Um, not quite what I was going for, but ok….

Ask a question in Africa, and you just might get a VERY interesting answer!

While trying to get the group to understand the concept of ‘symptoms,’ I asked them to tell me the difference between goats and sheep… something they are very familiar with.

Now, goats and sheep in these here parts look REALLY similar.  If you don’t know what to look for, you would think they were all goat….but...do they start with their how goats have short ears and sheep have long ears so that the sheep’s tail hangs down and is long and that the goat’s tail is short and stands up…or maybe something about their temperaments… how goats will always come back but sheep get lost and you have to go find them? (yeah, sorry… I know that sentence was a little run on-y)

Nope.  They don’t.

THIS is the way to tell the difference: 

‘You take the animal and kill it by cutting the throat and then you skin it… the goat’s skin is really good for making containers for water and the sheep skin, well that is for making tents, really good for making tents.’

Um…. Ok....not exactly what I was looking for but we'll work with it.

I managed to keep from turning green around the gills as the Imam was excitedly sharing the process with me and got him to elaborate on the differences.   Once we got the differences down, we talked about their similarities… both have hair, 4 legs, 2 ears, etc…

THEN I asked them to tell me the similarities between the 2 diseases we were talking about and if they were so similar, how can you tell them apart.

And the Imam yells ‘AH!  I know what she is doing… she’s REALLY smart… I know what she’s trying to tell us!’ and proceeds to excitedly explain it to the rest of the group.

I can’t take any credit for the idea - it really was one of those God things…. but, I just want to point out that just like Mary at the tomb... He did use a WOMAN to do it!  (lol – sorry, couldn’t resist)