Friday, May 13, 2016

A White Night for a Wedding Cake


I had an amazing “White Night” here in Korhogo. Nothing at all to do with snow, but everything with "being awake all night". J’ai passé une “nuit blanche” is an expression in French that you didn't sleep during the night. 
So I was visiting a friend one Friday afternoon and she was in the midst of baking wedding cakes for two weddings that Saturday. The sound of two mixers filled the house as well as the smell of cakes in the oven. The mixers never stopped as a lot of butter cream needed to get beaten over and over again. I helped her mixing the ingredients together and creating some decorations. Supper for the family needed to get prepared as well and we all had attieke together. I helped clean up and decided to stay for a few more hours. The cakes needed to be ready by 6am Saturday morning. That’s when a car would come to pick her up to drive her 3 hours further north, as the wedding started at 9am. We both were tired but there was no end in view. We worked into the night and hoped to get a few hours of sleep when done. Then the muezzin started to call for prayer at 5am. I couldn’t believe that the night was already over and we weren’t done yet. An hour later, the two taxis arrived. One cake was ready to go to the one wedding. But the other wasn’t all covered with cream yet. We packed all the ingredients together for her to finish it during the wedding ceremony. What a night. I was able to catch up with sleep, but my friend didn’t. She called me Saturday night saying that she finished the cakes at 2pm, but they only wanted to present and eat it in the evening. Making a wedding cake is so much more work then I ever could imagine. 



Monday, May 9, 2016

Sacrifices - "Saraka"


Mount Korhogo is just in our neighbourhood. It's good exercise to climb it. Rod likes to bring his paraglider backpack to kite or even fly off the mountain if the wind allows. I like to take photos, draw, write or read and study in the shade.

Lots of people are coming up Mount Korhogo to offer their sacrifices with water, shea-butter, chicken to the spirits. It makes it hard for Rod to put his paraglider down with all the corruption on the rocky ground. His paraglider already has black spots from the melted shea-butter mixed with dirt.
The other day, I took some photos, as we hiked up to the top. Some of the sacrifices look like pretty decorations. Claypots with bark and calabashes. Cowry shells just laid out on the rocky ground. 
Sacrifices offered to the spirits protect from any harm, help for a good exam in school, for luck in life.

It's also a great opportunity for us to meet people and to talk about one's luck in life.
"So you are not making sacrifices", asked a young guy, who just washed himself with water as a "saraka" (sacrifice) to pass his BAC exam. "Everything I do, my whole life is a sacrifice", Rod answered. "How so?" asked the young man. So Rod shared about Christ , who offered himself as a sacrifice for us once and for all. Now living in us the only sacrifice God asks us is to believe in Jesus', to obey and fear Him.


"Therefore, I urge you, bothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living, sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God - this is your spiritual act of worship.

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is - his good, pleasing and perfect will."

the apostle Paul to the Romans at the time
Chapter 12, 1-2

       

Our Wedding Anniversary





So I did pack everything together and started hiking down. Rod called me letting me know that he had a good landing. He said that he would come up and meet me. Fortunately he did ! I was walking down the wrong direction and it was getting dark. I would have been completely lost....