Getting to Know the Neighbors

One of the things I absolutely love about dagara culture is how they utilize rooftop space. Out in the village, they create sturdy roofs by coating the wooden support beams made from tree trunks with layers and layers of thick mud. This allows them to climb up on their roofs and use the space to dry grain, shea nuts, peanuts, or other crops that they don't want the animals to get. They also sleep on the roof tops in the hot season because it's cooler up there. In the oldest times, their ancestors used the vantage point to look out for any danger or invaders coming their way. 

The village roof top thing has also made it into the city. Even though many people don't live in mud brick homes in the city, they still design the more modern homes to have a roof top terrace. Our new house has one, and it makes for a great place to eat dinner, spit watermelon seeds, watch the sun set, or scope out the neighborhood. 

I've gotten a pretty good idea of the layout of the neighborhood and it's people by standing on that rooftop terrace, but it was about time to get down and actually meet the people I had been watching from afar. 

One evening, we decided to go on a little prayer walk around the neighborhood, and as we walked, we decided to meet and talk to our new neighbors. Here is another thing I love about Burkina Faso culture - it's like American neighborhoods on the Fourth of July - everybody is always out and about instead of locked up in their houses, and all it takes is a casual stroll around the block to meet every neighbor who lives within walking distance. 

We stepped out the door and greeted the kids playing soccer in the empty field across the street. They had a ball roughly the size of a tennis ball made out of tightly wound plastic sacks, and they had positioned two sticks in the dirt on each lend if the field to serve as goal posts. They smiled, waved  and followed us the rest of the way around the neighborhood. 

We walked to the next house down, where we met a lovely Muslim woman whose husband sells bikes in the market. She has two children, including the baby boy she held with one arm and balanced on her hip. She didn't speak much friend, so I three around the only phrases in dagara that I know: "How are you? How is your family? How is your baby? How is your work? That's good. I'm fine. I don't have a husband (yes, I had to learn that phrase because they always ask how my husband is...sometimes if I forget the phrase, I just tell them he's fine) This simple exchange brought an unreasonable amount of laughter and joy to my new neighbors, and when I was sufficiently embarrassed and motivated to learn more dagara, we continued on to the next house. 

Here, a little girl sat outside on her bicycle, thinking we would just pass her by, but we stopped to talk to her and found out she lives there with her mom, dad, and five other siblings. She is twelve but she doesn't go to school. This isn't uncommon since most families can afford to send only the older children to school. 

One other woman stood nearby at the corner, so we made our way down to her. We learned that she has lived in this town for five years with her husband who works for a telephone company, and they are pregnant with their first child. A girl. She was ecstatic to find out I was a nurse who worked in labor and delivery, but she was even more excited to learn that we are Christians. "Then we are sisters in Christ!" she announced, and she continues to explain how she used to be in the chorus at her old church. "Then you like to sing?" I asked. "It's my passion," she said. "Every human heart has the need to praise God." She wants to come worship and pray with us one evening in our home, and she wants to share her testimony with us as well. 

The sky grew dark, partly because evening was falling, but multiplied by the fact that dark storm clouds were rolling in and preparing for a big rain. Our conversation was cut short when the droplets began to fall, and as quickly as it took to say goodbye, the heavens opened and it began to pour. We had only made it three doors down, so it didn't take long to dart back to the house, already half soaked but with happy hearts. 

At our house dedication a week ago, our African friends and teammates came to pray over our house and devote it to the Lord as a place of refuge and ministry. One participant in particular prayed for good relationships with our neighbors, and the Lord is already answering that prayer. "I hope this relationship goes far," our dear neighbor said to us before we ran off in the rain. "It's like we are starting a new path together." 

Sometimes we get so busy getting out and being involved in this and that, and we forget to live right where we live - to get to know our neighbors and invest in our neighborhoods. You don't have to go to Africa to enter that mission field; you are already sent there. You are already living in it. You may not be able to climb up on the roof to see it, but that's not the important part anyway. What matters is getting out in it, walking the streets, and meeting the people closest in proximity to you. You never who you will meet, how amazing their stories are, and how you can be a part of them.