May 31, 2010

The Weather Network

So for the past while now, it has been rainy season here in Benin, and I have to say, I did not expect such insane weather. I really thought “rainy season” meant like tiny bits of rain every month...Was I wrong! When it rains, IT RAINS! I have never seen so much rain come down at once in my lifetime, rain coming down in sheets is an understatement! I could basically describe it with, “the rain is coming down in monsoons!” One day, the leader’s came over early in the morning to talk over some DRIME things, and then one of them stayed behind to write a letter with me for a church. It started POURING so we hung out till the rain passed (For those who aren’t aware, the Beninese strongly dislike the rain, the second it starts raining, everything stops and everyone takes cover till the rain stops. Honestly feels like a natural disaster is at our midst when it rains because the whole city stops and takes shelter). Anyways, four hours passed, and we had to print our letter, so we just torqued it in the rain and ran into a rather interesting predicament. A little bit down my street, there was this whole section, from end to end that was completely flooded with no way to go around, only through! We were on a motorcycle as usual and powered it through, to realize that it was deeper than we thought! My legs were submerged...and we were on a motorcycle! Definitely did not expect that to happen! Another battle with the elements came when I was out in the city. I was at the internet cafe by myself for a couple hours, thereafter one of my friends was to pick me up. I saw some pretty intense storm clouds coming and knew that couldn’t be good. It started to pour, and my pour I mean monsoon pour! And as usual, the Beninese disliking the rain, my friend waited to come pick me up till the rain passed. So there I was, stranded in the internet cafe, which had no power no nothing, the whole city had been stopped waiting for this storm to pass. Thunder, louder than I have ever heard it before, it was crazy! Definitely felt like the start of a movie haha! But I made it home safe after a couple hours of battling the elements! Haha. Also, on a side note, for those who are not aware, I’M AN UNCLE! Congratulations to Mat & Kayla on their new born baby, Cassidy! I got the call on that same day, which made me ecstatic! Can’t wait to see her!

The past while and the next while, we have been and will be working on two main things. One is Bootcamp, which is the official kick off weekend for the DRIME year, that we will be hosting the second weekend in June. We are in the process of finalising team details, so we almost have our very first DRIME Team here in Benin! So exciting! All the while, we have been working out Bootcamp details and there have been many things to work through with location & planning still. So in this time crunch, please pray for all the details to smooth out! The second thing is that we have a team of youth coming down from Nigeria to be trained by DRIME. We are so excited for this, and are working out details for their trip down, which would be the during the second week of June. This will be the first time our DRIME Benin leaders get to experience training others in the dramas, so pray the week goes really well, and that everyone just has an awesome experience!

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