It was a nice warm day—somewhere over 100 degrees. It was the harmattan, the dry hot season of the year, and I was off to stay in a village for a couple of days to observe Ottammari culture. At 8 a.m., I started packing my stuff on the back of the motorcycle. About that time, the teenager who was coming with me arrived. We finished loading up and headed off toward the village.

This was the fourth time I had driven the motorcycle with someone on the back so I was taking it slow. Soon we arrived at a detour sign. There was a big pile of dirt in the road so we took the detour. This road had some really bad sandpits. I fishtailed through the first few and finally figured out how to drive in them.

On the road.

I knew we were getting farther away from where we needed to be, so I finally stopped to ask someone for directions. They said that we should have just gone around the dirt pile! Back we went through the sandpits. Sure enough, the road continued on around the dirt pile and the sign. After some wild fishtailing through the market and scaring a few people (I was trying to avoid a truck that was backing right into us), we encountered a difficult section of trail. After going up and down some 45-degree hills and through more sandpits, we finally arrived at our destination. I was tired, tense, sunburned, and completely stiff. It had taken us about four hours of driving.

My passenger gave me a tour of the village. I met Sabi and his brother M’po whom I would later take down to the Mercy Ship (see the July issue of Adventist Frontiers). All the village children greeted me with great interest. I met 17-year-old Vincent who is the appointed church leader in the village because he can read the Ditammari Bible.

Albertine’s Mom invited me into her house to eat millet mush and sauce. I didn’t like it at all, but I ate as much as I could to be polite. About 9 that night, we ate again. We had mush and sauce again, and everyone ate together.

The harvest was over and planting hadn’t begun yet so everyone had free time. I spent the next few days observing, chatting, and trying to understand the culture. Since almost no one spoke French, my questions were limited to pointing and speaking my small amount of Ditammari. Then I had to try to understand the responses.

The next night, Albertine’s mom and I went to the village party. There was dancing, food, lots of sorghum beer, and lots of people. It seemed that only the dogs stayed at the village to guard everything.

The next morning, I had a surprise. I had pitched my tent in the courtyard of one of the houses. (I use a tent because the mosquitoes will eat me to pieces if I don’t). There was a hole in a wall nearby where I thought the chickens probably lived. When I woke up, I was very surprised to see an old lady crawl out of the hole. It was her home!

When it was time for me to leave, everyone gathered around to say good-bye. I was on the motorbike by myself this time so I was able to get home in about three hours.

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