Questions?!

Home Service brought about a lot of questions.  There are many questions Americans want to know about Africa and missionary life.  A few of our close friends, after asking many questions, joked about printing answers on t-shirts so we could just say “Read number 33, or 1, or 77.”

So, since I have a horrible memory, I’ve asked friends on Facebook to remind me of some of the questions we were asked on home service so that I can answer them all in one blog post.

Q. What question is asked the most?

1. When do you leave?  Looking back on this, I think people were trying to get rid of us.  Just kidding.  Actually, many times I had to clarify.  Leave the place/town where we currently were or leave the United States to return to the mission field.  Usually people meant the United States, but not always.  We were always on the move while in the U.S.  

Q. Do you like living in Africa?

1. No and YES.  Someone with us at language school in France once said, “no one really likes living in Africa, we’re going because we’ve been called there.”  I’ve thought this to be true so many times.  This is God’s will, not ours.  A lot of times our personal desires don’t like God’s will, but we are still called to do it.  Most days I can’t stand the heat, bugs, dirt, things not working, etc.  Yet, I do like living here.  It’s home.  It’s simple.  It’s familiar.  Two years ago, there wasn’t anything familiar about living in Africa, but now that we are back from the United States, everything is familiar.  The food, the way we live, the songs we sing in French, the heat, the bugs, the dirt, the stores, the people.  It’s all familiar.  It’s what our kids know and understand best.  And even though I don’t like the heat and things not working well, it’s still nice to be back with the people we've grown to love and care about.  My favorite part of living here is our CLET family.  All the students and their families mean a lot to us.  Wherever you go there will be people to love.  

Q. How can we send you a care package and what kind of things would you like to receive?

1. I actually got this question a lot and never knew how to answer it.  I’d usually hem and haw my way around it because even though receiving care packages is a lot of fun and we really enjoy them, the shipping is really quite expensive and we really don’t want you to go out of your way.  Actually, just a letter to the kids would mean a lot and costs about 1/100th the price.  Sending a package is around $100.  Whereas an international stamp is just around $1.  The kids love stickers by the way.  If you are so inclined to send a package, feel free to message us for ideas, and please notify us if something is sent so that we might look for it to arrive.  Our address is…

CLET

sous Rev. Micah Wildauer

B.P. 53

Dapaong, TOGO

Q. How does she do it?

1. In Christ all things are possible.  There are days I wonder if I can do it or not, but somehow “it” gets done even when I think it can’t. 

Q. You talked about getting a washing machine to help your clothes last longer, were you able to get one yet?

1. No, I decided against it for now.  Although this past week I’ve really been wanting a dryer.  It’s rainy season and even after our clothes have been on the line all day they are still as damp as they would be getting them out of a washing machine.  So then we have to place them all around our furniture under the fans all night just to get them mostly dry.  They still feel a little wet, but that’s as dry as they’ll get during this season. It really gets interesting when dealing with cloth diapers.

Q. What has been the hardest thing to overcome?

1. The fact that things don’t work as well here as they would in the United States.  For example, the Internet, light and fan switches, plumbing, our truck.  It’s extremely hard to find someone who really knows how to fix a problem.  It’s really quite frustrating.

Q. And what has been the easiest?

1. Loving people.  Everyone wants (and needs) to be loved here.  They don’t have much else.  While in the United States, we noticed among the general population how much focus was put on material goods (My! The amount of advertising Americans take in each day!) and not on the well-being of other people.  We even fell into that trap ourselves.  But here it’s easier to focus on the people more so than the material goods.  Except for when the materials aren’t working right and you waste so much time trying to figure out how to get them to work right.  Bahh!

Q. What is “shopping” like there?

1. Hard.  It’s hard for me to go shopping.  I have to find a time when my husband is free to take me and willing to stay in the truck with most of the kids, since I don’t know how to drive our manual truck and only want to take 1 maybe 2 kids into the little stores or market with me.  Imagine a ginormous market or city wide garage sale, where every house has things to sell.  That’s kind of what our town looks like everyday.  Our town’s name is Dapaong, which  means market town in the local language.  Everyone is trying to sell something to make some money.  The main roads are lined with little booths of food, clothes (usually discarded from the United States or Europe), tools, electronics, cloth, this and that. There are some stores as well, most are just the size of a small room.  The walls are usually lined with shelves of whatever they are trying to sell with a counter between the owner and the customer.  You tell the owner what you want and they dust it off, put it on the counter, add everything up twice on a big calculator, subtract what you give them to figure out the change to give back, box up the goods, and carry it to the car for you.  There are a few stores that are a little bigger in which you can actually walk around and put the things you want in a basket to take to the “check out.”

