We had a letter last week from Grace, the missionary translator I visited back in 2003, and who we'll be working with in Benin until her retirement in 2010. She was able to give us news of the village, news of plans to build us a house, and practical help about things we need to think about taking out with us or things we can buy out there. The mission have definitely decided to build an extra house ... it's just not entirely clear when it will be built ... but we expected that. It's rare enough for builders to finish anything on time in the UK, so having already experienced African timing we didn't expect things to be any better out there! She also gave us the good news that water and electricity should be arriving in the village, as a teacher training school is being built ... but again, there's no way of telling when that will be available! So she advised us to invest in a kerosene fridge - pricey but reliable.
Her conclusion to all of that was that when we and the other, Canadian, family arrive in the village, "life could be interesting for a while". At least we've been warned!! We are still planning to travel out there in November, and Grace's comment was that that was very good timing in that we'd be arriving at the coolest time of year, so it wouldn't be such a shock to the system. We're already more than halfway through our year at college, and November isn't sounding so far away any more!
Grace's house in the village:
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