The Waterfall

On the way home from safari, we stopped at a waterfall for lunch and swimming. It’s this little tourist trap place with a restaurant and a beautiful waterfall that you have to climb up to. Sarah and I went with the Kennell girls/Mark, the Reeves clan, and the Miller clan to the swimming hole at the base of the fall. As Mark told me on the way up, it’s the most perfect place ever to reenact the Lost episode where Kate and Sawyer find the case of guns. He was right, but I’m not sure I would have gotten in the water if I thought there were dead bodies at the bottom of the pool.



So, here we are, in this lovely little cove, swimming in the brilliantly blue water, enjoying the wonderful coolness. I swam across toward the waterfall with Maddie, following Aidan and Matt to a little bunch of rocks that they started to climb up. Matt jumped off of the little rock ledge, then it was Aidan’s turn. He was a little hesitant, and I was worried he would jump weirdly and hit a rock, so I climbed up to where he was to point to where he should land and to give him a little encouragement. Aidan soon let go of the tree and leaped off of the ledge, so I climbed back down. Maddie and I worked our way closer to the waterfall, then swam back to the other side where all of the non-swimmers were sitting.

Once I got there, Andrea asked me why I hadn’t jumped. I told her that it takes me an incredibly long time to get the nerve up to take my feet off of solid ground to leap off of high things. The story of the time at Paige’s lakehouse, right after high school graduation came up: I sat at the top of her diving platform for an hour until the sun had gone down and my friends had gone in for supper. I wasn’t going to climb down, because I needed to jump off. I wasn’t going to jump off because I couldn’t convince my body that I needed to. So, I sat there. After that hour and sometime before I went to bed that night, I jumped. “Why didn’t I jump, Andrea? I didn’t want to lose the respect of everyone on the team!”

In response to her (and in my mind, my) question, I swam back to the rock, and climbed up to the ledge. Yeah, I don’t really know why either. I hate jumping off of things. But, it was a challenge I presented to myself. So, I climbed up and looked off of this super tall, massive, huge 8 foot cliff. Dave kept saying, “You have to jump, I’m blocking your way down.” Becky convinced me it had spiritual application and once I jumped, I would officially be an adult. Little 6 year old Gabe encouraged me with, “Come on Miss Jacque! You can do it! Yaaayy!!” Andrea had her camera poised and ready to snap. Sarah had her camera recording. Everyone on the shore was cheering for me, just like they had for Aidan.

So there I stood. And stood. And stood. Sarah’s camera, full of pictures from Europe and safari only had about three and a half minutes of video space- she took three videos, and missed the actual jump because it was unexpected when it finally happened, and her camera was full again! Andrea caught the moment on her camera, though, because she persevered through the fifteen minutes of false alarms.


I climbed back on a ledge that was half submerged (no more heights for me), dove in, and swam across the pool back to where everyone else was. Aidan informed me that until I jumped, my position as his favorite teacher was very threatened. Which is totally legit.

After I (finally) jumped, Gabe climbed up on the ledge after me and leaped off. It took him at least 30 seconds to decide to jump.

"Look! A Animal!!"

Yes, I went on safari again!! This time it was with all three of my students’ entire families and Matt and Grace Hangen. Bethany was having back pain so she stayed at Chez Kennell for the weekend. She and Buster (the Kennell’s dog) sat looking on while Sarah and I climbed into one of the three stuffed vehicles going to Benin.

This was a very different experience from the last safari we went on. I didn’t ride on the top nearly as much- I think I had more of a desire to be clean. A couple of times, I just couldn’t resist seeing the animal kingdom without the frame/confines of a window. On this particular safari, we saw:

*“One million and four” cob (as I told Tiffany yesterday) (cob are the African version of deer)
*Two lions (two different times!)
*Multiple elephants, but only about five up close
*Abyssinian Rollers (the most beautiful birds in the whole wide world. No, really.)
*Hippos galore!
*Baboons (one, “Scarface”, a little too close for comfort. Keep reading for details.)
*Lots of crocodiles
*Water buffalo
*Roan antelope (which always make me think of Scott McEndree’s son, Rhone.)
*Countless numbers of countless species of birds
*A “Jesus” crane (a bird standing on an underwater hippo’s back as the hippo walked along the bottom of the lake, making the bird appear as though it was gliding on the water. Also, this bird isn’t really a different kind of bird, but it has a great description!)

