The Fun Afternoon

My Muslim brothers showed up at the front door (the ones who’ve been teaching me the local language small-small, occasionally using my local-dialect Bible) and asked whether I’d like them to show me the neighborhood reservoir. “Let me grab my camera,” I replied, thinking it sounded as though the dam was right around the corner. Actually, it turned out to be at least two miles away. But you know I don’t mind long walks: and the boys were such fun company. “Latif” is 17 and “Halal” is 14; both are fascinated with cultural differences between Africa and America. At their request we sang our national anthems to one another, discussed our constitutional right to keep and bear arms, talked about trash pickup and farming techniques and much, much more.

The boys passed one tree and casually mentioned that its fruit was getting ripe. “What kind of fruit?” I asked; so Halal quickly scaled the tree to pluck some.

The fruit was rather dry, but sweet.

Latif loves to stage photos, as I found out. When at last we made it to the reservoir, he wanted me to fetch a pail of water so he could take a picture. As long as they didn’t ask me to carry it dripping dirtily on my head, that was fine. Knowing it would gross me out, Halal drew my attention to the fact that he was drinking the water. But I ended up grossing him out by pointing out the ducks and the fish, and asking where he thought their waste was going…yeah, I hope he doesn’t drink such filthy water again.

On the way back, we passed rice harvesters. “Would you like to help clear the threshing field?” Latif asked; so we stopped and asked the laborers whether we could borrow their tools and space for pictures. The boys had me clear away some stubble prior to sweeping the earth clean.

We moved on to another threshing field, where threshing was actually going on. The women pile up the dried rice stalks and use heavy sticks to beat the grain from the chaff. It’s fun as a novel activity for a photo op, but must quickly tire the woman who has to beat out rice for days on end during the harvest time.

Thump! A bat fell out of a tree. The boys said someone probably knocked it down with a slingshot, but not seeing the hunter, we picked it up (yes, I touched the bat =D) and the boys told me what sweet eating a bat makes. Hmm, I don’t think I want to find out for myself.

I showed the boys how to whistle with a blade of grass, and they showed me how to make miniature purses out of mango leaves. And they told me African jokes, some of which I got and some of which, honestly, I didn’t.

The whole outing took more than three hours, but was such fun. Please pray for Latif and Halal: they know that I’m a Christian, and that I want to see them saved as well. May God be at work in their lives!