How to Make a Proper Headress

I had a headress made to go with my pink African dress.  I found a sweet lady at the Marian Market to make it for me.  She was so tickled that I came to her shop.  I picked out the stiff, shiny fabric and she went to work making it on a wooden head held between her knees.  The headress is held together with pins.  I just put it on when I am ready to wear it.  I need to find a hat box to store it in to keep it safe.

She was so surprised when I requested to have a picture taken with her also.  A crowd gathered and wanted to see my digital pictures on my camera.  All the ladies were smiling and sharing in the fun.  She also sells wigs and hair extensions.

Update from Alaska

If you have been following my teaching blogs you may remember the horrific story I told about the 3 year old who froze to death in the town where I was teaching in Alaska.  Below is a link to the latest news story.
7-year-sentence-in-toddlers-death

Personally, I think this is outrageous! Where is the justice in this? This was a preventable death. It was a horrific way for this child to die. I think he deserves to get at least the number of years she could have lived. I believe in forgiveness but drinking alcohol is a choice and being responsible for young children is not.  I am choosing not to retell the details the article left out.  It is just so incredibly sad.  I led a teacher donation of gifts for the little sister who lived and the oldest daughter who fortunately was not there that day that following Easter.  Their lives were forever changed by those two irresponsible adults.

 

An Adoption Nightmare Story

I just received the following note from a long-time friend I recently connected again with.  I had posted the information about the adoption grants on Facebook and she read my note.  This is just what the adoption agency warned us could happen.  It is just so hard to not want to adopt them all.  I deleted some of her note to help keep her identity private.

Pam, I believe your heart is in the right place... and please don't think badly of me... but my dear hubby and I adopted two "healthy" boys from ______ and they have done horrible things to us! One set fire to the house (w/ me in it, recuperating from surgery). The other cost me my career. They were 11 when we adopted them. Now, they have twisted everything in their minds to believe that we "stole" them from their brilliant homeland. Nothing we did for them was enough or good enough. We've prayed. We've sought help through church and community. Thank GOD they are finally out of the house! They've cost us everything except (thank God) our marriage! We just wanted to love them and help them out. We were completely unprepared for the years of their anger and pain to be taken out on us. Please read this to Clint and think it over very, VERY carefully! It doesn't seem like it, but this child you're considering adopting may be much better off, left with everything he's ever known... rather than taken to our completely different, highly competitive, consumer-oriented and critical world. There may be opportunities here for him, but there will also be crushing competition for work, bitter criticism, and a whole new culture (possibly language, too) that he'll have to deal with. Can you picture him surrounded by punks his age? How will he deal with peer pressure? Sexuality (which is way over-emphasized in our culture, in my opinion)? American teen angst? Racial strife (so prevalent in our culture, no matter how hard we fight it)? How will he work out that adolescent coming of age (moving away from you and onto his own) while you are trying to bond with him? How will you deal with it? Is Clint really ready for it? What about your other kids?

I'm not alone. Loads of other well-meaning, Christian parents have taken on these kids... and their lives have been completely devastated because of it: family pets killed, siblings or neighbor kids (grand kids) raped, marriages, homes, jobs lost... and not because these folks forgot to pray, or because they didn't have Christ as center of their lives, or they didn't really try. On the contrary, many of them spent every penny they had on therapists and doctors, took therapeutic vacations, connected with the home cultures, attended seminars and conferences, sent their kids to fancy rehab centers... and so forth. Are you and Clint really prepared to spend the rest of your lives, and money you don't have, taking care of this kid while he tries to kill you? I may not actually be kidding. These kids go through hell and they have plenty of hell to put others through on their road to wholeness... and they may never become anything even close to whole.

_________ says, "The world has a soft spot in its tired, old heart for abandoned orphans. Abandoned parents are on their own."

You are there to do a mission. You'd adopt them all and bring them home, if you could... but that's not what you're there for.

You know, people tried to warn me, too, and I didn't listen. I am married to a pastor. I was a public schoolteacher, making $__k a year, w/ full benefits. It never even occurred to me that the adoption might cost us the jobs, which cost the benefits, the church, our home... or the level of destruction to our stuff, our wider family, our selves! When you're left w/ nothing but this kid, is there any chance he'll stick w/ you the way you will have stuck w/ him? If he's a normal, American teen, he'll dump you and run... even faster and farther, if he's a kid trying to become a normal, American teen.

