What are we celebrating?

Yesterday was a celebration...I'm just not sure what they were
celebrating. There was a horse race, and I'm pretty sure everyone in
Tchad was there. Some of the horses and men riding were drunk, so of
course I thought it would be a bit entertaining . I could hear the
beating of drums as I walked closer, and there was a cloud of dust that
covered the people. I was surprised at how fast some of the horses were
running...even some of the drunk ones! The horses had these mettle
plates on their foreheads that the riders would hit with an ax...it was
kinda weird, but hey, I'm in Tchad. Anyways, the horses would run
around this lap place, and the people could stand on the outside of the
circle or on the inside...but to get to the inside people had to run
through the horses and try not to get hit. It wouldn't be so bad if the
dust wasn't so thick that you could barely see 10ft in front of you. At
first I was not about to go, but after a while I realized that the party
was happenin on the inner part of the circle. I finally got brave
enough and ran to the inner circle...wow, that kinda sounds exotic or
something. I watched from the side for a while, and Lenden (one of the
SM's here from Cali!!) even rode a few laps on a friend's horse. I
could tell he had fun because when he got off the horse there was dirt
all across his teeth! Hahahaha! After he finished we decided to check
out the dancing and drumming. It was packed! It was bad enough that
all you could smell was alcohol and dust...but than you add in some bad
body odor and hundreds of dancing drunk people...so basically I had an
awesome time! No, I'm just kidding, I was only in there for 5 minutes
and than I needed room to breathe. We walked to a different part of the
circle where you could watch the horses from another point. It was hard
to see because of all the dust, and a girl who was probably 2 or 3 ran
across the road. She didn't make it all the way, but the first horseman
saw her and stopped the horse, but that sent him flying and the horse
spooked and ran off. Unfortunately, the next 3 riders didn't see her,
and she got trampled. A man ran out and grabbed her, bu it might have
been too late. I wanted to go and check, but if we went to help and she
died while we were helping, the people would get angry as us and say it
was our fault...so we walked away. (They could have killed us if she
died while we helped her). We walked to a different part and ran back
to the outer part of the circle where Tammy and Brichelle were. I
thought that all the fun and excitement was finished at that point, but
I was completely wrong! I went to a part where I could see the horses
again, and there was a drunk man standing beside me holding his horse.
The fact that he was drunk didn't really make this an awesome situation,
but anyways, I was standing there watching the horses, and he started to
sing and dance, but whatever, that's what everyone was doing, drunk or
not. Then he reached over and groped my chest and grabbed my waist
trying to dance with me. I wanted to slap him or something, but then
thought that would be stupid to make a drunk man with a horse angry...no
one would have helped me. Whenever people are being attacked, it's
pretty rare that someone will step in to help, especially for a woman.
So I pushed him away and walked back to the white people crowd. He came
again and grabbed my arm trying to get me on his horse, but Cory told
him off. Wow, I'm super safe here in Tchad! We decided to leave after
that, but as we walked away all I heard shouting, drumming, horses
running...basically craziness. I was walking in a cloud of dust...but
even in that mess the sun was so beautiful. As I was walking away I
felt as though I was walking towards peace. That's how it is with God.
We need to have the mess of this world behind us, and the peace of the
Son in front.