Apparently I'm a giant.

This Sunday I had my first real "village" experience- The Africa that everyone hears about. I went to church with Miss Karen, one of the Doctors here whose name escapes me.

She said it was going to be an hour drive. There was one other passenger, who spoke only French. Away we went.

Then we picked up 5 people.

When we got there, we pulled a clown car style exeunt all. The first thing I noticed when we arrived was a dog licking it's paw. It had no fur on it's paw, and I could see a part of his bone.

The village children quickly shooed him away, and proceeded to marvel at my height. There was not a single door in the village that did not require me to practice the limbo.

When I get back, ya'll are goin' down. Luau style.

We sat in a house for a while and I wished I spoke French. Everyone kinda talked around me, and I caught random small words. I really wish I could have talked to the kids- all I could do was make goofy faces. That seemed sufficient for their tastes.

They had weird decorations.  One of them was some sort of dead thing. Except I wasn't really sure what it was.

It was just a pelt. Looked sorta rodent like, and very "not Chuck Testa." It was rotted and sagging off of the mounting piece, which, ironically and with poor juxtaposition, was marvelous. The wood here is really nice. I can't stress enough though, how nasty this animal-carcass-sans-animal was.

I asked the oldest kid what kind of animal it was, with my limited French. He squinted at it, and then hopped up to take a closer look.

He reached his hand out.

I cringed.

He... reached a bit further...

More of the aforementioned cringing.

He settled back. "I don't know" he said.

"Oh. Ok." I said, relaxing.

His curiosity still unsatisfied, he reached up and gave it a good feel.

The flies decided that it was time to leave.

He still didn't know.

Then it was time for church. I got the seat of honor, up in the front. I'm not sure if they gave me that seat because I was new, or because I couldn't see them staring at me if I was faced forward. Not that they were particularly shy about it.

It was a marvelous show, and I'm sure it would have been even better if I had understood a word of it.

When they sang, I couldn't really sing along, one cuz I couldn't understand it, and two, their melodies were significantly more complex than any western song I've heard. I couldn't even hum along. They rocked it.

I stood, and smiled, and clapped along, and felt conspicuously caucasian. And tall. And front-rowey.

After that was done (or something- to be honest I never knew exactly what was going on) I went to Sunday school with all the little guys.

The teacher (Miss Karen) told the story of David and Goliath. I proved to be a convenient teaching tool. When they were told that Goliath was as tall as me and a half, their eyes just about popped out of their heads. They spent the entire rest of the time (which was dedicated to coloring) sneaking glances at me and giggling furiously. I made more silly faces, and a good time was had by all.

Later we (Miss Karen, the pastor, his friend, and myself) went to eat at someone's house (again, never really sure what's going on, so I can't tell you whose house it was.)

The food was frightening to my sensitive western palate. I like to think I'm a pretty good eater, and I ate it all with a smile on my face, but that smile was not birthed of my gusto.

Most of it was just bland. I can do bland. The plantain was interesting. There was some other tuber-root thing, and something like a potato.

Goodness I loved that potato.

The last item on the menu was Gazelle. People tell me that gazelle is just like deer, but this must have been cooked some odd way, because it smelled like death.

People say the word gag all the time, but it's different when it's an involuntary reaction instead of melodrama.

I was also served Pomplamoose, which is a Gabonese-made grapefruit soda.

That soda pretty much allowed me to eat all my food. I don't think I could have gotten it down otherwise, and after having someone be so kind as to feed me, I didn't want to be rude just because I'm bad at eating African food.

The toughest thing right now is the language. I'm getting sick of not being able to talk to people. Every French speaker I talk to says I have very little accent when I speak, but my vocabulary is pretty small. Please pray that I can expand it quickly.