The right way to turn left

Today, I experienced another first. I was involved in an automobile accident. Don’t get upset though, we’re all okay. However, let me give a bit of background before I tell you what happened.

Our ministry leaders, Danny and AnnMarie Isenring have been here for about 10 days of their 2 week visit. We’ve had a great time with them and been very encouraged and uplifted. AnnMarie was treating the females of the family to a “girls afternoon” and we were all excited. I had made an appointment with the—as far as I know only—hairdresser who does white peoples’ hair and we were on our way there. When I drive here in Lomé, I like to find ways to get places making only right turns so I don’t have to cross the crazy traffic. I know most of my routes and had mine all planned out. However, I accidentally turned down the wrong road at one point and decided to turn left onto the next street to correct my mistake and get back on track. I put on my blinker, stopped, waited for the oncoming motorcycle then began to turn. As I began, a car came from nowhere on my left and I hit them on their passenger side, door. It wasn’t as bad as it could’ve been because I saw him just in time and he was going very fast. It was, nonetheless, an accident. (By the way, our car wasn’t damaged at all. It hit the iron grill cover thingy on the front doing damage to the other car without hurting ours. Poetic justice as we have a bit of a “junker” and theirs was a very new-looking BMW SUV.) I became an instant nervous wreck, Meme, our house-helper who was with us, got angry with the other driver and AnnMarie did the only sensible thing and began to pray!

Fortunately, a soldier had apparently seen the whole thing and came up to us both. I think had he not come, I would’ve kept driving as I didn’t want to face the other driver even though it was entirely his fault. I had given my papers to the soldier and was getting out of the car when the driver and all the other men traveling with him—there were at least 3 of them—came up and started yelling at me and everyone who didn’t believe he was innocent. Now, you must remember, the girls were also in the car. They saw all this and were getting increasingly scared. The soldier, who was by this time joined by a few others was telling the men to be nice and calm down. Then we all “went to our corners” and waited for the Commandant to arrive. When he came, they all had to test my turn signal, which worked beautifully, and then the other driver tried to argue with him for a while. Eventually, the commandant turned to me and asked, “What do you say?” I finally replied, in my elementary French, that it was forbidden to pass on the left of someone who was turning in that direction, and that I had indicated and was even stopped, waiting to turn. We were then sent to some office but never got there as we were called back. The soldiers had left and the other men wanted to try and bully me to get some money. As our car wasn’t harmed (even if it had been we wouldn’t have ever gotten any money out of these guys) and I wasn’t about to pay him for the damage he caused, I told him it was his problem and we all got in the car and drove off. Besides, we were late for our hair appointment!

God took care of us the whole way. It was a miracle that we were safe and that the soldiers were there to help us. When they realized the girls were in the car and that they were scared, they made sure the other men were kept away from it and made to keep their voices down.
It was also a miracle that Meme and AnnMarie were there. When I had to go to this other office, Meme went with me and AnnMarie stayed with the girls. She comforted them and prayed with them and for me the whole time. Mobile phones are wonderful gadgets, but only when they are with you. I had, for the first time, forgotten mine and couldn’t even call Roger!!! (Where are men when you need them?!)

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Did you have a nice celebration? We sure did. We even ate turkey and cranberry sauce! Those are real treats, as we don’t normally get either here. It was great to spend the afternoon with friends and meet new ones. Our girls especially enjoyed making new friends. It’s only a pity that they live in another town, about a 6 hours drive from Lomé. Never mind, just knowing they are there is a blessing!

My quote of the day is from Sydney. She came bouncing into the kitchen at 6:30am—there should be a law against being so happy at that hour—telling me that she had been singing a song since she woke up. It goes like this: “And we offer up to You, the sacrifices on Thanksgiving…” I guess they are only offered ON Thanksgiving, not on other days.

Her other quote was just now as I was praying and chatting with her before saying good night. I said that we will have a great day tomorrow as the new girls we met will come and play. She said, “But today, we had a FEAST.” It was truly a feast, for our stomachs and for our “Friend Meters”. Thanks God!

The African children DO have names

Well, as of tomorrow, Sydney will have gone to the local maternelle 2 weeks. Roger drops her off on his way to work and I pick her up at 11:30. Some mornings she doesn't want to go. She says they speak French and she doesn't understand. It must be a bit difficult at times.

I believe she doesn't get to talk much at school, because the whole walk home is one long monologue. She talks non-stop about all she did at school or all she learned that day, or about how badly she needs to go to the toilet--I think she's afraid of the "squat pot" at school.

Learning French was one reason we were glad for her to go to the maternelle. Another was for her to make friends, of which she has a few. She talks about them often. At first they had no names, it was just, "the girl with the hair leelees" (most of the girls have their hair in braids) or "the boy with the brown sandals". One girl is called "the thumper girl" because Sydney taught her how to thump things--and, unfortunately, people. However, she came home Monday with a name, Israel. He seems to be the boy she plays with the most. The 2 of them find and collect bottle caps, which Sydney calls "wine bottle lids", and do various other things.

Today she had some big news. She had found out the name of another girl. Ida (pronounced Eeda for all the anglophones). This was particularly noteworthy because one of Fiona's favorite shows is one she saw in Germany about a sort of Dennis-the-Menace character with a longsuffering sister named Ida. Sydney somehow identifies herself with this little sister and was particularly excited to get home and tell Fiona. Now we have 2 names. Oh, and there is another Marie as well, but we don't hear much about her.

One thing is really annoying. It actually seems that WE don't have names here. We thought we'd gotten used to the fact that people call us "Yovo" whenever we show up. But now it has taken on another dimension. There have been days, when I pick Sydney up at lunch time, where half the school has followed us, chanting "Yovo, Yovo..." Imagine the Pied Piper being followed, and you would have a pretty good picture. It's a bit sad as the school has tried to tell the other students that we are their "friends" and not just "white people". I guess it's just another "learning" opportunity.

We knew it was going to happen one day...

We have just finished a weekend of passing two major milestones here in Togo. The first one was Fiona's 8th birthday on Saturday. She had a wonderful day which started with breakfast in bed. After which she opened presents from Germany, America and Togo.


In the afternoon, she had a party with all 5 kids we know here in Lome. They played 8 games--since she turned 8--and ate birthday cake (which she decorated herself) and ice cream. The day ended with pizza at a local pizzeria with 'the Fam'. The next day we even had surprise visitors who live in another village about 3 hours drive away. We had a great time swimming and eating with them.


Our second milestone (or was it more a stumbling block?) was Elena's first malaria. On Thursday she had a terrible headache that wouldn't go away and that night she went from sweating profusely to freezing. Roger took her to the laboratory on Friday morning where they tested her and found weak signs of malaria. She took her medicine, which she said tasted terrible, and is now back to normal. This medicine worked really well and she was already feeling better by Friday evening.

Elena says, she doesn't want to remember feeling sick. We're hoping that her memory won't be refreshed for a long time.