Hard Work and a Serious Little Dude.

I started writing this on Tuesday, but I just kinda kept writing each day. This is the first half.

It has been a very difficult week so far.

We're working on a frustrating project- that same pipe that broke two times? broke again. So there's the initial frustration of that, but then things started piling up.

In order to fix the pipe for good, we decided to find where it went into the cement, attach an elbow joint, and circumvent the problem altogether.

Simple, right? No.

We had to follow the pipe by smashing up the cement. At first, we thought this would be a short, though difficult and destructive, job, with an added bonus of helping us figure out how the pipes work. All of those were true except the first one, and so far, the last one.

For the last two days we've essentially been tearing up the hospital, at the cost of our hands, and we've pretty much learned nothing. We start again tomorrow.

HOWEVER

I was able, because of all this crazy work, to meet a little boy. I don't know his name, in fact, I've never heard him talk, but we've become friends, based on our mutual love of my sunglasses.

The first day, he just stared at me while I was working. One of those big, wide eyed, little kid stares. Kids are never subtle when they want to look at something. If they want to, and they have the ability to, they will. It was that kind of stare.

After a while, I said "bonjour! Ca va?"

He stared at me. And nodded. But not a lot.

From my experience with Gabonese children, I knew that this was significant. The fact that he would respond to me at all is impressive. That might be a personal thing more than a Gabonese thing, because I am in fact a scary white giant.

At the end of that day, I offered to shake his hand, and bid him a good evening. He stared at me.

Then he extended his tiny little hand, and we shook.

To be continued...

Pluie

I feel the need to talk once again about the weather. I think I did it a disservice by cramming the entire description into a paragraph. To make up for it, I will write a short post just about rain.

The Sami people have hundreds of words for snow, and one could easily come up with a comparable amount of words for rain-related things here in Gabon. There's day rain and night rain, rain you can work in and rain you can't walk in. There's lightning that assaults your eyes and ears, and there background lightning going from cloud to cloud that looks like a moving strobe light, and makes no thunder at all.

It rarely rains during the day here, and if it does, it's usually a light rain. I like it when it rains during the day, because it keeps everything cool. It's sort of a happy drizzle, sprinkling itself about. It's best to do tough work, like moving dirt, in that sort of weather, because of the lack of direct sunlight and occasional breeze. When the rain gets a little bit more intense, we work inside on projects like car maintenance and painting.

The night rain is like nothing you have ever seen before, assuming you've never seen it before. Because of the darkness, the lightning is just that much more dramatic. Unlike the States, where there tends to be a couple flashes of lightning every so often, the lightning here is fairly constant. The cloud to cloud lightning never stops; flashing softly behind cloud cover, but makes no sound. The big lightning bolts are incredible. I've only seen two directly, but they are the largest, brightest, and loudest pieces of weather I have ever seen. Truly incredible. The sound is something like a cross between a bullwhip being cracked, and an avalanche. It starts with a giant snapping sound, but then descends into a low rumble.

How does one end a blog post tidily, once one is out of things to say?

I Dance the Mamba (Get it?)

So I was getting ready for bed. I should have been asleep about half an hour before this, but I wasn't. I had just changed into pajamas (read: boxer shorts). It was time to brush my teeth, so I meandered out to the kitchen on my way to the bathroom.

I glanced at the floor, and wondered who put the rubber snake there.

Then I realized I am currently living alone.

Then I figured it probably wasn't really rubber.

At this point my whole body seized, and I got that electric tingle in the back of my neck that lets you know that the adrenaline is coming.

I decided it was a good time to put on some pants. Keeping my eye on the snake, I tossed on a pair of jeans, and started looking around my bedroom for a weapon. Unfortunately, Mr. Snake was chilling between me and my two machetes. Bummer.

My bedroom didn't have any weapons. Literally the most dangerous object in there was a plastic coat hanger. Except, and this is probably a miracle, a hammer.

