A Fond Farewell

We recently lost one of our student missionaries. He went back home to Denmark, and we were all really sad to see him go.

The Friday before our bike trip, we all went over to Nathaniel's house for the "feast" that we were having in honor of his departure. I wasn't really sure what a Chadian feast entailed, but I knew that we would at least have a good time spending time together. When we got to his house, we all sat around in chairs and on benches just talking with everyone, which was really fun. All of us student missionaries were there, except for Ansley because she was working, and Sarah, Andre and his family, Augustin 2 and one of his sons, and then there was Nathaniel's African family (Daniel, Justine, and their two sons).

After being there for about an hour, we had prayer and the feast began. We started off with this flat peanut dough-bread and sauces to dip it in. It was really, really good! I was even surprised to see that they had made two sauces-- one goat sauce, and one sauce for the vegetarians. After that, we had a course of boulle with sauce.

I don't think I've ever explained Chadian food before. There seem to be some staples here: boulle (boohl) and bruille (bwee). Boulle is the typical Chadian meal here, and it's this strange loaf of cooked stuff. I'm still not sure what all is in it. Likely, some flour, millet, sometimes rice, and who knows what else.

Eating boulle is an experience in itself. There's a large bowl shaped loaf of boulle, and usually everyone washes their hands, breaks off little pieces of the loaf, squishes it into a nice dipping shape, and then dips it, fingers and all, in the sauce. Since there were so many people, we just cut off small portions of the boulle, and poured some sauce onto our plates.

After boulle, we talked some more. Daniel gave a very nice farewell speech for Nathaniel, and then we headed off to Friday night worship.

The party continued after worship as a bunch of us went back to Nathaniel's house for a bonfire. Nathaniel built the most amazing, pathfinder-worthy fire while Emily played the guitar and sand, and the rest of us talked and sang as well. It was really funny though, the oldest son in Nathaniel's family, Yanique (maybe 6 or 7), kept saying, "Ca c'est pas bon!" (that is not good!) as the smoke from the fire drifted into his face while Nathaniel was fanning it.

Once the fire was pretty much going, we tried to sing songs that all of the Chadians would know as well. At one point, we taught them how to sing "God is so good" in English. This was one of the coolest things that happened that night; after we taught it to them in English, they taught it to us in French. And then, they proceeded to
tell us that they knew it in other languages too. I think we sang it in five different languages all together. We sang it in English, French, Nangjere, Gumbaye, and Arabic. It was amazing.

Then as we settled down, Emily brought out the sweet rice that she and I had made earlier that afternoon. It tastes so good! It's just sticky rice made with milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and sugar. It was a wonderful treat to end the night with. We still stayed and talked for a little while after that, and Nathaniel made a speech for Daniel, thanking him for everything. All in all, it was a wonderful night, and a perfect way to wish Nathaniel farewell.