Lots of visitors/teams have been coming in lately!
Tim came down Friday and left early Saturday. It was good to see him--it's funny because I don't feel like I've been here long, but I feel like I've been gone from Libreville for an eternity. Time, for all its preciseness, is really so relative sometimes.
I was up much to early Saturday because Huyn stayed here so she and her husband Tim (another Tim, apparently, everyone with that name comes to Gabon) drove up to Libreville, from where they are heading on to Cameroon where they will work at the hospital there. They were really cool, I'm sad they have left!
Friday night I also played a fun game of Settlers of Catan at the Thelander's with Joanna and Keir, Tim Brokopp, and Renee, Carolyn and I. It was really fun. It's a long game though, and we didn't get finished until midnight.
I came back and then was so very excited about the next mornings incredibly awesome activities (don't you wonder what I got into now?) that I couldn't fall asleep till 2 am. But on the bright side there was a nice big storm, so there was lots of amazingly loud claps of thunder to listen to, and the rain, and flashes of lightning to add a lovely visual effect to all the audio.
Then, I woke up at 5:50, in time to say goodbye to Tim and Huin as they were heading out with their suitcases.
I couldn't really fall asleep after that, try as I might. But I somehow still managed to be late for my 9am meeting time to go CAVING!
I went with one of the teams that came in recently. Kalle and Olivier were our Gabonese guides, and the funny part was that I was the only of the Americans to know any French. So I got the job of translator. That went stunningly. (At one point I said something that I thought would get my point across, of course, the sentence as a whole made no sense at all. Kalle and Olivier repeated it and cracked up, so I lamented that my French is terrible, I do think I said that correctly at least!) Let me explain.
Our guides were young, and looked like they could probably play sports all day. Our group was night quite so young and spry. Because of the torrential rains last night everything was wet and muddy. Really muddy. Thick slippery mud. So, now imagine a nice group of about 7 Americans walking into this dark slippery cave. The team had brought along bottles of water and paper cups and various odds and ends they thought might be nice. Then they find that this is no Mammoth cave guided tour complete with built in lights and gaurdrails. No, my friend, we were underflashlighted and in the dark, crawling over rocks, crawling past holes, slithering through tunnels and falling left and right. It would have been hysterical I think if I hadn't felt like someone was going to fall and break something. This wouldn't have been so bad except I think I was the main person who felt like we were more likely to leave the cave with someone in a few more pieced than they came.
Our guides took off, others lagged behind, a few gave in and walked back, another sat down to wait (in the dark with all the bats). A while in people were starting to see things a bit more like me and thinking maybe it was time to go back. Now the trick was telling the guides that we wanted to go back. I don't really know what I said. I tried a lot of things. They all ended in the guides taking off further and further into the cave, which was not exactly what I was trying to suggest.
After a little while I pieced together that we were going towards the exit, our guides were not going to turn around for anything, and I was mostly sure that we would leave the same way we came in. The only remaining troublesome part was whether we would run into our team member who was still sitting in the dark with the bats somewhere. I wasn't sure if I knew the word for "waiting" and our guides seemed to think she had walked out.
In the end, everything turned out just fine. We eventually found the water that team decided to ditch, and we found our patiently waiting team member. No one broke anything (that I'm aware of) and the caves were beautiful (the cave crickets were not. One I saw had antennae that were (I kid you not) 8 inches long). Kalle pointed out the beginning formations of stalagmites (ground) and we saw huge stalactites. We saw holes, and bats, and little rivulets. It was a great time, I really hope to get to go again sometime. Maybe I'll take my camera next time, but it feels less adventuresome when you're snapping pictures. I'm going to get some hopefully from this team anyway.
After a quick shower, I helped repackage food from the food order for some missionaries who aren't here right now with Karen, Renee, Carolyn, Joanna, and Sarah.
This evening I was invited by the caving team to dinner with them. I learned a new card game--Hand and foot--I'm quite good at loosing it. But I think you're a bit at the mercy of the draw (and partner).
Then Mary and Trisha (the ladies on the team) went up to Joanna's for a "girls night out" movie--we were the only one's there, but it was fun. We had tea and popcorn and watched "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants." It was great to get to meet the team and see what they are up to on my "day off" today.
Tomorrow I'm going to the Bongolo Church with Margariet and Huub and Rebecca...they just don't know that yet. But I'll call them in the morning. We walk anyway and they've given me a blanket invitation to tag along with them anytime, so I'm sure it will be fine. But now, I have been awake much too long with far too little sleep, so we'll bring this to a close!
Goodnight! (And feel free to email anytime about anything at all, I love to hear how everyone is doing at home!)
--Jessica
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