amazing experience

Letitia with her son

Weekend seems to last forever. Since my project manager, John, decided to go searching for a gas cylinder  by himself we cannot do much. He left Thursday morning, was supposed to return yesterday evening, today Saturday afternoon still no news. It is almost getting critical. He told me this morning by phone he would be back early afternoon, but now early evening still no contact. He wanted to go tomorrow I(Sunday) after church, but I gather  the midwifes don’t like this idea, we will see……Meanwhile I try to enjoy my stay here, luckily the sweet midwife Letitia is taking care of me, always taking her little boy Ferdinand with her.  Yesterday we were supposed to meet Peter Bafoe, a gynaecologist who just finished his MPH in the KIT in Amsterdam. At 2 pm he was not in his office. We went walking over the market,  I waited in a nice restaurant, and just when I gave up and got a shared cab he called. So I got out and walked back. We had a nice evening, interesting man. Albert, the guy from the ultrasound last year, also passed by.

This morning when I heard John was not back yet, I decided to sit and read and do some Internet at the reception. Then Letitia came and we decide to go to Tongo, her hometown, what we had planned for tomorrow.

Here I had one of the most incredible experiences I ever had in my life…

Behind Tongo, in the hills is a small village called Tengzug there is a holy shrine.

the village Tengzug

one of the tombs

It is an animistic village. The village itself is interesting; there is a chief’s palace, old tombs, and round stone houses. After a steep climb uphill we went to the shrine. The last 10 meters before the actual shrine I had to remove all my cloths. They had explained something like that down the hill, I thought I had to cover myself, but it was uncovering!!!

the priest climbing up

In contrary to the mosques and churches. Trouser may stay on, but knees must be bare. There I was with some also almost naked man!!!! I felt totally safe. Letitia could not climb this with the little baby on her back. So on bare feet and with bare  breasts I climbed the last few meters. There was a big cave with many offerings in it. An old man, the priest welcomed me. Of course no pictures there. They explained me all about their beliefs, it was a peaceful meeting,and I was very happy I did it.

These last two days we have had hard wind, the Hamatan from the Sahara with a lot of sand. That is a pity, because of that the view from the top of the hill was very hazy.

So after I thought this would be a lost day again it became a very interesting and fantastic day! One has to go with the flow…….