Hurt people hurt people... It 's just true. This kid's been hurt and there's no telling how far he will go to lose you and find himself. I wish this wasn't so very true.

Well, I've gone on and on... please reconsider. You are there to help people work out their own solutions in their own context... with God's help. You are not their answer, God is.

Adoption Grants Available

          Clint found this great article about a grant program to help families who want to adopt children with special needs.   We would love to adopt Tony but we don't have the means to do it.  This article talks about two famous people who have started a foundation for this very purpose. 
Adopting Special Needs Kids
We are going to start looking for jobs back home in Oregon.  This is the first step.  Maybe someday we really can bring Tony home with us.

Road Trip Day 4

          We knew we would be eating snacks for lunch and dinner on our way home so we went to breakfast at 7 AM.  The host assured us the cook knew what French toast was so we ordered it.  There has been so many times that we thought we were understood and then later discovered we were not.  People here also tend to say yes even when they don’t know the answer because they think it makes you happier.  Actually it just makes me angry.  I can accept no a lot better than a lie.  The French toast did look good but it did not have cinnamon so it didn’t taste the same.  They did not have syrup so I asked for honey.  The jar said yeast something but it looked like a dark honey inside.  This area is known for producing honey so I wanted to try it.  Many times things you buy at the open-air market are in whatever containers they can recycle so I didn’t hesitate putting it right on my $14 two pieces of French toast.  I don’t know what it ended up being but I couldn’t scrape enough of it off to eat more than a couple bites.  It was a super salty gross tasting stuff.

These homes were in a village we passed through.

Some of the kids we saw along the way.

We decided it was safer to go through the stream than cross the bridge.

We lost the road for a while and had to ask for directions when we crossed the almost dry river bed.

          I was not looking forward to the trip down the windy hillside but it really wasn’t too bad.  At the bottom the lead truck pulled right over and the first grade teacher’s friend lost his breakfast.  Poor guy, I knew exactly how he felt.  I have had motion sickness before too.  It was nice getting to see what we had missed in the dark on the way up to the resort.  We saw a lot of little villages with people selling basically all the same kinds of stuff: fruit, yams, and a few commercially packaged things.  We rarely see cultural art pieces.  I guess they just don't get enough tourists to market it or these art forms are not being passed down.

One of the many amazing trees we saw.

It takes a lot of bananas to feed all the monkeys.  What looks like a pile of wood is actually stems from many, many branches of bananas.

          When we turned off the highway to get onto the back road to the Drill Monkey Ranch we lost the pavement.  We drove on a dirt road that at times didn’t look like a road at all.  When it rains it washes the road away so several times we drove across dry river beds.  We never could have gotten to the ranch if we were still in the van we originally left in.  It was so amazing the sights we saw along the way.  It is hard to describe.  The undisturbed jungle we went through had huge tall trees that must be hundreds of years old.  All the people we passed waved and said hello as if they rarely see other people and especially white people.  It was breath-taking beauty all around us.

The Drill Ranch Kitchen

The Drill Ranch living room

          At the Drill Monkey Ranch we saw the cabins we would have slept in.  They stood on stilts with heavy screens and each bed had a bed net also.  They were close enough to the electric fence which separated the people area from the monkey area that you could see the monkeys in the trees from your bed.  It would have been amazing listening to them during the night.  There is no electricity or plumbing out there so we would have been roughing it for the night but as it went we were in a worst situation our first night than it would have been staying at the ranch.

 

The sign made us laugh.  I think it was the first ADA sign we have seen in Nigeria.  The bathroom was really just a wood bench with a hole and a toilet seat placed on it.  You first pull the board away that covered the hole in the ground.  It was quiet lovely.  No door either.  You flip the sign up before you enter which says "Engaged".

         We had a short tour to see the monkeys.  We saw mostly drill monkeys but also chimpanzees.  At one point we came up to an enclosure and the tour guide showed us where there were about seven drills outside of the fence.  As soon as they saw us most of them went back in.  They either scooted under the electric wire or they swung over from a tree branch.  The guy said it was a constant problem.  They sneak into camp and steal the bananas even though that are frequently fed to them.  The main reason this ranch exists is to protect them from poachers who sell them for bush meat.  We each gave a donation to the ranch because we were thankful for their attempt to rescue us the first night.  They use the lodging money to help pay for expenses to keep the ranch in operation.  Since we did not stay they missed out on that money and used their own gas to search for us. 

