#14 Out in the Jungle

Okay, I’m going to try my best to write this email to the best of my ability because I am just so tired.   

So I arrived here in St. Vincent on Wednesday and my area is Georgetown.  It’s about an hour away from civilization.  We live in a house on a cliff that oversees the ocean so that is pretty amazing.  We have a lot of coconut trees around our house so we get our cutlasses and climb up them and get coconuts.  I only go up the smaller ones because I’m not to skilled just yet but since my companion is from Tonga, he goes up there and gets them down for me so he is the hunter and I’m the gatherer.   When we go out in the bush, I’m the one who hits the animals with my rocks so I am the hunter then.

The people here speak with what’s called a “Vincie” slang.   It’s where every word that ends with a “le” is pronounced with “lio” so like bible is biblio and people is peoplio so that is kind of cool.

Alright, so my new area is the bush like straight bush.  We have beautiful scenery everywhere but it is still super rundown so it’s weird.  My second day in our area we were trying to find some people and we asked this little girl where they lived and she said follow me.   We followed this ten year old girl through the jungle to this little hut and found these really amazing people.  This area has some really great people but the people here do not like white people at all.  I am just trying to be really good to the people so that they can see we just want good for them and hopefully we can gain their trust.

So ya, I have a machete with me about two days a week so we can get through the jungle.  It’s pretty sweet and the best part is there is really nothing out here that can kill me so I just truck through there swinging and going crazy on things.  I seriously do not even know what to email about because there were just so many things that went on this week and I can’t pinpoint on one thing to talk about. 

In our area we don’t even have a branch (official organized church group).  We have about 30 people that rely on us for guidance.  This past Sunday we had to cram every one of us into a little van and drive to the other branch 50 minutes away for branch conference.  It was pretty interesting hanging out the window to make room for everyone but it was a good breeze though.

Right now Elder Tupou and I are just trying to find people to teach.  The area doesn’t have a very good school program so it is really hard to find people that can read.   Also in St. Vincent they have something here called sunset rum.  It is 80% alcohol drink so most the people are drunk too.  It has been kind of rough in our area but we are just working really hard trying to find those people that are just waiting for us to meet them. 

We met this kid who’s name is Junior.  He is 6'4 and we played volleyball with him one day as a part of a contact.  He is really cool and pretty much jumps up over the net.  He is going to be the next Ziggy Ansah story.

  

Couple of cool & odd things:

I caught a Scorpion, his name is Randy.  Now I just need to find other little critters to fight him.

Our house is haunted and that is no joke.  Our power goes out every day and that makes the house being haunted just a little bit more fun.

Well I really wish there was more for me to write about this week because there has just been so much but it has just been a blur and I really just cannot think of anything else.  This week was just really tiring riding through the mountains on bikes every day for 6 hours so hopefully next Monday I will have something a little more entertaining for you.

Well I love you all so much.  I need you to keep doing what you’re doing and stay strong in what you have faith in and wait for more knowledge to come.

Love Elder Fokken