Africa Speaker

Our Africa speaker showed up today.  It was a little up in the air because he'd emailed me over the weekend to see if we could switch the speaking day to Wednesday instead of Thursday (a day early). I didn't see it until Tuesday, but emailed him back saying it would work. He never responded so I wasn't sure if we were doing Wednesday or sticking with Thursday.  All day kids were asking me and I kept telling them, "I haven't heard anything."  Thankfully, Miss W was flexible about her lesson and came prepared, just in case. He did show up though!  And his presentation was wonderful.

His parents were missionaries in Africa (Zimbabwe at first, now Cameroon) and he lived there until he was eight years old.  At that time, they moved to the US. Just a few years ago his parents moved back to Cameroon to get the seminary going again.  So our speaker travels back and forth quite a bit over long breaks.  He spoke about the mission work his dad does, what churches are like there, what it was like growing up in Africa, the growing conditions (hot, wet, always rainy and humid).  He said there is always plenty to eat there because of the climate, but the problem is getting protein. They eat anything with protein: dogs, cats, guinea pigs, rats, etc. The closest grocery store to buy meat is six hours away.  The local marketplace will butcher three cows or so each day and that's the meat available. Get it quick or it goes bad in the heat! Plus they don't keep their area clean, so it's best to avoid buying from there.

He told us a story about the pet dog he had in Africa. It was getting older, so one of the guys/pastors he knew asked him one day if, when his dog died, our speaker would give the dog to him so he could eat it.  Uhhh... no?  He said he told the guy no because the meat was bad since they gave it vaccines and stuff.

There are also crocodiles and hippos in all freshwater. He said both are super vicious and will come after you if you even step foot in the water.  And the hippos are not like the ones from captivity, those are babies compared to what's in Cameroon.  His dad and some of the other pastors go hunting.  Hippos are so tough, there's only a quarter sized place behind their ear that will work to bring them down.  And then they pick up the animal by boat and wrap a seat belt around it to drag it to shore. But the other hippos won't let them near the body so the other hunters have to shoot their guns into the water as they go to scare the hippos away.  The one his dad got was so heavy it broke two seat belts. They had to tie three together to let it be strong enough.  He said the hippos are about the length of the white folding table plus a desk at the end and are the width of about 2-3 exercise balls (10ft x 4-6ft). Holy cow! That's huge!!!