The Bus Ride

This week we finally got to go check out the village of Tsevie. For the full experience we took a bus ride up. The buses are modified vw "hippie" buses. They take out all the seats and put in 6 rows of seats instead of the original 3, taking it from the normal 12 passenger configuration to 24 (and that's not even including kids on laps). I was feeling alright when it was just me and my companion and one other guy in our row, was crowded but not insane until the driver decided there was enough space for another. So we pulled over and picked up another lady and her baby. Our row got a whole lot cozier. I played with her kid for a solid 20 minutes and then he began to fuss so just like any other lady would do she started breast feeding him out in the open. 8 months in I've gotten used to seeing that all over, doesn't really phase me now, however since we were seated so tightly when she did; her mammary gland came to rest on my arm. It stayed there even when she finished feeding her kid. I can safely say that I don't know if I can think of a time where I have been more physically uncomfortable in my life. So that's my African cultural experience of the week.

My less cringe provoking story is of two girls that I sit with every Sunday at church (mes copines). They always save a seat for me and call me over. During meetings we play a game where I write a word in french and then they draw it (like this week I wrote the names for a bunch of different fruits) and they write a bunch of words in ewe/french and then I draw them. Anyways they're just fun and adorable.

Hope you guys have a great week.
Elder Remer

Houses

So this week I thought I'd try to talk more about the living conditions of most people here. The first attached picture is what a typical "house" is like here. Each "house" has about 5-10 single rooms, made of concrete with scrap metal as the roof. Families each rent out a single room. There are no bathrooms, usually there is a concrete platform for people to take bucket showers with. Also no running water, which sounds a lot worse than it actually is, most "houses" have a well in the middle where people can get water for cleaning and bathing. Drinking water is always bought separately (prefiltered). Each room gets insanely hot during the day because there's no ventilation and they are basically concrete ovens so pretty much everyone goes out in the middle of the day and looks for shade of bigger trees to stay cool.

Second picture is of Siaw pretending to fall into the baptismal font after we finished up on Saturday.
We got the crazy announcement today that we'll be able to video call and talk with our families every week instead of twice a year now. Huge change for everybody here.

Hope you guys all had a great week.
Elder Remer

Justin and Kids

This week I want to talk about one of the coolest people I've met so far while being in Africa and share his situation. His christian name is Justin, he is 22 years old, he was born here in Agoe and he has lived in the same house for his entire life and has shared it with ten other family members. He graduated the equivalent of high school a couple years ago and has come to a stall in his life. He doesn't have the money to be able to go to university, He can't start working anywhere because jobs are super hard to come by. So basically now he waits until one of his sisters is bought as a wife so that his parents can put him through college or until someone in his family can give him a job. In the mean time he just hangs out with friends that are going through the same situation or he comes over to our apartment to just talk or to walk around with us in Agoe. He usually is with us every day. His dream is to one day win the lottery visa here and move to the USA and play music. He is pretty camera shy, so attached is the only photo I have of him.

The other attached photo is from when I went on splits and we had nothing planned so I started playing "WaWa" with all the kids that were in the street, super fun game cause everyone at the end takes a turn slapping the loser's hands. I try to always lose just to see if the kids are brave enough to hit a white guy.

Last picture is of my companion trying to convince me we need a motorcycle so that we don't walk as much

Anyway I hope you guys have a great week.
Elder Remer

So I'm a butcher now?

Hope everyone had a great week and a great super bowl Sunday.

This week I received a call that my district would be expanding to Tsevie (Chev-EE-Ay), one of the more northern parts available to missionaries. So now sometime in the next 3 weeks I'll get to go up there for a split (changing companions for a day) and hopefully get to see some cool wildlife and buy a ton of fruit for dirt cheap.

First picture is of a bunch of missionaries sleeping under the stars (on our roof). 4 missionaries came down for a conference and it was already getting dark when it ended so they had to stay here. We didn't have enough beds so we pushed a bunch of mattresses together and some cushions that we found. Pretty fun night just talking with everyone since we are all usually pretty isolated.

Second picture is of a chicken (obviously). So we usually like to buy our food in bulk at the beginning of the month (rice, flour, tomatoes, stuff like that) so we tasked the Ghanaian in our apartment with meat for the month. Usually we go to a shop every time we need it and get it fresh and have them carve it so that all we have to do is cook it. This time we weren't super specific with our instructions so we were all pretty alarmed when he came back with 8 live chickens. Neither of the Tahitians in the apartment knew how to gut and clean a chicken and the Ghanaian felt like he had done his fair share of the work so I was made in charge of doing that fun little bit of work. All worked out, we've already cooked and ate two, only problem is we still have 6 live chickens running around out back.

Anyways hope you guys have a great week.
Elder Remer