Highs and Lows

This move has been harder for me than previous moves, and I think that the main reason is that I don't speak French. I mean, I'm learning French; I'm a student of French. But I was basically fluent in Spanish and Portuguese. Our time in Ciudad Juarez and Brasilia was made so much more simple just by being able to communicate.

Jeff and I managed to go on a date last week, and as we were leaving the restaurant, Jeff said something like "wow, this is really difficult for you." I think that date has been one of the only times he's seen me in a French-only environment, trying to communicate and failing.

Here are some struggles and victories.

I drove myself to the grocery store.
I didn't really remember where it was. I had been taken there once, but I didn't pay close enough attention. I remembered two roundabouts. I tried to find the grocery store on google maps, but I quickly discovered that this was Gabon, and there is very little on the map. Instead I studied the roads for about thirty minutes (because I didn't have data at this point, so if I got lost, I'd be on my own to get home). I decided that I had ingrained enough map memory, and off we went. I had the four kids with me, because school had not started yet. I successfully found a roundabout. I drove in two different directions before deciding neither was correct. The third direction led me to the next roundabout. There I only tried one wrong direction before the second one was correct. And then I made it to the third roundabout, and this time the first direction I tried was the correct direction. When I finally made it to the store, I parked the car and just rested my head on the steering wheel. My kids had no idea how difficult the experience had been for me. They had just wanted to know what was taking so long. I finally said, "Children, I may not have shown it, but that was actually really difficult for me. I didn't know where we were going, and I just had to find it, and I had to turn around on unfamiliar, crowded roads, so I just need a minute." (I think it took me forty-five minutes to find a grocery store that is actually only ten minutes from my house. The next week, it took me about ninety minutes to find the veterinary clinic that is only actually twenty minutes from my house. I am now getting very good at dropping pins on my maps.me when I go places, so I can find them again, because addresses don't really exist here. People don't call the streets the same names as they are labeled, and rarely are street names actually used. Directions are given entirely by landmarks.)

Sometimes when I'm driving, I honestly wonder if I'll ever be able to get out.

The following three pictures are of what is usually a two-lane street.

I go grocery shopping.
Gabon has very little self industry that I've been able to discern. I mean, they have oil and fish and logs. But there is very little agriculture in this country. I think I read that about 80% of their food is imported. That means that all grocery stores are essentially import stores, so at the store all of a sudden I don't only need to know French. I'm looking at labels in Spanish, English, and Portuguese (lucky for me), as well as German, Hebrew, and Arabic, along with languages that I don't recognize. To get all of the items I need for a week, I generally have to go to four stores, sometimes five or six (if I'm counting each produce market separately). For instance, one week I didn't buy whole milk at the first two stores I went to, because I knew it was the least expensive at the third grocery store. But then the third grocery store was out. So then I had to choose between skim milk (which my kids don't really like) or no milk that week. Or eggs. One week, every single place I went was completely out of eggs. This week, the first produce market I visited had almost everything—but no potatoes or cucumber. So then I walked to a different one down the street and realized I had forgotten to get tomatoes at the last one, and this one only had unripe green tomatoes. So then I went back to a third. One time I needed plastic cups for a party, but they were all out of plastic cups. The next week, there were three different kinds of plastic cups. It's just always a gamble what I will find and whether I'm actually buying what I hope I am buying. Not to mention how much time grocery shopping takes now with all of the various trips and that I am dragging along poor Gordon and Alice with me.

Smaller than American grocery stores, but not too different.

A lot of languages on this bag of kitty litter, 

and none of them are English, Spanish, Portuguese, or French.

Two of the three grocery stores I go to have these tiny kid carts. 

Obviously my kids love them.

Clearly the best place for machetes in the grocery story is between the diapers and kids' toys.

There are three ways to buy produce here, and the quality appears to be the same at all three. 

