I will post a few pictures from the workshop below, I promise I won’t feel bad if you skip the reading and go right for the pictures.

We recently had the privilege of going through the CUTE workshop here with fellow missionaries who are in the language learning process with us. The principles we learned are part of the Growing Participator Approach by Greg Thompson. The idea is that as we learning language and culture we are growing in our participation as well as our ability to participate in our new community (Senegal). The goal of the workshop was to help us better understand the method we are using for learning French, both the theory behind it and the the practical steps in order to accomplish our goals in language learning. In the mornings we were reviewing, learning and understanding the concepts and practical steps. In the afternoons we were with our nurturer (person who is helping us learn language and culture) putting the new tools into practice. The format was wonderful, in the morning you think you understand it clearly, until you try to actually follow the steps with your nurturer in the afternoon. It really helped solidify the principles and methods so that we will be able to put them to work.

So why CUTE and can these principles get CUTER?
C – Communing – Becoming a real, interesting, valued person in a growing number of host lives
U – Understanding – Becoming someone who host people can talk to and share their burdens with
T – Talking – Becoming someone host people can listen to and interact with
E – Evolving – Is an overarching principle of the first 3 meaning we seek to grow and keep changing as our ability to do the first 3 increases
R – Redemption – How God is at work in our “language learning” to draw people to Himself and change their hearts.

Please pray with us as we go through this process of changing, learning and growing into servants of the church here in Senegal.

From Cute Language Learning Workshop 2012, posted by Jonathan-Jenny Roundy on 1/24/2012 (4 items)

Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher

Waly and I at Thanksgiving

I want to share a fun story from our experience of learning culture (way of living or doing life) here in Senegal. I must admit that too often I think of the things that are different from home and that I am having difficulty adjusting to.  When I do this, I miss out on so much that is positive about the culture here in our new home, Senegal.

One of the things that takes up a considerable part of our days here in Senegal is getting our kids to and from school.  We have experimented with different ways of getting this accomplished.  Taking the city bus, taking taxis, taking the bus one way and a taxi the other way, getting a taxi for the round trip etc.  After all of this experimenting,  we were beginning to think about trying to find a taxi driver and make an agreement for him to do the round trip every morning and afternoon for an agreed upon taxi fare.  An aspect of culture here is that you have to barter with the taxi driver for the fare EVERY time.  Each taxi driver may or may not be willing to adjust there fare, so you may have to wait for several taxis to go by.

One evening I was down visiting our friend Waly at the boutique (corner store).  Waly’s friend and neighbor, Mbarick came into the store and was sitting watching TV.  Mbarick then said something to Waly in a local language (Wolof).  Waly then relayed to me that if  I was outside at the bus stop with the kids a few minutes before 7AM that Mbarick would take me and the kids to school each day on his way to work.  Waly noticed that where our kids go to school is on Mbarick’s way to work, and he had asked Mbarick if he would be willing to drop us off at school each morning. (Right now the kids are riding to school with Sharon, who also takes her daughter to the same school each morning, but we wanted to share this story with you to get a window into our world of adjustments.)

This story fits into some of what we have observed here in Senegal which is that people just help each other.  All of the time, not just close friends, but even people they don’t know.  Another example, on our way back from French class we can spend a considerable amount of time at a bus stop.  We started noticing partially full taxis stopping and filling up with people from the bus stop.  We also noticed personal vehicles and even company vehicles stopping and people piling in for a free ride.  We asked our language and culture helper about this and she shared with us that this is common here.  People understand that transportation is hard, especially in our neighborhood, so they pick up those waiting for the bus and take them to the round-a-bout in the neighborhood, which gets them well on their way to where they need to go.

We are so thankful for those that are praying for us as we continue this process of understanding our new context here in Senegal and adapting to the culture here.  It is all so new and different.  We continue to be reminded that we are in a new culture now for just over four months.  This means that, in a lot of senses, we are like four month-olds here in Senegal i.e. we have a TON to learn and we do not know very much.

Getting ready to blow out the candles

With all of our different moves, it seems that we make them before August when Emmanuel’s birthday is, so he usually gets to be the first one to celebrate another year of life in our new context.

