A nice Sunday afternoon, where I am trying to decide between going back to the hammock to read or head out as they say here "On the Road" to find someone to engage with. Miriam Adelaide took on a leadership role in church this morning and did quite well. It is clear that the little girls in the churches look upon her with wonder and the women of the churches are quite pleased with her. In churches where the female membership vastly out populates the male, Miriam is in a unique position to be involved with much of the social activity o the church. She even attended and led part of a birthday servicelast night for one of the older members at an all female gathering, where she may not have even been invited were she a man in this pretty clearly sexually divided landscape.
As she is now at the confirmation classes I did eventually decide to take a few hours to ride around looking for people to talk to. I passed a rum shop on the side of the road (the public gathering places where sunday afternoon seems a time for the men to sit outside and talk) near the house on my new to me, yet wonderfully broken down bicycle( minus one pedal). I was hailed down with a welcoming come burn one man. Which I learned after sitting down was the call to have a drink. So just one example of the hospitality of the people. Learned two great expressions during the course of the visit, when I could occasionally make out what was being said. Creole is an amazing form of Emglish which is different just about everywhere and even within population. The first was Like a green frog. Now since miriam and I have frogs in the house fairly regularly. For instance one day we saw something move by the garbage and expecting it to be a cockroach (as we had plenty of those when we move in and big at that) I moved over to squash it, Only to look up at Miriam and say "not to worry it's only a green frog" We also have some very friendly Chameleons in the house on occasion. So the saying Green frog is a way to talk about youth who are at the stage of their develpment where they can be small one day and quite large the next. Apparantly the frogs grow rapidly.
The next expression was find the car and then build the ranch. This was in reference to a younger man sitting with the group. Most of the group was slightly older than me and all Afro as our neighborhood Stanley town is primarily Afro. SO as advice to the young man my hailer said. YOu are always wasting time building the ranch. You will have the ranch built and won't be able to find a car to park under the garage. You must find the car and then build the ranch around it. These were admonination to find your mate and then build life together not the other way around.
So a good Sunday on what may become one of our patterns. Up by 5am, met on the road by Pastor Roy and his Wife Alice at 6:15, first service at 7, drive on down the road for second service at 8:30, and then again down the road for third service at 10. Back home by 1 or so depending on how much chit chat at the last church, where we have time to chit chat instead of packing up the keyboard and amplifier and running to the next service. A few hours rest in the heat of the day. Miriam back to a few hours of confirmation classes. Me over to the rum shop for some talk with members of my comunity who are not in the church. A decent balance for a day it seems to me.