It is too much- I will sum up.

My time here has taught me many, many things. Bad French, for one. I don't have the strength in my feeble typing fingers to go through the full five months. But this is a condensed "Sparknotes" of sorts, for what I've learned here.

I have learned, first and foremost, of the hopelessness of humanity (in a worldly sense). This wisdom was given to me after many nights lying awake, furious with the world and it's brokeness. Finally I realized that my hope was lying in the wrong place. This has made all the difference in the world to me.

If your faith doesn't lie in a person, what is it to you if they make a mistake? What is it to you if they don't listen to reason? We have not been put on this earth to fight the world into begrudginly accepting Jesus as their/our savior. We are here to live a life of active worship to Jesus, and those who see how we carry ourselves and desire to be like us, will.

It is difficult to express the amount of joy this gives me.

I have learned more recently that God will take care of me financially. I never liked the concept of college debt. It seems contraindicated to go into thousands of dollars of debt so that you can maybe get a job. But through this trip, God has taken care of me especially well in the area of finance.

The first story about that I've already written, in the post "Why I Believe God Exists."

The second story is much longer, time wise, and shorter, story wise. Over all these five months, I've been rationing my food supply to about four dollars a day. Actually, that's not exactly right. I've been rationing my everything supply to four dollars a day. So when I went out and bought a souvenir for someone, that cut into my week's spending.

So the first of God's provisions for me is that I didn't starve. To the contrary, I actually gained weight while I was here.

The second provision was that at the end of my time, I had about 1500 dollars left over. That's after souvenirs, guest house stays, and the trip back up (which was expensive).

I'm not actually sure if he's aware of it, but my plan is to give the excess to a local pastor, who is trying to build a church to house his growing congregation.

So those of you who donated to get me here, not only did you succeed at that, but you built a solid percentage of a church. On his behalf and of course my own, thank you.

Those are the big spiritual lessons.

I also learned about giving over to God the problems I have with people. This revelation is owed to my co-worker Igor, and my inability to speak French at the time.

I learned how to be an adult among adults, and not just a teenager, because there were no teenagers to be teenagerish with. That was difficult at first, but I think overall, it made me a better person.

I learned not to drink the water.

I learned some fairly decent French. I can only talk to people who realize they're talking to someone for whom French is a second language, but I'd say that's solid progress.

And finally, I learned how to abruptly end a blog post.

Wrapping Up, Part II

I could not have asked for a better last week here.

My African Friends Havel and Joela have hung out with me several times, and we'd talk about computers and ipods and bla bla bla. For my going away, they decided to throw a party. Joela said that there would be six people. There ended up being ten, but you'll hear no complaining from me.

We pumped some music, sat, and tried to overcome language barriers. They all spoke a small amount of english- I think I spoke better French than they spoke English, with the exception of Joela.

They also brought over some traditional African food- Taro leaves, chicken, rice, and some manioc root. Remember how I didn't like manioc when I first came here? It grows on you, especially if you season it correctly (little bit of soy sauce, little bit of mayo). I made Sloppy Joes, which were a hit.

I also had a going away dessert time with all the missionaries. It was very sweet (ha- get it?), but also sad to say goodbye to the people who have become my family in these five months. They had me say a few words, and then they all said how much they're going to miss me. Mr Paul specifically mentioned how he was skeptical of a kid my age and the length of time spent here, and that I had very much exceeded his expectations. Miss Deb (the pediatric doctor) said that my mother should be very proud of me. The Thelander kids made it very clear that I would be missed. I will miss them too- who now will kick my butt weekly in Super Smash Brothers?

It was nice.

Now I'm at the guesthouse again, nothing to do but ponder on my time here. That, and get in fights with tortises. (Josh Curry for King of Quality Segues 2012)

So the guest house has a tortise in the backyard- I think it either keeps the grass down or eats the clippings of grass. Anyways, I saw it out there, and figured I would go take a look at it. I meandered over, and he saw me. He surveyed me for a bit, and then started breaking land speed records over the two meters that seperated us.

Many seconds later, I started getting uncomfortable. This turtle was pretty clearly charging me, despite the looseness of the definition of "charge" in this particular instance. I have no idea if tortises are friendly. He could be eager to cuddle, or lusting to once again be familarized with the taste of flesh.

I had plenty of time to formulate a plan- I decided to take off my flip-flop, and offer it to him, to see if he was attacking. After a little more waiting, he arrived.

