Easter back home in Ferke
Posted by Linnea...

Join us for our first Easter back at “home” in Ivory Coast – not your ordinary Easter, but very special . . . We woke early without an alarm, the sun rising before six, the muted light coming in the west bedroom window. The light itself felt hot, yellow gray. I rolled over and touched Glenn. “He is risen!” His eyes met mine, suddenly alert: “He is risen indeed!” Breakfast was the usual mangoes and raw oatmeal (milk for Glenn, yogurt for me). Victorine (Fuhoton’s wife), tiny and cute in her yellow pagne complet, came over about twenty minutes late for the ride to the village. She had not spent the night at the village Easter-celebration wake either, since she had a sick friend staying with her in town, but her husband Fuhoton had been with his flock since early Saturday. We got in the Peace Train (Ariane’s name for our Hyundai van) and began wending our way along the rough curving dirt roads out of town and into the countryside. I slid a French praise CD into the car player and “Hosanna!” began filling the air. The village was quiet, just a few kids running out to greet us and grab our Bibles and purses. We ambled between huts, greeting those who were visible. They were tired after the night’s festivities, some of them bathing. Glenn investigated the many cooking pots and noted that they all were making sauce graine, and Victorine responded, “Of course – it’s a fête!” But when the ballaphones began playing, the chapel by the road began to fill. Soon we each had a maximum two feet of space, and clapping and moving to the rhythmic songs took grace and attention to the movement of the one packed next to you. I sat on the fourth bench on the women’s side, two young women sharing it with me. The girl next to me kept nodding off, exhausted from staying up all night, so the women behind us (Parifali, smiling teasingly) kept poking her to wake her. The music was lively and passionate, however, and even when the words escaped me I could participate, mouthing the general Nyarafolo word shapes in the responses. The songleader called on various other men and women, one by one, to lead a song. He stayed in the center aisle, never still, dancing with fervor back and forth and leading responses. When young Mari went to the front to sing brightly into the mike of the half-mile hailer, her baby lay happily tied onto her back, listening. The next time she went forward, he stood at her feet, holding her wrapped skirt, watching her and the people. He was so quiet in the middle of all that beat and melody and heat. Fuhoton preached, his Nyarafolo fast and lilting. It got clearer to me with time, and I listened to him explain how Jesus was our Passover lamb, the sacrifice that gives us life. He did a free oral translation directly from his French Bible since Exodus is not yet in Nyarafolo, looking up as he started to urge me to get to work translating it! When the service was over we all stood in the shade of the trees outside to get a breath of air for a few minutes before most of us went back inside, for communion. Glenn led with Fuhoton beside him, passing the bread cubes in a woven basket, then two glasses filled with dark red da. Communal eating is symbolic of our shared life in Christ, as well as of our unity. So after this we ate a more substantial meal together, the dark orange palm nut sauce slipping down over the rice in big blue plastic bowls. Except for Glenn’s bowl -- someone had made senige sauce for him, with kabato, the white cornflour mush that so complements it. He was in heaven. Several of us ate in the church, where they had pulled the benches around a table. Some of the men were in the shade under the trees outside. And afterwards we walked back to Parifali’s house to say thank you to the cooks, who were eating there with the kids. Parifali’s daughter (who has a name long enough to be a really good one: Nyihenemekiye) had on a new pale yellow pagne outfit, and she was glowing with teenage beauty and high spirits. “Take a picture of us!” she said, so I did, framing her with the three little kids all sitting under the big tree, eating. And then we were on our way home, with extra passengers to drop off on the way. It was nearly noon, and the heat was only hotter by the time we got home to fix our own Easter dinner. Two of our coworkers were coming to join us: Dr. Jenn Hall and Deb Gibbs. I put a cluster of frangipani blossoms in the middle of the table, on the orchid tie-dye cloth. We had a long and leisurely gabfest as we ate our grilled steak, stirfried vegies, potatoes and salad – mango frozen yogurt for dessert. Not your traditional American Easter dinner! But then, this was our American-African Easter, and we are as mixed as our setting. Every one of us was wearing African clothing, and our talk was of ministry and plans and challenges ahead, of their church service at the Douane church (with the first appearance of a French chorale, which Jenn has joined) and of ours in the village. At three we said goodbye as our guests left, and began the next phase of the day: siesta, then flight to Korhogo (an hour away). We had discovered on Saturday that the Nyarafolo hunters were going to have their annual meeting in the big truck/taxi stop right in front of our