Bonjour Mon Amis!

Written by Alicia:

Well…we started French this past week.  We have come to conclusion that learning French makes our brain feel like they have been repeatedly punched, taken out and stepped on, and then put in a blender.  Learning a new language, as an adult is gruesome…especially a language that makes many noises that we have never heard or have made in our lifetimes.  With that being said, we are learning A LOT, and we can say that we recognized 10 x more words in the church service we attended this morning than in past services.  This is a small victory in and of itself.  It is crazy how fast and how much we are learning.  A week ago, we could barely mutter a few phrases, but now we can introduce ourselves and others, tell them we are married, talk about our family, and tell people where we are from.  J

Our instructor is really awesome.  His name is Pito, which is Spanish for whistle…really random, I know.  The week before he started teaching us French, he taught a Japanese couple, who spoke no English, how to speak French fairly well.  He is definitely an awesome teacher.  He also likes to teach us little “gabonisms” throughout our French lessons, so we are learning lots of things about the culture here.

Speaking of culture, let’s just talk about the driving here.  It is intense!  The horn is not just used for emergency purposes but also, to say, “hey, I’m here,” “move out of my way,” or “hey, I know you!”  Driving can be stressful, especially when a two-lane road quickly becomes a 4 or 5-lane road, and pedestrians cross the road whenever see fit.  (For the record, Dan and I haven’t started driving out here, so we have a driver/business agent, JR, who drives us everywhere). 

Anyways, we were on our way to the airport yesterday, and our car overheated and broke down.  We ended up blocking traffic in a congested bottleneck construction zone on Libreville’s busiest road.  So people are already honking their way through and trying to combine their cars into one lane (aka: about 2-lanes), while JR valiantly was trying to resuscitate the car.  Leanne and Hannah (our housemates) came to our rescue in our Land Cruiser. Dan, Hannah, and JR pushed the car to the nearest gas station while I steered.  (I guess all those spring break trips driving 15-passenger vans are starting to pay off.)  People were honking at us the whole time.  Not sure if they were saying, “hey, move out of the way” or “better luck next time”.  We are never really sure what the Gabonaise are trying to communicate with those car honks.

We went to Nzeng Ayong for church this morning.  This is where we helped a lot with building their new church last time we were here.  When we arrived, the pastor recognized us and asked if Dan and I were finally married.  We said, “Oui” and everyone cheered and they made us stand up and they continued to clap for us.  They were excited that we had finally tied the knot.  It was really cute, especially since we had our matching ensembles on.  :)


Au revoir!
Alicia & Dan