Flower Power

 

Spiky bark on this tree.  The boys haven't tried to climb it - yet.

Noise and Colour

The markets are essential for getting supplies for the house.  It's the opposite from North America, with our big box stores where you can buy anything in one-stop shopping.  Here, in Togo it is many-stop / many stall shopping!  

For example, if you need onions you stop in at the onion guy's stall in the open air markets.  If you need hair curlers, then you stop at the beautician's stall.  The same for pineapple and brooms.  And spices and cell phones.  Some vendors branch out and carry a few other items, but with limited space in each stall, the need to find a niche and specialize is key.  Backwards thinking for us, but it works for them.   And since there is no market map, finding the plastic containers you need for left-overs is more of a challenge than fighting your way through Walmart.

The cell phone store...

Those are 2L yellow jugs beside those traps, just for scale!

Everything is for sale, even used plastic bottles and jugs

The machete / flip-flop dealer.  Not to be used together.

Wooden kitchen utensil stall

A shot of the rooftops of a portion of the market from the
FabricLand second floor 

The onion guys display

The spice lady, with the shy spice girl.

The view down one of the many tight alleys

Roasted peanuts, beer nuts, roasted coconut
in re-used gin bottles

Home Sense...

A fruit stand

Beans and maize for sale

A little kid sleeping at his mom's stall

A slow day at the hoe and wooden handle stall

Taking a bunch of chickens home

Furniture salesman on the move

We stopped at several fabric stalls in the upstairs of the Kpalime market last Saturday.  Since there is no 'shirt' vendor, you buy material and take it to a seamstress to custom sew you a shirt (or as close to custom as you would call this).  Some of the fabric is beautiful.  Some of it is bordering on psychedelic!  I will have a couple of stunning shirts to wear to church, since Essie the seamstress said she could have them done before the next weekend.

The noise and sights and (sometimes awful) smells of the market make it a fun place just to look around.  There is a lot to take in, while at the same time not getting bumped into by other shoppers or run over by the motos that weave through the tightest of gaps in the people.  Horns beeping, exhaust smells, people shouting to draw attention to their wares, dried fish, all types of spices, fresh baked bread, and so much more all bombard your senses.  It's organized chaos, but so much fun and vitality!  Our boys are starting to grasp the concept of staying close to the stall.  Out on the edge of the road is not safe if you aren't paying attention!  From the moment we parked the Land Cruiser and stepped foot outside of it we would be pestered to buy something, look at the fresh fruit, or have something unknown pushed on you.  At first it was an overwhelming feeling – especially to our 'personal space is to be respected' society, and not wanting to hurt feelings by rejecting them.  But you quickly get over that if you want to simply get what you need!  Christine is getting good at using me to distract the person so she can get away to where she needs to go.  I usually have to rush to catch up or get lost in the rows of stalls.

What we purchased from FabricLand - for church shirts and
some nice pants!

Our haul from the fruit and veggie stalls

The 7 Second Countdown

Togo Power is not reliable.  In fact, I guarantee the electrical supply will let you down at the worst possible time... like during a surgery in the OR, for example.  Because of this 'feature', the compound has back-up generators.  Two of them, big Caterpillar diesel generators with large fuel tanks.  Reliable ones!  Two is one, one is none.  Murphy's Law says so.

  

So, here's the scenario.  The surgeon, let's say it's Dr. Ed for this story, is working on a patient in the Operating Room.  A typical surgery, going along as it should, when just before making a important cut with the scalpel, the lights unexpectedly go out.  This has happened before; no one is surprised, everyone knows the drill.  

Stop - don't move!

  

Mentally begin the countdown... 

...7, (hear the diesel generators fire up outside way over by the maintenance shed) 

...6 ...5, (the generaters perform their circuit test) 

...4 ...3 ...2, and blink, the OR lights (and all the lighting and equipment around the compound) come back on, and Dr. Ed and the OR staff can resume the surgery like nothing happened at all.  You have to be calm, cool and collected to be a surgeon here!  We've been blessed with some very good ones, too.  This scenario has happened enough times that it is barely a discussion topic around the dinner tables in the guest house dining hall.

