Signs that it is Rainy Season

Rain falling on our street

1. You find the kids watching a video on the computer with their hands over their ears. Almost everyday this week we’ve had huge thunderstorms. The flashes of light are soon followed by great cracks and booms. Our kids think the thunder is too loud but didn’t seem to mind that they couldn’t hear their video at all.
2. You don’t always notice when the electricity goes out at night, leaving you without fans. Usually a night without fans means a lot of sweating and not great sleeping. Our youngest usually wakes more too. But after a big storm it is noticeably cooler so you just sleep on through.
3. You start to consider slightly damp clothes as “dry”.  Rainy season means clothes are not getting much direct sunlight and so you come to the indoor lines to hang the newly handwashed clothes and find that the previous load still isn’t quite dry.
4. David’s cloth diapers smell more. The rain brings some cooler weather which means we don’t sweat as much, which means the kids pee more. More pee means more smell.

Our kids play on rainy porch

5. You get excited when dirty water starts coming out of the taps. When it rains, we don’t have water.   The more rain, the longer the water is off.  We think it is because the rain overwhelms the water system, so when it rains they turn off the water. When they finally turn the water back on after a rain, the water is brown with the sediments washed in with the rain. (You might be curious to know that we filter our drinking water.)
6. You aren’t bothered by the sight of someone showering in front of your house.  Especially since water isn’t great during the rainy season. People take advantage of the rain by washing hair and clothes in the water flowing off the roof. Usually it’s men and boys.  Don’t worry, the men wear a pair of shorts for this type of shower.  Boys on the other hand are often naked.
7. You randomly find your children soaking wet through the day.  The kids like to play in the rain or in puddles left by the rain. We’re working with them about asking permission before they get soaking wet.
 8. You talk about the weather.  Like anywhere, the weather is always a great topic for small talk.  Yet here, since the weather isn’t that varied, the only thing worth saying most of time is, “It’s hot today, isn’t it?”  But the rain gives you a chance to talk about something.  “There was more rain today than yesterday.” “That wasn’t a lot of rain--but the day before, now that was a lot of rain.” “Does it rain more in your village?” etc.
9. You have an unexpected hour-long conversation with a carpenter. The rains can catch you off guard and if you are in a shop when the downpour hits, you stay in the store. Tom went to a carpenter down the street for a quick quote and was gone for over an hour.  Good language time!

Friend brings us a jackfruit

10. Your guests are late and stay long. The flip-side of the previous sign is that people will get stuck at our house too. They won’t come until the rain lets up and since most islanders don’t seem to invest in umbrellas they won’t leave until the rain lightens. We’ve had more people over for meals this week. Last Sunday this meant great long conversations with two men who came while we were gathered together on Sunday morning.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are thankful for all who have been praying for better health.  Everyone is doing well now.  Megan had some sort of infection developing on her lip, but now it is healing.  Even our heat rash is getting better.  Tom has had some language lessons this week that have gone very well.  His language helper has been patient and persistent--even coming in the rain (this never happened on Volcano Island!)  Thanks to some thoughtful preparation on Megan’s part, we’ve been doing “The Road to Easter” during our family devotional times.  We’re also looking forward to a picnic with some friends on Easter Sunday.  We continue to meet more people, make new friends, and have opportunities to have conversations about Truth .  This last week we were thankful to have some long conversations with two visitors. 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that we would have time to reflect and fully grasp the beauty of this holiday weekend and share it with others. Continue to pray for our language learning as we figure out what to study, who to study with and when, when to practice, where to practice, with who, and that we learn this language well.  We are excited to celebrate our son's 3rd birthday tomorrow.  Pray that he might have a blessed day.  Pray for our old teammates (father and son) who are traveling to Kenya to join the rest of the family as they await the birth of their newest family member. Pray for all of us working on all three islands-- we’ve already heard that this holiday weekend is providing lots of unique opportunities to share. Pray for open hearts.

Another Wife

Tom and our boys

We walked into the yard of Mama Kotsi. She was on the top of the list of people we needed to visit while we were on Volcano Island (before moving to Clove). She had lived with her two kids and husband in the other unit of our same house for our first year on the islands. Her eldest son used to crawl over and play with our daughter. We’re good friends.

