The Pocket Notebook

On our journey from Ithaca to Texas to Africa, we've collected a few things along the way.  However, none have been so helpful and used to such benefit than one spontaneous and seemingly insignificant gift from a friend in up-state New York.  It's a little nicely bound pocket notebook.


It's  lime green so it's easy to see, and the cover is bound so you can slip it into your back pocket quick and easy.  I had no idea that armed with this notebook and a pencil I was well prepared for Africa.

This past 2 months we have worked, prayed, worshiped, laughed, and ate African food with our African brothers and sisters from Benin, Togo and Sierra Leone, and we have discovered that networking is life.  That little notebook in my back pocket to write a phone number, or an email address, or to write a map of where to go, or to draw a little picture for a child, or to make a little business card on the spot and rip it out to hand to a new acquaintance is like gold.  Initially, I thought exchanging contact info with someone you have talked to for just 10 minutes was a bit absurd.  Then, I thought it was just a cultural formality.  After further reflection and asking a few people about it, I realized the truth.  Everything is in who you know.  The more contacts in the more places, the better.  I heard stories of people who travel Africa and  call on their friends when in need of help at borders, or when they have no money, or if they've been robbed.  When you're in someone's book, you're on call for them.  I now have a book of my own full of important contacts from all around West Africa, and I look forward to the time I can call on them when I'm nearby.  I trust my little address book will continue to be the most valuable thing in my pocket while we work in Africa, and I bet I will be filling many many little books in the future.

Some new friends in the Team house garden in Lome, Togo.