Une Promenade à Korhogo

(This was actually written yesterday afternoon)

Just got back from an exploratory morning in Korhogo. We left Bouaké early Tuesday morning, and have been getting acquainted with the town since arriving about 3 hours later. We’re staying at a guest house on the IBB campus (Institute Biblique á Bethel, the same place we stayed at for our trip in late December). We’ve spent the last 2 days visiting the pastors of different churches, visiting our churches’ radio station, and wandering over different parts of town.

This morning there wasn’t a specific place we had to visit, so Naomi, Alyssa, and I decided to take a long walk to give ourselves an unofficial tour of another part of Korhogo. We walked past the grand mosquée and eventually got to a bustling market. Women were speaking Dioula and Senefou as they sold vegetables and other merchandise. We were quite a spectacle, 3 white girls wandering around is not a usual sight, but many people seemed pleasantly surprised when we’d greet them the Ivorian way: Bonjour! Ça va?... I need to work on my Dioula and Senefou so that I can greet in an even more Ivorian way.

We continued walking until we got to the Koko l’eglise, which is the church I’ll be attending. When visiting on Tuesday we’d gotten there by Land Rover, so we hadn’t realized that there was water right across the street. There is a barrage or dam that’s created quite a large body of water, but to be honest I don’t know what people here call it, whether a lake or something else. We walked for a ways over the barrage; it was a busy path, with motos, bikes, and people, but not big enough to have a car go across it. It was beautiful, the water was on our left side, with a breeze coming up off of it to cool us, and to the right there were small plots of lush, green, irrigated farmland. Such a contrast to the dusty roads and dead plants that are rampant in the rest of the town. On our way back into the main commercial area of town we stopped at Café Express La Grande Mosquée, a place to sit and escape the sun for a bit. We were hoping for some cokes, but we thankfully ended up with three omlette sandwiches and waters instead (only cost 675F, which is around $1.35 for all three of us!). We sat enjoying our food and talking about how crazy it is that very soon we will hopefully be able to take the same walk and everything will be familiar.

This Sunday the 6 of us here in Korhogo will break up into our pairs and head to our different churches to be formally introduced to the congregation. Thankfully Koko is having a joint service this Sunday (more often they have one service in French and another in Senefou, but this Sunday the entire church will be together). Then Monday through Wednesday we’ll have an orientation for the pastors of our churches, our families and us, so that they know why we’re here, figure out some of the expectations we all have and we’ll also get to know each other a little bit better. On Wednesday afternoon, we’ll head home with our families and will start moving in to our new homes, churches, neighborhoods, and ministries.