Let's talk about the hammer. I had borrowed that hammer from the garage, because I wanted to experiment with using it to open coconuts. The claw for the outer shell, the head for the inner. I had actually finished using it for that, and decided a machete is better. Furthermore, I had looked at it and picked it up at one point with the intention of taking it back, but then I set it down, consciously, and I don't know why.

But there it was, my sole weapon in fighting off...

A Black Mamba snake.

I actually just found out that that's probably what it was. Black Mambas are one of the most venomous land snakes in the world. It's also possible that it was a black tree cobra, which is also venomous.

So I pretty much just started whacking at it. It moved away from me instead of attacking (which I'm pretty sure is insane, that's not really standard M.O. for venomous lizards, but I'll take what I can get) and I hit it a couple times in the body before finally finishing him off with a whack on the head.

As he oozed blood onto the floor, I thought about a Bible verse given to me by a friend on the day of my departure.

Luke 10:19- I have given you authority to trample snakes and scorpions and to overcome the power of the enemy, nothing will harm you.

Tomorrow we're going tubing down the river! Woo!

The Gabonese Family Unit

I've gotten a lot of questions about how a Gabonese family works. That's kind of difficult to answer, because families are unique, but I can give you a generic idea.

Assuming we have the full gamut of members, father, mother, brother, and sister, the latter two multiplied by whatever, the Gabonese family works thusly:

The father usually has a job. Weirdly enough, however, this does not make him the major breadwinner of the house. An average job around here pays about 500 francs, equivalent to about a dollar, per hour. That's not really enough to support a family, it's more supplemental income. That money, best case scenario, goes into clothing, maybe spices for cooking, house upkeep, that sort of stuff. Worst case scenario, the money turns into alcohol. I forget the figure, but the alcoholism rates in Gabon are scary.

The mother typically farms the family plantation, washes the clothes, takes care of the kids, sells whatever excess from the plantation, and cooks the food. Women around here are tough cookies. Their neck muscles are particular proof of that fact. Although here in Gabon they do occasionally do the traditional "carrying a basket on your head" thing, the more common method is to make the basket into a backpack of sorts, supported by a strap that goes around the woman's forehead. The basket, which is usually about two feet long and about a foot and a half in diameter, is filled with whatever they dug up at the plantation that day. Manioc root, a popular dish around here, has the density of soggy rubber, and it's entirely possible that that's all they harvested that day, which means those baskets can weigh as much as 50-60 pounds. They walk miles with those things strapped to their heads.

Another interesting culture difference is that the women here smoke pipes. Not men. It would be kind of weird if a man smoked a pipe here, in an equal and opposite fashion to America.

The kids can go to school around here. Often, however, it takes several years more than it would in America for a child to get through high school, either because they are needed to help around the house, or because they need to be held back.

Interesting anecdote, one time I saw a little girl who couldn't be more than 6, down by the river washing clothes. By herself. There was a man and a woman a ways off that could've been her father and mother, but I'm not sure. The little girl had an incredibly organized and methodical way of washing the clothes, it was fascinating to watch her work so quickly and efficiently. I would actually estimate her age at 4, maybe 5, but she'd be a small 5 year old.

Adding a part here- Grandparents- Treated with more respect than they are in America, less than in traditional Asia. Generally speaking. I think the Grandmas still work like crazy people. Not sure about the Grandpas, though I've seen grandpa aged men walking along the road with machetes, which suggests hard work.

Families live in a variety of house types, depending on income, financial wisdom, and other factors. The very wealthy live in wood-based houses, like we usually have in America. You must be wealthy to own a wood house because you must use expensive hardwoods, such as the African Padauk, or else your house will be eaten by termites. A fairly wealthy family would have a house made of cinder blocks, which stands up nicely to the weather. Depending on what's important to that family, it may be finished with stucco, or just left bare cinder blocks. Both work about the same, a stuccoed house just keeps a little bit more weather out, and makes the whole thing look nicer. A poor family would have a mud brick house. The mud here, however, is pretty much pure clay, so those are still not awful houses, but they don't really last very long, and the sticks that support those mud bricks are pretty easily eaten by termites.

