The Village

Toubab!! Toubab!! (toobob)
This was our name for the week. It means white person in Wolof. Every time we passed through a village or by any children on our horse and cart they would yell it while running toward us and waving. I didn't know how to take it, so I just smiled and waved back.
For the past nine days we have been in a small town called Fissel. We stayed in a community center they have there. We did not have running water or toilets, so that was an experience, but a good one. Our YIM team was accompanied by our friends Salomon, Pastor Jean Beunoit, Moses, and Aida and her children. Eddie came for the last couple of days. Pastor Jean Beunoit goes to the Nazarene church in Boabob, but really invests in the ministry in the villages. Moses is from another village but knows Pastor Tim because he used to live in Dakar. I have never met someone that laughed so much at the same story. Him and Pastor JB talked about some policeman story the entire time. It was hilarious seeing how he thought it was so funny. Moses spoke good English so he was our connection to the rest of the group, but the comprehension/translation process was sometimes a little difficult. But we got through and learned a lot from our fellow teammates. Salomon is pretty good with English and we are starting to learn more French! Our new friend Aida is a wonderful lady that lives in Fissel and is studying to be a pastor. She knows the language of people in the villages, so she was translating the entire time from either French or Wolof to their language or from their language to ours. She was amazing with all of that. She is also learning English too. She has two children that were the cutest little things ever. They were so fun to play with and love on.
Throughout the week we went to four villages and did a VBS program. We rode on horse and cart as I mentioned earlier, which was fun and eventful. We got to name the horse and we picked Henry for some reason. Moses liked it I think. We went to the villages either in the morning or the evening because it is just too hot to be traveling during midday. The villages were so welcoming and friendly. They were thankful we were there to play with the kids and to fellowship. We would first greet all of the elders and adults that were present and then we would sing songs in their language. Sometimes dancing would break out and they laughed with us at our attempt to African dance. We learned silent skits so we would perform those and Aida would talk about them. After that it was game time. The children were split into four groups according to age and gender and we had a sport station, craft, story time, and an activity station. Sometimes this worked really well and sometimes it turned into mad chaos very quickly, but either way the main goal was that they had fun. We had all sorts of games like football (soccer, of course), we wrestled one time (wrestling is very popular in Senegal), steal the bacon, an intense version of duck duck goose, we played with a huge parachute that we brought (they loved that), and other various activities. In closing we would sing some more and Pastor Jean Beunoit would preach.
The lifestyle we had for the past week was definitely different than what we are used to, but we embraced it for the short amount of time we were there. Everything we saw and learned has made me think about things differently. In a good way, a challenging way.