“Don’t worry…Everything will be alright.” -Bob Marley
Franck’s mother came to visit us for a couple days. We started our project and I am motivated to check off the list the remaining requirements.
Cameroonians often ask in the first few minutes of meeting you what religion you are. I always say “chretienne point”, and then I explain to them that I don’t go to church often and I don’t like to specify what particular religion I am, because all that counts is, I tell them, is that I have faith and I have my prayers. And people ask if God speaks to me, and I realize more and more that he does, through people and events and moments and feelings and deja vue.
Franck’s mother named him after France. If he was to be a girl, he would have been named France. It was a French woman, named France, that delivered Franck. Jacqueline came home after going to the club with her husband to dance when her stomach was hurting. She laid down, to wake up in a pool of blood. Everywhere, on the bed, on the floor, there was so much blood that she was sure that she would die. Her husband had an inkling and came racing home on his moto. Jacqueline could barely move, so when he knocked on the door, she didn’t answer, and he broke a window to speak with her and see what was wrong. He saw her condition and ran to get the landlord to help him break down the locked metal door. At the hospital, everyone said that she would die. They gave her transfusion after transfusion and insisted that they operate to take out the baby, but she refused. It was a sister, France, who came to her and told her that it would be all right. She took her hand and told her that she would have the baby now. She reached inside of her and without even pushing the baby was born. Franck was born.
God speaks to me when he shows me that I have always been linked to France and always will be, that my life’s path is always somehow guided by my passion that is wrapped up in all things linked to it.
God speaks to me when Jacqueline writes out that her birthday is June 6th, the birthday of one of my closest friends that will guide me through the rest of my life even if just through the past in all that he has showed me.
God speaks to me when I receive a random text filled with sweet words from a friend in Fort Worth, Texas.
And he speaks to me when I am on the beach in Limbe, contemplating the direction and guidance I am giving to Franck, stressing and worrying that I am doing an okay job, and I hear Marley singing, “Don’t worry…Everything will be all right…”
Limbe is absolutely gorgeous, calm and relaxing- what a wonderful getaway it was to go for the weekend. Some other volunteers came as well, so that it was an eventful and happening place. I received a package from Valerie, which included green tea, so that we had a tea party. It was delightful to forget that I was even in Africa for a while.
But back in Africa, there is talk in Douala and Yaounde about strikes starting up again on the 14th of this month. The amendment to the constitution was passed so that the president will be able to be a candidate in the next election. At nearly 80 years old, he wishes to rule this country for the remainder of his life, and there are many who do not want this. They want change. We can only wait to see what is to come.
