Longest day of the century

Travel Journal
Senegal
January 24- February 5, 2012

January 24
Jeff picked me up at 3:45am, long before the sun rose. I can't say I slept much, my mind kept reeling about what I might be missing in my suitcase and remembering to grab those last few items. Paul Thompson drove Lynn Lockwood, Jeff Adams, Todd Leighton and me to the airport where we checked 10 suitcases to our final destination: Dakar.

Our flights were relatively uneventful, a noisy kid here, a sleepless night there, but we made our connection and landed on time!

January 25
This is officially the longest day of the century, apart from a slight cat nap on the plane and nodding off in the car, I'm still awake from my 3am alarm yesterday's time zone. I can't count that many hours right now, but my body is telling me it's a lot. Sidi and Babacar picked us up at the airport and we drove straight to Thies, about an hour's drive. Traffic was practically nonexistent, something new in Dakar for me. Usually it takes an hour just to leave the city!

We arrived at the John Hoffman school, waited longer for our room keys than the wifi password, and took turns shooting off emails to our families back home to let them know we arrived safely over breakfast of french bread, tea/coffee and oranges.. We needed to deliver some items to Irma Bode at Malika Monkeys, So we piled back into the car after some luggage sorting. We could have dropped the stuff off on our way, but Sidi agreed it was too early in the morning for house calls before 7 am! Traffic was heavier this time but we made it with only a little head nodding in the car. Irma gave us a tour of her animals and the projects her boys are working on. Two djembes, many hand crafted cards, headbands, necklaces, auction purchases and a raw chunk of ebony wood for Lynn's father-in-law later, we were ready for our first meal around the bowl! They tried tricking this blind tubab into eating a very spicy pepper, but she wasn't born yesterday. After a delicious meal and another warm car ride, we were all finding it harder to keep our eyes open on our way back to John Hoffman.

Due to a later lunch and the travel time, we got back for the tail end of the introductions to the conference. We were led in a couple of worship songs, including I Will Lift Your Name on High in English, French and Wolof. We spent time talking to some of the other conference attenders, several from 2 places in New York, and maybe some from California? We'll see if I can remember any of their names tomorrow. Todd and I ended up following a group to a local restaurant being opened by a church member here and we prayed for it's success as a business and as a ministry.

Senegal is playing in the Africa cup tonight. So Lynn and I found a quieter table with 2 other women from the states, Cathy and Allison, and a local woman named Awa. Through Lynn's translating in her beautiful French, she told us her testimony; a story of growing up in poverty, a house fire she blamed herself for, an uncle who tried kidnapping her and setting her up to be raped more than once, she literally heard a voice telling her to trust in Jesus. Her only Christian relatives, an aunt and uncle lead her to Christ and now she is working at the John Hoffman school teaching kids what she didn't know when she was growing up. I can't wait to get to know this young woman more.

Now I am barely keeping my eyes open while I type this all before it slips away. I can't wait to see what tomorrow brings. I wish i had mor energy to reflect on my day, but this is all i've got for now:

Insight of the day: Riding in any car in Senegal could be likened to riding the Knight Bus.