Rain, Lightning and More Sweat

Happy Memorial Day everybody! 

This is how people have to carry their water! Since not everyone has running water, most people have to go to a place that does have running water and move buckets of it to their house. There are even people you can hire that will do this for you all day (there's one lady I know who walks all over our sector moving water for people... she's super skinny needless to say!). But yeah... I don't have any water, but it's going to happen one day. Because it was getting late and we had another appointment, we didn't have time to do it, but I really want to just because it would be pretty cool to carry something on my head. 

Things have been going pretty slow out here in Togo. It's been raining every once in a while, but one thing that I've realized in being out here is that rainy season really just means "same blistering hot days with more rainy days mixed in between". I was expecting it to cool off a little bit because of all the rain, but that doesn't really happen... still hot... still hot. And you know, people would say I would get used to the climate here and wouldn't sweat as much... what a LIE that was!!! It's been four months out here and I still sweat like a "pregnant fish" according to Elder Owusu, whatever that means. In any case, I still sweat like crazzzzy... even a member, whenever I greet him he always says, and I quote, "Elder Hawkins, always sweating." What's really funny is that after it rains, it does cool off but the humidity sky-rockets. So, all the Togolais are "cold" and they see me still sweating up a storm! They're very stupefied because of this.

So this week has been really slow compared to the past few weeks... with the falls last week, all the mission conference stuff the week before... and then we're having Elder Dickson coming this week so that will be cool. Guess I'm back to having no idea what I'm going to talk about so we'll so how exciting this email will really be!

Elder Dickson speaking at General Conference April 2013, 

he speaks of West Africa about at about 5:35 into the talk. 

Gotta say that I have seen some of the coolest lightning of my life out here in Togo. We had a pretty huge freak electric storm hit us while we were at two recent convert's parcelle. All of a sudden you just hear what sounds like buckets being poured down onto the tin roof of their house... we didn't even realize how strong the storm was until the roof of their house starting being picked up because of the wind! It scared the daylights out of Christine and Florence (our recent converts) when that happened... It was kinda scary to think the tin roof could get ripped off and hit me in the face, but I thought it was pretty cool to see all the lightning! To this day, storms still fascinate me! 

(found a sample of the lightning in West Africa on YouTube!)

After the storm finally cooled down a bit, we were able to walk back home. Even though  the rain stopped, there was still lightning surrounding us... but it was sweet! The lightning was basically making these cool spider web patterns in the sky and they would light up the whole sky at the same time, almost like daytime really! 

Though this past Saturday/Sunday night, the lightning was not so nice as we were trying to sleep. Every time it rains, we have to go out to our porch and pull in all our laundry stuff, shoes, and patio furniture. So, after we did that, I was trying to go to sleep but the lightning was going crazy around us! My eyes were completely closed but the lightning was so bright that my closed eyelids basically did nothing... and the thunder was LOUD! Imagine someone cracking 1000 whips at the same time right by your ears and you'll get the idea of what it's like.

Let's see what else, what else... I think this might be the "winter" of Togo right now because just about EVERYBODY is sick right now. Yesterday, at church our Branch President's wife at to be carried into a taxi to go to the hospital after church ended. Honestly, the only reason I could think that people are all getting sick is that people are just malnourished here. Even though they eat tons of pate to satisfy their hunger, it has almost no nutritional value whatsoever, especially when it's not eaten with meat or vegetables. Other than that I'm not really sure what the deal is.

Maybe it's the bugs from the rain? Hmmm...anyway, our HUGE can of bug spray we bought to kill out all the cockroaches in our kitchen. Had tons of small little baby cockroaches come out and three HUGE nasty ones come out. Thankfully Elder Shearer did all the dirty work for the apartment... I also got a kick at how huge the can was because I don't think this would ever fly back in the USA!

The French is going good... I'm definitely feeling pretty comfortable in the language and can follow the lessons really well. Even in Church I'm doing a pretty good job in keeping up with the talks they give and the lessons during Sunday School and Priesthood. Don't get me wrong, it's still tough but I've learned how to deal with it! 

The prayers are helpful as always! I'm not really sure what to ask for this week in terms of specifics, but I'm always looking to better understand the people here and have the strength to work every day.