There are probably other things, but I’m not going to strain trying to remember. I am, however, going to tell you some of the more entertaining stories from this particular safari.


Safari #2 Story #1: The First Lion- the Saga

On the second day, after our first night of camping, we ate at the hotel. As we were getting ready to leave, a guide with a group of tourists talked to Matt and told him that they had seen a few lions. They told him where to find it, and we started off down the correct road. We had all just had showers and lunch and spirits were high. It was too warm for the kids to get on top of the car, so there were three of them in the back seat, Sarah, Asher and I were in the middle row, and Matt, Andrea, Abby and AnnaMarie were in the front. As we’re driving down the road, Asher looks at Sarah and says, “Can I have something? I don’t feel good.” Sarah then asks Andrea for a bowl, and Matt pulls over so Asher can get out and throw up outside. I pulled him out and he leaned over for a few minutes, but didn’t do anything, so we got back in the car and start driving again. Abby decides that Asher should be in the front middle, with the air conditioning blowing right on him. They switch seats, climbing over the front seats to do it. Less than three minutes pass before Asher is vomiting into a plastic sack one of the cars following us had given to him. We pull over, get him cleaned up (I’m out of the car, because of my very sensitive gag reflex), then continue on our merry way. Less than ten minutes after that, AnnaMarie was drinking some water, and she starts coughing which leads to more up-chucking in the front seat. Oh yes, the joys of carsickness- poor kids.

After Andrea got herself and AnnaMarie cleaned up, we started off again toward the lion(s). We drive to “the place across from the baobab trees, where there used to be a village” and start peering intently into the brush. We drive past the place where we are supposed to be looking without a sighting, so Matt turns around and we head back. As he’s driving, he randomly looks underneath a tree, stops the car, grabs his binoculars and stares off into some very thick brush... Where he finds a (notice the singular article here) lion. We all get out and start looking, taking pictures, and passing around the binoculars. I was a little nervous, however. If you remember, on our last Pendjari visit, as I was looking at one lion, another jumped out of the very tall grass next to the other, growling at us. I think I now have a built-in fear of only seeing one of two reported lions- I made a few visual sweeps around the other side of the road, just making sure the lions weren’t in cahoots, “luring in” the safari goers for a little afternoon snack.




Safari #2 Story #2: Scarface

Since I got here, the kids have been talking about a particular baboon who isn’t afraid of people. He will come up to you and take things out of your hand, like food and pencil bags (I know, it’s strange, but pencil bags are a big deal!) Well, after Lion Sighting #1, we went to a lake called Mare Bali, which has a lot of different animals. I’ve yet to go there and not see at least three hippos and a million crocodiles. Our car drove up last (everyone else was already at the lookout point, which is a little bit of a walk from the parking spots), and I got out. As I walked toward the lookout deck, I was looking at our friends who were already there. Then, something to my right caught my eye- it was a baboon. Now, you must understand something. Baboons aren’t just cuddly little fun animals who come up and pick things out of your hair. Brett, on our first safari, kept saying, “I don’t want the baboons to rip my face off,” and Nicole had told me earlier, “Have you seen their fangs? They’re huge!” So, seeing this fully grown baboon between me and the rest of the group was far from comforting. Everyone told me he would be ok, though, and Nicole came to walk with me, so I made it safely to the deck. 

Scarface (so named by the team because of a scar he has on his nose) hung out with us for a while. He climbed on some branches, and I got some good pictures/videos. I did some running commentary on what he was thinking, and we all got a good laugh out of him. The kids went and got some snacks to much on, in Tupperware (a fact which will soon be very important), and brought it up to the deck.

After the snacks came out, I relocated to a position fairly close to them to get some good video of a hippo that had just climbed out of the water. I was also videotaping a crocodile that kept randomly thrashing, hoping to catch it doing something cool. As I was focusing the video camera on the crocodile, I heard some crunching leaves, and looked down, thinking it was the lizards under the deck making all of the racket. I look down to see what’s going on with them, then realize there are screams and kids scrambling toward me- it took me a second to get my bearings, but I did realize that I needed to relocate VERY quickly to the other side of the deck. I slammed my video camera shut (still recording, however), and hustled kids away from the noise. As I turn around, I see Scarface sitting on the bench holding the Tupperware (I think he was at least. Even if he wasn’t holding it, he wanted it), and Dave throwing something at him and shouting. The kids are in hysterics, and my heart is thumping loudly in my very shaky body. Scarface leaves, but the kids are really stressed out, so Nicole and I take them back to the cars, where we all get in and drive away from Scarface and his friends, retelling the story and how we all felt for the remainder of the afternoon.


