First Sunday in Atakpame

The next few posts about Togo are 'stolen' pretty much wholesale from Uncle Karsten's emails to family about our time in Togo. I'm trying to reconstruct as much as possible for the blog posts, and this seemed like the best (and easiest!) way to recount the time in Togo. So, from here until we get to Egypt, the tales will be courtesy of Uncle Karsten's emails...

Good morning. We just had a breakfast of pancakes, with blueberries that you sent, Kirsten. I walked in to the kitchen where Wayne was working on something, and saw him putting different powders, etc in a big bowl. I asked what he was doing and he said he was making pancake batter. We bought a bunch of powder at the Marche yesterday. I took a picture of the lady scooping the powder into one of the black plastic bags, that literally EVERYTHING is sold into, and she was a little nervous. I then showed her the picture and she, and all of her friends or family just ran off and laughed and laughed. What fun that has become!! Taking pictures, and then showing them. They are a little nervous first, and then just love it!! We stopped at a coiffure shop also, with 3 women with really fancy hairdo’s and I asked if they could do mine. They weren’t sure, at first, how to respond, but they eventually got the idea that I was joking. Then I asked Cate to ask them if they would act like they were working on my hair for a picture. We got one, and I think it was fun for them and certainly for me.

You’ve asked about my foot, Kirsten, and I guess I haven’t said anything, but it is still killing me. But, in the big scheme of things, it is something that I can deal with, as long as I have plenty of Ibuprofen, which I am really going through fast. No big deal. In terms of other health, I/we (Dustin, Julianna and I) have really felt good the whole time. VERY different from expected actually. The Peace Corps people that we had the birthday party with last night, asked how we were doing, and after we told them we had been doing very well, they said “Don’t worry, you’ll get sick before you leave.” Encouraging. It has been absolutely amazing to me that I have yet to get a mosquito bite, and really haven’t seen any. We have been quite careful about the time of being outside, to avoid the evenings and morning, etc, but it’s been really good. You KNOW how I hate mosquito’s and how they seem to find me, no matter what, so it’s even better. The weather also, has been extremely mild. Cate and Wayne are beginning to think we’ll go home and think that it is like this all the time. I KNOW that it is not that way, from hearing from all the people here, and, of course, from their earlier emails. It is certainly muggy, but not soooo hot.

We are about to start “church” and Cate has set up the table with a cross, candles, bread and wine, and we have Now the Feast, and With One Voice, and they have a sermon from Erik G. I brought the music for Surely the Presence too, so we’ll have a nice service. We can hear a protestant service going on outside, and C & W really hate the way the preacher does Fire and Brimstone, and yells negatives at the people all the time. 5 times a day, we also hear the Muslim “call to worship” over a loudspeaker. The last one was at 4:00 AM this morning.

Starting the service. More later.