Letter to Nairobi

Our friend Leno came to say goodbye to Alyssa before we left for Nairobi on Wednesday, and while he was sitting with us, he told us he wanted us to get paper so that he could send a message to the people of America (Alyssa) and Nairobi (me...I had told him I was coming to Nairobi to greet my friends, which is true). He said the message in Toposa, and I wrote it down in English. Most of you aren't "the people of Nairobi" but it's still a nice greeting, and one that's very Toposa. I purposely didn't make the English flow in the American way, but kept it translated word for word from what he said.

Hello people of Nairobi. Hello visitors.

I am greeting everyone in Nairobi. This is for all the children. Hello to the mothers and fathers. Good is coming to you. I'm greeting Nairobi. Hello people. Hello dirt. Are you well? Everyone? I want everyone to come here. Hello to the women, too. Napo, Regina, Napir greet you. Najio, too, all my wives. All the wives of Leno greet you. Leno, Mindy's father, greets you. Is everyone well? When Mindy comes back she should bring something small for me, and also clothes. The end.

The Time My Toposa Father Got Married

My Toposa father, Aloso, recently got married to his second wife. Toposa culture is a never-ending puzzle and I will never come close to figuring it out, but I will say that the celebration experience is always an interesting one. The Toposa take their ngakidamdam times seriously and really it's enough to make any American party seem really lame.

 For this particular ngakidamdam, the people from Aloso's village got ready and then sort of paraded to the village of the girl he was marrying. The women wear lots of bells, extra beads, and many buy socks and shoes in town to wear for these fancy occasions. 

 This is my Toposa mother, Regina, who is wife #1. She borrowed my rain boots for the celebration. I asked her if she was happy that her husband was getting another wife and she said it was very good. Toposa women and girls work very hard to tend their gardens, fix their houses and prepare food for their families, so more wives means there are more people to help with the work. Happiness and love are not part of the marriage equation here.

 Many people wear animal tails just above their elbows. They are sort of like tassels and the women will throw their elbows up to greet others during the celebration.

 Basically there is a lot of running around, blowing whistles, jumping, singing, and general chaos for several hours. The people of each village group together and have a dialogue back and forth in the form of yelling, chanting, stomping, etc. Part of the dialoge is the bargaining for how many animals the man will give the woman's family.

Random Things, and an AK-47

Recently our schedule has been way more relaxed than normal so a bunch of really random stuff has been happening. This has been due to two reasons. One, we've finished our AIDS storying and two, everyone except for me is about to leave for America. The Lewises are going on furlough for six months and Alyssa is finishing her two-year term. We finished homeschooling last week and the boys are enjoying their last few weeks with their Toposa friends. Everyone is packing and saying goodbyes and trying to get ready for all the changes! After a trip to Kenya next week to re-stock, I'll come back (by myself, sad!) and spend the next six months working on an audio recording project with some Toposa believers so that they will have some of God's Word recorded in their language! Finally!

My recent, less spiritually significant project has been learning how to make Toposa bracelets. For women in Toposaland, beauty is measured by how much and what kind of jewelry they have. Women spend a lot of time sewing beads onto goatskin skirts and making necklaces, bracelets, and belts. I've successfully made two bracelets with a lot of little help at the start and finish, and it's actually pretty fun! Everyone seems pretty shocked that I can do them so I'm not sure if I should be offended that they didn't think I could thread string through a bead, or if I should be happy that they are impressed... My next project is a belt. Those are harder because they take more beads and it's easier to lose track of the pattern. My goal is to finish just one belt during dry season while the women are in the village instead of the gardens. This way they are available to help me with the hard parts and to correct my mistakes!

In other news, it's started to get stinkin' hot during the day and the men have started to leave for cattle camp. During dry season they take their cows further away so that they can find grass to eat. One of my friends left a few weeks ago and when he came to say goodbye I couldn't resist the perfect photo op with his AK-47.

And yes, that is red nail polish that he has used to paint his gun...