Andrea, Nicole, Grace, and I decided he just wanted the Tupperware. When you live in a wildlife park in Benin, West Africa, you have to get it where you can. Real Tupperware is hard to come by.


Safari #2 Story #3: The Campsite

We finished out the day with another lion sighting, then drove back to our campsite, which was right next to a lake. When we got there, Sarah and I needed to go to the bathroom. It took us a while to find toilet paper, and by the time we were headed back to our “potty place,” Nicole and some of the girls had already gone, and were telling us that they thought there might be a hippo out of the water back where we went, so we should stay close to the path. Sure enough, when Sarah and I started down the very short path to the “business bushes,” we heard what sounded an awful lot like growling. When you’re in a safari park where you’ve just seen two lions, you don’t really stick around growling noises, so we quickly headed back toward the tents, the fire, and the loud children. There, we went straight to Andrea, who then acted as our counselor and kept us safe as we went about twenty feet away from the tents and utilized the darkness rather than bushes for security purposes. It’s hard to convince yourself to walk into tall grass where you’ve just heard growling, whether it was a lion, or that hippo, it really doesn’t matter in the end.

*FUN FACT: Hippos are very dangerous- they kill more people than lions. Granted, that’s usually in the water, but still, do you want to come face to face with a massive hulk of an animal whose territory you’re in? No, you don’t, and neither do I.*

That night, Nicole heard multiple baboons calling to each other (which she knew, because she heard an NPR documentary on baboon calls. Yeah, she’s that cool). And the next morning, after we left for our early (EARLY) morning drive, Mark (who had stayed behind), looked up to see a lion stalking out of the woods right behind our tents. It looked at him for a few minutes, then stalked off- thankfully. 

It was a great campsite.



Wrap-up:
Safari is fun. Animals are great. Road-trips with toddlers and kids are interesting. I don’t like jumping off of high rocks- and in my next post, you will hear about the waterfall we went to where the team was able to experience my fear... For about half an hour.

The Market

I have so many things to write about that are going to take some time. In the meantime, here is a new post to make you smile.

This conversation actually happened today when I was at the market.

Random Woman: "Blah blah blah, french french french, blah blah blah."

Me: "Je ne comprend pas Français, desolée" (I don't understand French, sorry)

Random Woman (we'll call her Marie): "Oh, Anglais?"

Me: "Oui."

Marie: "Is your pagne for you or for me?"

Me: "Well, it's for me."

Marie: "Why isn't it for me?"

Me: "Mainly because I don't know you."

Marie: "I want to be your friend."

Me: "Ok, we can be friends, but I'm still going to keep my pagne."

Marie walks off.

I love going to the market.

Love

This summer, I started to defend my apparent over-use of the word “love.” I bought a journal for the year with “Love... Of course” written on the cover, bought my first pagne that the lady told me stood for “love” (and April told me that was probably the only word in English she knew, but it felt like a sign!), and started noticing every use of the word “love” in the Biblical passages I read.

There are times when I use “love” where “thoroughly enjoy” or “extremely like” would be more appropriate. But when I use “love” to talk about how I feel about someone, I don’t feel that it is misused. I’ve been told that both the frequency of times I say it and the number of people I say it to “cheapen” the word when it leaves my mouth. Even just now, Sarah came in laughing because she keeps finding “I love you, Miss Sarah” in random places in her classroom. I have to say, though, my use of the word has greatly decreased in the past four months- I think part of my inspiration for usage was environment/company dependent.

As I think about this particular character trait of mine, I keep wondering where it came from. My parents told me they loved me growing up, but it’s not like other people’s parents didn’t- and I don’t think I “loved” everything as a child any more than every other little drama queen in the world. No, there was nothing special about my childhood that made me use the word “love” so much.

