Kelsey’s Thankful List
Children
I
love kids. The most uplifting moments of my SALT experience have involved a
child. Teaching here is tough, but I’m pretty sure my students enjoy me as much
as I enjoy them. My favorite part of the day is in-between classes when my
students can find me and spit out a few English phrases. The other day I found
myself surrounded by about 20 or 30 children under the age of 9 (younger than
my students) who all wanted to shake my hand and know my name. We giggled at
each other for a good 5 minutes before I headed off to a friend’s office. I was
followed by a gaggle of children – a white duck with 10 little, black,
delighted, ducklings.
I also have a
fan club of children in my neighborhood. As soon as one spies me coming home
they all gather together and chant “Nasara! Nasara! Nasara!” – white girl. I
get to shake everyone’s hand before I close the gate to my yard. Then they peek
through the crack in the door and laugh and laugh. What a blessing!
Electricity
Every
hour that we have power is a good hour. Besides being able to use my computer
and charge my little phone, it also runs the ceiling fan in my room and the
light in my bathroom. I dislike using the bathroom in the dark (who doesn’t?)
and my room gets pretty hot by the end of the day. In addition, our family has
a mini-fridge where we store filtered water. If the current is strong enough
and we have had enough hours of power, we can fight the heat with a cool drink.
It is amazing how much the temperature of water matters when you spend your
entire day sweating buckets.
Mosquito nets
I
have grown to cherish my mosquito net. I got malaria a few weeks ago and it was
not fun. Anyone can get bit just walking outside, but there is comfort in
knowing that once I crawl into my bed at night I don’t need to worry about the
little devils hovering next to my ear. Another perk of having a mosquito net is
the protective barrier it forms against other critters that wander around my
room at night. Moths, cockroaches, and spiders stay out of my bed (other than
that one exception that I’m ready to talk about). My net also protects me from
the little geckos that like to scurry over my walls. They are actually very
cute when they are little, but I’ve learned that they grow up and try to live
in my closets. After finding three in my *ahem* undergarments, I finally
cracked and brought in outside help. There was a lizard massacre as my host
father and brother, armed with cockroach spray and a squeegee, rid my room of
geckos. The tails really do fall of and wiggle around on their own. I digress –
I am thankful for my protective mosquito net.
Music
This one does not need a
whole lot of explanation. The Chadians love their music. You can tell by the
way they throw their bodies and voices into a song. The church dances with the
choir, singing words they memorized as children. This is no Swiss Choral
singing. It is music almost shouted than sung with no thought to blending or
pitch, but it somehow manages to give me goose bumps every time. I am slowly
learning some of my host family’s favorite songs because we gather to pray and
sing every night at 9 o’clock sharp. By now I’ve got some of the melodies down,
but the French words give me some problems. It is a great way to learn a
language, and everyone is delighted when they catch me humming a familiar tune
during the day.
People
A huge topic, I know,
but when it comes down to it, this is what is most important, right? I miss my
family and my friends and my community. Even sitting in the middle of Africa, I
am incredibly thankful for the people at home who have shaped me into a person
strong enough to take on this experience. It is incredibly hard to be this far
away, with inconsistent communication, from the people I love. But I am
thankful for every letter, every email, every rare and poorly connected phone
call, every package (!), and every prayer that I know is being said. And I am
thankful that all the things I miss about home will be there when I get home.
Lastly,
I am thankful for the people God has placed here with me. My host family could
not be more hospitable and gracious. I have learned an incredibly amount from
them in the short time I’ve been here, and I am already dreading saying goodbye
at the end of the year. My fellow MCCers have also been a Godsend. I think all
the SALTers in Chad can agree that Angela and Jon Austin are amazing and
supportive Reps. The teachers at CENTRUM and Altonodji are quickly becoming my”
in” into Chadian life and I treasure every cup of tea with them. And then there
are the people whose names I don’t know, who cannot even pronounce my name,
that greet me every time they see me at church or wave from a passing moto.
My cup, with blessings, overflows.
So Happy Thanksgiving! Eat an
extra slice of leftover pie for me and know that I am thanking God for all of
you.
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| Puppies at Altonodji! |