Q. Is it what you thought it would be?

1. I had no idea what to think. I was quite open to whatever it would be like.

Q. What were your kids’ thoughts on being in the US?

1. When we first arrived in the US they had a lot to take in.  I’ll never forget David staring at and not knowing what green grass was.  Not only were the kids excited to watch TV, but they were even amused by watching a washing machine, dryer, dish washer, and even a water fountain.  It was good for them to learn what those things are, but I think it’s even better that they know they can live with out them.

Q. What did they think when they returned to Africa?

1. So far our kids have been really excited to be back.  I was a little worried they’d be bored without playgrounds, cousins, friends, Netflix, zoos and the like, but I think they really like it here.  It’s familiar to them and the heat, bugs, and dirt don’t bother them one bit.  Kids don’t always need new and exciting things.

Q. What kinds of foods do you eat there?

1. Well, so far, since getting back to Dapaong, we’ve had mac and cheese with tuna, green beans, fresh salads, grilled pintade (guinea fowl), grilled goat, bread, cheeseburger soup (with ground donkey meat in lieu of ground beef, because the beef here is chewy and donkey meat tastes about the same as beef in the States), pork ribs, potato salad, yellow melons, bananas.  That’s just a bit of what we eat here.  I wrote a whole post on food sometime last year.

Q. Do you like the local food?

1. Yes.  I usually have our house helper cook for us twice a week and almost always a local dish.  I especially love when there’s a meal at a church or the seminary though.  They usually serve rice and sauce with a couple pieces of meat.  I have not had a bad sauce yet.  Delicious! 

Q. Do your kids like the local food?

1. Not so much.  They don’t like spicy food at all and all the sauces are spicy.  They do however chow down on the rice without sauce.  Occasionally they’ll try a piece of meat even though it’s been cooked in the sauce.  They do like the sweet beignets (African doughnuts) though.

Q. Do your kids speak French?

1. Yes and no.  Sam understands French, but is too shy to speak it.  Liza understands some, but follows Sam’s lead and won’t speak it.  David probably speaks it the most because he’s the most outgoing.

Q.What do your kids do for school?

1. I homeschool them.

Q. When is your prayer/service time?  Do you do one every day before schooling begins?

1. We usually pray Responsive Prayer 1, Matins or Morning Prayer first thing, before breakfast, with a focus on the Catechism.  Before the kids go to bed we pray Responsive Prayer 2, Vespers, Evening Prayer, or Compline.  The CLET (the seminary that Micah teaches at) has morning and evening prayers as well which the students lead.  Sometimes we will go to the CLET for evening prayers at 4:30 in lieu of prayers before bed. Of course, those services are all in French.

Q. If so, how much time do you allow yourself before beginning lessons?

1. I tried starting school right after breakfast, but always had too many things to take care of around the house, so we would often start half an hour to an hour after breakfast.

Q. How do you handle grumbling in the ranks if any grumbling occurs?

1. Not well.  I usually say something like, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but we’re doing this anyway”.  And move on.  If there are any other ideas from you, I’d love to hear them!

Q. What’s a typical day like for you?

1. I wake up when the alarm goes off, that is to say, whenever one of the kids wakes me up.  Our house helper comes at 7am to wash dishes and make breakfast.  We say prayers and then eat breakfast while our house helper sweeps and mops the bedrooms.  After breakfast we start school with Catechesis and literature while our house helper cleans the rest of the house and washes our clothes and cloth diapers.  Then the kids are free to play until lunch while I get a few things done and/or cook lunch.  At this time our house helper is either cooking lunch, going to the market, or cutting up fruits and vegetables for us.  After lunch is nap/rest/quiet reading time/a couple more hours of school.  Then the kids are free to play again while I get some work done and make supper.  After supper we play a little bit, get ready for bed, say prayers, put kids to bed, and finally have a couple hours to get some work done without interruptions (if we are lucky).