So where does it come from? Well, I love when people tell me that I mean something special to them. I think everyone does- there’s something life-changing about knowing you make someone’s day by smiling at them or calling them or even thinking about them (and letting them know, of course, because otherwise this wouldn’t be common knowledge). My heart smiles when I get a text message, when my phone rings, or when I get mail (that is actually from someone, of course). **Side Note: This summer, I got a piece of mail congratulating me on my recent marriage. It was from an insurance company asking “what better way to start a life together than to blah blah blah.” I kept it, brought it to Togo, and still get great joy when I think about it. This particular piece of mail doesn’t prove my “someone special” thing at all. End side note** There’s a psychological principle that says we project our feelings/thoughts/lots of other things onto others. Well, since I like hearing “I love you” from people who do, I figure other people like hearing it, too.

Another reason I can think of is that somewhere in my subconscious (and also often my conscious thought) I’m desperately afraid of something happening to either myself or someone I care about without them knowing how I feel about them. When I was a crazy-emotional teenager, I used to leave the house to walk to the bus-stop after fighting with my mother. I would get to the bus-stop, go to school, and have a horrible day. As I got older, I would start the trek angry, get halfway to the stop and run back home, sobbing, to tell my mother that I loved her and I didn’t mean it. Those mornings, she would either have to drive me to the bus-stop or drive me to school for me to get there. She would hug me and we would make up, then my day wouldn’t be ruined.

In Eighth grade, the boy that sat next to me in English class, BJ, was in a car accident over Christmas break and he and his brother were killed. BJ and I never really got along, but his death made me seriously consider the last words I said to someone. The interesting thing is that the last thing I said to BJ wasn’t something awful, but I know it wasn’t necessarily nice, either. 

This last summer, a good family friend passed away in her sleep after church. It was completely unexpected and very hard to deal with. She was a beautiful, godly woman who had an amazing family, an amazing spirit, and a serving heart. Earlier in the summer, a friend I had visited in hospice before I left for New Zealand told me to live a life for God and to live it well. I found out when I got home that he had passed away a few weeks before. This fall, my friend Scott passed away after a year-long battle with cancer. I loved each of these people very much, and I am pretty sure each of them knew it. That’s important to me.

Now, please don’t be worried that I have a fatalist mind-set and always tell people I love them in case they die. That would be extreme, and I don’t think that’s what I’m doing. But I do think that living my life in such a way that those around me know what they mean to me is important to both me and them.

This entire blog post came from thoughts originating with one of my new friends. Last Sunday at “Dinner with the Emersons” (it’s like one of my favorite shows, so I’m punctuating it as such), four-year-old Caden said, “I love this chicken.” His mother then explained that he had discovered the word “love” and was now using it in many sentences. After, “I love this corn,” I told Brett and April that spending four days with me on safari is what did it. 



I love Caden. And I love you. So there.

I Smiled

Today, I left my apartment sad to come to the Emerson's house for dinner. I didn't even say good-bye to my roommates, I just called to make sure April and Brett were home and walked over. I don't really like being sad. It's not my favorite emotion, in any way, shape or form.

Fortunately, God knows I don't like being sad, and He put me with a beautiful people-group that smiles a lot. Less than five minutes away from my house, I greeted some neighbors sitting outside their house, and they offered me some peanuts. Of course, they offered me peanuts in French, and I didn't know what they were talking about. So, I held out my hand. The man put some peanuts in my hand, and I said, "Oh, peanuts!" Then I looked at him and motioned to the peanuts and said, "En français?" He told me the French word for "peanut" and I thanked him, bade him a good evening, and went on my way.

I kept walking, and was greeted by a man with a friendly smile before I greeted him. Then, I had a nice conversation with two boys who go to University here in Kara.

It's hard to be sad for too long here.

Days Gone By

I am 23 years old today. While reminiscing about days gone by and visiting my old xanga site today, I found these little bits of writing I did when I was a senior in high school in AP English Lit. I hope you enjoy them.

