Wide Awake & the Song of the Zebu/Cebu

There have been MANY technical difficulties and I am NOT a tech gal.. Praying this posts to share what God's up to here.

August 29th

We landed, phew! Only one more flight to go! Four out of five flights were complete! Dustin and I were in AFRICA! I was more than ready to get to the ship. Dustin was more relieved to be off of planes for a few hours and thankful Mercy Ships was providing us with a hotel on the layover and we would not be spending 24 hours in the airport. Camping is one of our favorite pastimes, but not “airport camping.” Which we had the pleasure of doing in the Seychelle Islands for 8 hours on our layover when we were refused entry into the country; even though we had already paid for and had multiple email and Whatsapp notifications of approved visas. The water looked pristine in its aqua colors, but only observed by us during landing and takeoff. Oh, well. God must have had some reason he wanted us to “airport camp” for that layover.

I was prepared to be smacked in the face with overwhelming heat and humidity upon landing in Antananarivo, Madagascar. Just as I experienced landing in Monrovia, Liberia in 2008, the heat in that country felt like it had physical hands and oppressed me for my entire 8 month stay there. What a refreshing relief for my body to be met with a lovely breeze and cool air. Madagascar, being situated in the Indian Ocean, below the equator, means I have landed during their “spring” season and we are heading into summer. I am assured the heat will come, but for today, I am thankful for cooler weather. 

We made our way to the hotel Mercy Ships provided for us on the 24 hour layover before catching our 5th and final flight to the ship. Our driver zipped and weaved the very familiar, white, Mercy Ship’s Land Rover around corners, potholes, and people. We arrived at our lovely hotel and were given an allotment of money for meals in the hotel restaurant. Dustin and I lugged the luggage that had arrived --one bag was missing in action--into our hotel room, and ventured to the restaurant for a “real meal” versus the airplane food we had eaten for almost three days. Please note we were not ungrateful for the food we had on the airplane, when many in the world do not have food, just extra thankful to sit at a table to eat a meal. 

We perused the menu and I did my best to decipher the options. There was a mix between English and French words in the menu. Potentially a few Malagasy words mixed in, but I am not certain. We could have octopus ceviche and pickles, seafood pot pie, crispy goat cheese with cashew nuts, honey, and thyme sauce, roasted bone marrow with fleur de sel and grilled bread, the fish of the day, and a variety of other dishes. We turned the page and Dustin’s face lit up to find the page with pizza options. There was pizza with duck, seafood pizza, margherita pizza, options for pork or chicken ham. I laughed wondering what the heck chicken ham was. I don’t laugh out of disrespect; I just love the uniqueness of the world and seeing new things. Not so sure, this picky Kansas/Idaho girl likes to “taste” new things, but I am entertained with new things. There was an option for pickles on the pizza and then I giggled with glee to see Zebu as an option on the menu. Dustin settled for the meat pizza, without the zebu or duck, and asked to hold the pickles. I settled for the margherita pizza, keeping it safe with cheese and tomato sauce. 

I settled into bed extremely early and was thrilled to be comfortable with the temperature in the hotel room. I was not going to need to pull out some of my “missionary” tips and tricks to deal with the heat to finally be able to fall asleep.  I know the fastest way to beat jet leg is to stay awake until a “reasonable” bed time in the country you have landed in, to adjust to the time zone changes quicker, but I did not care. I needed bed!

At 3:30am, I was wide awake and my mind was singing loudly, “Cebu! (Cebu!) Cebu! (Cebu!) Achoo moo  moo, achoo moo moo, achoo moo moo, moo moo!”  Thanks Joel Stark, my youth pastor, when I was younger, for introducing us to “Veggie Tales” and therefore, the “Song of the Cebu”. The song came out in 1998 and here I am in 2025, singing it at 3:30am! So, what else would I do now at 4:00am in Madagascar, but use the hotel’s Wi-Fi to Google if a Zebu and a Cebu are the same thing. They sure are! A Zebu is a type of cow with a fatty hump found in Africa and Asia. I giggled again. 

Dustin had stayed up much longer than I had and was snoring away next to me. It was surreal to be back in Africa and not sweating to death! I thought of our lovely dinner and grabbed my leftover cheese pizza from across the room. Dustin stirred next to me wondering what I was doing. I was wide awake and stood up on the bed singing the Cebu song and ate some leftover pizza! I smiled ear to ear. I was excited to be on this new adventure and with my best friend, husband.