AFRICA - at last!!

It seemed like we had been a LONG time actually getting to Africa!  We had home service (two years) and French language study (one year) and now we were finally on the ship sailing for West Africa!  While we were still in Paris, we had gotten the news that the field conference stationing committee had assigned us to Baramba, to the Girls' School there.  In those days it was the Mali-Upper Volta field together and appointments were made by one conference stationing committee to the two countries.

Being appointed to Baramba was OK with us.  Dad did mention the fact that he had a wife and two daughters and now he was being sernt to live at a Girls' School, but we accepted the appointment. We were to learn Bambara - which I already knew from my childhood in West Africa.  We had two single women in France with us, and they were also to be stationed with us - two more ladies for Dad!  Nureda Carter had been in corresponence with a man back in the U.S. and when he came to visit her in France, she decided to go back to the States and marry him!  One less lady for Dad!

Then the Floyd Bowmans visited us in France on their way to the States for furlough, and they brought the news that the excom had just met and re-stationed us!  Carolyn Wright was to be in Bobo to be bookkeeper there. And our family was to be stationed at Santidougou and learn the Bobo language!  Wow - what a switch!  So before we left Paris, we knew we were to be stationed in the Upper Volta part of West Africa and we also were to learn an unwritten language.  Which we accepted.

When we got on that small passenger ship at Bordeaux we had about two weeks at sea.  We did stop at the port of Conakry, where the Bowers family departed the ship, as that was their destination.  The Arnolds, Pierces and Carolyn Wright were scheduled to leave the ship in Abidjan. And Grace Nelson and Betty Keiffer would stay with the ship until they reached the port in Gabon, their destination.  The days at sea were relaxing, there were play facilities and good staff to care for all of you children. We fed you before our meals and then you went happily off to play in the playroom while we adults had a leisurely meal.  We felt rested and ready to debark the ship when we reached Abidjan mid-afternoon!  On the dock stood two excited father-grandfathers - Walter Arnold and Leroy Kennedy!  They were there to meet us and the Arnolds, and were delighted to see their grandchildren for the first time!

Arnolds had time to get to Bouaké so they drove right through - but we had a dirt road to travel all the way to Upper Volta and Bobo. It was rainy season and the roads were bad, muddy and full of potholes! So Grandpa decided to do it in two days. He had planned to put us up in the Park Hotel - the only hotel in the city of Abidjan at that time!!  We did have dinner there, but the rooms were full and we had to sleep on some single cots, all in a row, in the Methodist church in Abidjan that first night!  After doing some shopping the next morning, we took off for Toumodi and stayed the night with the resident Alliance missionaries there.  The next morning we took off for the Upper Volta border and then Bobo-Dioulasso, where Grandma Kennedy was anxiously awaiting us! 

I pictured Bobo as an enlarged bush town as it was when I had left it eight years before. On the ship from Bordeaux to Abidjan I had saved up as many apples as I could every day and had brought a nice bag for my mother, as I knew she loved apples.  It was my surprise to find they sold apples right in the Monoprix in Bobo.  We had also filled a trunk with food - spaghetti and pasta and other groceries.....and again we found they were all available in the city of Bobo.  We had  Monoprix and one Lebanese store, both well stocked with all the imported foods we would need!   Dad also took us to a hardware store and bought us two twin metal beds with new mattresses.  We were able to use the old mattresses in the Santidougou house for you two girls.  After that first day of shopping, Dad took us out to Santidougou to meet the villagers and see our house, in which we would live for many years. (Also the house where I lived just before I left West Africa to attend High School in the USA). 

Again I was surprised to find the house had an indoor flush toilet!  We used to have an outhouse, a little distance from the main house, which was now empty and Dad eventually made that into a pigeon house. The indoor toilet was a nice surprise.  Dr. R.R. Brown, pastor for years in Omaha, made a trip through West Africa and found there was not a house there that had a flush toilet. He went back to the U.S. and bought a truckload of toilets and sent them out to have them installed in the missionary homes across West Africa! A great gift.  Besides the flush toilet, there was an open shower in one corner and an iron ring stuck into the one wall with a small enamel basin set into it.  There was an inside pantry and an outdoor kitchen with a charcoal pit for cooking.

The house was smaller than I remembered it, but it was fine for our family of four.  You all remember how close to the village our place was and of course everyone in the village came to meet us that first day. The people did not wear a lot of clothes - the women wore no tops and the men wore homespun cotton baggy pants. The kids wore nothing for the most part.  Grandma had temporarily hired Paul to do housework for us. He could also cook a few different meals so we took him on temporarily at least. Grandma had also hired Yusufu to sweep and wash the house before we got there, and we kept him on to do housework and help where needed.  He started with us the first day we arrived, and was with us to see us off on the plane from Ouagadougou when we left more than forty years later.  He was like a big brother or uncle to all of you kids, really a part of our family. And still is!

You girls stayed in Bobo with Grandma Kennedy while Dad and I commuted to the village to get the house set up for living.  We had sent our barrels ahead and so were able to unpack our household effects, make beds, get our kerosene frig going (we had bought a new one).  Paul had worked for several families before he worked for us and so he felt in charge of the house!  When we decided to put our big kerosene frig out in the dining room - rather than in the narrow inside kitchen where the frig had always been - Paul tried his best to dissuade us!  He was too old for the work he had always done and so we had him train Yusufu and gave him the road.  Yusufu learned quickly and he was always a part of our family, a wonderful man. 

AND NOW TO WORK!  - we had a whole lifetime ahead of us and we were ready to get started!!