Visit to Futa

July 15th, 2011

Visit to Futa

I made it through the weekend alone in my village. What an experience! It took about seven and a half hours, via poda-poda, to get to my village and 33,000 Le. Not bad overall.

Riding in a poda-poda is an adventure in itself. I had the ‘pleasure’ of sitting shotgun, along with two other people of course, and noticed all kinds of things that one of the 26 back-seaters and roof-riders may not notice.

1.) No speedometer works, whether the vehicle is rolling along at 60 mph or in park, you are at zero miles per hour. 

2.) Hammers on board are a must. You never know when the tires, underneath the van or under the hood needs a couple good bangs.

3.) The red warning lights (engine problem, low fuel ect.) are always on.

4.) Ceiling cave-in, means there is either passengers, baggage, goats, logs, rice bags or a combination of them all on the roof. I would look upwards out the window and count the hanging feet.

5.) Feet tickling is usually a chicken on the ground, not a person playing footsie.

6.) Stops (which happen often) are great if you are hungry. An arm out the window will get some sort of goody (fruit, bread, doughnuts, ice-cream, soda).

 I  am so excited to move out of Makeni on August 14th and into my own house. I snapped some quick pictures of my house but didn’t want to keep my camera out too long because all the kids and their parents think I must have an individual picture of each of them.

Keep in mind the house is not completely done yet, and I will be taking more pictures, and posting them hopefully when I return. So thats the front of my new house, complete with bamboo fencing around the entire thing. Changes that are still in progress, shortening of the front fence entrance area, cementing, and highering the front porch wall, painting the entire house (surprise on the color) and some security bars on the windows. 

The picture of the smaller dirt hut thing, is around back and is my bathroom and showering area. That will be cemented, given a door and completely fenced in when I return as well. I am very glad that the toilet area is outside. Less cockroaches and creepy crawlers inside :)

The house has 3 rooms and a parlor area. Each room has an individual door lock and a screened, locking, security barred window (happy Dad? haha).

With all my yard space, I am planning on planting a garden, and Aminata (host mom) has already furnished me with animals for a small farm. Thus far, I have a nameless, white, egg laying chicken and a pup named Kono, despite Aminata begging me to name him Little Lion Friend. He is for protection... which he is not very good at currently, but I have faith in him :)

Some other interesting events that took place while I was in Futa...

• I had about 7 marriage proposals, some men already had 3-4 wives, but it was ok cause the wives were “ok” with me joining the pack and then one of the secret and very discrete, “I want to sleep with you” hand shakes from a 70 year old man... sickness. So I told my town I was married, and no, I do not need an African husband as well haha.

• I met the town elders along with the oldest man in the village. Take a guess on his age... 200 years old. Yup, 200 big ones. I told him congratulations on turning 200 as he walked me out the door, where I then met a 250 year old woman (also able bodied and walking around). Then, I was told that they live so long, unlike, Americans because they take better care of themselves.

• Around dinner time, I was given rice and some sort of red soup, ate what I could, including a very small chicken leg looking thing and pushed the rest of the ‘meat’ to the side, thinking someone will surely eat it later on. Nope, it was my reheated breakfast. I know because I couldn’t forget the circle chunk with tubes popping out of it. Once I saw breakfast I quickly asked a town leader to join me in eating. I for sure thought he’d save me by eating the mystery meat. He served us up, put the two chunks in front of my portion of the plate and said:

“Eat.”

“Oh, no thanks, you are more than welcome to have the meat, go ahead.”

“Eat. Now.”

I poked the first chunk with my spoon and yellow, play-dough texture mush squeezed out. I ate half and hide the other under the rice when he looked away. Then the next one I got in my mouth, trying not to think about what it could be. I couldn’t even bite through the piece make it smaller to swallow. Plus he was watching me, full attention now, so there would be no tossing over my shoulder. The man then says:

“It is customary for the person the animal was killed for to eat the stomach and heart of the animal.”

“Oh wow, and what animal would that be?” I mumbled as I slid the chunk to my cheek.

“Bush rat.”

Great, I thought- now, knowing this I have to get the heart of a disgusting rodent down my throat. All I could think about as I kept trying to break it into smaller pieces was science class and learning about the sections of a heart. I kept chewing, was getting no where, heard a click noise and felt a snap against my teeth and pictured me chomping down on an aorta. That was enough for me, I swallowed the entire thing and held back gags.

Later on, that chicken leg from the night before came to mind... for sure had to be a rat leg. 

I start teaching summer school Monday and am very much looking forward to that!