The inside of the Cocoa bean. Honestly, you just take the beans and lick 'em and suck on them... it's really good. It tastes like sweet yogurt with a little more of a bitter taste. Apparently, Elders Kunz and Welsh were able to make chocolate with their cocoa beans, so I'm on the hunt to find more in order to make some chocolate! 

 

Alright, got to get going now! Love you all and thanks for all the support. Hope everyone is partying it up today celebrating the awesome country that America is and all her heros! 

Have a superb week!

Love,

Elder Hawkins

Note from the Fro:  Emailing back and forth this week from our Ward Memorial Day picnic.  Lots of people saying Hi to him, which was cool!  He also mentioned that he would be moving to a new apartment this week.  Said it is still not a great apartment and will never win awards for cleanliness, but that it DOES have a banana tree in the yard which is has REAL (as opposed to...?) bananas growing on it that he's real excited about!  He also asked for updates from his Aunts, Uncles and cousins....wondered how you all were doing!  Please try to drop him an email this week or send something handwritten, he'd love to hear from you!  Leaving off with his fav song for Memorial Day.  

Enjoy!

Wild Pineapple Bushes, Colorful Cocoa Trees and the American Flag

Cool sunset photo from our sector.

The bright sun was directly above me. Beating down on my slightly shaven head, the beads of sweat rolled down my head like a Jimmy Rollins walk-off double... quick and like bullets. It was hot, needless to say, but I had a mission to accomplish. As I walked through the tall grass and overgrown bushes, my breath became heavier and heavier while fighting the tough African terrain. Even with the wild pineapple bushes and colorful cocoa trees on my side, I still had to go onward. The trail was tough with the constant ups and downs, the sharp rocks and the weaving streams. Fighting through the jungles of Africa, I knew that my mission was finally complete as I heard the rushing water... or maybe it just my sweat getting worse... but no! Lo and behold, the waterfalls were there! The jungles of the dark continent had finally given me my reward! Victory was mine, at last!

And there you have it, my first real adventure in Togo! Today we went to some waterfalls in Palimé. The mission paid for a coach bus for all the missionaries out here in Togo to go. The falls weren't that amazing in terms of being big or anything but they were pretty cool. We hiked a good mile or two to get to them and it was a bit dangerous but it was cool. President Weed, Sister Weed, and the Semkins (the couple who works at the Office in Benin) all made it so it wasn't that hard I suppose! I think Sister Weed sprained her finger or something though. 

But it was really nice to just get away from Lome for once. It was really nice to see how green Togo actually is once you drive up north... and we actually saw some mountains too! We saw some cool mountain villages and we all kept joking around that we should ask President if we could open up a sector there haha. We had about a two hour drive and it was pretty cool... especially because it was a legit air conditioned bus from China. Except the blow horn on it belonged to a freaking cruise ship... my goodness that thing was so loud and being in Togo, our bus driver used it nonstop... we had a lot of close calls also since our bus driver passed every single car/moto he came up to... I'm pretty sure 

he scared Sister Weed half to death because our driver was weaving that coach bus pretty good and it felt like a roller coaster at times. Still awesome though.

But... the only bad thing about the trip was that I FORGOT MY CAMERA!! Of all the times to forget... stupid me. I'm having Elder Shearer forward some of his photos for me though.

Also, another cool thing to add to my Adventures in Food book... cocoa beans! Man, those things are good! There was a guy at the waterfalls selling them so Elder Kunz and I decided to buy one. In order to eat them, you break it in half by hitting it super hard on your knee. Then you just take some of the gooey seeds and suck on them! It's actually very sweet and tasty! You just can't chew on the seeds because it's pretty bitter and not all that appetizing. Kinda weird to think that that's where they get the cocoa to make chocolate! Kinda feel bad for wasting all that potential chocolate since I would just spit the seeds on the ground. Oh well though! We also bought some passion fruit but I have yet to try that... I'll probably get to try some when I get back to the apartment. 

