It sure has been awhile, but, with good reasons. I cannot lie it feels weird to sit down and start to blog again. None the less, I hope all has been well! The blog has been on my mind a lot lately as well as our social media. My awesome under cover friend has been so kind to take time out of her very busy life, and when she can, she keeps up with the social media.
I am not going to take time beating around the bush today. I went from a crazy busy semester of work and classes, to finals, to packing my dorm room to going to Africa on a missions trip, for an extend period of time. Janice, she was out of the country for awhile as well. It is easy enough to say it has been busy, busy, busy.
Now, enough with what has been going on and why we have been so busy! Lets get down to business.
As I have mentioned I was in Africa for awhile. The trip was completely amazing and life changing to say the least. But, I definitely had an eye opening experience while on this beautiful continent. One dark night, the group and I were traveling back to the center where we were staying. As our 30 minute drive, arrived upon main roads, one could see large open areas of people sitting outside. This idea was not an unusual sight for me, we have a place like this by where we are staying. It would be about a 5 minute walk, if I took my time. After all, I could here the music from this place at night on top of the roof.
I looked over at Mama, she was one of our contacts while on the trip, and decided I wanted to know more about trafficking. Mama informed me that there was a lot of trafficking that took place in the country that we were currently in. She also told me that trafficking either happens mostly in the back alley ways or in the open bars that we kept passing.
These open bars, that I mentioned earlier, were generally by a place that sold some beverages. There were nice bars with bright flashing lights and loud music. Others were plastic chairs and tables bunched together in a group. The one by where I was staying had nice chairs and a few television sets to keep the people entertained. On the other side of the road was the other half of the bar. A dark room with loud music and large sofas, next to it was a place to get drinks.
How these places work is the men go and sit at one of these bars and they will wait for the women to come and approach them. I assume you can figure out the rest.
This knowledge to me was shocking and yet at the same time it wasn't. I was shocked at how many of these bars were around the area where we were. Granted this was in a main city, I never stayed over night in a village or went to the bush, so things would be different depending on the development of the area you were in.
I loved my trip to West Africa. It was beautiful, life changing and totally not what I thought it would be. I learned I could be me and I don't have to be perfect. When something bothers me, I don't have to push it to the side and be strong so no one knows what I am going through. It is okay to be human. But, it is different when you have a more hands on experience with a form of trafficking, like prostitution and stuff like that.
I have other stories, but that is for another time, another day.
So, until then,
Nicole
