Healing 2 The Nations International ~ Julie Heisey ~ Blog June 2011

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Life's Got High Points and Low Points

Africa is pretty amazing, and I'm loving, absolutly loving this experience. But not everyday is fantastic and enjoyable. Yeah, no day is ever all bad, but some days are still harder than others. Like yesterday, it was a 'homesick' day. I just missed Roxbury Camp... a lot. It's my home, my forever home, and I wanted to be home. So, I really appreciate everyone's prayers and continued support of us here. Life is life here just like it is at home. You have amazing experiences that make you love where you are. And you have devastating or just sad experiences that make you wish you were somewhere else. It's really about who you decide to be and how you let God lead you, not about where you are.

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May 11

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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Just A Touch

I JUST had the most amazing experience of my time being here. I'm sitting in the living room, in the 'Internet Cafe', and Bakary (7 yrs. old) is laying on the couch because he has a fever and isn't feeling well. He started crying and I stopped typing to sit closer and just rub his forehead, and run my fingers over his head. He stopped crying right away, I was kinda surprised, and I just kept softly rubbing his head. Pretty soon, I looked at his face and he was starting to close his eyes, just like little kids do in the movies when someone's singing to them or putting them to bed. It was so COOL! I couldn't believe he was actually falling asleep so quickly. I just kept on running my hand over his head, and sooner than I thought, he was breathing calmly and had a little snore coming on. (: I felt so good, that I just put him to sleep and helped him get some rest while he's sick. Like, there isn't a better feeling in the world than helping someone in a way you didn't expect to.

Lizards and Worms and Boys, OH MY!

Well... sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. (: Yesterday I was down in the outside kitchen breezeway, just sittin down there with everyone else, listening to their conversations (even though I don't understand) and being a part of the excitement. Not two minutes after I'd sat down, Hama (10) took a cup, and starting hitting the ground, and Fanta (our cook, Hama's mother) started yelling at him and freaking out!! I realized, when the other boys were laughing, that he was hitting a worm and she was reacting just like a mother, and a girl lol. A little while later, Saloum (21) got up and pointed at something he said was for me. I asked what it was he was pointing at, and then he walked over and kinda flicked a worm at me with his toe. He wasn't trying to scare me, but just show me, so I got up and was getting ready to sit down. But Hama was also sitting there, and he picked up the worm to throw it in my face. Oh my goodness, I reacted like any girl would (well, almost any girl) and jumped up right away. lol. I've kinda adopted they're way of talking, so instead of yelling, I said "EH!" Yeah, they started laughing, so I had to laugh at myself too. But it was funny, and I wasn't expecting it lol.

Ok, then later that morning, I brought my journal down to write about it and soon after, Saloum found a lizard behind a bucket. When he moved the bucket, he seemed like he was scared of it because he jumped back and then tried to kill it for the next 5 minutes. They were really going after it! It got into a vent in the door to the Dining Hall, and they put a metal wire in the fire to get hot, and poke it with! You could hear the 'effects', it was gross. After they'd stunned it, Joseph (18) pulled it out would with a pliers and dropped it on the ground. Then they decided to scare Eva, so they pretended to put in a piece of cloth that they were going to take over to her and 'throw' at her. I felt loyal to her, lol, and told her it wasn't in there. What I didn't think about was that they'd probably go after me then. They walked back to it, and bent down to actually put it in the cloth. I realized what they were doing, and before it hit the cloth, I was jumping up and running towards Eva yelling, "It's actually in there this time!!" I ran around the corner of the building, and they took it after Eva. When I peeked around the corner, she had a cloth in her hands and was holding it up as a shield. (: It was typical boys scaring girls, BUT, I learned from Saloum later that it's not good when the lizard bites you. Maybe that means it's poisonous, or that it just hurts a lot. Whatever it was, we had good reason to be afraid lol.