Also on the drive up to the waterfalls, right before we exited Lome, we saw this really big, nice building. I asked Elder Kunz (since he had the window seat) if he could tell what the building was because to me, it looked like a hospital. Then everyone was like no, wait... that's the AMERICAN EMBASSY!!!!!!!! All the Americans just got so happy. It reminded me of when I saw those American soldiers at San Marcos Pizza too. I just felt so happy and content to see something American... and of course, then we all saw that beautiful, large American flag hanging gracefully on its flagpoll. Oh... it was such a beautiful sight. To see a flagpoll with the Stars and Stripes on it was really an amazing sight. It is funny how things like that make an American happy in Togo. It's also funny how that one moment might have been more awesome than the actual trip to the waterfalls! I won't lie, I may or may not have saluted the flag on our way back to Lome... good times, good times.

Other than that, things have pretty much been same old, same old. It's been raining a lot, as expected. On Thursday, it was raining all morning but it finally stopped once we were supposed to go out. We were hesitant to go out because it was still cloudy, but we did anyway because we knew we were supposed to! Of course, we don't even get down our street and the rain just starts pouring... and I mean pouring. A river eventually formed accross the street we had to cross so there was no way we could get to our sector unless we had a boat. We tried to wait it out but it wasn't going away anytime soon so we went back to the apartment to wait it out. 

This is the river that formed blocking us from our sector. It had a really strong current if you can believe it! There were some crazy motos trying to drive through it too that were barely making it without stalling. Crazy motos!

Awesome rainbow!! The rain was teasing us on and off all day and we got rewarded by a nice, beautiful rainbow in our sector! Nice things like that just can't help but make you happy!

So yeah... that's about as exciting as my life gets during the week. Navigating the rivers is always super fun. On Wednesday, I partied up my 6th months on the mission with the Neguessan family. Had some delicious couscous like stuff with some pima, tomatoes, onions, and fish. And to top it off, Seour Neguessan made me some bouabob (spelling is probably completely off) but I think I've described it before (it's this drink/dessert with some tangarine juice, powdered milk, and other stuff). It's AWESOME and she made me a whole liter and a half of it so I'm stocked in terms of that. We had a pretty fun time hanging out with them, even though it was kinda a joke since I'm still just a youngin' at 6 months on the mission and my comp has 8 weeks left on his mission! Ohhhh well... ça va aller! 

I didn't burn a tie because they're all pretty awesome, but my plan is to just burn a full missionary outfit once I get to the end of my mission since I'll be DONE with those finally! Maybe I'll burn a shirt at the year mark since I have backup shirts.

This is my amazing plate of spaghetti and marinara sauce I made using ALL African ingredients. I was SO proud of myself for my amazing creation. It actually tastes like something I WANTED to eat and I made it myself!!!!!! Of course, I tried making it a few days later and it sucked big time....but! One victory at a time, right??

The cockroaches have been coming like crazy recently. I just swept up 3 of them that were in and around the kitchen the other day. I have no idea why they have been appearing all of a sudden (maybe the rain? No clue). Thankfully they're usually dead by the time I find them but I still don't like sweeping them out of the kitchen and stuff... they're so dang gross. If you really want, I can take some pictures! 

Anyway, things are going good however. I've been really enjoying the work this week and I've been feeling pretty good too. Thanks again to everybody for all the support and prayers because they do really help out. This week, we really need to be busy so if you could pray that we'll have people to meet and teach, that would be really helpful. We didn't have too many lessons last week which is a bummber because we have been working pretty hard, but sometimes that happens. But seriously, thanks again for all the prayers, love and support. I feel like I say that to everyone I write an email too, but it's true! I really am grateful for the backing I get from all of you guys. Some days can be really tough out here, whether it be from the heat, from the homesickness, or just the stress of the work, it's really humbling to know that so many people are cheering me on back home. 

Thanks to you all! 

With love,

Elder Hawkins

Elder Owusu and I had to get the classic missionary photo together. Made a mistake in not bringing my raincoat, but at least I had my umbrella!

Obviously Elder Mukenga and Elder Shearer had the same idea in returning to the apartment to take cover from the rain!

