Recap

All I can say about these past two weeks is wow! My Hausa language learning ended last Thursday so now my primary goal is to learn via practice. In these last few days I spent some time with a field personnel family in the Far East of the country. It was great spending time with them and their two kids and practicing/hearing the Hausa language. This is a recapitulation of all the domestic skills that I have acquired in the past few days…



o Cooking/Tasting: Laura in the Far East taught me some African cooking skills and introduced me to all the African “girl food.” She taught me how to doctor up their typical red sauce with peanut butter and pumpkin. We ate don waki which looks like slimy gray meatballs. Therefore is does not look appealing and some classify it as “snot balls.” It tastes pretty good mixed with mayonnaise and a mixture of pepper spices called yaji. I also tried their wakin awora which I have decided is African tofu. I watched the women make this and it only took 4 hours! The process involves grinding up soaked beans into a paste then cooking the paste with tsami (soured bean juice) and cutting into slices to eat. I will not wait 4 hours again to try some.


o Crochet: African crochet is more like American embroidery than anything else. A few of Laura’s neighbors took me to the main road to buy fabric, thread and lace to make a table cloth and baby wrap called a goye. My West African country is special in that the color choices here are hideous. My bright yellow fabric doesn’t go at all with the dark red, blue and green yarn with the pastel lace. Oh well! If I want to fit in here I guess I just don’t need to worry about matching. The girls let me borrow one of their template designs to stitch. They don’t use a hoop here for tension purposes so now I think I have carpal tunnel.
 

See how everything matches!



Yarn (Zare)

 o Dr. Liner: For those of you who know my family, you have heard that my sister just got accepted into Brody School of Medicine. Yayyyyyy! However after this past weekend I feel as if I am now qualified for medical school as well. On Tuesdays tons of women come to Laura’s house for milk and nutrients for their babies. I got to be an active part of this and my eyes were opened to the lack of health education in this area. Of the most interesting sites were the two women with breast infections. Once the women develop breast infections they stop feeding because it hurts. However the milk backs up and creates an inflamed breast which is not a pretty site. So Laura tells me, “Cameron, we are going to have to milk these women.” Yeah, definitely not what I expected to be doing when I signed up for this African term!

o Washing Machine Queen: I had to spend last night at my language learning house due to some security concerns. So today I decided to wash my clothes with the field personal here and to use their awesome agitator and ringer contraption. This thing is so much fun! After the clothes are good and agitated, you run the clothes through these two squeegee rolls that push the water out on one side and the clothes on the other. It really is fun and now I don’t have to wash my clothes by hand this weekend! Praise!



Ringer Time!





So that sums up the adventures in my life for the past couple of days. Eventually I will be back in my own house setting up a Christmas tree and listening to my Ella Fitzgerald Christmas songs! Hope you all are enjoying the holiday season!

Line Dry Time...

Our Day of Thanks

My first African Thanksgiving was wonderful and felt almost like I was in America with the great food, fellowship, and two young kids to play with. My family back home was missed very much especially when I realized that I wouldn’t get to eat any of my Mom’s coconut crème pie and the most wonderful congealed salad in the world! I really don’t know how I am going to live without Mom’s congealed salad these next two years but I’ll try to manage. (That’s for you Kendall!)



We played some games outside with the kids and even had a little game of baseball. The young boy had a dvd of a Chelsea vs. Arsenal game so I was so excited to see a soccer match and excited that somebody else around here loves soccer as much as I do. I got to wear my new Thanksgiving outfit that I picked up from the tailors that Tuesday and wore my matching earrings that I made. Pictures are below and yes I made tire earrings to match my tire fabric. Another great thing about Africa….creativity and ingenuity are endless! Enjoy the pictures and I hope your Thanksgiving was filled with an abundance of blessings.