The trunk of this tree has narrow edges like a zigzag instead of being round.

The monkeys on the right are outside of the fence.  I wish they had come closer to us since the tour guide had bananas with him.  I think they knew they were in trouble though.  He said the chronic escape artists get put in solitary for awhile.  I wonder how they know which ones and how they capture them? 

          When we left we went on the shorter road which was obviously used a lot more.  We passed some cocoa trees.  I saw a few cocoa pods but most of the few I saw looked rotten.  I don’t think it is the right season for harvesting them.  I tried to take pictures but we were moving really fast.  Out on the highway again our driver was going 150 kph.  The principal got really upset with him about how fast he was going but he really didn’t act like he cared and didn't slow down more than a little.

We came across this horrific car vs tanker truck accident.  The two drivers were wandering around the crowd that was gathering in a daze.  One of them only had one shoe on.  It all exploded right after we turned around and backed away.

          About an hour and a half before we got back to town we came upon a fire next to the road.  When we got close we realized it was a vehicle and a tanker truck that was on fire.  The black smoke was billowing high into the sky and the flames were taller than a two-story house.  I was very thankful we turned around and backed a distance away.  We had just barely parked along the road with all the other cars and motorcycles when the tanker truck exploded.  It was so scary to think we could have been passing by when it exploded.  Some crazy people were trying to pass by.  The principal and I were standing in the bed of the truck looking at it with our binoculars.  People can be so impatient.  We have never seen a fire truck so we did not expect to see one come and put the fire out.  As soon as people thought the big danger of more explosions was over they started passing it.  It was only on the shoulder of a two lane road.  I was terrified and could hardly keep from crying.  It was so incredibly stupid to drive past it with the flames so big.  I really thought we needed to wait longer.  It was a dangerous situation.

          Our driver kept speeding even though there were so many huge dangerous potholes in the road which could have caused us to be in a horrific crash.  He was weaving back and forth with no regard to visibility from hills and curves while on the wrong side of the road more than the right side.  We kept seeing tanker trucks in the oncoming traffic lane and at one point our truck went between a car on our right and a tanker on the left coming towards us.  He had started to pass the car when he could not see and barely squeezed between.  Our principal started really yelling at that point because again we were going 150 kph which is the equivalent of 93 mph.  He was driving like an insane lunatic risking all our lives. 

This is when we passed by the flaming inferno.

          At that point, I had reached my threshold of acceptable risk and started screaming stop the truck.  The school counselor next to me asked if I was going to throw up.  The driver still didn’t stop so the principal told the guard in the front seat to make him pull over.  I opened my door before we were stopped even though there were no seat belts and jumped out in crying hysterics.  I could not see the truck behind us where I thought Clint was.  I could hear the principal screaming at the driver for risking our lives and his wife was trying to calm him down. The guard asked me what was wrong and I said I needed my husband.  They had been following us but stopped ahead of us and I did not realize it.  I ran into Clint’s arms crying and telling him I was really scared we were going to die.  I didn’t want to die without seeing my grand baby.  It was all just too much.

          Hearing the news that our daughter was pregnant just before we left on this trip and all the drama staying at the dilapidated police station for 24 hours and then being forced to pass by the tanker on fire I was just at my end of acceptable risk.  I felt like everything was so out of my control.  People just don’t drive like that in the US.  There are reasons for the laws we have.  We must have passed ten really crumpled vehicles and yet our driver was driving crazy.  There was no reason for it.  We were not in a big hurry or trying to get away from something.  He had no business driving that way and especially as a paid government driver.

          I felt a lot better after getting my tears out and I guess it helped the principal plead his case because once I got back in the driver kept the speed down to a more reasonable pace.  I was really embarrassed once we got home but my principal said it was understandable because of the events of our vacation.  He was also pretty upset by all that had happened and was planning to send a report all the way to the top of the chain of command about all the bad things that happened on our trip.  They were paid to protect us and Her Excellency would not be happy.  She worked hard to get a good reputation for her American International school.  It wasn’t easy to get expats to agree to come when Nigeria is not rated as a safe place to go to.  We should have had a working vehicle the first day which could get us all the way to both destinations.  We should have had guards that did not try to get more money from us and drivers who are safe.  It all felt so out of control. 

