Perspectives

Sisters, twins or just friends

Butterfly which we raised from a caterpillar

It’s interesting how in different cultures people automatically assume different things. It’s also funny to think how your own perspectives get altered by the places you live in and the people you talk to.

It makes you wonder whether what we mean by our ‘opinions’ on subjects are in fact only reflections of the mixture (or not) of places where we have lived...

If another person lived exactly the same life as me would they be the same? I think, probably not.

My sister and I by English and Chadian standards look about the same age even with our age difference. Despite this we don’t look like sisters to most English people and because we look the same age they assume we are just friends. I don’t know if that is just because our hair colour is different but at our school which is quite French although we are in different years and talk to each other a lot, people who don’t know us think we are just friends as well (perhaps this is because in their eyes sisters aren’t always best friends). In fact, one of the teachers thought I was American and my American friend was me just because she has the same hair colour as Ruth and that would make her more likely to be Ruth’s sister (regardless of our accents from opposite sides of the world). Ruth has also been asked by someone in her class who the ginger haired white girl she talked to during break was!

On the other hand when we go to market (with headscarves on so you can’t see our hair) all the Chadians automatically assume that we are twins! We always get asked whether or not we are twins and no one will believe that Ruth is in fact two years older than me; maybe this is just because they would love to meet white twins?

Similarly, at the Arabic course that we have been doing during the summer holidays even when the others found out Ruth was the eldest (after assuming I was because I am more sociable) they still thought that simply meant she was born a few minutes before me and that we were twins. Interestingly enough we wear headscarves to our Arabic class.

Maybe it’s just our hair that makes all the difference.

Hot and Cold /Good and Bad / Normal and Unusual Weather

 



Sunset outside hospital in rainy season

 

Another example of people’s impressions on things being changed depending on the country came to me when I was reading a newspaper. I read that they were planning to close schools and offices over a certain temperature (ABOUT 25 OR 30°!) The temperature in Chad rarely goes below this.  In the rainy season (now) when it’s meant to slightly cooler its 28° throughout the day. If they said this in Chad we would next to never go to school. The lowest temperature was 17° at night in January- February time! In Chad 23° is cool yet the same temperature in England is a heat wave.

When you look out of the window up at the sky your point of view will change according to the country:

If you look up and see a blue cloudless sky in England you would think it’s great and feel like going to the beach. In Chad it is like a cloudy day in England, ordinary. You don’t even think about it.

If you look up and see a cloudy sky and see that it’s raining in England you would be disappointed but in Chad you would go outside and enjoy it. In England it is classed as an ordinary and common thing however in Chad it only rains during four months of the year. You might think that Chad has less rain fall per year than England but this is not true. According to BBC weather the average rain fall per year is the same.

Lily in a puddle/lake which appeared in the rainy season

Gardens

When you see grass in England it is everywhere and normal. You can only occasionally see it in Chad. When you see it it’s either in a rich person’s garden or a posh hotel or it’s the rainy season. The amount of times you would need to water the garden to make it like England’s grass is so much that you would spend half of every day watering. You would probably need to employ a full time gardener to have grass all year round! If they left it alone for a few days it would shrivel up and die. 

If you sow some flowers in summer in England you could just leave them and they would grow without too much trouble. In Chad you need to make sure you’re not planting just before a thunderstorm where the seeds would get washed away or forgetting to water them every day if it’s not raining that much. But things still manage to grow during the rainy season and by the river. What are these animals?





 

Bye for now

Ruth and Rebecca

 

 

 

Mali, cats and new house

Hello everyone,
This blog has been split into 3 parts:
1. What we did in Mali
2. Ginger and Dipsy
3. Moving house

We hope you are all ok and enjoying the summer holidays as much as we are!
Ruth and Rebecca xxx

1. Mali

In our last blog we mentioned that we were going on holiday to Mali. This first part of the blog is about what we did there.
1st of all we stayed in a hotel for a retreat with other BMS missionaries from Guinea and other places. It was by the river Niger and was very nice they had a pool in which we swam every day and they had delicious food too!
In the mornings we all had a service in which Rebecca played the flute, Ruth would of played the guitar but couldn't bring hers on the aeroplane. Then we went off with 2 other children Raphael-8 and Beatrice-3 and Rebecca North(Andrew North's daughter who's soon coming here in Chad)and Rosemary who did bible study with us.
Then in the afternoons there were extra meetings and things to do and also the swimming pool. On one day we went on a boat trip all together down the Niger we got some very nice pictures and got to see a bit more of Mali. We also got to explore the touristy street by the hotel on which there were lots of nice shops though not very English! Ruth bought some pretty red leather sandals and we found a 'small' supermarket that was better stocked than any of Chad's!
When we moved out from the hotel we went to live on Bamako's SIL compound the same mission organisation that runs the English/American church in Chad.
We had a smallish flat to ourselves and it was very nice. We visited the local 'medium sized' supermarket and it was huge well compared to what we're used to anyway! We managed to get sausages and bacon! So almost each morning we had a different variation on an English breakfast and also croissants 1 day.
Right next to the compound was an English family with 2 girls and 1 boy about our age who had a swimming pool. They were friendly and showed us the sights of Bamako (a lot more than Chad) they have a beautiful park and museum which are both very European. We went to the park twice and to the museum once. The museum was very interesting and we learnt a lot. On another day we went to see an amazing rock formation like a bridge which we climbed.
We cooked for ourselves on some days and had a lovely tea of roast pork with apple sauce and vegetables on one day and also sausages and mash on another. We went out and had burgers which made a nice change and also we ate at some other missionaries houses. On one day we went to an ice cream shop where they had 36 different flavours, we tried 2 each! We also got some school stuff for next year as Mali is much better stocked than Chad! We got some beautiful 'bazan' material which has the design imprinted into it and also some tie dye material too. Rebecca got some very nice leather flip-flops and our parents bought a bed cover.
On the way back and there we had to stay overnight in Ethiopia and we stayed in the Hilton on the way back! It was very posh and we had fish and chips and In'jara (Local Ethiopian food)room service at midnight because that was when our plane got in we even had some delicious strawberries and cream too for pudding! In Ethiopia it was very cold (About 15-20 degrees!)
and we had to sleep with thick blankets!
We had a really nice time in Mali and really enjoyed ourselves, it was nice and refreshing to be somewhere other than the hospital especially for our parents!