The other night we had Dr. Gail, a retired OB/Gyn and Dr. Samantha, a 4^th year family medicine doctor, over to our house for dinner as they would be departing in a couple of days for their homes in the US. As happens regularly, the power went out during dinner. Now, Dr. Gail has four grown boys of her own, and she understands boys!  When the lights went out she exclaimed “Hudson (who was sitting beside her) tried to kiss me!” Of course the lights came on to lots of laughter and a 7 year old boy blushing as he tried to explain she was lying. He was laughing as well, but professing his innocence!

Gail and Samantha.  A treat to have with us here!

A Rose By Any Other Name

We've used up almost all of our supply of juice crystals from home. This has led us to conserve what we have left, and branch out and experiment with the flavours offered here. There is Tang orange drink to be found. We have tried mango and also 'mixed fruit' crystals, to less than rave reviews around the table. We failed miserably on a couple others.

See Evidence Photo 1.

Rose Drink. It smelled pretty being poured out of the little packet (that should have been the first warning sign) as Keenan mixed the juice for us. Actually, he mixed two packets, because it was a hotter day here and we were all thirsty. He mentioned the odd smell and asked for a volunteer to sample this new concoction. His brothers were unusually silent for a change. Christine already had a glass of water poured, so the task fell to me.

I took a sniff first. If it passes the sniff test – which it didn't, to be honest – we move on to the taste test. Flowers, in juice? Whatever, we're in a new country so just try everything once, right? Oh my! This stuff was awful. The fragrance, the taste; it reminded me of the fancy little decorative hand soaps in my Grandma Penny's bathroom! Ughh, the taste just lingered in my mouth, too. It took a couple of bites of the chicken fajita to overpower the grandma-soap flavour of this rose drink. It truly was ghastly! I could almost taste the petals. My reaction was so bad that everyone wanted to try some – a very little bit, the chickens! - just to see if I was bluffing them!

To those that have financially supported us on this trip... we are sorry. We try to be careful with the money you have given in hopes of it being put to good use, but not this time. No, Keenan didn't even ask – he just walked over to the sink and started pouring it out! He brought this upon us, so he was taking it out! Dealing with it like a man should. That was fine with the rest of the family! No one (okay, maybe an unsuspecting house guest – insert evil laugh here) was going to be drinking 'the pink stuff'. The flower drink. Never again. It lives in infamy with us. A blight worse than the can opener incidents. This will be passed on down to future generations in Penny family folklore.

Rainfall!

We have had a few good rains here recently. The farmers have really needed it, as it was dry for too long recently. The best rainfall was 4.25” - in just three hours! If it fell that hard for the forty days and forty nights Noah experienced, we'd only have 113+ feet of water. Nowhere near enough to cover even the little mountains around here! And a long way off from what Noah and his family experienced with the Ark! Still enough to wash out a couple of village roads...

Like a waterfall, the rain pouring off the CMC roof

It's A Small World

We were at the market - and again on a mountain trail hike - with a surgeon and his wife, named Frank and Carol Roam. They spent some time at a hospital in Zambia – at Mukinge Hospital, where Nova Gayle (another missionary supported by our church) is currently serving. The world just got a bit smaller again!

The Roam's with Derek and Logan.

We hiked about halfway up that distant hill, before we turned
back as evening began to set in on us.

Pictures

Here are some more random pictures, with or without explanation.  These are just snapshots of life here in southern Togo.

A couple of shots of the boys helping the other kids at
"Pre-School" 

Bizarre sunset.  A cloud was blocking the half of the sun
just over the little mountain.

A BIG moth outside our door one night.  Looks ready for take-off!

Nurse Jonathan has joined us on a few walks outside the
compound.  He's lots of fun to have here.

Thatch roofed mud and clay huts.

Early morning shots over the valley between the mountians

A not-quite-fully-loaded Toyota Corolla station wagon.
A true workhorse vehicle here!

A different early morning hike up the mountain road rewarded us
with this view.

Enjoying all of God's creation - even huge worms!

Hope this guy doesn't meet oncoming traffic!

Another clay block home.

A favourite bird - the African Pied Hornbill

Well-used books in the doctor's lounge...

Cute kids are everywhere.

So small, such intricate designs.  Just for us to enjoy.