We all know that when exercising, stretching is just as important as running or weight lifting…but, let’s be honest, stretching is slow, sometimes painful, takes patience, and discipline.  Needless to say, moving our family to Africa has been stretching!  But with stretching, comes flexibility, and with flexibility, healthier, stronger muscles, that are less inclined to be injured…

Here in Africa, one must be flexible.

[I am reminded of the toy figure Gumby (made out of clay).  While I (Grace) was a pediatrics intern in the Navy, my program director would point to the toy figure on his desk when he wanted to emphasize how “flexible” we must be: “like Gumby…” he would say.  As a Navy family, we quickly learned how to be flexible as we lived in 5 different states within 7 years.  However, if anyone wants to learn how to really be flexible, join us here on the Islands!]

Even more than the daily rain while trying to dry clothes on a line, or the frequent  power and water outages, or the unexpected visitor while your toddler is having a breakdown…the day before yesterday was a lesson in flexibility.  You may have heard in the news in recent weeks, along with the anniversary of 9/11 there has been some backlash surrounding a recent movie trailer.  Seeing that it was a Friday, where on this side of the world, the men all go to their place of worship to gather, we were told that there was going to be some organized protests.  Here on the Islands, the people on the whole are quite warm and welcoming, and even during their times of public expression, things rarely get out of hand, nevertheless last Friday we were advised to stay out of the street and remain at home from 12 to 4pm.  This week, however, we were called by our team leader to be sequestered at another team member’s house just outside of the city.  A (trustworthy) national military friend was not taking any chances of violence.  He wanted us out of the city, in one house, so that he could send soldiers to protect us.

This seemed a little out of the ordinary, but not knowing what would happen, after a few minutes of processing the phone call at 11:45 am, we left our house a little after 12 noon and got to our friend’s house at 12:15pm.  For the next 6 hours, about 10 armed soldiers duly stood in front of the house.  The occasional truck with people chanting drove by.  A crowd of children and adults walked by holding signs.  We stayed inside, ate, talked and sang… another Friday came and went.  It wasn’t how we expected to spend our Friday, but we are being stretched and learning to be flexible.  I wonder what this Friday will be like…

Abigail helping with the laundry!

Mark and a baby lizard that was living in our bedroom