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!!!!