travelling

Car journeys – and to a far less frequent extent flights – are part of our life as missionaries. We tend to reckon that we end up travelling at least to Parakou, where the mission has its headquarters, every six weeks to two months. This is easier than it was in the past – since the road was mended it takes 3 hours instead of 4 ½ to 5 hours. If we need to get all the way to Cotonou for our papers it is more like 10 hours driving (we split it into two days) and it is a long haul!!

Practice makes perfect when it comes to packing. Things you forgot once, you are less likely to forget another time, though with small children their needs change all the time, so our packing list has to evolve with them.

I don't know that we ever really get used to driving here, though. It is just not all that safe, and every journey we find ourselves seeing things which make us go, "What...?!" By the grace of God we have been protected until now – the worst accident we had was when our exhaust pipe suddenly dropped off, which was impressive but did no harm to anyone except the car – but I know that Marc, who does nearly all the driving, gets stressed for about 24 hours before every journey.

It bothers me for my translation team that I am absent so frequently, as it makes it difficult to make good progress. But when we are actually somewhere else, I do enjoy catching up with missionary colleagues and Beninese friends, and the shopping is usually more interesting than Kandi!

What also bothers me is the way that travelling upsets our routines. Before we go away I have to spend afternoon time getting everything ready, and therefore have less time for the children, and when we get back I'm always busy unpacking and catching up on things which couldn't get done when we weren't here (usually baking).

Do our kids mind? They don't know any different of course, and they too see other friends when we travel. Eve is the one who seems least happy to be elsewhere, and most happy to get back home again, but perhaps that will change as she gets older.

Nights are also difficult when travelling at the moment. Eve wakes a couple of times a night at the best of times, but travelling makes her sleep very restless. The fact that the whole family is sharing a room just makes it worse for the rest of us! We survive, but we get home exhausted!

Some photos from our last journey to Cotonou. Firstly the auberge in Dassa where we often stop to have a drink and stretch our legs. We can also buy sandwichs to go, which we then eat later on in our journey, in the middle of nowhere! Finally, a photo as we crossed Porto-Novo, in case you got the impression we were the only ones on the road! Notice the bunch of bananas on the lap of the motorbike passenger in front of us!

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