Napio is a really cool guy and God is using him in special ways. Most Toposa have a good ear for learning stories because of their oral culture, but Napio has like a superpower or something and can remember almost every detail of every story he's ever listened to. When we've listened to chapters of the New Testament on the audio player, he is almost always a few words ahead of the player, no matter what we're listening to. How many 16-year-old boys do you know that have the bulk of the New Testament MEMORIZED?! As you pray for me and for the Toposa, remember Napio and ask God to protect him (physically and spiritually) at cattle camp and to give him many opportunities to tell the stories from God's Word to the other men!

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas and a happy new year from Alyssa and Mindy!

(Maybe next year Toposaland will have some snow...)

Dad Comes to Toposaland

My dad came to South Sudan to spend Christmas with me! I am so, so, SO thankful for his week here. 

His birthday was the day after he got here so we made a cake! He's not into celebrating birthdays, but Alyssa and I are and hey...cake is good no matter what the reason.

We went to a nearby village so that he could meet my Toposa father and some of my other friends.

My American father and my Toposa father!

Dad got to experience Christmas Day, Toposa style! It was quite a bit warmer and a lot less commercial than Christmas in America.

He even ate maize meal and goat meat for Christmas lunch!

A big shout out goes to my Dallas friends and church family for sending SO MUCH! I feel so loved, and I really appreciate the effort that Trinity Fellowship (and others!) went to in order to be so generous to me.

Why yes, that IS a bag of Chick-Fil-A sauce packets and dark chocolate Reeses...

At first I thought there was some terrible mistake because a maroon t-shirt was one of the gifts. Phew, it was a TWU shirt and not an Aggie shirt! Thanks, Katherine!

Merry Christmas from Toposaland!

Sorghum Delivery!

Last week the Toposa team and a group of men from Texas hosted a 3-day leader training for some of the men who have been faithful to learn from God's Word on a regular basis over the past several months. Alyssa and I got to be a part of this training by teaching the HIV/AIDS stories to this group. It was a really good way to wrap up this ministry, especially since we know many of the men who were attending. There was a lot of good discussion after the stories about how they as believers should treat people with AIDS.

On the last day each man received a bag of sorghum to help feed his family. There were around 30 men from all over our area of Toposaland, so we needed every vehicle on the compound to help transport the men and their sorghum back to their villages.

 Our truck had 12 guys and we headed to seven different areas.

 One by one we dropped everyone off.

 Three hours of driving on roads like this...

 ...plus water in the fuel tank...

(by the way, these men aren't helping, they're watching)

(At least this wasn't us!)

...and we got to help men like Leno have a pretty good Saturday morning!

To Grandmother's House We Go...

Our language helper, Charles, is in Kenya at a training course geared toward helping people like him know how to properly evaluate the language skills of people like us...yikes! I can speak and understand Toposa just fine to do the "normal" day-to-day stuff, but if I were going to be officially evaluated I would probably fail! This course will hopefully help Charles be a more effective teacher when he helps other members of the Toposa team who will move here in a few months.

Since he's been gone, Alyssa and I have had more time in the afternoons. We took a little walking trip a couple of days ago. Napeyo (who is a believer!) wanted us to come with her to her grandmother's village. We shocked everyone by walking (gasp!) instead of going in the car. Most Toposa seem to have extremely low expectations when it comes to what us white girls are physically capable of doing. 

First stop, dry riverbed.

Tanning, South Sudan style...

It took about 45 minutes of fairly fast walking to get there. The area is up on a hill so the view was really great!

Her grandmother didn't end up being there, but we took a picture anyway. We walked back with Napeyo and two other friends the next day and found her working in her garden.

This is the one random pretty tree that we saw on the way. Napeyo didn't know the name of the tree so I told her it was called the Mindy Tree because it was beautiful. HA!

We got stuck walking in the rain on the way back both times! Dry season is here for the most part but every now and then there is a random shower that makes everything nice and humid.