Note from the Fro:
Not so easy to juggle transatlantic traveling while trying to connect with your Elder at the same time! In between driving to the airport, returning a rental car, getting thru security, hoofing it to my gate, and settling on my short flight from Portland to Seattle, my phone was in constant refresh mode. I used every last second before those doors closed to "chat" with my boy. I cherish Monday's so much and that little tiny connection! Dear friends, please remind me NOT to book flights on Mondays for the next 18 months. (Ha! I accidentally typed Momdays, I think that's rather appropriate!) And ok, yes I like saying 18 months instead of 2 years. 18 months!!!  I told him how I actually met a Togolais this week! My brother John started speaking French with one of the kitchen workers at our Marriott hotel in Portland, then asked where he was from.  He replied, West Africa! I asked where in West Africa and his answer? TOGO! He was probably shocked that I knew of his country. So cool! Elder H is in good spirits as usual. Loved sitting on the bus with Elder Kunz while traveling to and from the falls. Almost as much as he loved the AC on that bus! He's asked that we send him his baseball mitt and baseballs, he misses playing catch with his brother.  He said he'll try to send pics of the waterfalls next week. And like he said, a few times even, he's very, very grateful for the thoughts, prayers and letters of all his friends and family back home. Thanks for supporting our boy! Sorry if this posts with a strange font, can't control much from my iPad. However, I can say that this is the first time I've posted a blog from the air! 

P.S. Let me know if you'd like him to send those pics of the cockroaches, I'll relay the message. Eeww!

Yoooooooooooooo!

Sooo... found some sweet sour skittles on sale at Citimart last week... I mean who wouldn't buy Skittles that were on sale!?!? Well, as it turns out, the reason they were on sale is because all the skittles managed to melt into one giant mutated skittle. It tastes pretty good, but it's hard to eat since I keep it in the fridge and it's like a solid rock! Still worth it though!

Yo everybody...

Interesting Africa fact to start of with this email... I know everyone back home thinks yo is just a funny slang way to great people back home, but it's actually how you greet people in éwé which means "hi". Whenever we walk into a parcel (courtyard thingie between houses where people live) people say hi (I actually have no idea what they say really) but I do know that to reply, you just reply with one big "yoooooooooooo". A little slice of home for me in a weird, fro-y way.

So the rainy season has been creeping up slowly but surely here. We're starting to get them pretty regularly every week now. Last Tuesday was crazy though. We had a Reunion de Zone and afterwards the clouds were just plain dark and the wind was starting to pick up... everyone knew that a storm was coming! We had a mangez-vous in Doumassese (Elder Owusu's old sector) and it rained tons while we ate some pretty good spaghetti and hot dog stuff. The storm ended just as we finished eating, but let me tell you, the rest of the day was absolutely glorious! It was nice and cool throughout the day because the clouds stuck around and the rain cooled everything down. If Togo was like that all the time, I would have NO problem with that. Once nighttime came around, our room was at 78 degrees and it was FREEZING!!! I had to pull out my extra sheet and actually had to sleep with a blanket... I even had to consider turning my fans down but I was too tired and the sheet helped a lot. However, as Togo can't actually get cold without any consequences, it was blazing hot the rest of the week... so the cool temperatures were very short lived. 

 Elder Owusu, Sister Juliette Asima, Brother Samson Asima, our Ami Samuel (awesome dude!), and some random yovo (he's an oddball for sure).

We had a baptism this past week, which I'm really happy for! The baptism went very well and I'm really happy about that. Things got kinda shaky the next day on Sunday. What happens is that we have to confer the Holy Ghost on either the Sunday after the baptism or the next Sunday. Or, we have to do the baptism again. Since he told us he was going to the village to see his father (who is sick) the next week, it was imperative that he was at church yesterday. We were getting pretty worried because we tried calling him and calling him right before Church started, trying to remind him to come, but he wasn't picking up his phone. When church started, we pretty much gave up all hope that he was going to be in sacrament meeting... so that bummed us out a bunch. BUT... due to some weird problems in preparing the sacrament, church ended up started a 1/2 hour late... and, as it turns out, he came into the chapel during the hymn right before his confirmation! Perfect timing!! Pretty cool how things like that work out huh?! The Lord works in mysterious ways, doesn't he?