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May 11

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Sunday, June 26, 2011

Makin' Pizza

Soooo, today was pretty busy in the morning. Mimi had promised to make a special lunch for the boys, french bread pizza and salad. So around 8:30 Mom and Dad went to the market with Fanta, our cook, and got stuff for making salad for 25 people. When they got back, about 2 hours later, we had to wash everything in bleach water to purify it and then let the lettuce soak in vinegar water as a double check. We had a little bit of a break, to clean stuff up and make sure we had everything, before it was time for mom to go downstairs and make salad with Fanta's help. I stayed upstairs and chopped up/sauteed the onions and peppers that we put on the pizza, and watched the lentil beans that mom put on to cook for pizza too (when you don't have meat all the time, you have to get protein somehow). Before I realized it, it was 12:38 already and lunch was supposed to be at 1:15!!!! We didn't even have the bread, or cheese, or tomato paste ready for pizza! Mom came up, done with salad, just as I was getting ready to bring stuff down. So, by the time we got everthing we needed downstairs to get ready to cook in Hawa's (Claudia's) oven it was another 10 minutes and I was feeling the rush for sure. I cut the baguettes in quarters and then tore them lengthwise to put the tomato paste on. I got them done (all 24!) and realized that the cheese was still upstairs, and it needed to be grated!!! By the way, meanwhile mom was getting the sauce ready and Eva was putting the salad together with everything mom had cut up earlier. Fanta came and also helped about then, and she started putting the tomato paste on the bread I'd gotten ready. I ran up, got the cheese, grater, and a bowl, ran back down, grated the cheese, and started putting the onion/peppers/lentils on the tomato pasted bread. Uh! It was still chaos the whole way through, but we managed to feed the hungry boys, and dad, before they stormed the kitchen (: Ahhh, then Mom, Eva, and I came upstairs and ate in the quiet of our own kitchen when it was all done. The pizza was pretty good, but we'll have to be more prepared next time and not have things so crazy. Well, now we know for next time.

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May 11

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Saturday, June 25, 2011

Dancing In The Rain

Today we had a really really nice rain. Dad went with me to go running up on the kulu (mountain). That was really nice by the way, running in the evening rather than in the morning. I really do hate running in the morning now lol. So anyways, we were just on our way back, coming along the end wall of the compound, when it started to drizzle. All of the times it's rained so far have been horribly windy and just plain craziness. So I started walking faster to get back and shut the windows and stuff, but Dad said to not worry. He said the clouds weren't thunderstorm kind of clouds, and it probably wasn't going to be a stormy kind of rain this time. He was right of course lol. We got back inside the gate just as it was raining the hardest, but it was still sunny, and only a light rain, and cool, and just nice. Obviously, what better thing to do than dance in the rain? :) So I took my sneakers and socks off and just stood out there, in the rain, enjoying every minute of it. :) It only lasted like 10 minutes, but Dad went upstairs and got some pictures through the kitchen window (they'll be up tomorrow) before it ended. It actually hardly got me wet, but it was, Ah, so refreshing lol.

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May 11

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Monday, June 20, 2011

Babysitting (:

Saturday night I watched the kids so Fanta could go up and be with the staff for Staff Meeting. When she handed Jonathan (Fanta's son; age 3) off to me, he was crying ):. I talked to him a little, but since he doesn't understand what I'm saying, I just sat there with him and rubbed his back until he'd calmed down. Pretty soon he and Sarata (his older sister; age 6) where ready to do something, so we got books and looked at the pictures. Sarata had a really colorful book and she wanted to show me the pictures in it. She would say the Bambara word when she pointed to a specific thing, so for the little fishies that were on each page, she'd point and say "jege". I got a few, but I forget most of them lol. Jonathan had one of those soft books, where the pages are almost like thick cloth. And there were sqeaky noise makers that he liked to push (: There was also a mirror that we looked in. Sarata's book was pretty big, but she and Jonathan were content until she got the whole way through. Then we got coloring books, and a puzzle book. Sarata and I got the colored pencils and started on our own pictures, while Jonathan took the puzzle pieces out and put them back together. He's a pretty smart cookie for a 3 year old!!! I was sitting beside him so I could help him if he needed it, but he pretty much put the pieces in all by himself. So yeah, we did that and pretty soon Fanta came back to get them into bed. It actually was more like half an hour, but they're soooo content to spend a lot of time doing one thing. But it didn't seem like that long, anywho, it was fun (:.