          I can easily say this was the worst and yet the best vacation I have ever had.  The good parts were sandwiched between two really, really bad events.  I loved being surrounded by those children and having something for them.  It was so beautiful up there in the mountains but I cannot get the scary parts out of my head.  Now, I don’t know if I want to be here next year.  At some point you just have to say, “Is it worth the risk?”  My level of acceptable risk has gone down.  I have a lot to think about.  Both Clint and I feel the same way.  We love teaching and really enjoy getting to see some amazing things while teaching in an exotic location but we want to be able to go back home at the end of the year.  We love our family and friends and miss our life back home.  Sometimes an adventure just goes too far to be worth the risk.  

Road Trip Day 3

On the second day at the resort we drove into one of the mountain villages.  I had brought gum to hand out to the kids and someone else brought candy.  We told them we had come to see the children because we were teachers on vacation and the people welcomed us.  Their view on the edge of the mountain was spectacular.  The clouds roll in and out all day.  Their homes were simple brick with metal roofs.  Most had no glass in the windows and only a curtain for doors.  We discovered clothing is optional with the children.  Some had just a shirt or just pants or nothing at all for the real small ones.  Some children had flip-flops or other slip on sandals and many had no shoes at all.  We didn’t stay long but it was an amazing experience bringing smiles to the children’s faces.  We did not take pictures out of respect.

I wonder if this was a church or just a statement of their faith?

The bricks are orange because the soil here is orange.

Next, we loaded into the gondolas which take you from the top of the mountains to the bottom where the water park is.  We went three each and one guard in each.  We divided up like we ride in the trucks.  So Clint and I were separated.  It was a beautiful ride.  We saw a couple different villages on the side of the hills with no visible road leading to them.  We saw lots of cows, goats, and pigs being herded around.  The water park at the bottom of the mountain had two big pools.  One had diving boards and the other had big slides.

This was the easy part then we went over the edge and headed down the mountainside.

This is part of the mountainside road we came up to get to the resort.

We enjoyed the water for a little over an hour and then came back up the hill in the gondola.  We drove around the top of the mountain to see the marketplace and where the president of Nigeria and the governor of Cross River State stay when they visit the resort.  The guard in my truck said he had stayed there before as a guard.  I wish our school was up there.  The view is so amazing and the weather is so pleasant.  After we let the guards and drivers go again for the rest of the day we relaxed awhile. 

Clint was enjoying the long windy slide.

We went down the wide bumpy one together.

I had been so curious what the children were cultivating in the field close to our hut so I walked up there with my camera.  My gum was all gone but I had three unopened packages of breath freshening tongue strips so I took them to give to the kids if they were interested.  To my surprise they were not planting or weeding.  The kids were digging for grubs.  They looked like a cross between a worm and a caterpillar.  Some of the kids had recognized me from our village visit and soon they were all around me.  I think there must have been 25.  Their hands were muddy so I put the minty fresh strips on their tongues for them.  It was so fun.  They delighted in telling me all about how they gut them, boil them and enjoy eating them.  I met an albino man on my way back to the hut.  He said he also likes the cool mountain air.  He mentioned the cool air was good for our white skin.  He said the people who live up on the mountain either farm or work at the resort.

These kids had made little trucks for hauling seeds and then used chalk to make roads on the parking lot of the water park.  They were racing on the windy road that looked a lot like the mountain road.

The kids said they love eating them.  I guess it is a source of protein.

When I got back Clint and I walked up to the gift shop so I could get a souvenir and then to the refreshment bar and sat outside to play cards. The cool air felt so wonderful.  We just wanted to stay outside all day.  We just couldn’t get enough of it.  After dinner our group again played cards but not as late because we had to leave in the morning early to have time to go to the Drill Monkey Ranch on the way back home.

Road Trip Day 2

It was amazing riding in the truck with the air conditioning and the comfortable seats and great view.  Even though it was dark and we still had a long ride ahead of us I was able to relax and look forward to a new start to our vacation.  I reflected on everything that happened in the past 24 hours and it really gave me pause.  I questioned my resolve to stay for the second year of my contract.  Is it really worth it to stay here?  Just before we left on our vacation our daughter announced she was 9 weeks pregnant.  Why was I risking my life to teach?  If I cannot get a teaching job back home in the States than maybe I should find something else to do.