Q. Do you have running water and electricity?

1. Most of the time, yes.  We can pretty much bet on the electricity going out a few times during the day, but usually for short spurts.  

Q. What’s your house like?

1. Check out my last blog post.

Q. What kind of things are you taking back with you?

1. Toiletries, homeschool supplies, electronics, future gifts for the kids, tools, seasonings, clothes and shoes to last us for two years until our next home service.

Q. How long does it take to fly there?

1. About 2 hours from St. Louis, MO to Washington D.C.  Short layover in D.C.  8 hours across the ocean to Brussels.  4 hour layover in Brussels.  6 hours down to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.  Plus an 8 hour drive to Dapaong, Togo.

Q. How much does it cost to fly there?

1. It’s around $1400 round trip.

Q. Can I come and visit?

1. YES!  You can even look us up on LutheranBNB.

If more questions are asked, I’ll create a sequel to this post.

Flip or Flop?

It took more than a month to fix up our house enough to move in.  So we extended our contract at the old house an extra month.  Moved out on February 28 and still had workers coming to our new (to us) house up until March 18.  Things were done quickly (quantity not quality), yet slowly.  For instance we gave our painters 3 weeks to paint the inside of the house.  The first 2 weeks we barely saw any progress, most of the paint was slopped on the last week, with drips and drops everywhere.  I shouldn’t complain because labor is cheap here, but the cost of the paint and the unnecessary diluent (which is another story in itself) are not cheap.  Unfortunately, the before pictures don't show all the work that needed to be done.  But, fortunately, the after pictures don't show all the little things that weren't done quite right.

 Living Room Before

Living Room After

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

David...before or after?!?!

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After

Boys' Room Before

 Boys' Room After

Girl's Room Before

Girl's Room After

Master Bedroom Before

Master Bedroom After

It was a very frustrating process, and even though many things aren’t quite the way we wanted them, we are satisfied overall with the transformation.  We are happy to be living here finally, if even just for a month before we leave for home service.

Stay tuned for part 2.  When we return from home service, we plan to flip the exterior, including our future school building. 

September to December

A summary-

Again, I haven’t written a post for awhile.  First, because I’m pregnant and tired ALL THE TIME.  Second, because the last months have been quite depressing.  Our truck has had all kinds of problems, at one point, leaving us without a vehicle for over a week.  We couldn’t seem to get the go ahead on the house we want to move into.  Everything is always breaking.  There’s always lots of bugs in the house.  The Internet stinks.  The water goes out for a couple days, as well as the electricity going in and out.  I could go into detail on all these things, but that would just be more depressing.  So I’ll skip the depressing months and look forward to what I can only hope to be our crazy busy months before heading to the United States for furlough…  January, fix up the house.  February, get settled in at the house.  March, get ready for furlough.  Amongst our normal school routine and being pregnant.  We can do this!

A little more on the house-

We originally planned to stay in our current house for 18 months until another certain house opened up, but after finding out this other house wouldn’t be available, we began looking at other options.  When I first saw the house we are now fixing up, I was quite disappointed, it’s in disrepair and would need a lot of work.  Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of houses to choose from in Dapaong.  This particular house is in a good location in so far as Internet, water, electricity, American friends, and CLET are concerned and is a good size for our family.  I quickly changed my mind and began thinking of how we could fix it up.  The second time I saw the house, after 6 months of waiting on the owner to sign a contract, I was again disappointed, but now we’ve put so many months and thoughts into it and have the keys that we can’t really turn back now.  It’s finally time to “flip that house”!  I hope and pray it looks completely different in 1 month.  Please pray things go smoothly (this will take a lot of prayers, because rarely do things go smoothly it seems), so that I’ll be excited to share before and after pictures in my next post.

Baby update-

We saw our healthy baby via ultrasound 2 days before Christmas.  We were hoping to share with grandparents on Christmas whether they have another granddaughter or grandson, but unfortunately we couldn’t get a clear enough picture to tell.  Maybe this will be our first surprise baby.

