Getting Out and About

Following my illness last week, I made a concerted effort to get out as much as I could this week.

On Saturday I went over for dinner at "Young David's" house on Sandyport, and had a fabulous feast with his family. Viki, his mom, came over and we all had a wonderful evening on the patio overlooking the harbor drinking wine and laughing at little baby Johnny dance to the music in the living room.

I went out to this hilarious concert on Sunday night to listen to this African American singer/preacher from Georgia or Texas at one of the nice hotels. I went with Mama Dorothy and Marlene, and enjoyed the very different cultural experience. The singer sang karaoke style to a CD of instrumental music. He kept telling stories about how he was friends with Opera and spent time with Presidents. It was all about how God brings us BIG blessing and makes us successful. And even though the concert was a benefit concert for the purchase of a new church organ for St. Barnabas Anglican Church, folks in the Bahamas are pretty into the 'bigger is better' approach to life.  I could never see this guy getting much of crowd in Seattle, but he certainly was a big hit down here!

Then on Monday night I went with Kari over to the opening service for the Anglican Synod at the Cathedral in town. A synod is basically a big meeting for all the Anglican pastors in the area to gather to meet, pray, discuss issues facing the church, and make a plan for the coming year. I have been to one other synod in Kenya, but the Bahamian Anglicans sure know how to do pomp and circumstance: everyone dressed to the nines, the governor general attending as a guest, three supreme court judges, and singers from all over the diocese. It was very enjoyable.

A few visiting judges at the Synod

A waitress in a wig!

Yesterday was "Literature Day" at school and everyone dressed up as a character from one of the novels we are reading. I dressed up as Toomai the elephant rider from The Jungle Book in my white punjabi suit. We also had Allen Breck from Kidnapped, a couple white seals from The Jungle Book, and a couple waitresses from Kidnapped. (It was somewhat lamentable that Classic literature doesn't have more memorable young female characters to be role models for young women. After reading three great classic books, the best character the girls in my class could find was a minor bit part of a waitress in Kidnapped!)

This week marks midterm of the semester, and so for some reason we have Thursday and Friday off from school. But no questions were made by my students who were excited to have a four day weekend!

Mi classe

Last night I went to an awards ceremony at Government House, the main estate for fancy government functions, for an award Kari received. I rode ol' Sweet'n Smooth through the front gate and the Defense Force guards dressed in pure white from head to toe, looked at me strangely (they probably don't see many white guys ride up to the gate on bicycles!) and directed me to a tree where I could lock up my bike. The award ceremony was only 20 minutes, a point that Kari was irate over the rest of the evening. "This is outrageous! 20 minutes? Who put this together? You can't have the recipients wait outside the room and call them in one at a time, and then have a prayer all about thanking God that the Governor General let us use his house! I'm going to write a letter to the director tomorrow demanding that we have another ceremony!" (Kari can over react now and then...) Nevertheless they had a nice reception afterward and I hung out most of the evening with Shavincia's (Kari's girlfriend) mom and chatted, while Kari "politic-ed" his way around the room and got his picture with all the other budding young politicians.

This weekend I'm going to be heading out to the east end of the island and enjoy some time with the Allens, which I'm looking forward to!

(This clip is of a high school senior sing one of my favorite hymns. She was a natural singer!)