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May 11

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Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Bead Market

Today the Baker's took us to a bead market in downtown Bamako. It was soooo cool! There are tons of little shops, mostly all of them selling strings of beads, necklaces, earrings, rings, braclets, chairs and stools, and statues. The one place I went had shell necklaces right inside the door, and I hadn't seen any other place with them yet. So I asked where they came from, or anything about them. The guy said their imported into Mali, and they used to be the currency before the CFA notes were introduced! I didn't want to get a necklace, but I took a picture of him standing beside them in his little shop ("Africa!" album). I got to use my Bambara (the native trade language in Mali), asking what the price of things were ("A Be Joli"), greeting the shop keepers ("Sava" and "I Ka Kene Wa?"), and maybe the most useful phrase when I wanted to leave and they wanted me to buy something was: not today ("Bi Te") lol. So it was a good day, and I got 3 adorable pairs of earrings and a leather braclet. (:

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May 11

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Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Bus Ride

Today we went to Dara again, and took the big bus for the first time. I rode behind the front seat, facing towards the back. We had kind of a short service today, and were soon coming back. They gave a ton more mangos (manguru), and I ate two little ones coming back. They are sooooooo good! So anyways, coming back, I turned around from time to time, checking out the road, and once we almost ran a chicken over lol. Right before we didn't hit it, I yelled 'Chicken!' Jeremie mimicked me, no surprise lol. I remembered the Bambara word for chicken, so I pointed back to it and said 'She' [like shay]. He said it, making sure I got the 'S' part, because the word for man (Jeremie pointed to himself for emphasis) is 'Ce' [like chay]. (: After we'd said it like 20 times, and I was pronouncing it right, I quietly pointed to Karim and said 'She'. Haha, Jeremie got the joke, even though it's not that funny to anyone else. (: It was the first time we've joked around and actually knew what the other person was saying lol. Even with two Bambara words, I'm learning to communicate with them. So... now I only have like 7,128,400 more words to go! (:

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May 11

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Saturday, June 4, 2011

One Month Already!?

Wow, yesterday Dad and I realized that we've been here a month already! It's flown by so fast and I feel like we're still getting used to everything. Just today, we rearranged everything in our house again, because we got a bookshelf and desk from a couple that's moving back to Germany. And I still feel like we haven't really settled in completely. Things are still sitting on the counter, and I'm still using my suitcase as a desk. Haha, when Megan said not to settle in to fast, I don't think she was expecting it to actualy take a month (:

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May 11

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Wednesday, June 1, 2011

Today we had another thunderstorm this afternoon. I'm beginning to realize that when it rains, it storms... every time. So far they've been pretty exciting actually, I usually love thunderstorms, but today was the first time I got hurt in one. I ran upstairs to close our front door after closing all of Claudia's windows downstairs, and got up there to find it'd already blown shut. [fyi, you have to go up these stairs, through a door (that's usually open), onto the open porch/roof, and then in a door on your left to go into our apartment] So I made sure our door was closed tight, got soaked lol, and turned around to go back down the steps. Before I even got the other door halfway closed, a gust of wind slammed it shut and made me jump down a step fast to get out of the way. Well, since the steps are obviously covered in water now and super slippy, my left leg completely wiped out, and I fell. I only went down 2 or 3 steps, but my left leg went through the railing and now has two nice bruises, on my ankle and calf. Oh yeah, and one on my tush to. Geeze, I felt like an old lady the rest of the day. Every time I sat down gingerly, Dad just HAD to make a comment. lol. So next time it looks like it's gonna rain (aka storm), I'm closing everything up and staying inside until it stops.