Christmas fun with friends-

A fellow LCMS missionary family from Ghana, the McDermotts, came all the way up to Dapaong for Christmas.  Our kids have loved spending time with them (and so have we).  Although the long, napless days have been tiring for this pregnant lady - from playing at the CLET to swimming, decorating Christmas cookies, (long) church services, and enjoying playing with Christmas presents with each other - they had a blast and will miss their new friends.

The Good News-

Our Savior was born on Christmas day to come and take our sins away.  No matter how bad our days seem to get in this sin filled world, we can rejoice in knowing that Christ was born to die for us and rise in victory to forgive all our sins.  Joy to the world, the Lord is come!

Summer "Vacation"

The other professors' wives would ask me, “How’s your summer vacation going?”  I’d simply reply, good, but really, there was no vacation about it.  When I hear the word vacation, I think, where are we going?  After traveling so much over the past 2 years, this year has been “boring” (using Sam’s favorite word from this summer).  Even more so because there are no play grounds to go to.  So we often turn our furniture into a playground….

Not everyone was "bored" at home all summer.  Micah was able to travel to Ivory Coast for the ordination of 4 men who graduated from the CLET...  

Meanwhile at home, one of the trees fell over in the back yard and the kids had a new playground…

Micah received an African outfit from one of the churches he visited in Ivory Coast, which Sam was quick to try on. Presenting the wise man of the Wildauer clan...

Micah brought home some cocoa pods from Ivory Coast.  The kids really enjoyed pulling the beans out of the pods and then a few weeks later, after the beans had fermented and dried, we made chocolate…

Our kids playing with the neighborhood kids…

After Sam learned about the 10 highest mountains in the world and mountain climbing in school, we took a little trip to the Grotte aux Greniers de Nagou, otherwise known as the caves in Nagou...  

The actual mountain climbing wasn’t quite what Sam had learned about.  There was a ladder to climb down to the grotto and up when finished, instead of rocks…

Looking into the cave where people used to live…

Climbing down and walking along the mountain side was a challenge at times with the youngest two.  Can you imagine families living on the side of this mountain?…

Our summer “vacation” ended the end of August as the next school year started.  Here’s a picture of all the students and their families… 

And here’s a drawing, by Samuel, of our growing family…

The kids are all super excited to meet their new baby in May!

1st School Year at the CLET

Our family at the opening and closing services of the CLET’s 2015-2016 school year.  Consider these our first and last day of kindergarten pictures.  One might see how much our kids have gotten bigger or how much Micah has gotten smaller, but I see so much more.  I see just how poorly put together we were back in August.  Living out of our suitcases still after having moved into our house the day before, not knowing how anyone else would be dressed, what was appropriate, what wasn’t.  I remember sitting through the opening service in the far back, watching everyone’s moves, trying to take it all in, on top of translating French to English (to myself in the head) and keeping my kids (half way) under control.  It was exhausting!  The closing service was much different.  I wasn’t watching everyone’s moves.  I’ve (kind of) learned local behaviors.  I didn't have to watch my children.  They were sitting with the other kids and I was sitting with the women’s school and singing and dancing in front of everyone.

We’ve been here through a whole school year.  We arrived in Dapaong just a few days before this past school year started and now we’ve reached the closing of the school year.

A lot of days have felt like the following picture.  Our kids looking like monkeys on display for all to stare at.

The next picture is how we see our kids every day.  Our kids acting like monkeys and we have to somehow raise them up right.

There have been many “boring” days where our kids have just wanted to play with their cousins or friends back in the States or go to a playground, but most days the kids go to bed happy from all the fun they had (especially now that we have a little pool).

We’ve grown a custom to living here (somewhat).  Yet we still have a lot to learn and grow.  Especially our kids… (David planted himself in the garden to grow, and that’s what he’s doing, soaking everything in and growing).

Sam has grown a lot this year.  He started kindergarten in January and is soaking everything in.  He’s learning how to write in cursive and how to read.  He especially enjoys reading books to his sister.  He’s learned a lot about God’s creation, including how plants grow and is enjoying watching his garden grow.

Liza enjoys preschool, whether her teacher is Mama or Sam.  She goofily takes it all in.

In the end, our family has graduated "kindergarten"...but there's still a lot more to learn.

Wildlife and Bugs?!

