“Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.”

Prayer request, folks: Please pray for the Muslims here around me, that they find Christ as savoir. Not because they’re bad people, but because they’re good people. Thanks.

In this post:
– Real estate agent disorganization (in which nobody is surprised)
– Bus rides are fun in rainy season (if you enjoy a ride)
– Random food

A couple weeks ago I’d signed some papers to reserve an apartment on the 4th floor (or third floor, here). The view is beautiful. The balcony gets lots of sun. I really want it. Because I’m just moving in the same building, there are a number of fees they thought they could waive, but needed to work it out. We would have to come back.

This week, we went back to make the payment. I’d forgotten the papers in a state of sleep-deprived brain death*, so we had to go back to the apartment. While we’re there we find out (so I’m told at the time) that someone else had looked at the apartment and expressed interest. Anyway, we went to Abidjan (in heavy rain and traffic after waiting 45 minutes at the bank to get money), and I paid the required fees. Only after did I learn that the guy had actually reserved the apartment. This poor guy! He’s going to be super disappointed! Thank goodness she didn’t tell me this beforehand, because I would probably have given it to him, being of bleeding heart and unsound mind.

So anyway, it’s now time to go back to Bassam, and we’ve seen the rain and the massive traffic jam because trucks make lefthand turns across 6 lanes whenever they want onto roads that are backed up because half of them are flooded. Oh, and the traffic cops disappear when it rains. AN decides to drop me off at the bus station so I can take one of the nice big air-conditioned travel buses (which in any other condition I hate because I can’t yell to the driver without the entire billion-person crowded bus hearing my idiocy). Sadly, the bus had just left, so baka it was. Miracle of miracles, it stopped raining so the windows were open and everything was fine…. until we hit the traffic jam. Well, I guess it was still fine. It was kind of fun, in fact. The driver decided to ditch the road and hit the bank, which is just as nice and smooth as you’d think it would be after a month of heavy rains on uneven ground. We saw all kinds of things I never got to see from the other side of the now 4+ lane road, like the cattle grazing, the harbor, and women spreading out the attieke to dry before steaming and packaging. I thought several times we were going to get stuck or get a flat tire, but nope, we made it.

And finally, food from before. New to you!