2. Ginger and Dipsy

Our cat, Ginger went missing when we came home from Mali. We didn't know what had happened to her but when we came home she wasn't there.
She's always disliked the other kittens and been a scaredy cat not even liking us much. So we guessed that with us not being there, the kittens roaming free and strangers around she got scared and ran away.
We went outside our compound a few times to call her but she didn't come.
Then 3 days after coming back from Mali our Dad came into to the house in the evening saying: "Where's Biscuit?" (Ginger's almost identical twin) Apparently an orange and white cat had been spotted underneath the containers. Biscuit was indoors so we ran out and called the cat to us and it was Ginger! Or so we thought…
We lived happily with the new Ginger explaining away the slight differences between the 2 cats. Then 2 days later our friend Aïsha came round and she questioned the 'other cat' so we looked at some pictures of Ginger and the 'other cat' and found they were different!
We couldn't just throw out the other cat because she was very nice, purred a lot and the other cats had accepted her so much that Mowzer even let her breastfeed!
So we renamed the 'other cat' Dipsy and she kind of replaced Ginger for us.
3 weeks later just after we moved house, a man who was working for the hospital, cutting the grass must of seen us calling our other cats because he said to us that when he had been out of the compound and passing a hole he had heard a cat or something like that. Biscuit hadn't come back that day from wherever he goes at night and we were looking for him.
So Ruth and I went out and looked around but we couldn't hear any cats or see any holes. We were about to go back when the man came out and said to us " Oh, I'll show you where"
So we followed him to the to the toilets for the care givers village!
Now in Chad and the rest of Africa they don't have toilets like we do, they have a big hole and build on top of it a little building which has separate cubicles with a little hole in each. So basically squat toilets.
Anyway as we approached the toilets we called and heard the voice of a cat magnified by the hole yowling and sounding really desperate. We didn't have a torch or light with us so we ran back to the house bumping into our mum on the way. She went to find our dad to see if he could think of a way to get it out.
As it so happens they have this trapdoor on the side which leads into the pit so our dad got a ladder and put it down the trapdoor. By this time we could see an orange and white cat down there looking very thin and helpless. Our cats know how to climb ladders from their trips up in roof so we hoped that it would be able to climb it and save us a trip down!
But the poor cat which we had by now had recognised as the true Ginger, was not able to climb more than two rungs of the ladder as she was too weak!
So our Dad after taking his phone and other things from his pockets, went down and rescued her!
Every one had crowded round by this time and they scared Ginger so much that she almost jumped back down the hole!!!
But we got them to go away and got Ginger home where she had 2 showers as she stank of well…
She is very thin and has almost no leg muscle left as she hadn't been able to do exercise.
We suppose that someone must of come when she was in a cubicle sheltering and she had jumped down the hole in fright! Apparently the man who told us she was there had been hearing her for 2-3 weeks so who knows what happened and how she survived! She's doing well and should be better soon.
She's had a change of personality, smells a lot better and now purrs loads!
We have now given away all of the second lot of kittens and are planning on giving Dipsy to Michaela a German doctor who is coming to live on the compound at the end of August.
Mowzer and Biscuit have now had operations so no more kittens for us or big yowling cats! They are both doing fine.
To finish here is a rhyme some of you may recognise about Ginger:
Oh dear, what can the matter be?
Ginger stuck in the lavatory
She was there Monday to Saturday
Nobody knew she was there!

This isn't quite true but still funny! =)

3. Moving house

We've been in our house about two weeks now and it already feels like home. It's much smaller than the other house and more cosy but cooler, it should be with all our windows. Rebecca and I painted the border of our room peach ourselves unlike the rest of the house which was painted by our painter in dark blue. We moved in when the carpenter had made our beds, dining table and desks even though the rest of the furniture wasn't ready. The cupboards and drawers came for our kitchen yesterday with two bookcases we are hoping to have our chest of drawers for our clothes soon ,they are in suitcases at the moment. Our games and craft things are in boxes waiting for when the carpenter finishes those things and we can order more. At the moment the builders are putting the anti-voles(bars) on. The tiles were finished yesterday too.
Instead of having a sofa, armchairs and a table we have a mat and some mattresses and cushions around the side, the tailor is making covers for those. The mat is like what most Chadians use in their homes instead of sofas .The curtains for our bedroom are purple and green tie dye material (we sent them to the tailor too) we have bed covers that we put on during the day which are the same colours but not the same design. We have those already on our beds. The cats have settled in fine and like our new home just as much as we do.

Hope you enjoyed reading the blog.