1. You can buy it at the actual grocery store. The costs are the highest. 

2. You can purchase it at stands like this on the side of the road. The costs are in the middle.

3. See below.

3. You can buy it on the side of the street not in a stand. Do you see those umbrellas? Sorry that this isn't a better picture, but it's tricky when I'm driving! So, the most common way to buy vegetables is this one. People set up umbrellas next to the road, lay blankets on the ground (there might be an occasional table), and then set up their produce on the blankets. I've never tried buying produce at one of these. Rumor has it that the prices are the lowest and the quality is just as good, but I've never tried. I'm okay with just paying a little more at the roadside stands.

We went to a church children's activity.
Our branch has had one Primary activity so far. We attended with all of our children. We arrived maybe five minutes late? There was no one there from our branch. About forty minutes later, a Primary leader and some other children arrived. In the next fifteen minutes, other adults and children arrived, and it started almost an hour late. However, so many people here walk or are at the mercy of taxis (who stop multiple times during your trip to pick up additional passengers) or ride the bus (which is also unreliable) that you don't really ever expect things to start on time, and since being late is expected, everyone is less stressed about it. We went inside the church and the activity was in the chapel. The leader was trying to communicate with me, and I thought she wanted me to lead the music, as in keep time. But then she started the opening song and didn't need me to stand in front, so I decided I was confused. She shared a lesson, and then motioned for me to come up. I quickly discovered that what she wanted me to do was teach the primary children a song. I could barely communicate with the children. There was no songbook for me to actually read the music. I knew the song in English, so the melody was familiar, but I wasn't certain which French syllables were supposed to fall on which notes. She got the lyrics on her phone and wrote them on the board for me, and I just tried my best. When I went home that evening, I listened to the song and discovered that I had made two mistakes compared to how the song was written, so not too bad! It was stressful but fine. I do like that I get to participate, and opportunities like this help motivate me to learn French.

Friends, this was hard and intimidating but turned out well.

(I had forgotten that Alice had put a flower in my hair while we were waiting outside.)

I teach the nursery class at church.
On Sundays, I have to be prepared to teach and entertain the 18 month to three year old group of kids for two hours. Every Sunday, I have to track someone down to unlock the door, and then I clean the room. Two of the windows are broken, so lots of insects can get in. Right now there always a lot of termite wings all over the floor. The kids are very helpful with cleaning the room. We have to sweep and gather up the scattered toys. The toys are kept in a trash can. There is a doll missing an arm, two broken trucks, a few blocks, some sand toys, and some plastic food. That's it. The first Sunday there were a few crayons, and I watched the leader snap the crayons into pieces so all of the kids could color. Now that I'm the leader, I bring a tub of my own toys and a bag of crayons with me every Sunday, but the previous leader advised me to take them home with me every Sunday—to not leave them at church. There is another nursery worker who is in there with me every Sunday, and she is (obviously) fluent in French. She doesn't speak English, but she is a very patient listener, and we have been able to communicate and work out a system of teaching the children together. We have had between four and eight children every week so far. (When I have the larger class, I have an Alice, an Alice, an Alison, and an Elise. I had no idea that name was so common in French!) When we first started attending, the nursery went like this: the first ten minutes were just the kids sitting in their chairs quietly waiting (no activities), then a thirty minute lesson, and then ten minutes of coloring. Then the nursery kids would go to join the rest of the Primary for snack, sharing, and music times. Now that I'm the leader, I've switched it back (with full support from the Primary president) to having the nursery kids separate for the full two hours.

My Sundays start with my classroom looking like this. 

The kids are great helpers at tidying it up with me and the other leader.

(I can't have it cleaned up before the children arrive, because it's locked.)

My first lesson ended like this. I had made hearts on colorful paper for the children to use during the lesson and then take home. I found pieces of them shredded, and then one of them ripped in half, lying on the floor, with a squished cockroach on top. I tried not to read too much meaning into this. At the time, it was a little discouraging. Now it's kind of funny.

During sacrament meeting one Sunday, I looked over to see that my family had increased by three.