Our wonderful pie complete with pumpkin and leaf detail

Baseball....just not my sport.  At least I got tagged out instead of striking out!



watching soccer :)



The Tires



Tie-Dye Time

So at times when applying for my current work overseas I often thought how useless my major would be. Even though West Africa is filled with textiles, I didn’t know how dominate it would be in my current country. Compared to the other West African countries it does not offer a lot of textiles within the country. None the less, the Father has allowed me to use my love for textiles in creating relationships here. One of the first Hausa words I learned was “saka” which means “to weave.” The second textile word I learned was “rini” or “to dye”.



my fabric of pink and gray





This came in handy when I met a lady, ‘M’, during my language study stay that dyes fabric. She was nice enough to let me watch her dye my fabric and I wrote down the Hausa names of the materials she used. It was extraordinary to see her and her friend work, using basic everyday items to complete this task. They didn’t have any string to tie the fabric once folding so she cut a piece of old bike tire inner tube with a razor blade. In America I would have probably run all the way to A.C. Moore or Michaels if I didn’t have the “proper” materials to tie my fabric with. My fabric turned out beautiful and I will get it back from the tailor’s, embroidered and everything next week.


From this dyeing excursion I have visited ‘M’ several times. She has helped me practice my Hausa and has been very patient with me. I let her borrow and look through my textile dyeing and embroidery book last week. I also brought my laptop over to her house to show pictures of my textile work from college. She enjoyed them and asked me to teach her to weave. Oh I would love to if only I had a loom and materials with me. However, I told her I would bring my weaving book next week so she could see the basic workings of the loom and how to draft weave patterns. Actually translated into Hausa I said, “I will come next week, weaving book, you look.” Haha, baby steps right!


I ended up asking my language teacher if they sale looms in the capital city. He said they did but that he didn’t know how expensive they were. I have to go into the capital mid-January to get my residence card so I have decided to scout out the town for a loom. That way I can practice my weaving here, teach ‘M’ the craft, and then leave the loom with her after my two year term is up. I like this plan a lot so hopefully the capital will sale looms and they won’t be too expensive!



my narrow-strip woven blanket for the cooler months :)

 

Beautiful People

Many of you probably thought I have fallen off the face of the earth, but the truth is, I am just trapped in the desert! It is a grand entrapment though and the monochromatic landscape has consistently grown on me. As an aesthetic person I have come to find joy in the people around me. The Fulani women are some of the most gorgeous people. They walk tall and graceful even with large bowls a top their heads. They constantly amaze me with how much they carry. I feel so inadequate here at times! These women wear bright colored clothing of numerous patterns and intricate lace detail. My favorite outfits are those with lime green lace that accent their ebony skin so well. Their jewelry is bold, large bead work. What a wonderful masterpiece they are and praise that I get to work with them these next two years!



On another note, I have recently had the opportunity to watch a Human Planet episode. One of my friends in training told me that there was one specifically on deserts. I downloaded it off iTunes in the States and watched it the other night for the first time. It is called Deserts: Life in the Furnace and I would encourage you to watch it. It highlighted a few people groups in my current country. One of the people groups is the Wodaabi. They are actually a small sub-group of the Fulani. The show highlights a dance that the men dress up for in elaborate make-up and feathers. The dance is called the Yaake and they dance to impress marriageable women. It is captivating but further exemplifies the lostness in this area.

Textile Talk:

One of the last nights in the capital city, I was blessed to stumble upon a Batik store. Therefore I purchased my first, and as of now only, African artwork. It shapes the outline of my country and is filled with the different people groups that make up my country. It is beautiful work and I look forward to purchasing more for friends and family. By the time that I go back to the capital city I hope I speak enough Hausa to ask if he can make a batik of someone weaving. Oh, this would make me so happy!

What in the world is batik???- Well I am glad you asked! Now here I can share a bit of knowledge that N.C. State College of Textiles gave me. The original process of batik involves waxing cotton or rayon fabrics in patterns. The wax is often applied with carefully handcrafted metal devices dipped in hot wax and printed onto the fabric hundreds of times. Sometimes the wax is applied with a tjanting tool which has a tiny well that delivers wax to the fabric. After the wax hardens, the fabric is dyed in large vats, rewaxed, and dyed again in a different color. Wherever the wax is applied, the color is resisted so the fabric stays the original or previously dyed color. The wax is removed by boiling the fabric or by ironing out most of the wax. Those of you who crave projects; you should research more and design your own batik!