Enjoying cake and ice cream with friends

Thank you so much all of you who have been and are praying for our family.  Part of adjusting to our life here in Senegal is to build new friendships.  Emmanuel having friends to invite to his birthday is a direct answer to your prayers for friends for each of us.  Please continue to pray for us as we build relationships here in Senegal.

The force is strong with you young roundy

Boba Fett - loving the dress-ups

We are so excited with Emmanuel for his new bike

Please pray for us as we parent all four of our children through this transition and beyond.  We truly need wisdom from above to parent each one of our children.

Mosquito Nets are important

This is a picture of one of the girls beds all setup with their mosquito nets.  It is important to sleep with a mosquito net because there are a lot of mosquitoes here, even in our house.  Not only can they keep you awake by buzzing and making you itch, but they also can bring some nasty diseases like malaria.

The fan is also important this time of year as it is the hot period in the year.  The fans help us sleep at night.

Please pray for our health that God would protect us.  Even with the measures we use to protect ourselves, we are still getting bitten many times per day by mosquitoes.

James with our new mortar for in the kitchen

One of the new things that we got for our kitchen and for preparing Senegalese meals.  I know they can use it to grind pepper, I saw Eliane smashing onions with it to to make a sauce, I think.

New Pot for cooking - notice the feet

The new pot has a thick bottom and feet, I presume for cooking over a fire.  The middle foot is cut off in order for it to work on the stove.

Basket for steaming over our new pot

The two blue buckets are for filtering our water.  We put the unfiltered water in the top bucket and there are three filters in between the two buckets that filter the water into the bottom bucket.

Thanks so much for your prayers.  All of these small little difference add up to a quite different way of life.  Please pray that we will trust Him as we make adjustments to our life and ministry in Senegal.

So, what is culture anyways.  This is not a dictionary definition, but it is the way you do or go about life.  So, one of our experiences since we arrived in Senegal was to get a telephone and internet setup here at the house.  I thought I would tell you a bit about our experience to kind of bring you along for the “ride”.

Our gracious host, Jerome, took me down to the Sonatel/Orange office to order internet.  I had heard tell that internet could take a month to get setup, but was trying to be more optimistic.  We went into the office and pulled our number.  It was a very nice air conditioned office, so waiting in “line” was a pleasure.  We met with one of the clerks to get our order setup so we could go pay and then await installation.

We made our selection of modem, speed, phone contract for the landline etc.  Then we found out that the pairs had to be verified before we could pay and have things installed.  When the pairs were verified we were to receive a call letting us know to come and pay.  A few days later I saw a Sonatel technician outside my house and went out to talk with him.  It turns out he was here to fix a problem at the neighbors, but he gave me his number and told me to call him the next day.  I tried calling him and even spoke with him several times, but did not end up being able to get the pairs verified by him.

During this waiting period, probably after a week I was talking to a young man who works in the boutique next to our house.  He was reading a book about computers when I entered the store.  We talked some about that and he said he was interested in learning about computers etc.  I told him that I am trained in computers etc.  During our conversation I found out that he has internet and WIFI and was willing to allow us to connect.  We are  so thankful for that connection with the young man at the boutique as well as the connection to the web during that time.  We found it was hard to connect from our house, but it was a blessing none the less.

We waited a few more days, then I went back down to the office to see what was up.  I saw the same lady and she looked into things for me.  The pairs had not been verified yet, but she thought they could be by Tuesday and said she would manage the process to help it happen quickly.

I got a call one or two days later that I could come down and make my payment, wohoo!!!!  I will tell more about getting there and back in another post, Getting around Town.

I went down, made my payment and received my modem and telephone handset I had ordered.  They were to come within 5 days if I remember right, maybe it was 2 or three.  Anyhow, the technicians came out about 2 days later and connected the phone line.  The phone was working later that same day and they gave me a number to call to setup internet connectivity.

I called the number and they told me to be patient, that my account had not be activated yet, please wait two days from when the phone line was installed for activation.  So, I waited two days, this time I was told that it was still not active and to be patient, they had up to 15 days from my order (which they sited as the day I paid) to activate my account, but they would put in a request to speed it up and that I should check back in two days.  I checked back and still nothing, and again about the 15 days.  I am not certain how many different times I called, but it was pretty often trying to get my account active.