Once I tried to teach all of the children younger than eight.
General Conference here is a week later than it is in the Western Hemisphere. For the woman's session, I invited everyone over to my house. I thought all of the female members, eight and up, would come, but only the Relief Society sisters (adult women) came. Then the next weekend, they watched the four sessions of General Conference. Everyone watches it at the church together, two sessions each day with a short break in between. The branches combine, so everyone doesn't actually fit in the chapel. Thus, the adults and youth watch Conference and the primary age kids go to primary. I hadn't planned on attending that Sunday, because I was going to stay home to watch it in English with my family, but I didn't want to neglect my calling, so I offered to come for one of the four sessions.

Well, I prepared enough material for sixteen children, because I thought with both branches combined, I would have double my typical eight, but there were only three kids there in my age group of 18M to 3Y. So I told another leader that I could handle more children, and we decided I would have the children up to eight year olds. I thought I communicated that I needed another adult with me to speak French when I was struggling, but apparently I didn't get that across successfully.

At first things went pretty smoothly. I had about ten kids. There was an older child there who was very helpful. The younger children (some his siblings) were obedient and followed his orders to be reverent and involved in my lesson. Then his mother saw that he was in the room with me and told him to go watch Conference instead of playing. I agree that he should be watching Conference, but I really missed how helpful and kind he was being. Things quickly fell apart.

At different levels, there was chaos. The irony in the situation is that my lesson was "I Can Be Reverent." There were a few kids who just sat silently, staring at the chaos. And then there were a few who stayed in their chairs but always managed to needle their neighbors to just the right point of crazy. And then there were a few out of their chairs actually goofing off and even, at one point, fighting me. Physically fighting against me.

It was like those movies where a brand new teacher fresh from university goes into a difficult school and has the students mock and torment the novice teacher. Then the teacher cries and receives wisdom and goes back and triumphantly turns the classroom around until by the end of the year all the students learn so much and love their teacher. Except my life is not a movie, and there was no wisdom or guidance and definitely no triumph. I finally left the kids in the classroom (I did take/drag one with me), and I went to find the other Primary leaders. I tried to tell them I really needed another adult with me. One of the women there spoke English, so I was able to explain.

She followed me back to the classroom, where one of the mothers had gone to give the children a lecture. And . . . well, it's embarrassing, but I burst into tears. I tried so hard to not cry in front of those children, but I couldn't help it. It had been too stressful and hard, and I cried. Once I finally managed to control my emotions, I taught the lesson I had prepared. With the other adult in there who could communicate with the children (and after the stern lecture from the mother), the children behaved really well. They played nicely with each other. They participated in the lesson. They didn't fight with each other. They sang with me, and it was all fine.

I don't think I have ever felt like such a failure before though. I have faced unruly children before. I have managed large classrooms. I have taught in a foreign language before. But this situation totally defeated me.

The Sunday following this experience, a sweet sister came up to me and said her daughter had told her what happened. She told me that everyone is praying for me, and that I shouldn't give up. I found that very touching. I figure me trying to teach in French isn't asking all that much more of me than what we're asking of our children, who are sitting through three hours of church in a language they don't understand yet. We'll all be patient with each other.

I'm grateful that the parents here are willing to let me teach their kids. I feel included and loved. The other adults want me to succeed.

My typical nursery group

We go to a traditional values class on Saturdays.
A group comes to the children's school Saturday morning for an hour and a half of local folklore, dance, music, art, and costuming. It is entirely in French, with indigenous languages as well, but no English, so my kids perhaps aren't learning that much about the history of Gabon, but music, dance, art, and costuming translates into every language, and my kids are really enjoying that. Daniel is desperate for us to buy him his own Gabonese drum. And hopefully, at some point, my kids will start understanding the French and learn more of the history. Sometimes one or two kids will translate for mine.

One new instrument I have discovered through this class is a mouth bow. I've never seen it before. I'm googling for the name and getting different results. I don't know which name is correct: moungongo, mugongo, and mongongo. It makes such a unique sound. It looks like a bow that one might use in archery. The musician positions the bow so that his mouth is near one end of the string. With the string in his mouth, he also plucks the other end of the string. The next class where it is used, I'll try to get video.

The kids always complain when I'm dragging them out of the house, but once we get there, they really enjoy themselves. Once we had to leave early, and Daniel (who is the hardest to get to come) looked at me and plaintively said "Do we have to??"

