Our Visit to a Scott College Student's Home, July 14, 2009

Our Africa Based Orientation (ABO) is actually renting part of one of Scott Theological College’s residential buildings and sharing their cooks and dining hall. Classes are still going on therefore all of the students are here. Walking to and eating at the dining hall gives us many opportunities to meet and converse with the students.

In the first week of our time here, a student introduced himself to us and asked if we would have time to come to his house for coffee and to meet his wife and kids. We told him that we would love to go to his house but we would have to check our class schedule since we don’t have a lot of free time.

We had not seen David since so we both forgot about his invitation, but we ran into him again the end of last week. He was very eager to have us come to his house so we arranged to meet him in the parking lot at 3:30pm that Sunday. David was waiting for us promptly at 3:30pm. He said that his house is “just there” as he pointed toward the entrance of the school. Well, “just there” (a common African phrase) can mean a distance in sight or a distance out of sight. David’s “just there” was definitely out of our sight!

After walking past the entrance of the school, David said we were about 7 minutes to his home. He did not take into consideration that we were also towing a three year old along. The trip took us approximately 20 minutes!

The afternoon was really nice. We met David’s wife, Eunice, and their three children. Eunice prepared coffee (not chai, go figure!), and served a very yummy mango! Interestingly, kids here drink coffee and tea. They were surprised when we told them that Micah does not drink coffee! Eunice made him some milk, hot milk! Micah added some sugar, then some more sugar before drinking it. He’s not used to drinking warm milk!

Micah eventually played with their children and the other kids hanging around. It is amazing that the language difference does not hinder children’s play! We stayed for about 3 hours, a typical African visit, then the whole family walked us back to the main road. Micah and the kids ran the whole way!

Robb and I talked later and we both confessed that we had suspicions about the visit. Was David going to ask us for money for school fees for himself or his kids, or for something else? We were both uncomfortable with this thought, but unfortunately it happens so often…David did not ask us for anything! We felt badly afterwards because we forgot to bring something for his family. It is customary to bring a small gift – sugar, rice, etc. Thankfully, we did not offend them with this oversight. We saw David again before we left and he has already sent us an email thanking us for coming to visit!