Oh Africa!

I have been settling down in the capital city since I arrived this past Friday. We are staying here until Wednesday when we make the 10 hour ride to our city. My team has been so gracious and they have shown me how to taxi, get around in the market, purchase enough meat and cheese to freeze for a lifetime, and how to go fabric shopping. Of course, being a textile major, fabric shopping was the most exciting. However the print patterns were nowhere near the types of things we designed at N.C. State. Apparently we are behind on our design skills and oversized motifs! After the 3rd fabric store I started making a list of all the crazy images on these fabrics. I hope some of these make you laugh and I wish I had pictures of all of these. There were fabrics with…

• bowling alleys, psychedelic chicken legs, teapots and coffee cups, shrimp, the seashore, Alka-Seltzer tablets dissolving in a cup of water (I was really tempted to buy this one!), a keyboard with musical notes coming from it, a large scale picture of a boat similar to Titanic, a green sofa with hearts and palm trees around it, tree stumps, lips and lipstick, belts, Saturn, and finally a fishing net with fish.

My African cloth  :)



Because I wanted my first fabric to be a fun fabric, I ended up purchasing the fish fabric. A part of me still really wants the Alka-Seltzer print. I felt accomplished buying my first African cloth. When we get to our city we will have the fabrics tailored.


Among the other things that make me laugh in Africa, one of them is the packaging of peanuts. I pride them on being resourceful and recyclable in the way they do this. All of the peanuts that you buy in the grocery store and markets come in gin bottles. My supervisor did reassure me that all the alcohol bottles that she has stored up in her house were from peanuts and not anything else. Oh how things are much different here! Once we get to our city I hope to post pictures up of the house!

Recycling in Africa

We only part to meet again

I was able to spend time with a wonderful group of junior girls on Monday who have grown into exceptional young ladies, so full of character and strength. I couldn’t be more proud of them and it hurts to say goodbye. I have much hope that their hearts for the nations will continue to grow.

My amazing girls!

Today can be summed up by two words, Parker’s and fellowship. You can’t fellowship without barbeque and sweet tea! I have to say, I have been blessed with sweet goodbyes from many of my family members and friends. I wish I could have talked with everyone for hours to be fully caught up on their lives. I am so thankful to know such supportive and encouraging people.

As I begin to mentally transition into life in Africa, I am confident that I am not on this journey alone. I thank you all who have played a vital role in helping me along in this journey. I can’t wait to give you an update when I finally arrive in Africa!

The Liner family with Uncle Ronnie and Aunt Shirley

Getting a Head Start

I thought I would document my first cultural experience while here in Richmond, VA. Some wonderful friends I have been blessed to meet, Bob and Susan Morris, decided to teach a few of us how to make steamed bread and biltong (kind of like beef jerky). I was so excited about this until the jerky apparently tasted like Tide (we had to hang the meat to dry 4 days over our washing machine.) I ended up not tasting the biltong. I relied on a few of the men's reactions to come to the conclusion that I need more practice in this area. I know how much I love beef jerky, and so do my Dad and brother, so I see myself trying again in the near future.

Among practicing my culinary skills, I have also been practicing the proficiency of chicken killing. The pictures below are of our chicken killing extravaganza that took place last Sunday. I, with the help of others, successfully killed a chicken, watched it flop around headless for a bit, plucked its feathers after dunking it in hot water, cleaned its insides out, and de-skinned it. All the biology dissections in high school were nothing compared to this experience! I have to admit that I did not think I could go through with it. The truth is that in less than a month I might be doing the same thing but completely by myself. Scary thought! I also realized that I was more nervous about cooking this chicken (those of you who know me know I don't cook) then actually taking this poor chicken’s life. Oh, the things I have learned even before going overseas. Enjoy the pictures and I hope there is more to come!

Receiving instructions from Bob.

a headless chicken

Success!!!!