We are making friends.
I'm so grateful.

The weather is incredibly reliable.

When we first moved here, it was the dry season. This meant the weather was usually in the upper 70s, cloudy, and dry. I almost never saw the sun for two months. Now we've entered the wet season, and as you can see below, we now get into the low 80s, and it rains every day. When it is not rainy, the sun comes out with a vengeance. That combined with the humidity makes it feel a lot hotter, but not unbearable. It's just strange to never have to check my weather app anymore. I look outside to see if it is raining or not, but other than that I pretty much know what the day will be like.

To give you an idea of the humidity: One morning after driving Jeff to work, I stepped out of the car (in which I had been running the AC), and my glasses fogged up!

The length of day has changed a little; it's maybe twenty minutes shorter now than when we first moved here, but that's about it. So different from when we did not live near the Equator. Weather could jump or drop thirty degrees just from one day to the next, and summer days are hours longer than winter days. So far I'm really enjoying the consistency.

There is no fast food.
This is sort of a plus and a minus. There have been a few times so far where I have just really wished there was fast food available to me. Of course, I miss french fries. But other than that, there just are days where you know the kids are going to go to bed late because you haven't started making dinner yet and just grabbing a few Little Caesar's would make the night go so much more smoothly. Or where you are driving between activities and don't have enough time to go home, make a meal, and eat. Near the church, I have seen roadside stands that sell a kind of "fast food." But not near my house. There is apparently over by the grocery store, someone called "The Chicken Man" that has quick food. We'll probably try that out eventually. And near the airport there is apparently a schwarma place, which is also some kind of chicken. But there is no typical Western fast food, and there are definitely no places where I can spend a few dollars on food or drinks and then let my kids play and run around in an air conditioned indoor playground for a few hours. I miss play places.

One busy Saturday, I made a homemade kids' meal to be eaten in the car. Fake fast food, ha.

(I can only blame myself for the mess that is the mustard on that one hot dog that I'm sure is bugging you.)

Speaking of the lack of fast food, there is also no movie theater.
Rumor has it that there actually is a movie theater somewhere, but I've been told that no one goes to it. We drove past a place that used to be one and has since closed. The place to see the occasional movie and other events is the French Cultural Center. One memorable evening, with some friends, Jill, Daniel, Alice, and I (Jeff stayed home with Gordon) attended the Korean Embassy's Korean Spectacular Night at the French Cultural Institute in Gabon. It was fantastic. The Korean Embassy brought a break dance crew and a hip hop group. At one point, a group of Gabonese stood up and started saying something. The Koreans were like "what are you saying?" The translator was like "please sit down" The Gabonese were like "give us a chance!" The Koreans were like "Come on, translator, tell us what they want!"  (I don't speak French or Korean, so I have absolutely no idea how close to reality that conversation just was.) BUT the outcome was a handful of Gabonese men jumping on the stage. Music started, and I KID YOU NOT a break dance war began!! High school Mimi was dying inside. It was like I had fallen into half of my favorite movies from my youth. It was a real dance battle! The break dancers each took individual turns showing off their best moves, and there were moments of getting up in each other's faces, flipping the opponents' hat lids, showing off all the bravado. And then there was intense dancing. It was so awesome. And then they all clapped for each other, and the Gabonese rejoined the audience. Alice looked at me during the battle and said, "Mommy, why are you yelling so loud??" I said, "I just can't help it, baby. I'm too excited!"

VIP tickets: oh la la fancy pants over here.

Gabon is beautiful.

This is how you buy plants here. The potted plants line the streets, and you pull over to make your selections. I've never actually seen a person standing by any of them to pay for the plants, but I'm sure there must be a proprietor somewhere.

I entered a fabric store last weekend. This wall of African fabric was gorgeous.

I drove past two fish markets last weekend as well while on a tour of Libreville. There was a lot of fish, obviously. There were other seafood items as well. One of the markets was right on the port. And one of the markets had monkeys. I don't mean living ones for pets. I mean dead ones to eat. I was surprised, but then I felt dumb for being surprised. You eat what you have, right?

And now you're all caught up!