Traci's
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Hi! Thank you for visiting my corner of the web. Many people
helped me to get where I am today and continue to help me do the
work of God and help the other families working the rich mission
fields of West Africa. To them, I would like to extend special
thanks for adding to my life with this wonderful opportunity.
I have been at International Christian
Academy in Bouake, Cote d'Ivoire since August of 1997. My time
here has been very rewarding. I teach third grade, and I
also teach elementary music classes.
This year I have 10 students in my class. It has been a fun year
for all of us so far. We had some unscheduled excitement thanks
to the politics of West Africa. There was a military overthrow of
the government here in Cote d'Ivoire over Christmas a year ago.
Fortunately most of the children were spending their holiday
break with their parents in other other parts of Cote d'Ivoire
and other parts of West Africa. Things are still a little nervous
sometimes but overall it was not too scary.
Recently the Presidential candidates were announced and this was
a time that could have gotten ugly. Fortunately it had been very
calm and the civil unrest was mostly contained in organized
protests. The elections were held on October 22nd. Laurent
Gbagbo was elected to be the new President of Cote
d'Ivoire in an election that certainly made history and
brought world attention to this country.
The General that was acting President did not take his loss
gracefully. He closed the polls, declared himself winner,
and then soldiers and citizens clashed in the streets.
Hundreds died. For us here at the school, we would not have
known anything was happening except for news from
the African workers that come to the campus, and the news we
hear on the radio and from friends around the
world via e-mail.
It did come to pass that our first trimester was stopped a few
weeks short of completion. With all the violence after the
presidential elections, the U.S. Embassy ordered an evacuation
of non-essential embassy staff. That was pre-determined as
a trigger event to close the school temporarily and evacuate
the children. The children made it home safely and we were
fortunate to have all but a few of the 250 or so students
on campus evacuated within 3 days. In the weeks that followed,
things calmed down quickly and we committed to a "business as
usual" re-opening of the school for the second trimester.
It is now second tri and things are going well. We have
accellerated the classwork and added a class period to the
day to cover the material that was missed in the first tri.
The transition to the new President was not smooth. there are
still occasional protests and some unrest. Foreign nationals
make up about 40% of the country's population and there has
come to be some blame and mistrust of foreigners. So far we
have been safe and remain well regarded at the school and
have little trouble in town.
We pray the new President will be able to restore
peace to this land and establish communications and good will
with foreign powers again. There is still a potential of much
unrest with all the uncertainty surrounding the election. We are
very thankful that it has been quiet so far, and that everyone
here at ICA has remained safe.
Cote d'Ivoire used to be a French colony. They won their
independence in 1960. This little country is about the size of
the state of New Mexico and you can see its relative position in
the continent of Africa in the maps below.
My helpers in the USA are always gathering information and
working on additional pages to add to this site. If you would
like to send comments, suggestions, or a note of encouragement to
me or my students you can send it through the mail link on this
page. One of my helpers will make sure I get messages. I will
thank you in advance because even something as simple as e-mail
is expensive and difficult in Africa.
Thank you for stopping by and thank you for your prayers and
support.
In Christ,
Traci Epps
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