Shortest Post Ever

Today all the guys were talking about licenses, and whether an American license would work in Gabon (yes). Whilst talking, my license came up, so I showed it to the guys. When they looked at the back, they asked what my signature and all that stuff meant, and I explained the organ donor concept to them, which left them disgusted and enthralled.

Later, after a bit of fast talking/arguing between the guys that I didn't entirely understand, Olivier asked me if it was possible for a white person's organs to work in a black person and vice versa. I actually have no idea what to think about this, all I know is that it surprises me that that's a question.

I'm leaving this one up to ya'll to ponder.

A Cavalcade of Abbreviated Accounts

Talk to your children about Titular Alliteration. It's an addictive habit.

Parents- The Anti-Bad-Literary-Habit.


This is a bunch of stories that don't really fit anywhere, and don't really have any point. Just kinda interesting stuff.

Someone died in their hospital room. The way the Gabonese show grief around here is by screaming and whipping their body about spasmodically. If that wasn't enough, a small crowd gathered around the room's door, everyone trying to get a peek at the drama. I remember feeling a mixture of contempt and shame at what seems to me to be a pretty classless move- like this person's death is some sort of show. I have yet to feel resolution for that.

The way I met the little dude from my profile picture- I was lending the camera to my friend, and just sitting in a desk while he took pictures. All the kids were stealing glances at me. This particularly bold kid looked at me, looked down shyly, and then mumbled the quietest "Goo-moornen" he possibly could. It was about 5pm- that's probably the only english he knows. I said Good morning, and then did the high five trick. (Ask for a high five, pretend that it hurt a lot for comedic purposes) He seemed genuinely concerned that he had hurt me. Also I think he was scared to touch me, until the camera showed up, at which point he whipped his hand over my shoulder.

A bunch of little kids playing along the road "shot" me with bamboo machine guns. I pretended to die, much to their delight. The Gabonese guy I was walking with, who is also my pastor, seemed embarrassed. It was pretty racist I guess, but maybe he was embarrassed by me goofing off. I haven't the foggiest idea.

There are two little girls around the hospital who I recognize and who recognize me. We wave at each other. Sometimes they smile. I always smile. Gabonese people are kinda shy I think as a general rule. Also very stoic in expression. Not that they're afraid to laugh, but standard facial expression is not happiness.

The weather is somewhat dichotomous. Or perhaps trichotomous, assuming that's a word. It's either sunny, and brutally hot, but there are no bugs, cloudy, and pretty temperate, but bugs swarm you constantly, or raining with intent to kill. It's always humid, like 85-90% (not kidding) and it's a rare day when my shirt is not a bit soggy by the end of it. Not from the rain. Yes I drink a lot of water.

The most impressive thing about this place for me personally is the size of the leaves. They. Are. Enormous. I could literally lay down flat on a banana leaf, and my body would not touch the ground. I've been meaning to take a picture of that. They also have a thing called "elephant's ear" which is an elephant ear sized leaf growing on a tall stalk. I'll snag a picture of one of those too.

Dinner at a restaurant is pretty cool. My favorite restaurant that I've been to here is conveniently the one right by the hospital. They have a sort of mix-and-match menu. You can get fish, chicken, or beef (assuming they have any of those three) on your choice of rice, spaghetti, or manioc. No matter what you order, it comes with a big glob of mayonaise, and as much hot sauce as you wish to endure. Mayonaise on spaghetti is actually fantastically delicious.

I have some weird mark on my hand that's a funny color. I had a doctor check it out, it's probably nothing serious, but it is sticking around. It's the guys' theory that I'm turning black. Please pray that we figure out what it is.