Friday, the summer program team piled into the Land Rover to explore the country a little and sees what types of field trips we could do with our kids this summer. We left the ship at about 9:30am to visit a number of places but that number had already been cut in have since we could only go in one direction from the ship due to demonstrations in town. The first place we stopped was the Sports Complex. As we were driving Nikki asked, "does anyone speak French?”I replied a little was a little hesitant with that. We got to the complex to see what they had and to negotiate a price for bringing the kids there. Well, three of us went into the office and asked if we could speak English. He said that he spoke very little and asked if we in French, I responded “un peu”. I found that I was able to understand more then I was able to speak, although it is coming back to me.
After visiting the Sports Complex, we headed back towards the ship to stop at a few other places. One of the last places we stopped was COCO BEACH. Driving through the streets to this was a great was to see the poverty level. It was fun to see the goats running free, driving through the tire high puddles, and watching the children run with the car to wave at the White people. Once we were at the beach we saw the waves. I thought the waves at Hampton Beach and Newport, RI were big but they did not compare to the waves here.
The waves are crashing on a break wall.
OK time to head back and get some lunch off the ship. We began our drive back but it was not long before we got in to a bottle neck of traffic. There are not really any road rules here in Togo. Pretty much, the idea is keep your eyes open and drive all over the road. Watch out for the zemi's (which are the motorcycles). At some points you will find three or four or more people at a time sitting on the bike. They also don’t wear helmets and if they do it could be anything. After sitting and not moving for over an hour we decided to turn around and go someplace different for lunch. We went back to Coco beach for lunch. Here is where you will all laugh at me. We are in a very French culture and the restaurant at Coco beach is French. The menu was in French with a few things in English. I looked over the menu and saw a few things that I wanted to try but then I saw Spaghetti Marina, I said of I want that, thinking it was Spaghetti and red sauce. We all placed our orders then waited. As we were waiting for our food we had a visitor. He was not really shy until you pulled out your camera. He would look at us and wiggle his eyebrows. His eyes got huge when our food arrived.
Well, as our food arrive I realized what I order was not what I thought. The waitress placed my plate in front of me and it was not red sauce but a plate of spaghetti and seafood. I am talking shrimp, muscles, fish, and other things I did not recognize. I think that this showed on my face because someone offered me their crepe au poulet avec verte salade. Ok time to head back to the ship or at least try. We didn’t get very far this time either. It was great to see the different stuff on the side of the road but after a while we saw the same thing. Three of us decided to walk back to ship or at least start back. So we began the journey back to the ship on foot. This was quite the experience. I really wish I had my camera or even my bag so I could have picked up souvenirs. After an hour of walking we finally made it back to the ship but none of us had our room keys. The group in the car was still stuck and not really moving. We arrived back at the ship at 3:30 and the car got back just before 6. I was glad to have gotten out.
Living on the ship and with restrictions has helped me to see that we really can’t control what is going to happen but that God has everything under control.
Trusting,
Heather
No comments:
Post a Comment