She gave us big smiles and a warm greeting as she introduced us to her children. She has four little ones now! The youngest is only 2 months old. We went through the standard questions, catching up after a long absence. When we asked about Papa Kotsi, her smile went away. “We’ve broken up,” she tells me (Megan). “He took another wife on Clove Island.” Her displeasure is apparent. She goes on to tell me that her father (who had health problems) was so bothered by the news that Papa Kotsi had taken another wife that he died. When we told her where we would live on Clove Island, she added, “Oh, you’ll probably see Papa Kotsi, his other wife lives in that neighborhood.” 

A couple days ago I (Tom) was walking down the street near our new house when I saw someone familiar.  It was Papa Kotsi!  He gave me a big smile and said it was so good to see me and how excited he was to see me here on his island.  He lives here now, he tells me.  “My second wife is here....... This is my real home so I have a wife here.”  He says it like this is an excellent justification, but I see something sheepish in his look, and just the fact that he feels obligated to make the justification says something.  I told him that I saw Mama Kotsi while I was visiting on the old island.  “Yeah,” he says, “She’s still there.”  After some more small talk and excitement that I’m living here on his island he walks off promising to come and visit sometime.

A new culinary adventure- breadfruit chips

Island men can have up to four wives at one time, according to their laws and traditions. Island men will often proudly defend this right and talk about how great it is, even women will defend that it is their tradition. But this is what we observe at the same time. No woman ever wants her husband to take another wife. No father wants his daughter’s husband to take another wife (sometimes they talk about it in wedding negotiations). And when a man has more than one wife, everyone knows it will mean dispute and heartache.

Ma & Ba Fado (our new landlords) both have shops in town and I decided I should go and visit them and find out where they work.  I didn’t have to ask many people before someone was leading me down the narrow streets of old town (the medina) until I came to Ba Fado’s shop.  He was so excited to see me there.  He showed me his shop and then introduced me to the woman working there. “My second wife,”  he said.  I was crest-fallen.  Ma & Ba Fado seem to be such a happy older couple and seem to really care about each other.  After a little while Ba Fado walked me over to Ma Fado’s shop.  On the way without me pressing him, he explained the situation with a nervous chuckle.  “That was an accident,” he said, “so I had to marry her.”  Which I assume meant he was having an affair with the other woman and she got pregnant.  “Oh, Ma Fado was so angry when I told her, but what could I do?”  And so it goes.  Technically, by his traditions, he has done nothing wrong--just taken another wife--but something in the way he says it reveals at least the small amount of guilt he feels.

This isn’t the way it is supposed to be. 

Megan & our daughter with local flowers (a present from a neighbor)

PRAYERS ANSWERED
Our sons are feeling better! Our older son had been sick for more than a week and our youngest had a stomach bug too, but thankfully they both seem to be doing better. We found a school for our daughter! They are going on vacation for two weeks but she will start on April 8th. Our daughter had an island friend over the play today and they had fun! Tom has made plans to have some formal local language lessons-- supposed to start on Monday. The internet has been working well enough for us to video-chat with grandparents this week! 


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Continue to pray for us as we make decisions about how to organize our time. Pray for our language learning that we would be able to learn this dialect well and without mixing it too much with French and the other dialect we already know. (It means a lot to people when we speak THEIR language.) Pray that we can celebrate Holy Week in a meaningful way and share with others about it. Pray for us as we begin to build more relationships with our neighbors that we would have good connections and interactions.

New Dialect

Guest photographer our daughter- photo of our street

-“Are you going to have to learn a new language on this new island?”
- “Yes and no-- they speak a different dialect of the same language we learned before.”
-“What does that mean exactly?”

It was at this point in this common conversation with people back home that  we had to speculate. We weren’t sure. How different were these dialects? We knew we had trouble understanding Clove dialect while we were on Volcano Island but we never really examined the dialects. We didn’t know how much work it would be. We’d have to come and find out.

