I just heard a call to prayer… It reminded me that I am in a different place.
Today, we traveled to another African city by way of a Sept Places ( It is a taxi with places for seven people in it so they call it: Seven Places). It was like a station wagon with two seats in the back, to allow it to sit 6 people in the back, plus one in the passenger seat. This morning we went to the Sept Places station. This was an area of great congestion with many of these vehicles gathered with their drivers standing outside with other people selling a variety of things from water in bags to pistacios to cell phone minute cards. Then multiple drivers actively discussed and bargained with our friend who would drive and what the price and arrangement would be. We walked from one vehicle to another as they discussed. Finally after 10minutes a price and car were established. We got in, they started the car with wires by the ignition, the driver changed… we got to the road and then the driver changed again and off we went… with a car with no working gas gauge or speedometer but it had a working radio. As we drove for the next 1 1/2 hours we saw and smelled many things from exhaust and garbage to many stores, people and animals. The streets were decent and we could travel at a good speed.
There are many things here that remind me of my life growing up in the Caribbean. The things that are familiar are the bougainvillea bushes, the burglar proofing on the windows, the concrete house and the mango, coconut and palm trees that I see. These things make Africa familiar for me.
We will try to write on this blog every day to every other day to tell you of our trip here. We will try to keep our blogs entries short. There is so much more to write about of our experiences here. It is hard to describe everything. But praise God with us that things are going really well so far. We are learning so much about what things are like here, bits of culture, bits of the language, what to expect in language school, what to bring etc. Look forward to more updates.