Another Village

Today I spent some time in the village of L*Sorry to say, we were not allowed to bring cameras again, but next time we will because the villagers asked "where are all their camera?", so now we know it's ok there. Anyway - wow, what a super cool experience. A lady offered to give us a tour of the village. We walked to a hut at the river's edge and there were several little ones playing down by the river. One little girl saw us, squealed with delight and yelled "WHITES"! She laughed out loud and ran full out to come to see us... but then stopped short and stood about 15 feet away acting all shy. It's so funny how children from every culture are the same. The real tiny ones smiled at us but mostly hid behind their mom's legs. The young kids followed us, elbowing and whispering to each other - daring their friends to talk to us. One girl came up to us and said "Shake your hand?!" then shook our hands and ran away. Another little girl shyly handed me some flowers she just picked! When we got back to the village square (that's just what I'm calling it) we sat down to just observe and be there. The whole village came out to watch us watching them. The kids had called out to their friends and I'm pretty sure everyone was there to watch the white man TV. Some tried to communicate, but mostly they just watched us from afar. They are so genuine with their smiles and laughter! There was one young woman sitting near me (a little more adventurous than most). I introduced myself to her and found out her name is Rebekah. We have a Rebekah in our group, and that was very exciting to them. If you have the same name, that's your namesake, and you are basically the same person. As we were leaving the tribal Rebekah presented our Bekah with some fresh onions and beans. It was very special. My language training is going better than I expected. It's frustrating to not be able to communicate right now, but I'm getting pretty good at transcribing the language and learning the new sounds. I practice some phrases on the nationals and they get a big kick out of it. I'm prepared to be totally humiliated by saying the wrong thing. I'm also really loving the Chronological Bible teaching. Tomorrow we start a new "class" called Prayer Focus. Basically we just pray together, but I've been made a leader of a prayer group. Not sure how that happened, but I guess I better start getting used to having some responsibilities around here. Mostly I just make people laugh. Other impressions ~ It's hard to see the scraggly dogs here. Dogs are like rats... pigs are the pets. Except they eat their pets eventually. Women are property and are like work horses. From birth their neck muscles are strengthened so that they can carry things (we're talking upwards of 100lbs) on their heads. They have big cockroaches here. Huge. The kids are so friendly toward us, but also seem to be a little bit afraid. They keep their distance. This may have something to do with their moms threaten them when they're bad that if they don't behave the white women will come to take them away to eat them. Hmmm.... I'm hoping that by spending more time in this village the little ones will get used to me, come a little bit closer and let me hug them. :)