She realizes that she’ll be having to leave soon, that she has to move on with the rest of the world no matter what her heart is telling her; time goes on, the clock keeps ticking, the sand keeps on pouring, and no amount of wishing, hoping, thinking, planning, crying, heartache, promises, or lying to herself will change that, because things are made to change; high school isn’t meant to last forever, all of the fun things, the friends, the homework, the teachers she likes, the teachers she doesn’t, the cliques, the papers, the football players, the pretty girls, the band geeks, the drama kids, the constant struggle to fit in, the stress that is really self inflicted, the band competitions, the trends that seem so silly three years later yet so vital when they’re “in,” the life all kids hold for four years; she knows that in four years, maybe even sooner, all of her life now will seem so trivial, but now, at this exact point in her life, she’s not ready to let go, she doesn’t want to leave; so, she goes to all of the senior activities like Senior Sing and cries when she leaves because she isn’t prepared to leave this life she has known for all of her years, the life that goes like this: home, sleep, school, home, sleep, school, home, sleep, school, over and over and over, with new things thrown in there every once in a while like vacation, summer, dance class, name it, it’s in there, because life is like that for the first eighteen years of life; then, she will be thrown out into the “real world” sent off to college, or the armed forces, and she will no longer be a part of that life she’s led for eighteen years, because there’s a new routine; no parents, new schedule, and new people, not the same ones shes known for years and years, the ones she used to hang out with when she was seven that know her most embarrasing secrets but she doesn’t have to worry about because she hasn’t talked to them in at least five years, and shes not even sure if they know her name anymore; these are the familiar things that she doesn’t want to leave, even though she’s ready to get out of the life she leads and start anew, leaving will be hard; it hasn’t even happened yet, and it’s already hard... her last homecoming, her last competition, her last concert, her last prom, her last... everything; what will come next is a mystery, a book yet to be started, a life that is scary but exhilarating and exciting at the same time, holding the mystery of “life beyond school,” she doesn’t think shes ready; but when it comes right down to it, when she is thrown out by herself, she knows that since she has to be ready, she will be.

Heres the second one:

I watch the bands perform, watch the flags fly in the air together, the rifles spin perfectly together, and the sabres rotate with glinting blades and deadly hilts, while tears form then disappear over and over again; it’s my last weekend ever of band competitions, something that seems to have taken forever to have gotten here, but at the same time seems to have come so fast; it seems like just yesterday I was trying out for the colorguard, with Mrs. Grubbs sighing every time I ran away from my flag when I tossed it into the air, my frustration at how hard guard was compared to what I thought it would be; first band camp came, and I hated every minute of it, going home each night crying myself to sleep because I knew that I was committed to do this terrible activity for the rest of the year, hating myself for even thinking I could do it, wishing I was a quitter; then, the next year, I kept going because Mrs. Grubbs made me love guard, even though it was hard at times, I loved what I did, I loved the feel of a flag in my hand, and once a rifle was put in my hand, I was in love with it; I learned the pain of being hit with a dense wooden block, and the joy of catching it perfectly with a “snap” in unison with the rest of the rifle line; I learned that even when I dropped equipment in the middle of the show, it was ok, and I just had to keep going because most likely, unless I made a big deal of it, no one else noticed and having a judge notice that I dropped the weapon is almost as bad as the feeling that comes with knowing I hadn’t done my best because every other time I’d done that toss, it had landed perfectly in my hands; that was the problem actually, the reason I was so upset about the fact that my prelims performance might have been my last; I over rotated my sabre toss, catching it at half a turn past where I was supposed to, making my heart break thinking about how that could have been my last time ever to have the chance to have a perfect show, and knowing that I lost that chance, all because I was nervous; I was nervous about making finals, I wanted it so bad so that I could honestly make my last show my best, and when we made finals, I got that chance; I nailed every toss, and just performed my show, making my last show one of the most memorable I’ve ever had; no drops, no falls, no missing flags when I got to my spot, no regrets, none at all because I know that I did my best; after four years of failures in guard, after the heartaches that came about after my second year, after the pain all of the seniors experienced this year over seemingly stupid things, it all came to a close at a national competition where the Jefferson City High School Marching Jay Band made history, being one of the two first Missouri bands ever to make Bands Of America finals... now it’s over; I think I might be ok with that; in fact, I know I’m ok with that, because it was a good journey, and I’m a better person for having made it.

A Bed-time Story

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Jacque whose parents gave her the travel bug. She traveled all over the US in her family’s mini-van on family vacations seeing sights and making memories. She went to Australia and New Zealand with People to People Student Ambassador groups the summer after her freshman year in high school, and studied abroad in Italy her junior year of college. Three days after graduating from college, she hopped on a plane and led a campaign to New Zealand for six weeks, staying for an extra week just to fall in love with the country a little more than she already was.

