Mission to Benin: May 2015

Tuesday 26 May 2015

Sweaty man!

Just when we thought the hot season was over, it seems to have returned with a vengeance... Or at least much greater humidity than before.

For example, look at the photo below (note the giant sweat patch in the middle of the T-shirt and lots of sweat blobs on the shorts). It was taken after an activity.

Was the activity:
A) 2 hours of football,
B) 1 hour of running, or
C) 20 minutes of eating lunch indoors ?

You guessed it! After eating lunch, we literally had beads of sweat covering our arms and arms sticking to the plastic table cloth, trails of sweat dripping down our fronts and backs and sopping wet faces... That somewhat takes the enjoyment out of eating.

Really really really can't wait for the rainy season to begin !!!

Saturday 23 May 2015

And then the sand arrived!!

Here's the current state of the building site after a tonne of sand got dumped!

What a great playground for the kids, lol...

There are lots of 'sand pits' around Kandi because the whole town is like a giant building site. Everyone seems to have a stack of bricks and a pile of sand on a plot of land: a house just waiting to be built. And in the meantime, the kids can all practice their gymnastics moves!!

Thursday 21 May 2015

'Chaînage bas'

As a result of the church building project, I am just about fluent in French African-specific building construction vocabulary ! No idea what most of the words mean in English though!!

So what I can tell you now is that we have 'coulé' most of our 'chaînage bas' at the front of the building and the 'coffreur' is finishing his contribution to the 'chaînage bas' at the back of the building. The 'ferrailleur' (that's ironmonger I suppose) has been very busy making 'étriers' for the 'poteaux' (pillars) and now there are some new guys shovelling 'remblai' to fill up the foundations at the front of the church.

If you didn't understand much of that, here are the latest pictures!

You can see the copper wire in one photo - that's to protect the building from lightning strikes.

Here's a zem (moto-taxi) delivering some 'fer de 6' (iron bars with a diameter of 6mm). Basically, the iron rests on his front mud-guard and he drags it along the road, usually with lots of sparks flying up!

And here is the beautiful greenery of Kandi! If only it was like that all year round...

Friday 15 May 2015

Me and my African baby

Ok, for all you grammar freaks, I know it should 'My African baby and me' but that just doesn't sound as good :P

Having secretly wished to try out carrying a baby African-style for several months, I jumped at Maman Bio's suggestion that I put Danny (Pastor Raoul's youngest) on my back. He was already asleep in my arms - probably the only baby in this country who isn't the least bit scared of my white skin!

Here we are after tonight's Revelation seminar at church...

He was very content (and so was I!) for ages, right up until he saw Pastor Badé's car light up and realised his parents might be going home without him! Wouldn't be the first time some parents have left church without their child, lol... I'm not scarred ;-)

Although I'm not convinced carrying a baby like that is good for its growing bones, it's really quite comfortable and very easy to get on with various tasks as both hands are free!

Broody? Oh yes!

Tuesday 12 May 2015

Muddy puddles on site

Despite the torrential rain of Sunday evening (Praise the Lord for the rain!!), the building work is full steam ahead. There are some muddy puddles in the foundation trenches but nothing unmanageable. The walls which will form the foundations are now quite high at the front of the new church building so we start to realise how much it will stick out of the ground! The reason for that is that our plot of land is very low compared with the road level, so the building has to be raised up to avoid flooding issues. (There were some major flooding issues in Kandi on Sunday. The road outside Educolo was totally flooded. Elsewhere a bridge over a gutter was destroyed - possibly before the rain came - and a relative of one of our nodding acquaintances stepped into the gutter to cross to the other side during the storm and was sadly swept away to her death.)

Here's the building as of yesterday:

And Etienne doing a stock check with our OCD (excellent) stock manager, Papa Pierre:

And finally, some large puddles outside CEG2:

The temperatures are slightly lower than before because of the rain - good news!!!

Women's Ministries

Sunday saw the relaunch of Women's Ministries at Kandi Church. Denise was recently elected as the leader so Elmire is training her up !

Six of us met up to study the Bible and pray together and then learn how to make washing up liquid as a way of saving money (you get ripped off if you buy it from someone else!).

The process was pretty interesting...

1. Get a big bucket and some women with stamina.

2. Squirt lots of a special type of gel into the bucket.

3. Mix it like crazy for ages until it goes white and a bit thick.

4. Add some salt water slowly and mix slowly.

5. When it frothes up, realise that something has gone wrong...

6. Add more salt and more water and stir with you hand. Then make sure you do not rub your eye!

7. Add some acid and colouring, because pink is much more fun than white!

8. Put it in a bottle!

Gifts always put smiles on people's faces, especially in Bénin!! :-)

Displaced!

When the construction work started, the small room which is normally used for Children's Sabbath School became a store room for concrete...

Since there was no room left inside the building, we sought refuge in the small patch of shade at the back of the Dialogue Centre. Unfortunately the tilt of the Earth has now changed sufficiently that there isn't really much shade left there on a Saturday morning!

One of the deacons saw our suffering and suggested he build something to accommodate us (and also provide shade for the workmen during the week). We are very happy with the result!!