It took about 35 hours of travel including the layovers. We were tired as we pulled into the Guest House in Abidjan but grateful for an uneventful trip. All our baggage arrived! It was early evening and we were welcomed by one of our colleagues and offered a hot spaghetti meal and mangoes for desert! After eating and visiting for a while I was happy to get back up to our apartment and listen to the night noises coming in the windows. The frog and cricket chorus is especially good during rainy season, which is in full swing right now! The night was cooler but humid.
We slept well. After coffee and a ‘pain-au-chocolat’ we drove to the Cocody UEESO Church for Lord’s Day worship service. More boisterous than ours, but then we’re in Africa! Clapping, subdued dancing, and singing –all at the same time– is definitely something people here are good at! (I wonder what King David’s dancing looked like?)
After church I took Benjamin to a cook shop in the poorer section of town where we could get a plate of rice and peanut sauce for less than two bucks. No, I’m not trying to kill him; just the experience you now! OK, you do have to wave the flies off your food, but it was tasty and acceptably clean. The cook worked for years cooking for the German embassy folks I’m told.
The rest of this sabbath day we mostly relaxed and wrote home. Tomorrow after a meeting in the morning with my field director we will get in my truck and drive west for 6-8 hours (depending on the road) to the village of Touadji and try to get set up before it gets too late in the evening. A translation consultant is coming out with us to do a verse by verse check of our translation of Galatians and James into Bakwé. We should have some more interesting pictures coming soon.