I approach a duka (small shop) near our house. “Hey, how are you?”, I say in the Clove dialect to the small group out front. They immediately smile at the sound of a white person greeting them this way and respond to test whether I know anything more of their language. I pass the test! “Oh look, a white person knowing our language!” They begin to ask me more questions, but this is where I have to slow them down. “I lived in the capital so I know the Volcano dialect,” I tell them in Volcano dialect, “but I am studying Clove dialect. I live close by,” which I say in Clove dialect.

It is at this point in what has been a common conversation this past week, that Clove Islanders respond differently. Some are very encouraging-- “Oh, we can understand you, it is all one language.” “Look you already know the Clove dialect,”  they exclaim from hearing my few greetings and two short sentences. A few have had Volcano Island connections. “I’m originally from Volcano Island.” “My father is from there so I speak Volcano dialect too.” Then others seem perfectly crestfallen at the mention of the Volcano dialect. “Oh, I don’t know that language at all.”

So what is the truth? The truth seems to be that a lot of the most common language-- greetings, numbers, basic phrases, most common verbs are different. The verb conjugations are also different, though sometimes recognizable. But the vast part of the vocabulary and verb roots are the same. The simple past looks to be almost exactly the same.

Our daughter snaps a photo of Tom

Practically this has meant that we don’t feel like we are starting over. We can already converse (albeit in a choppy fashion) and communicate-- and we’ve only been here a week! We trust that as the weeks go on language learning will continue to provide both its victories and challenges because the thing about language learning is that it never stops. You never finish-- you either stagnate, lose it or keep moving forward. It is a truth that we have been learning for several years as we worked to learn local language in Chad, then Volcano Island, then in France and now on Clove Island. Bring on language learning!

PRAYERS ANSWERED
The Father has answered many of our prayers this week.  We were able to find a fridge and a stove.  Tom was able to get our service visas (and he was warmly received by the  immigration staff.)  We are definitely starting to settle in and find the good local shops.  Our daughter has remained healthy.  We continue to be warmly received and are discovering informal language teachers every day.  We’ve run into and connected with some old friends and have been making new friends too.  Our landlords continue to bless us.  When we had a plumbing problem this week they had it fixed promptly--the next day! (That is not the norm for the islands.) 

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Peter has been suffering from diarrhea for a few days now.  Pray for his healing.  Our language learning begins in earnest now that we are a bit more settled.  Pray for good motivation.  Pray that we find the right language partners and the right local friends to be informal language partners.  Pray for our kids as they seem to be struggling a bit in adjusting to Clove Island life and especially not having any other kids around like them (they are still little shy of the mass of island kids on our street).  Pray that we could find a good pre-school in which to enroll Grace. 

Taking the Boat

Boats at the dock on the big island

Moving to Clove Island means doing things we’ve never done before. That includes going to another island by boat.  We had heard of people going from island to island by boat, but the service was so unreliable and even thought to be dangerous, not to mention so time-consuming that we never considered it for the short trips we were making to visit the neighboring islands.  But this time we have all our stuff we were bringing with us, including the stuff we had left behind on the islands (all our kitchen pots and pans, dishes, silverware, sheets, towels, mosquito nets, books--we had left many things behind.)  To move all these things to our new home  the tiny island-hopping airplane allowance of 15kg per person was not going to cut it.  So that meant the boat.
The adventure began right from the start.  I walked into a couple of agencies asking about a boat to take me (Tom) and our stuff to Clove Island.  The first place had little information to offer.  I couldn’t seem to get any sort of prices out of him, or times or dates of travel.  So I went into a second place.  There I was referred to a man who said he would come to the house and take a look at our bags and quote me a price.  So I thought I would give him a try.  He came to the house, he gave me a quote and told me the day we would leave: Thursday morning--he would come with a truck take all our things and off we would go.  The price seemed reasonable and the situation sounded good.  Maybe this wasn’t so hard after all...But then on Thursday, we called and changed the day to Friday.  Friday I waited all day for the man to come.  I called many times and kept getting pushed off.  Friday evening he finally showed up.  Thankfully some of my island brothers were there too.  They got to the truth--actually, the boat wasn’t leaving until Saturday...Actually it was going to stop at another island...Actually it wouldn’t be arriving at Clove Island until Monday!  Monday!

