When we first arrived in November, our long term team went away to another village for a week long retreat and strategy session. We stayed at a mission station in a small village in the mountains about an hour’s drive from here that has had a presence there for many years and even runs a medical clinic. This means that the locals there have had a fair amount of exposure to the nasaras (white people) for quite some time.
We’d driven by these mountains many times before in years past, and from the highway it always looked like they were uninhabited. We were surprised to see this one full of people. Late one afternoon we took a walk through the village and several small children began walking with us chattering and playing along the way. Eventually, all but two of them (two girls ages 6 and 7) stopped walking with us. These two reminded me of Chip and Dale the cartoon chipmunks and kept speaking to us in French, laughing, and holding my hand, one on each side. This went on for quite some distance, but then as we walked past one girl’s hut, one of the adults said something in their local language that caused the girls’ laughter to cease. They let go of my hands and dashed in the direction from which we had just come.
We laughed among ourselves as we wondered what they were told that made them suddenly change their demeanor and direction. We figured it was something like, “the white people are taking you home to eat you for supper”. We got a chuckle out of it, but we honestly have heard parents in our village (where we can understand the language) say things like this. Hmm, sounds sort of like the stories my dad told me about the captain coming to put me off the boat if I slurped my soup at the table….
We’d driven by these mountains many times before in years past, and from the highway it always looked like they were uninhabited. We were surprised to see this one full of people. Late one afternoon we took a walk through the village and several small children began walking with us chattering and playing along the way. Eventually, all but two of them (two girls ages 6 and 7) stopped walking with us. These two reminded me of Chip and Dale the cartoon chipmunks and kept speaking to us in French, laughing, and holding my hand, one on each side. This went on for quite some distance, but then as we walked past one girl’s hut, one of the adults said something in their local language that caused the girls’ laughter to cease. They let go of my hands and dashed in the direction from which we had just come.
We laughed among ourselves as we wondered what they were told that made them suddenly change their demeanor and direction. We figured it was something like, “the white people are taking you home to eat you for supper”. We got a chuckle out of it, but we honestly have heard parents in our village (where we can understand the language) say things like this. Hmm, sounds sort of like the stories my dad told me about the captain coming to put me off the boat if I slurped my soup at the table….
Longtermers at retreat in the village of Godigong
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