Another stressful situation that had erupted while we were stranded at the Police Station involved the very men who were there to protect us.  We all had given the two guards their previously agreed upon amount for the trip to pay for their expenses above their government salary.  But they asked for more money from us while we sat there on that porch.  We had already dug deep for the unexpected fuel cost and the second guard we found out just the day before we were to leave we had to have, so we said no because we had only budgeted so much for this trip.  We do not have infinite pockets of money just because we are white.  They had set the fee ahead and we agreed to it so it was not okay to change it after we were already away from home and in a difficult situation.  To make matters worse we felt like they were robbing us standing there with their rifles.  The six of us stood in agreement that it was not right and we simply did not have the money anyway.  It became a heated argument between our principal and his wife who had made all the arrangements and the two guards and it just added to everyone’s stress.  They finally let it go but it left us wondering how it might effect the rest of our trip.

The road up into the Afi Mountains where the resort is was a series of 20 switchbacks.  The corners were extremely tight and the truck was a stick shift.  Not being able to see what was beyond my view over the edge of the cliff made me very uneasy.  It was almost as bad as driving along the edge of Crater Lake in Oregon but there you have a cliff on both sides of the road.  I kept my eyes closed for most of the way up.  When we passed a car which looked like it had rolled off the road above I really had to focus on staying relaxed and think about nothing but my breathing.  My stomach was in knots.  When we pulled up at the resort reception building Clint and the first grade teacher’s friend both jumped out quick ahead of us and leaned over like they were going to vomit.  It was not an easy ride up for anyone who gets motion sickness or is afraid of heights. 

This was our African Hut.

On our first morning we spotted these cows being herded through the resort by a boy and his dog.  They get milked everyday and the milk is used at the restaurant.  They walked right past our hut.

We checked into one of the African Huts.  It was really a nice modern bungalow except the electricity was only on from 6 PM – 12:30 AM and 6 AM – 10 AM.  There was no air conditioning because of the cooler mountain air.  We laughed when we saw the heat register.  We turned it off and wanted to open the windows but there were no screens.  The shower felt so good and the bed was soft.  The restaurant closed at 10 PM so we all had just enough time to clean-up before getting dinner.  I think we arrived about 9 PM to the resort.  It was nice falling asleep after a good meal.

This little friend followed us as we walked to the top of Holy Mountain.

We arranged with our guards and drivers to pick us up at 9:30 AM.  We went to the top of Holy Mountain to see the view of the green hills all around us and the waterfalls.  The tour guide showed us the area where the local tribe had hidden in underground bunkers during the Civil War in the 60’s.  Next, we went to the Grotto where one of the streams comes down off the mountain.  A brick dam was built there so people could take a dip in the cold mountain water.  Clint climbed up the mossy rocks to stick his feet in the falls.  None of us got in the man-made pool beyond our feet.  We didn’t want to be wet on the hike back up.

This was our group on vacation and Sonny one of our guards.  He wore a sweater and leather pants on our day of hikes.

The man-made, cold mountain water pool.

Mr. Crazy standing on the wet, moss covered rocks.

Finally, we went on the canopy walk.  After a long hike we came to the edge of a ravine which was densely covered with jungle trees and brush.  The bridge through the canopy had a metal grate to walk on.  On each side was a net with a wire at the top and bottom.  The whole thing bounced as people walked along it.  It was hard to keep your balance because of the bouncing.  I felt like I could easily fall over the edge or through the net if I lost my balance.  At the opposite side of the bridge was a tall metal viewing tower.  We climbed to the top to see above the trees.  It was really beautiful but I was very glad to get back on solid ground.  The tour guide went with us but the guards stayed at the entrance to the canopy bridge.  In the afternoon we rested and then went to the coffee shop before dinner.  We all had only planned to eat one meal a day at the restaurant and then just eat our snacks we brought the rest of the day so we all met up again for dinner and cards afterwards. We released the guards and drivers after the tours so they could enjoy some free time too.

Looking back at the guards and drivers.

Looking ahead to the look-out tower.

Looking down the ladder on the metal tower.