courtyard! The fact that it was Easter meant nothing to them; it was their annual get together, and of course it would mean the firing of gunpowder volleys from their homemade shotguns all night – and who knows what else. These are the shape-changers, in tune with the spirit world in mysterious ways. Specialists. We had decided we would not stay around to experience the frisson of PTSD, the shots recalling the war that spilled us out of the country just 3 ½ years ago. Or to deal with the impossibility of sleeping. Not for us! So we went on a date. Not your usual kind though . . . We went to Korhogo to stay in a hotel overnight. On the way out of town we stopped to give our condolences to Moise (my cotranslator for Genesis) and his wife, Valerie; her cousin, from far away north of Boundiali, had come to the hospital for treatment for a heart problem the preceding week, and had died suddenly on Friday. He fell over dead while taking a bath in the little bath stall right in their courtyard, and the family had been quite traumatized by it all. It was a time of good sharing there in the shade of a mango tree. About 5 pm we headed on down the road to Korhogo, waving at the young rebel soldier at each barricade, giving a tract to one who asked if we didn’t have something for him. About 20 minutes later we had a flat tire. The car’s tires are old, and the pavement has not been repaired during the Crisis; it was no wonder we got a puncture as we wove down the road choosing our potholes. By the time the tire was changed it was nearly dark, much later than we had hoped to be traveling. But looking back, we saw that even that was part of God’s TLC for us that day! We went to the AGIP motel restaurant in Korhogo, knowing that they used to have fairly good food. The wear-and-tear of the crisis was evident. The man behind the front bar said, yes, the restaurant was open, served us each a Fanta “cocktail” (a fruit flavor not available in the States, and wonderful!). Then he disappeared, and we think he went to find the cook. About the time he came back all the lights went out – all the lights in town! Two men at a table nearby were constantly on their cell phones, and we overheard them discovering by calling friends in other cities that the entire nation was blacked out. The bartender set a little cardboard Marlboro coaster in the middle of our table, lit a small white candle, dripped wax on the coaster and set the candle into it. Now it was a verifiable date night, Glenn and I out in the big city eating by candlelight! We had lots of time to talk:). Eventually the man brought us menus, and we discovered that (of course) they did have steak, but no fries or fresh vegetables – just spaghetti noodles. I realized that with the lack of clientele, with Korhogo still in rebel territory, it would not have been profitable for them to keep anything perishable around – only what could be frozen, or kept in a package. They served us a little steak gravy to put on the noodles, and it really tasted good. Yaya (the mission bookkeeper, Glenn’s friend in Korhogo) had advised us to try La Rose Blanche because it was one of the only hotels that had water (most of the city’s water supply is cut due to lack of repairs during the Crisis). But when we went by it we saw that they had no lights, whereas the Chigata had it own generator and was lit up. So we turned around and went there, opting for air conditioning instead of a close, still, dark room. Sure enough, they opened a room for us, made the bed, brought us two big buckets of water for the bathroom, and turned on the AC. The temperature in the room had to be over 100 degrees – the walls were hot to the touch, and oozed warmth all night. It had been a long time since it had been cool in there! We pulled the double bed over next to the AC, and angled the vents so that its 18-inch shaft of cool air flowed over us, and put a DVD in Glenn’s laptop. Dinner and a movie, after all! And if we had not had that flat tire, we probably would have been checked in at La Rose Blanche before the blackout began, too late to change hotels! TLC. Then it was time to flee. We had been warned, the day before, that the dšzulo, Nyarafolo hunters, were going to party all night on Sunday in the open plaza in front of our courtyard. The fact that it was Easter meant nothing to them; it was their annual get together, and of course it would mean the firing of gunpowder volleys from their homemade shotguns all night – and who knows what else. These are the shape-changers, in tune with the spirit world in mysterious ways. Specialists. We had decided we would not stay around to experience the frisson of PTSD, the shots recalling the war that spilled us out of the country just 3 ½ years ago. Or to deal with the impossibility of sleeping. I At about 5 pm we left home, stopping by Moise’s courtyard to greet him and Valerie and give our condolences. On Good Friday, a man staying with them (Valerie’s cousing from north of Boundiali) had died suddenly while bathing. Valerie wasn’t there, but Moise came in just after his daughter had seated us, so we talked for a while, and he told the story of the accident after another couple joined us. Getting out and visiting is always a real effort for me, but once there, it is so very rich.