I had a request for a blog post about what kind of wildlife and bugs we see on a regular basis.  Well, we don’t live in East Africa, we don’t have amazing African Safaris here, no lions, zebras, giraffes, or elephants…that I know of.  We have been to Hippo Lake in Mango, Togo where we’ve spotted bumps of hippos popping out of the water, but that’s the most exciting wildlife we’ve seen in Togo. 

In reality, there are many similar animals and insects here as in the United States, such as beetles, roaches, termites, millipedes, ants, flies, dragonflies, birds, bats, cats, dogs, pigs, cows, goats, donkeys, chickens.  Here they are much more visible though.  The creepy crawlies are inside and outside the home- as much as you try to keep them out.  The animals, except for donkeys (which are always seen tied up and pulling things) are found roaming all around town, scrounging the ground for any food-garbage they can find all day long, and then they go home at night. 

Some of the bugs look a little different here, like this millipede:

This is one of our “friends”.  We have a few geckos that live with us to cut down on the insect population.

This next picture was taken on our wall outside.  I’m not sure what these bugs are called, but I call them “red” bugs or “ackee” bugs.  Circled below are the stages of growth.  We had a bit of an infestation of these red bugs inside and outside of our house, thanks to our lovely ackee trees (February post), NOT.  These bugs were all over the ackee fruit/nut when in season and even made it inside where they started laying their eggs all over our walls and furniture.  Little orange dots here and there and everywhere.  The little orange dots changed to red dots after a few days and the next day those dots started moving.  Thankfully we saw them and were able to get rid of most of them and cleaned up all the fallen ackee and their nuts.  There are still a bunch around the trees, but most of these annoying, but pretty much harmless bugs, are out of our house now, except for a handful that fly in every night.

We don’t have any chickens or goats of our own yet, but we do let these 3 animals live inside our wall.  Sometimes we even bathe them!

This is not our tree, but we do have bats in our mango tree.  We hear them squeaking every night.  I really hope they don’t bite into ALL of our mangos.  I’d really like to eat at least ONE of our own mangos this year.  Soon they will be ripe enough to see.

Some of these cows are on the national highway.  We are on a dirt road a long the national highway.  You can see a dead tree on the far left of the picture that is set up as a barricade for the highway.

I’m sure you see the goat on top of the luggage of van in front of us, but also notice the overloaded semi in front of him which has a handful of men sitting on top of the bags of charcoal or rice or corn or all of the above.  This is a very normal picture.

Typhoid Fever

I can’t say I’ve ever had a fever as bad as this fever.  I’ve written a few blog posts while fighting a fever before, but there was no writing of a post during this one.

Let’s back up a few weeks to the beginning of my bout with typhoid.  Incubation period is usually 1-2 weeks.  I’m not sure when or where I got it.  It could have been anywhere from a hand shake to a fly landing on my food.  Who knows, but I got it.  Feces from someone else who’s gone through what I’ve gone through got in me.  How disgusting!  But that’s not as bad as the 24+ hours that I had the fever.  

Sunday afternoon I was making mango muffins with Sam and I started feeling sick.  Shortly after I could feel my temperature rising.  I could feel something going through my veins.  I started getting chills (a feeling I haven’t felt in a long time) and achy in places, so I laid down.  The kids kept coming in and I kept sending them away.  I kept drifting in and out of sleep.  A few hours later I was achy all over and needing to go to the bathroom all the time.  I'll spare you the details.  I couldn’t just stay in there though, I didn’t have the energy to sit up.  I kept going back in forth with the worst vertigo I’ve ever had.  Thankfully, I had furniture and walls to help keep my balance, sort of, though I never fell.  We have a couple of Malaria tests on hand, so Micah tested me.  Negative.  When I wasn’t in the bathroom I was sleeping.  I slept the most I’ve ever slept for 24 hours minus all the runs to the bathroom.  Too bad I couldn’t enjoy it more.  I couldn’t seem to convince myself that I needed to go to the clinic though.

Thank the Lord, after taking care of the kids for 24 hours straight by himself while monitoring my condition, my husband decided I needed to go to the clinic.  Was it more for him or me?  I’m just kidding, he loves me!  I was a little hesitant to go still.  I didn’t want to pick up any other sickness.  At the same time, I wasn’t sure I could get up and walk around.  I didn’t think I could make the car ride without needing a bathroom.  The clinic is really close to our house, but I didn’t know if they had a bathroom or what the conditions might be.  Shortly after being told we were going, I conceded and hoped for the best.  