I called and said I was going to need to cancel my account if I could not get it activated etc etc.  They said, no, it’s not the time to do that, we will get it active.  They made and “urgent request” for my account to be activated.  I also started using the date I first when down to the office during one of my calls and said, it had been 20 days since then.  So, in the end our internet is active.  In our mind this is not how I wanted things to go, but you know, it really is just different, things work differently here and we are on a journey of discovering what that means for us in everyday life.

Around Town

We have been learning about how to get around town.  It has been quite the journey.  I wanted to learn about the city bus that could take us to the kids school.  I had been given a bus number to catch and so began asking where to catch this bus.  I walked with the kids to a more major road about 15 minutes away.  We waited 30 to 45 minutes for bus 42 to come by.  After that we realized that bus 40 was the one we really needed, and several of those had already gone by.  We got on the bus and about 5 minutes later the bus drove RIGHT IN FRONT OF OUR HOUSE.  I guess that is all part of learning about getting around town.

Another way to get around town is with taxis.  We are still in the process of figuring out what fares are supposed to be.  When I was trying to get to the office to find out about our internet and telephone hookup I asked a man at the bus stop how much a cab would be to the internet office, to which he responded ohh…don’t do that, just walk over that way under the free way to the round about, cross the round about and get a little white car, then get a car rapid which will pass right in front of the internet companies offices.  This was tiring, but did end up being much less expensive.  The little white cars are actually called Clandos (short for clandestined), not a good report on the condition of the vehicles.

We are learning much still about how to get around town and what challenges we might face.   On friday night we were riding in a taxi on the way to and from dinner at some fellow missionaries house.  We ended up driving through a portion of the freeway that was flooded with water and sewage, both going and coming.

Please continue to pray for our family as we adjust to this new culture or way of life.  It can definitely be stressful and tiring.

Jenny using our stove, small isn't it?

It is amazing how small our stove is; it seems somewhat like a toy?  Could it be that we cook in easybake ovens here?  It works well and we are able to do all of the same functions as a bigger stove, so that is good.  Did you notice the legs on the pot on the stove?

I also found the connection to the gas bottle…”interesting”.  We are sharing with you these new experiences so that you, our partners in prayer and support, can go on this journey of adjusting with us and know better how to pray.  No one adjustment is the end of the world, but the combination of them is quite overwhelming.  Thanks for your prayers!

Connection to Gas bottle for our stove

Kitchen - notice the blue containers, thats for filtering water for drinking

The way the water filter works is that you fill the top bucket and it drips through filters into the bottom bucket where you can get the water out through a spigot.

Our Fridge, next to the water barrel

Mosquito Zapper

So, how do you like our new tennis racket?  I especially like the lightning bolt in the middle.   It is actually a brand new mosquito zapper.  It’s like a bug zapper, except better, because you can chase after those pesky things and swipe at them while holding the “zap button”.  It works pretty well and it is quite useful.  In some regards, it doesn’t do much against the hoards of mosquitoes, but we can clear out any invaders in our mosquito nets.

So this has been a quite handy little tool.  When the mosquitoes get inside your mosquito net, or the kitchen is loaded with them, you can take them right out of the air with this bad boy!  If you use it to much, is that mosquito elbow or tennis elbow?

Water Barrel in case the water goes off

One of the things that our family has been adjusting to is the sporadic availability of things we were used to having all of the time.  The electricity and or the water can go off at any time, for any length of time.  With this handy barrel full of water, we can keep the house going with bucket baths to stay cool, flushing the toilet, rinsing and washing dishes, water to filter etc.  We do have a tank on the roof that fills up and supplies us through most outages, but if it is off for too long, or the pressure is not good enough to get water into the tank, the barrel it is.

When we first arrived there was a plumbing problem that allowed our tank to fill at night, but then in the morning when the water went off, our tank water would run right back out into the water system for the neighborhood to use.  It didn’t really last very long, but PTL the plumber came and that is all working now as long as we have water often enough and with enough pressure.