So, on a completely different subject, I wanted to talk a little bit about one of the cooler things of Togo. People here sell tons of things just walking around with little carts or big bucket things on their heads. You can find everything from sunglasses, DVDs, FanMilk products (the ice cream stuff), cell phones, clothes (all types of clothes too)... basically anything. But... they don't just sell products but a lot of people walk around and will do random things for you. For example, during our lesson with one of our amis (who, after months of teaching finally said he wants to get baptized!) called over a guy to give him a full manicure/pedicure thing! The guy completely cleaned and cut our amis nails on both his feet and toes... all for 10 cents! It was pretty cool, but the stuff the guy was using was pretty shady and who knows how long ago it was cleaned. Still... kinda cool though! 

 Pic courtesy of Google!

There are tons of other people too! Some people walk around with sewing machines on their heads so if you need something hemmed or fixed, they are right there for you! (I can just imagine Fro doing that! Haha.) Or, if you need a shoe cobbler, they always walk around hitting a woodblock so that way you know their coming. A lot of women walk around with food too... you can get all sorts of fruits, beans, rice, bread... they can usually make you a pretty good lunch. The problem with these walking around street vendor people is that it can be hard to tell when they'll come back. Like the FanMilk guys I see multiple times a day, but other people it can be tough. Like our ami who got his nails cut apologized to us for having that done during our lesson, but he said that it might not be for another few weeks until he sees him again. So... the people walking around selling stuff is one of the cooler parts of Togo in my opinion! 

Let's see... other than that... not too many other cool things to talk about. Things are going well in terms of the work. We were tied for our second busiest week this week... so once again the prayers for a busier week worked! I would like to improve this week again, but we went from 11 lessons to 17 so I think that's a nice improvement.

For this week, I'm not really sure what I have need of. I think this week, I really want to work on speaking up during lessons and having the opportunity to teach effective lessons. A lot of times, I think I know what to say but I'm never sure when to speak up and share my thoughts because sometimes Elder Owusu just talks forever. So what would be really helpful is to be able to find the courage to speak up. Also, I think Elder Owusu has been having a tough week, so keep him in your prayers too!

Elder Shearer and I attacking each other with our homemade pingpong table! Pretty good workout considering our apartment was somewhere in the 90s with no fans on! 

Anyway, through it all, I'm doing pretty good. Through all the sweat, stained shirts, constant yovo songs, dirt, dust, and sand... I'm still alive and kicking! The time does seem to go by pretty quick though... I've gotten pretty good in getting lost as to what day of the week it is, which is a plus! Now I just gotta start letting the weeks add up and get a good amount of time under my belt.

Thanks for all the love, prayers, and emails! Fro always keeps telling me that everyone really enjoys reading my emails so I'm glad people read through all my rambling! Sometimes I write down things I want to talk about in these emails, but most of it just comes randomly, on the fly.

Got to get going now... Miss you all!

Byebyeloooo (figured if I started out with the typical Togolais greeting, might as well end it with their way of saying goodbye!)

Elder Hawkins

P.S. Thank you Mrs. Hunter for providing for my pure bliss moment of the week this week... I finally opened up that box of Lucky Charms today... my goodness... those things are even more magically delicious in Togo than in America! Oh they were sooooooooo amazing... I never knew so much joy could come out of having a full bowl of Lucky Charms in the morning haha. 

Note from the Fro: First of all, he's COLD at 78 degrees? What??  Wow, I guess he's acclimated to the heat already.  That's so crazy!  And spaghetti and hotdogs?  Oh no.  It's happening, he's becoming a true Hawkins.  Nails trimmed on the street?  Interesting.  Glad he noticed the questionable cleanliness of the instruments and didn't give it a go himself!  And no, I will not be carrying my sewing machine around on my head any time soon (quilters don't hem anyway, ask the Sur!).  I asked him about the teacher strikes going on in Togo right now.  It's kind of crazy down there at the moment, I read that over 20,000 primary, secondary and high school students marched on Thursday to support their teachers on strike!  He said: Our 2nd counselor is actually a teacher and is on strike. The reason they're striking? They haven't gotten a pay raise since 1969 fro! I'm surprised they haven't gone on strike earlier!!  Aside from the one time we saw them marching on the main road, we really don't see much of the protests. Because there's a public school surrounding the apartment, the mornings are so peaceful and lovely for personal study now that they're on strike. So I don't mind the strike at all! 

P.S. Notice the new countdown widget on the sidebar?  Countdown to Mother's Day...woohoo, less than a month away!