My Sickness in Fada

Hello Everyone,

The rest of my time in Fada, well in Africa, I was sick. Monday, April 20, it rained! It is only the third time we have seen rain in Africa. We rejoiced! Sonja and I went out and danced in the rain. Pastor Rufus came over to check on me since I was sick, which was nice , but frustrating because he wanted to cancel our programming because I was sick. Thankfully, Luke, our team leader, explained that if we didn't go when one of us was sick then we would hardly go at all.

Tuesday morning, the five of us (no Prosper) went to a Muslim high school to do a program. There were about 90 kids there. Most of the kids were in jeans; however, some of the girls followed the stricter Muslim practices by wearing scarves over their heads. We did an hour long program for them. They really appreciated our message of unity. Luke gave a neat message saying that he believes everyone is searching for the truth and that he believes that if people keep searching for the truth, they will find Jesus. Olivier translated what needed to be translated since Prosper wasn't there. Around 5, we went over to Pastor Rufus and walked from there to a nearby part of the city where there were about 10 people gathered. We did a program for some prostitutes. Their husbands were there too. It ended up being a group of 20. We did our whole program in English!! The people were there were from Ghana and Nigeria, so they spoke English. It was really fun to sing all of our songs in English, but it felt really weird. I actually missed singing in French. By the time we started, the sun was going down; therefore, it wasn't a very long program.

Wednesday, we met as a team to figure out what gifts to get for our host homes. We made also made some guitar string crosses for people. Late in the day, we had rehearsal for the concert. It was tough because the instruments weren't in tune with each other, but we got through it. We were tired and exhausted by the end of the day. We were surprised to learn that they needed us to go to a radio station at 7 in the morning. That was the first we had heard about that. I was happy to talk to my mom for awhile when I got back.

Thursday, they planned to pick us and go to a radio station, but they didn't have a car for us to ride in. So, they never picked Sonja and I up. They picked up the other three motos and they did the radio station alone. Then, again I wasn't feeling well. I had terrible diarrhoea; so, yet again, I didn't go. The other four went back to the village of Tanwalbougou. There wasn't any programming for them; they just went around and said goodbye to the people we met there. They also gave some money to the people that provided meals for us when we stayed out there. Sonja got some special gifts from Narcisse, her special admirer. Narcisse gave her two bracelets, a basket, and a hat for her dad. He really liked her. It gave Sonja mixed feelings. They all had a great time in Tanwalbougou, while I tried to feel better. Carine (from France) and Mark (from England) came over with Pastor Rufus to talk to me. Carine and Mark take care of SIM, so we got to know them there. Pastor Rufus asked them to come visit me so that he could understand the confusion that had happened between us because we are from very different cultures. The whole conversation was very odd, but it was nice to see Carine and Mark again.

Friday morning, I rested, then in the afternoon, we were very busy going to radio stations. We went to two radio stations and sang a few songs on the radio to advertise for our concert in the evening. We had a short break, then did one more radio station. Then, we went to the concert competition thing that was before the concert. The contestants drew a song out of a hat and had to sing that song and dance to it. It got annoying soon because there were only two songs to choose between. The dancing was funny though. It lasted for about an hour and a half. Then, us girls went off to eat, while Luke stayed and watched Israel, Pastor Rufus' son who had been left with us. We came back and set up then waited for them to tell us when our program would start. There were two people that also sang for the concert; okay, one sang, the other lip synced. We did two songs, then each of them did two songs; and this happened three times. It was almost 10 when the concert started; we were told it was at 8. We were sooo tired, but we got through it. It was a very interesting concert for us because we had two mics and our guitar was plugged in. However, nothing was balanced, so it didn't sound that great (to us at least) and we sounded way different than we are used to sounding. It was a very long night. We said goodbye to some of the people we gotten to know. We finally got back to our host homes at midnight!!

We thought that we would be meeting at 10 in the morning to go to Ouaga on Saturday, but instead, Pastor Rufus called us at 6:45 a.m. and told us to meet at the bus station at 8:00. Pastor Rufus called the girls hosts, but he never called Luke. Thankfully, Sonja went to get Luke. We all got to the bus station, earlier than needed. We were sad to leave our hosts, but also felt it was time to go because we had been in Fada for a long time. We left Fada for Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, at 9:30.

More coming soon!


Peace,

Tiffany