View from the boat, big island getting smaller on right

With that my island brother took me back to the agencies and we found another boat.  He arranged the details and the next morning me and my stuff were on the boat.  It’s a lesson I’ve learned before but it never hurts to learn it again: “Always ask island friends for help.”

The boat ride itself was pretty uneventful.  Calm seas.  The boat looked like it was in good shape.  It wasn’t overloaded.  Everything went fine.  In fact, they had 3 flat screen TVs and anyone was welcome to watch film after film of incredibly violent Hollywood B-movies!  Megan and the kids took the airplane and arrived at midday on a flight that took about 30 mintues.  The boat ride took more than 7 hours and we got in in the evening.  I was happy and surprised to find my landlord’s husband at the docks.  He was there to pick me up.  Unfortunately we couldn’t get our stuff off the boat.  They just weren’t unloading that evening.  So after a night off making do without plates, silverware or mosquito nets, we went this morning (Sunday) back to the port. Ba Fado and I went down together (notice--I learned from my last mistake).  It took some doing, but Ba Fado managed to get things off the boat.  They had docked the boat to another boat which was in turn docked to another boat which was in turn docked to another boat which was lashed to the dock. Thus they had to carry all our bags over one boat after another until it made it to land.  But, by 10:00am we had all our bags in our new house and we were unpacking.  Let the adventure begin--oh wait, it already has!

Our daughter on the big island

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We’re so thankful that we all had safe travels and that despite the hiccups, we and our bags have all finally made it to Clove Island.  We’ve finally arrived to our destination.  It feels like it’s been a long time in coming.  It may have taken us a little longer to get here, but we used the time well on the big island and had some very good visits with old friends, former students, and even meeting some new people.  Lots of people helped us get here safely, from helping Tom on the boat to helping Megan and kids at the airports. We are thankful also for our new home and for the kindness of our landlords, Ma & Ba Fado.  Pray for a growing and deepening relationship with this family which has been so welcoming to us.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Now we begin the process of settling in--but not just settling into a house.  Settling into a community, learning language, and figuring out the ins and outs of life here.  We have already felt some warm welcomes from our neighbors who appreciate our ability to speak some of the island language (even if it is the wrong dialect).  Pray that in the coming days we would be able to get to know our neighbors, find people willing to help us learn language.  Pray that we can also find all the things we still need for our house (we currently have no appliances of any kind and no way to cook food or even heat water).  Lastly, we still have to figure out getting our long-term visas this week.  Pray for grace in dealing with government officials.  Many of you have been praying for our daughter. She continues to be healthy.  She had a bit of fever the other night, but it had disappeared by morning.  Please continue to pray for all of us that we would stay healthy.

Finding a House

Tom & helping colleague on plane to Clove island

How do you go about finding a house on Clove Island?  That was the big question.  There are no real-estate agents to visit.  There is no craigslist to search.  Finding a house is strictly a
word-of-mouth thing.  Are there places available on Clove Island?  Will  people be willing to rent to us?  Will our time frame be enough to find something?  All of these were unknowns.  So with much prayer and trust in our Maker, we set off, (Tom and two colleagues) to look for a house.

The first day already seemed like a bust.  The plane was late.  This meant we weren’t going to get into town until the afternoon, but as the tiny little Cessna pulled up, and we stooped our heads to find our seats in the little 12 seater plane, I knew we were in for an adventure.  Twenty minutes, with a view over the pilot’s shoulder, we came in for the landing and had arrived back on Clove Island.  And just like that things began to happen.  In the airport our one colleague (who had lived on Clove Island many years ago) ran into a relative of an old friend.  In a short time he had a phone number and was trying to make contact.

