICTURE SLIDES!  You know, grandma and grandpa go to Alaska, take 450 pictures of snow or icebergs, invite you for dinner (it's a trick!), and sit you down for a showing of their slide pictures projected from a wheel of slides onto a large screen, and you slit there until you resolve you are NEVER going to Alaska!


Anyway, back to "slides."  I was about to put them deep into a storage cupboard of our own, right in the classroom, when it hit me:  the kids would love to use these, and I am tired of teaching how to write a summary!  Today we shall draw our summaries!  Onto little pieces of clear contact paper!  Each student will make his own "mini slide show" summarizing the chapter we just read in our study book, Sign of the Beaver.  So, they did!  And they had so much motivation that they did not want to go home.  They wanted to stay in and keep drawing and making slides.  Our boxes of slides had three little "viewers" in them which enlarge the slides as you look through the little "eyepiece."  Here is one student's beginning of her summary:

And I am having a "blast" in this classroom with these precious children.  And the best part is that despite all the planning I do, and all I think I need to do, I believe God is faithfully providing resources and people and ideas for me to use in this "calling," for which I have many shortcomings and which sometimes seems so far away from my "other life."  Thank you, Jesus!

You Know You're In Africa When . . .

• Greetings!  Thanks for "hanging in there" with us and checking for blog updates!  

Since my big New Year's resolution to become "Barb the Better Blogger," I have posted NO blogs, thus making me look like "Barb the Blogger Who Bombs!"  BUT --- We have been gone to "the big city," and I do NOT mean NYC!  While NYC may be called the "Big Apple,"  and Galmi, the "Big Onion," I would have to say the Niger capital of Niamey, would be the "Big Melon-Rolling-Around-the-Banks-of-the-Niger-River-While-Laundry-Dries-on-Bushes-and- Camels-Cross-Over-the-Bridge-Above!"  Interesting to contemplate on many levels . . .


We went to Niamey for two wonderful conferences - a SIM "Spiritual Life Conference," followed by an shorter education conference, and the only way they could have been any better, would have been to be able to use the internet, which was out of service!  Shocking, I know.


Whenever we leave the compound, whether just up to the road to get bread, onions, or "all things plastic," or farther away to "The Big Melon," I am reminded what a unique existence it is here among the beautiful people of West Africa.  And there are many funny things that happen just living here, so, better to laugh than cry:
                                
                                           "You Know You're in Africa When . . . "

• Your eggs come with feathers still stuck on them!
• The local people wear “ski jackets” and knit hats when the temperature drops below 75 F.
• Your water won’t come from the tap if anyone within a mile of your home is using a hose.
• The formula for transporting people and/or cargo is “What is packed on top of a car must be equal to or higher than the height of the vehicle itself.”  
• If such a thing as a “carpool” lane existed, it would be ONLY for vehicles that held at least 15 people and 7 goats.
• A “two-lane” road can be traveled by car, truck, motorcycle, bicycle AND donkey cart side-by-side.
• A “water feature” for your yard consists of hearing the water from your bathroom INSIDE enter your septic system OUTSIDE.
• You get excited when your home-grown corn has more that 7 kernels on a cob.
• The pattern of your shower curtain is selected by how easily it will camouflage a lizard.
• An 8-hour drive, along the main highway,from the capital to your home takes you through 25 villages, each with 4 speed bumps which you must navigate by first coming to a complete stop.
• In America you will see a “pothole hotline” sign; in Africa, “caution” is marked by a roadside pile of rocks.
• A sheep is distinguished from a goat only by the position of its ears and tail: ears and tail DOWN = sheep; ears and tail UP = goat.
• A child’s toy car is made from 2 insecticide cans, and his soccer ball is made from plastic bags wound and tied together.
• Your “weight loss plan” consists of “wait until hot season and sweat it off.”
• You have trouble remembering what month it is because every day looks like July 15th.
• “One stop shopping” means each time you stop your car, boys run up to it and try to sell you bananas or phone cards, attempt to wash your windshield, or beg for money.
• At “Trader Joe’s” in America, Joe will not stalk you all the way to your house until you buy potatoes from him, like Trader Ousman will.
• A “face-off” occurs when your car, while driving on the ONLY east-west highway in the country, comes face-to-face with a herd of 132 sheep-goats and the sheep-goats always have road priority.

And NOT so humorous . . . 

• A “good gift” for your house workers (gardener, house cleaner) is a bag of onions or sack of rice.
• How easily you live (or obtain what you want) is directly proportional to the number of languages you speak fluently, with three being the minimum.
• Giving the food your child refuses to eat to the “poor starving children in Africa” is no longer a threat but a daily reality.
• After you bargain with an African for the lowest price possible for your purchase, he will throw in a “come-back gift.”
• You save your bones not for the dog, but for your house worker, who weeps over your generosity.
• For an African, having meat for your family’s meal means flavoring your sauce with a 1 inch cube of it.
• Living “high on the hog,” as a description for lavish living, must be rephrased to “living high on the . . . hedgehog? . . . goat? . . . camel? . . . because Muslims do not eat pork.

AND . . . you know you’re in Africa when every day is interesting, and you see, hear, taste, touch, smell, learn, or experience something new!