We arrived and after asking a few people where to go, we found ourselves in an office  of a lady who was speaking with another young woman and toddler sitting up on a nearby cot.  They weren’t there to be seen though, they were clearly visiting with the lady who in turn was asking us a few questions.  So after, a man came in and asked us more questions.  Around here doctors, nurses, random people sitting in a doctors office, and whomever do not introduce themselves nor do they wear any kind of uniform or badge.  We had no idea who we were talking to, but they were asking us questions and writing in my “carnet”.  There are no files of records here.  Every person who goes to a medical facility is issued their own “carnet” (little book) in which symptoms, diagnosis, lab test results, prescriptions, etc. are written down.  I was checked for malaria again, but it was negative.  He wanted to check my blood for a few other possibilities.

He walked me to the lab to have my blood drawn and tested only to find out the lab was closed for the day.  But the doctor tracked down one of the lab technicians for us.  We watched the technician like a hawk.  Well, I wanted to, but I was a little out of it, so I watched more like a pelican.  I did see the needle was new, but it didn't seem like he put anything on the cotton ball to clean my skin. I hope I’m wrong.  

After the blood test, the doctor asked if I wanted to lay down while we waited for results.  Thank the Lord!  I was so exhausted, achy, sweaty, out of it.  Of course I wanted to lay down.  He took us to a small room with 4 cots in it.  One had someone’s belongings on it.  For just a second I was hesitant about laying down on the cot. Who knows if it was clean or not.  But only for a second, ugh, I was way to exhausted to do anything but lay down.  While we waited, another person came in and laid on another bed.  The results came back and the doctor explained them to Micah.  There are no privacy laws here, others could definitely hear the results. White blood cells- normal, hemoglobin- good, another test for malaria- negative.  Typhoid fever- positive.  Wow!  

Didn’t see that coming.  Of course I didn’t really see much of anything coming.  Micah said they’d have to give me one injection right away, then we’d have to come back in the morning to get another injection.  First, Micah had to go buy the goods from the pharmacy which fortunately is right there on site.  The doctor warned me that I might feel like I need to throw up during the injection.  Oh, great!  It ended up just being a metallic taste in my mouth.  We were done.  We went home for the night.  It wasn’t too long after that when I started to feel much better.  The fever went away and the aches and vertigo weren’t as bad.  I wasn’t quite as delirious as I had been.  It wasn’t until this point that I realized how out of it I was.  

We went in the next morning.  The doctor just happened to be walking in at the same time and he took us straight into the lab to give them my stool sample, even though there was a line- of some sort.  There was hardly anyone there the day before, but they only take stool samples (amidst other samples) between 7 and 8 a.m. followed by handing out the results at 11am, so there were quite a few people there that morning.  He showed me where to go to get the injection.  I was really able to watch this time.  I watched her mix the powder with the water (that came with the powder in a little container that said clean water).  I watched her fill the needle.  I watched her clean my skin.  I watched her stick me.  I watched her push it slowly into my arm.  I watched it all.  And I realized even more how delirious I was the day before.  When she was done, we went home.  We’d have to go back at 11 to find out the results of the stool sample.  Most everyone else just waited the 4 hours around the clinic.  

I didn’t actually go back with Micah to get my results.  He was able to get my results and talk to the doctor without me being there.  That’s when Micah found out he is actually a registered nurse, not a doctor.  Thanks America for having badges!  

None-the-less, I am now feeling much better.  I’m still taking another antibiotic to completely get rid of the typhoid, or so we hope and pray.  I’m not really up for eating much yet.  Although, I have made myself eat one of those mango muffins which Sam I were making oh so long ago.  We are being even more cleanly about things and praying that nobody else in our family gets sick too.  Thank you for your prayers as well.

Thanks to Valerie, a fellow LCMS missionary here, for watching the kids during our trips to the clinic and Bekah for being my go to state-side nurse for questions!  :)

Oh, and for reference, I did take the typhoid vaccine before coming here.  It’s only effective about 48% of the time though.