january doesn't bring the snow ... but other changes are ahead!

The holidays are over and it's back to life as usual … except that we haven't found out what that is yet! The month of January is actually going to be a month of preparation for our move to the Monkolé village of Pèdè. It has been good to live in the large town of Parakou as we adjust to life in Benin, and it has given us the chance to get to know the other missionaries here. We have also very much enjoyed the house we have had in Parakou, as it is big, light and airy. It was a blessing to be able to start to learn the Monkolé language during our time here, but even that will be easier once we're living in the community where it's spoken.

The missionary currently living in the big house in Pèdè is going to retire back to Canada in June, and she kindly said that she would move into the small house for a few months so that we could move straight into the big house. There is some work to be done where the concrete is crumbling around windowframes, and the whole house needs to be re-painted, so Marc is going to go up to Pèdè next week with a mason and a painter. They will help Grace to move out, and then get the work done.

We will then need to leave the paint some time to dry and lose the worst of its new-paint smell, but during that time Marc will probably go up to Pèdè again with another colleague who will make a few alterations to the electrical system to make it more efficient. The system is solar-powered, but we are likely to use a generator to pump well-water and a kerosene-powered fridge to make sure that we have enough electricity for all five of us (our family and the other missionary).

We have bought curtain material, and need to get curtains and new sofa cushions made up. It is a novel experience to realise that we are moving into what will – God willing – be our family home for years to come!

I stayed with Grace in the big house in 2003. When I left, the translation team told me they were hoping I'd come back to take over from Grace when she retired. At the time I thought that God might possibly be leading me to do that … but I never dreamt that I would actually be back with a husband and two small boys!

school day

On Saturday we took a trip out to Nikki – 100km (2 hours drive) away – to visit Anni. Anni is a Dutch missionary also serving with SIM here in Benin, and she was our neighbour when she came to Parakou for a while during the school holidays last summer. She teaches at the Nikki Girls' School, a Christian school which gives girls discipleship training while training them in practical skills such as knitting, sewing or weaving.

We had been intending to visit ever since she went back there in September, and this was likely to be our last chance before we move North. On the way there we took the tarmac road as far as N'dali, and then the dirt road from there to Nikki. I realised that I got far more car sick on the tarmac road (with all the braking and swerving to avoid holes) so on our way back we took an alternative route which is dirt road all the way back to Parakou.

Benjy was the star of the show when we arrived at the school. All the girls wanted a turn holding him, and at first he wasn't at all bothered, even when he was carried off out of our sight. But eventually he decided he wanted to go back to his mum, and I then had the difficult job of fending off new girls who turned up and tried to pull him out of my arms!

We saw around the school – a classroom, a sewing room, the knitting room – and Anni also showed us the current accommodation – just small huts with concrete floors – and the site where they are going to build a new dormitory. They will also have an indoor kitchen, since at the moment the girls have to cook all their meals outside. Fine at this time of year, but less fun during rainy season!

We also enjoyed catching up with Anni over a meal. We do appreciate the friendship of the other missionaries here, from so many different backgrounds.

Some photos from our trip:

a hot and happy Christmas...

Did we have a happy Christmas? I will answer that question with this one-take, self-timer photo taken after our Christmas dinner...

and the winner is...

... well, no one guessed exactly ... and I'm going to put the answer to last week's mystery object into the comments section of this post so that no one reads it by mistake before looking at the last post ...

mystery object

Can anyone guess what this is? (Please don't answer and spoil it for everyone else if you actually know!)

seasonal confusion

When I was a child, my aunt and uncle were living in South Africa, and one year they kindly gave us a calendar which said on it “It's sunny today in South Africa”. This wasn't a message we necessarily wanted to hear on a gloomy November day in England. Now that they are living in England, I'm tempted to make a calendar for them which says “It's sunny today in West Africa”!

But jokes aside, I have realised that it is very odd for me, as an English girl, to be living somewhere where the weather is so stable. At the moment we never have to wonder how the weather will be the next day, as we know it will be sunny but fresh in the morning, temperatures around 32°C by the afternoon, and cooler again in the evening and overnight. It's reassuring … particularly since this kind of weather suits me very well. It may be less comfortable in dry season when the predictability means we know that temperatures are going to be up near 40°C every day!

I have at last been able to feel a little bit as if Christmas is coming. Yesterday I went to the rehearsal of the missionary kids' Christmas Presentation, and hearing them singing carols helped me believe it might really be December after all. We are planning to buy a Christmas tree this week and get it up and decorated this weekend. Fake, of course!

yellow fever jab

The Beninese government is having a Yellow Fever vaccination campaign, offering free vaccinations to everyone, this week. Anyone entering Benin over the age of one year is checked for Yellow Fever vaccination as they go through customs, so all of us except Benjy had been jabbed already. But Benjy is now old enough to have it – he is ten months and it is recommended from nine months – so we thought we'd take advantage of the offer of a free jab.

I went with Esther (our home help) who mentioned she wanted to go today and was very happy to have us come along too. Marc is in Cotonou so it was just me and the boys. We had heard a rumour about one of the places it could be done where there would be less queueing, so went there. It was difficult to find, which might explain the lack of crowds! In fact when we got there Esther was able to be vaccinated immediately, but they told us to take Benjy elsewhere and ask for the person in charge.

So we drove up the road to another dispensary, where Esther jumped the (not very long) queue to say we'd been sent there. She then called me in, I answered a few questions about Benjy, and he received his injection.

The cross-cultural confusion I have is that I'm still not sure a) why Benjy couldn't be injected at the first place, and b) whether we jumped the queue at the second because we're white, because we were sent there from elsewhere, or for some other reason, like Benjy's age. However, I'm not too bothered about not understanding since the important thing is that Benjy has had the vaccination now!