One day, she and two friends named Bethany and Sarah met at Carino’s in Atlanta, GA. They drove to the airport, where their parents helped them check their bags then hugged them goodbye. The girls went through security, got their first final Starbucks, and boarded a plane that took them to London. At Heathrow, they got their second and final final Starbucks, looked at chocolate shops, and boarded a plane that took them to Accra, Ghana, West Africa. They sped through customs after retrieving their trunks and suitcases, met two new friends named Nicole and April, saw big guns up close, and went to sleep in the Baptist guesthouse. The next morning, they piled into Nicole’s little truck, and drove 11 hours to Kara, Togo, West Africa, where they moved into Nicole’s house and got over their jet lag.

They settled into their routine pretty quickly once the other families got back and school started. Bethany taught sixth grade and Art, Jacque taught fourth grade and Science, and Sarah taught the kindergarten class and French.

Before they knew it, the first half of the school year was over. They had a Christmas party, complete with a snowball fight and snowman building contest, and went on break. Les trois filles (“the three girls,” a nickname given by Brett Emerson), had their first Christmas away from home, first at their adorable apartment, then at the Kennell’s house where they spent Christmas Eve and Christmas day. They caroled at their fellow expatriates’ homes, and had hot chocolate and popcorn.

Then, they went on safari. This is that story.

Les trois filles piled into the Emerson’s car bright and early on Sunday morning. Spirits were as high as they could be at 6:30am, and they were off! They drove all the way to the border of Benin, crossing into their first new country since August. A few hours later, they were at the gate of Pendjari, the safari park that is the site of this particular adventure.


They saw cob (deer-like animals), antelope, hippos, and crocodiles at their very first lake.


Before the day was over, “Elephant, elephant, elephant, elephant,” saw the car backing up for their first elephant sighting- four young males. It was terribly exciting and was a great end to the day. The safari crew got to the hotel where they ended up setting up camp and going to bed, eager for the next day. As they fell asleep, they heard a lion making its presence known to all.


The next morning, the girls bundled up and climbed on top of the truck. They watched the sun rise through the dust as they drove around the park looking for animals. Throughout the day, they saw warthogs, more cob, baboons, a jackal, more antelope, more elephants... and a lion.

Actually, they saw two lions. It was quite a rush, actually- these particular lions were quite close to our three heroines and their fearless leader, Brett. They had been informed of the lions’ location by some of their safari friends. A not-too-distant bush was under close scrutiny for a few minutes, but the lions were not making an appearance, so the troupe drove off. They returned not too much later and were looking intently at the same bush, wondering where the lions could possibly be.

“There’s the lion!” Brett exclaimed and pointed at a tree even closer than the original bush. The lioness had just stood up less than fifty feet from where les trois filles were sitting! As everyone turned their cameras to the new location, Jacque turned on her video camera, which is why she was able to capture one of the best videos ever. The four on top of the truck were excited to see the lioness, but they had been told there was also a lion. As they pondered his whereabouts, they heard a growl and their eyes flicked to see Artie the lion (as he was named by Jacque to protect him from Brett) leaping out of the tall grass right next to the lioness... toward our happy crew who were still perched on top of the truck, with nothing between them and the agitated lion who was less than thirty feet away.


Someday, maybe you’ll get to see the video of this event. Until then, you can just fill in your own conversation following the lion’s emergence from the grass. Needless to say, lots of pictures were taken, and footage that will make anyone laugh (and maybe some cry) was taken and now rests on our narrator’s computer. At one point, a truck came and blocked the road to escape, panicking our brave friends, but they survived the ordeal and lived happily ever after.

THE END


Author’s Note: This story is true. No names have been changed to protect identities, because there would be no fun in that.

I enjoyed our safari immensely and will always remember it as one of the super-cool things that teaching missionary children in Africa has allowed me to experience. I loved watching the sun rise and set from the top of the truck, and I loved seeing God’s beautiful creation without the confines of cages. I’ve always loved the zoo, and I always will- safari was no substitute for the joy of going to the zoo. However, it was an amazing opportunity that was thrilling in a completely different way that will always be a part of me. Yay safari!!

I hope your Christmas festivities were full of joy and family and amazingness, and that your new year is blessed.