When he hit the flip flop with his face (yes, literally) his neck jerked back into his body. Then he slowly extended his neck to smell the shoe. His breathing was labored from his recent sprinting session, and it was an odd thing to hear- made him very alive in my mind.

Once he had smelled it, and deemed it unsatisfactory in some unknown aspect, he started pushing against it in an attempt to get to me.

He was impressively strong, for an animal about the size of my head. So strong in his legs, in fact, that his head was forced back into his shell, pushing against my flip flop.

Not knowing the personality of this tortise, I decided I had had enough. I stepped back, and he kept charging. I went inside, and he kept charging.

Then I imagine he forgot what he had been charging, paused for a moment, and started eating grass again.

He has a good life, that tortise.

Wrapping Up- My last days with new friends.

I could not have asked for a better last week here.

I have been truly blessed. In the last three days alone, my ability to comprehend and speak French quickly and correctly has skyrocketed. I'm a ways from fluency, but I can communicate comfortably. Today I accidentally answered an English question in French, as a reflex. I give all the glory to God for that- I think He has seen fit to allow me to grow especially close to the guys that I work with these last few days, and I've had a fantastic time with it.

For example, today we were working on patching up the road into the hospital. Brutal work, but very satisfying, since you can see clear progress, and since it's the sort of work you feel personal need for (driving up the hill to the hospital was literally painful).

With my impending departure looming over our last few days of work, Olivier and Jaures decided that I needed to find a wife, toute de suite, here in Gabon.

So while we were breaking our backs lugging sand, cement, and gravel here and there and everywhere, they were stopping any potentially elegible female walking along the road, and asking her if she would like to marry me, and what a good worker and father I would be- saying that she could leave with me to go to the states, and wouldn't that just be great.

All of this through fits of laughter- I literally had to sit down. It was hilarious watching them shamelessly hawk me off to these completely baffled women, some of whom had little kids with them.

Then they sit down with me to explain to me what a good life married life is, and too be honest I couldn't understand most of it, because they were laughing too hard to speak clearly. Nonetheless, the sight of two grown men so overcome with giggling was hilarious, and I understood enough of their subject matter to get a good laugh and a red face.

Then I took all the guys out to eat at lunch, which was a hilarious disaster.

For a long time, it was tough for me to talk and interact with Gabonese (or Malian- we have a lot of Malian shop owners around here) when I'm trying to buy a product or service, because they do not feel the need to make the sale like an American does. Furthermore, if there's a problem with the sale, they feel no pressure to fix it in order to make the sale. What sells, sells.

This puts the unassertive American consumer in an awkward position.

I learned how to deal with this one time when I was getting cokes for Olivier and Mr. Paul. I had just come to get cokes for the other guys and myself, so I knew for a fact that there were 3 or 4 cold cokes in the fridge.

When I arrived the second time, the kid who works there was stocking the fridge. I asked him for a cold coke, and he said that there were none.

Normally, I wouldn't fight that, but I was buying the cokes for someone else, first of all, and second of all, I knew the dude was lying right to my face.

So I argued with him, and he, knowing he had been caught, gave me the cold ones.

You must, as the consumer, push to get what you want.

Anyways, I told you that story to tell you this one.

I'm in a similar situation with this "taking the guys out to lunch" thing. I'm paying good money for food for someone else, so I feel that I have the right to demand decent service for my friends.

I warned the guy in charge of the restaurant ahead of time that a lot of people would be coming at lunch, so that he would have time to get plenty of food.

Then, when we showed up, he didn't have two thirds of the things his menu claims he has. (fish, chicken, and meat, he only had fish, which no one ever orders).

Furthermore the restaurant owner knows this stuff- he knows this group individually by name, we've been there several times.

So everyone of our group was rolling on the floor laughing, as we had this incredibly one-sided argument about whether or not it was acceptable for him to be unprepared.

In the end though, it worked out. The guy went and bought porcupine in town, and we all had that.

Porcupine is like a cross between squid and beef. Think beef, with the texture of crumbly rubber. Not super tasty, but a fascinating experience.

While we were at the restaurant, Jaures discovered that I would be leaving Lebamba not next Wednesday (my flight date), but this Friday. When he heard that, he grabbed my hand in a handshake, and dejectedly tilted his head down. It communicated a lot, in a manly no words kinda way.

This blog post is already too long- I will continue it another time.