16 GOATS. (11052009)

GOATS. Who knew? I just spent a day in Africa and much of that day was focused on goats and... it was GREAT.

This morning, I went with my friend’s family and a new couple I just met to a village town I have been in since I arrived in Africa. And, I quickly learned that village life is really different from city life. One of the first things I noticed was: CLEAN AIR. Being in the big African city made me thankful for the States’ regulations on car exhaust. Being in the country made me thankful for this area’s lack of cars. I felt like some of the back roads we went on saw just a few cars each day. People would try to hitch a ride when we rode by and kids would run after our car when we drove past.

After driving the bumpy journey that lasted till lunch featuring BEAUTIFUL views of hills, valleys and plains, we arrived at the home of the family who would be hosting us for the day... and, we were far out. The family hosting us is working alongside a small people group in the country. They have been in the countryside for awhile now, getting to know the people and slowly being welcomed into the culture. They have a young children which I am learning proves a huge challenge for the family, especially whenever around the local kids. Think about it: the local kids haven’t ever seen a white person before and then one shows up at their daycare? Chaos. People living in foreign lands have so many different obstacles that I wouldn’t have ever even thought of.

After lunch, we rode even further out so that the father of the family could show us where his work takes place. It was a 45 minute drive on SUPER bumpy dirt roads with huge holes to get there. I liked it. :) I have learned that cars here have to be different. Almost all of them are cars that you would take mudding in the States... it’s simply that mudding here is called driving. The cars are all 4-wheel drive and kind of make me wish I had one at home. :)

The father explained to us what he does in the countryside and I LOVED hearing his story. He is working on what I will affectionately call: The Goat Project: He has lived in the rural country for awhile, learning the ropes and especially the needs of the people. Soon after coming here, he became aware of the need for goats, especially in families where the mother has been widowed. The goats are needed for milk and if owned, are a huge asset to a family. So, he took action: getting in touch of the government, he was able to obtain a plot of land at the end of a long, bumpy :) road. The land is being used to raise lots and lots of goats. Now, he is able to seasonally give these goats away. Women who are part of the project take the goats to the widows and other women in need and talk with them, hoping to build lasting relationships. In exchange for the goat, he requests that the women give back to the project (not financially, but in other ways). He also uses the goat farm for growing wheat and other crops. And on top of that, he even can sell goat milk from the goats being raised on the farm. In doing these things, he has making the farm into a self-supported project. Yes, AMAZING.

So... here are some observations I made and things I learned from today... which could possibly be my very best day in Africa:

• The absence of time. In the countryside, no one knows what the time, day, month or year is. This also means they don’t know their own age which is funny to me since me make such a hoopla about birthdays in the States.

• Bible times. It’s true. My friends here told me that I am seeing life as it was in 140 AD. What an incredible privilege to see the world as it was. It has given me a different and better appreciation for certain stories in the Bible, too. I will explain more about this in my debrief about the whole experience in this country.

• Power as a luxury. Most don’t have power and those that do often experience blackouts (no power) or brownouts (partial power). And, you know they don’t have LG&E to call when it is out. They just wait. It is often because the power doesn’t exist in amounts great enough to send out on a consistent basis. (We actually ate lunch during a brownout.)

• Water as a luxury. The access to it is a luxury. Often, people have to travel far to get it, for their families or for their livestock and crops. You will often see people carrying large plastic containers of water or leading donkeys who do the carrying for them. And another site I have seen EVERYWHERE, not just in the countryside, is: shepherds leading goats, sheep or cows to find green pastures and water for the animals.

• Shepherds. I like shepherds. If I could be in Africa for a day and do whatever I wanted, I would like to follow around a couple of the little boys who are shepherding animals. We saw several from the car and a few when we walked from the goat farm to see a nearby, and much sought after, river. They stopped, watched us, and smiled. One of the shepherds for one herd did a little jump over a hill and onto the back of one of his cows. He was showing off for us, I think. :)

• The goat farm, of course. It was pretty amazing how everything was set up to make things happen. An an office had been built, along with a lookout tower (for hyenas, etc... recently, a hyena carried a goat away-YES, another reminder that I am in AFRICA), a barn, a holding area for quarantined animals and an area for the collection of the goat milk. While on the farm, we got the grand tour and saw everything.

• Lots of farmers. Most of the whole country is made of subsistence farmers... and they are everywhere.

• A new custom. As usual, it is customary to serve coffee here. That seems natural. The new part to me that it is customary to serve popcorn with your coffee, often popcorn with sugar and salt. It sounds weird, but I like it. Maybe I’ll recommend that to Starbucks.

• Another coffee delight: a goat milk macchiato. It doesn’t sound good... but it definitely is good. I was served a couple of them (coffee is served in very small portions here) at the goat farm by the young worker girl there who is responsible for helping at the farm and preparing goat milk from the goat so it can be sold. She was very kind and pretty and had a great smile. If I lived here, I would hope to be her friend.

• Huts. Yep, that’s right. Straw-roofed huts are what this people group lives in. They are small, medium or large (the largest still small, though, from the American perspective) and the size is the only way to tell the difference between any two homes.

• A village without ambulances. Two times, I saw a group of people carrying a sick person to a hospital. There is one hospital in the village (that I heard was not good at all) and when someone gets sick, they are placed on a homemade stretcher and carried by four people along the side of the road to get help. One time, I saw a couple people pulling a two-wheeled cart with a sick person on it. This was all hard for me to see since the people I was with told me that these sick people probably wouldn’t live. I was also told that if a family waited so long to take someone to the hospital that they couldn’t walk there themselves, that they probably waited too long for the hospital to even be able to help.

• 10-year-olds responsible for kids. When passing by small groups of huts, sometimes I would see a kid, probably around 10-years-old, taking care of SEVERAL little kids, at least one on the back of the 10-year-old in a cloth pouch. I really don’t think that the parents of the kids were around either. There are too many things to do in the day for basic life needs for the parents to have time to watch the kids, I think. However, it looked like all the young caregivers were responsible. I imagine they were raised to grow up much faster than I was in the States.

• Speaking of which, new age expectations. At age six, you are a shepherd, taking care of several animals and herding them sometimes miles away for food and water. At age eight, you begin taking care of the younger kids. At age ten, you are doing manual labor. At age 12, some might even get married. While these aren’t rules or anything, you can find this pattern some within this people group.

• Wheat harvesting... and it was amazing. I have never looked out into a field of wheat and seen several workers cutting and gathering the wheat into lots of piles to be collected. It was a beautiful site.

• Soybeans. While at the goat farm, I got to see three women sitting on a large fabric of some sort where soybeans were. They sat on the ground, working with their hands and preparing the beans for consumption.

Something that I learned today was about passion. I have recently been thinking about how we, as believers, can decide what to do with our lives by determining out burden, our passion and our vision... and then creating our mission (statement, almost) from these things. However, today I saw a beautiful life story being written outside of my formula for life planning. :) I saw a man and his wife bring their family to an unknown territory because of their heart’s burden. And to help people they are burdened for, this family is doing something they may not have been passionate about to start with, but have grown to like. Nothing in the States made them think that goats are their passion. No, they are living their life because they are learning that, not their personal passion, but their burden, is what mattered most.

I am so thankful for this day.

Wish you all could have been there,

Laura