Friday June 1st

Friday June 1st

After breakfast, we went to the bank and got some money for the market. The currency in Togo is the CFA and the exchange rate is about 480CFA to 1 U.S. Dollar. So, I pulled ou 15000 CFA ($30) and went to the market. The one we went to was more like the grocery store. I didn't buy anything. We then came to the school house for our first langauage lesson. Our teacher's name is Esowe which means "God knows" in Kabiye. She is really nice and very smart. She knows seven or eight different languages including English, French, Kabiye, Ewe and more. Its highly mpressive. It was all greetings. Basically a review of the greetings that some of us already earned with Matt before school ended. It was good to be able to hear a Kabiye person and how they speak. A lot of the language is all about tonal inflection. After language, we went and had lunch and after that, we went to the men's meeting that they have once a week. It was about a three and a half to four hour meeting. They talked about developing a church in Kara, going out to the villages and updates about the different villages. They then talked about service projects. We then just took some time and prayed to commit the plans we had to God so that He can take charge instead of us. Even though it wasn't a terribly fascinating meeting, it was realistic and I am very grateful to be able to see how the guys interact with each other and how they come about making decisions. They talk about an issue, suggest a plan of action, discuss the plan of action, see if anybody has any objections or other ideas, and then decide if it is what they want to do or not. Its good to be able to see how they do it. After the meeting, we went home for dinner. After dinner we watched Blood Diamond with Leonardo DiCaprio. If you haven't seen it, I would highly suggest it. Although it has a little bit of langauge and some mild blood, it is a very powerful movie. Its about Sierra Leone and how there are people that will exploit people below them for a minor profit. Its about human nature and sacrifice and how far a person would be willing to go in order to do something they believe in. It was very good. After the movie, we
went to bed.