Boogie's Blog

                           So- imagine this is your life as a Christian:

You get up every morning, whether you want to or not, to the broadcasted sound of the mosque next store blaring their everyday chantings and and calling to prayer for the whole neighboorhood to hear at 5 am. If you manage to fall asleep again,(you might not b/c at that point all the muslims in the surrounding area are now awake and praying and moaning aloud with the mosque) you are woken up again at 7 am for the 2^nd call to prayer for Allah and the mosque.

At this time, the sun is about to peek its way out from behind the trees in the east and you might as well get up anyways, besides, you must get to the market to buy fish and vegetables from all the hustlers in the market.    

You have to be expierienced to haggle over price and quantity and try to make out with the money you were given by the mission to buy the food.

On the way to the market as you walk, the students are protesting again , mostly males, carriyng rocks or with fists raised. You must not make them upset, because once again their teachers haven`t shown up and they need their education and they are angry. Some days, the police or local soldiers throw tear gas on the protesters, so when the students get too wild with thier lit tires and fires in the middle of pulic streets, they have some recourse. One day, as they were protesting, a bullet from the military was «shot up into the air» and a local school boy on break from a private school that was not on strike got hit and killed while eating breakfast at a local stand.

       Once you have braved the market and all its woes, you take a rickety taxi back to the Talibé center to the teens and young boys that are your ministry.

 If its monday,you will be cooking over an open fire for over 100 boys thier only meal in the course of the day, maybe the only meal they've had all weekend. Otherwise, you might have a few less. As you cook, you can see and hear the boys play football, (soccer for you Americans) and occassionally the ball comes through the net that is up to prevent it from hitting the buckets of water on the dirt used to wash the dishes and cook the meal.

The fire smokes and burns up wood all morning long, cooking the rice, then the vegetables and fish. As you peel the potatoes, manioque, carrots, onions, garlic, you mash red pepper in a hollowed out wooden tree stump, followed by the onion, garlic and 7-10 packets of fish bullion, to make it super salty as in this hot climate, you need it. Plus, it just tastes so good.

Around one pm, after you have been preparing the food more than 4 hours, you wait as the boys finish with their daily Bible teaching, done in 3 languages. Jola, Wolof and very few French speakers, as these young men have not been to school to learn French. Some are maybe 5 or 6 years old, many are 15, maybe 18. Most dont know exactly how old they are, as they came from distant vilages, given to the muslim leaders to be raised as street orphans and beggars. Daily they are taught to recite the Koran in Arabic; they do not understand what they chant daily, but it is confusing to them when we tell them God and Allah are not the same.

It takes about 20 minutes for the boys to sit on the ground(or on their tomato tins they use to panhandle) according to size, not horsing around, waiting to be fed.

They are constantly changing places, jockying for a better group; wheras one could sit with boys smaller than themselves and get more food. It's always surprising to see that boys so hungry would take so long to sit still and follow dirctions, but after all, they have not mothers to tell them to sit and do as they're told. The prayer is said.... in the name of Jesus AMEN and they're off! As they have waited patiently so long, you'd think it would be chaos, but they have already divided the 2 fish (on a good day) and the plate of rice and a few veggies in their minds. 

They look up at you and offer you to sit with them, as they wouldn't dare leave some one out to starve. With disbelief you decline. As thier fingers dig into the plate, they eat quite rapidly, yet controlled and there is no fighting or anything at this point. A peace falls over them that they have not seen in 24 hours or more. They are fed and life is good again. :)