Voyage

Another Dakar trip is behind me. I finally went last week and was there for a few days. The city is just crazy. I am starting to get used to it though and find my way around. It is so chaotic, loud, crowed and dirty. There is a lot of excitement and you have to stay on your toes or you could get hit by a wild taxi or a huge truck. There does not seem to be any road rules anyone follows, and pedestrians do not have the right of way. The transport didn't work out as I thought it would but it did work out. The truck we were waiting for never came through so we just went and found another one. It was not an easy task though and turned out to be pretty expensive. The real challenge was getting all the different materials I bought to one central location for the truck to take. I had to hire a bunch of different guys with chariots to cart them. The chariots are basically big carts with handles and for tires they have a car axle attached. There are armies of these guys that run around the city all day moving stuff, they are basically taking the place of a donkey in the whole donkey cart arrangement. All the materials are finally at the site though. The doors and windows look pretty good and we will start putting them in on Monday. The tile is also here though a bunch of it got broken in transit. That was a bit frustrating. I am getting better at negotiation though, and I think people understand my French pretty well now. Some other items I got there were a fridge and all the paint. So all is ok for now though we are running against the clock now. Some time ago we planned a dedication of the training center, it seemed like enough time to be finished before, but it will be close at this point. It also looks like some of our materials are running out and I am not sure what will happen with that. We need continued prayer for God's provision.