View of our future hometown

About 30 minutes later we were walking down the street, a bit disappointed because the government offices had already closed for the day, when a man on a scooter rolled up with a big smile and said, “Hello!”  The man didn’t know us at all, but he had lived in France and felt it his duty to introduce himself to foreigners.  Our new friend, (we’ll call him Moto) explained that he was retired and had little to do but drive around town and see what was going on.  We told Moto about our plan and in a flash he was leading us slowly on his scooter to a friend with a place for rent.  The day proceeded like that.  One person led to another.  Leaving one house we ran into someone who suggested anther house or gave us a phone number.  Sometimes, they walked us over to their neighbor’s house to explain the situation.  Sometimes we just stopped people on the road and asked, “Is there anything for rent around here?”  More often than not, this led to a house.  In that short afternoon we saw six places.  The last one was especially memorable:

The sun was going down when we came to a part of town full of people.  Little children played outside their mother’s shops while men sat and talked in the shade of a bread fruit tree.  We went over and started talking to the men.  Our former teammate's knowledge of the local language was quite a boon.  After French classes my local language has gotten rusty--I follow along pretty well, but speaking is slower and more labored.  Our former teammate, on the other hand is nearly fluent and it catches people off guard and helped us to be received well.  We talked to the men there in the cool of the day, introducing ourselves and explaining our situation.  When our teammate got around to asking, “Is anything around here available for rent?”  One of the men said, “Yes, that place right there.”  And right there on the square was a large, beautiful house.  Just the sort of thing we’d been looking for.  For an instant I felt something inside me say, “This is it!”  In a few moments, we were looking at the house.  It was a good size, perfect for hosting a team and visitors, it was cool with good air circulation and another floor above it so that the sun did not beat down on the roof.  It was nearly fully furnished and in very good condition.  Finally, the owners were as nice as could be.  Ma Fado is a tiny little woman with a wide smile and welcoming manner.  But it was getting dark and so we agreed to come and look again the next morning.  But then I noticed outside...the noise.  This place was right in the heart of the neighborhood, and people were all around.  Could we handle so many people so nearby???  This could mean constant visitors in our house, lots of scrutiny and little to no privacy. The doubt started to creep in.

Tom and friends in front of house with students

The next morning we went back.  The house really was beautiful, but on our way in we were stopped by a large group of students they wanted us to pose with the soccer trophy they had won.  That’s when we learned that a school meets above the house.  More doubts crept in...a busy neighborhood...a school above us...is it just too many people for people like us?

So we thanked Ma Fado and told her we’d be in touch and we went on looking.  The next days were very fruitful.  We made all sorts of contacts, government people, old friends of our helping colleague, old friends of our old teammate, even an old friend of mine.  We saw house after house, but none of them seemed to be quite like the “school house” (as we started referring to it).  So we kept praying and seeing more and more houses, but finally it came time to make a decision.  Our old teammate left us on Saturday and brought pictures and movies back to show Megan.  Talking with Megan, it slowly became clear.  The school house was the right house for us.

So Sunday afternoon we firmed up the deal and in hopefully just another week (once they’ve put up mosquito screens and cleaned the place) we will move in.  And suddenly, just like that, we have a place to live.   A LOT of unknowns still exist, but how amazing, we were shown our future house on our very first day of looking. So why should we worry about the other things?  He will take care of us.

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We are so thankful to have found the right house and to feel peace about that decision.  We are also thankful that everyone in our family remains healthy.  We have been blessed by people here on the big island and also on Clove Island who have helped and guided us through this process.  We are also very thankful for our colleague coming to help us.  He was invaluable and greatly appreciated.  We are glad he caught his plane home.  Our old teammate was also a tremendous help and we are thankful for his friendship.


PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray that our daughter remains healthy and does not develop malaria as it can have a long dormant period.  Pray for all the little details that remain for us in moving into our new home, especially shipping our things, the little planes are not an option.  We will send things by boat, and Tom will probably go with our things by boat with Megan and the kids going the next day by plane. Pray for safety for both the boat and plane travel.  Pray for us also as we try to visit old friends and make the most of our remaining week on the big island.  Pray for our old teammate and his family.  Aly has just left for mainland Africa to await the arrival of their new baby.  Our teammate and his son will be bachelors for a month before joining them.  It is going to be a hard month for this close family.