I can’t tell you what a gift it is to have hot water come out of our taps. This morning I took a super hot bath (the shower got fixed this afternoon so next time it will be a hot shower!). For the past six months, we have been boiling water to do dishes, bathe all four of us, prepare drinking water, cook meals, and make tea. It felt like there was always a pot of water on the stove. But now, I can bathe the boys without starting water to boil 45 minutes ahead of time. It is so amazing! Carmen is still waterless and so we have invited her over to bathe. Might as well share our good fortune. Now there is so much water gushing out of my faucets that I am constantly agonizing over how much I am wasting as it goes down the drain. But it is agony I can definitely live with!
Wednesday, March 5, 2008
I JUST TOOK A HOT SHOWER!!! Yes, in my own house for the very first time. Peter even raised the shower head so that the water hits his head instead of his belly button. Say goodbye to bucket baths FOREVER!
Thursday, March 6, 2008
Attempt #3 at the Road, Traffic, and Safety Administration: We headed back to what is the equivalent of the DMV to see if we could complete the next step in obtaining our Zambia driver’s licenses. This time the camera was working but it seems our application hadn’t been entered into the computer. Instead of forcing us to join the mob out front to wait for someone to type in our information, the camera man took care of matters for us. We got our photos and fingerprints taken and then joined the long cue to the cashier. I use the word “cue” liberally as it started out as a line but then people kept crowding up to the windows to shove their payments at the cashier. It is nice that the cashier has a computer in which to enter data but the computers are incredibly slow. It is a rough transition from living in one of the top ten richest countries in the world to one of the top ten poorest countries in the world. We have come to expect fast computers and they are just thankful to have computers at all. Now we just have to come back to take an actual “behind-the-wheel” driver’s test. We begged to be exempt because we have been driving for 20 years and have valid US Driver’s licenses. But we were told that many people come with fake licenses from other countries and so they have to test everyone. Fair enough. It’s not like the US would exempt a foreigner from a driver’s test because they already have one from their country. But it is a bummer that we will have to come back yet again.
Friday, March 7, 2008
I was challenged today by what I was reading in "Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life" by Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison.
God chose the way of servanthood to make himself known. Radical servanthood is not about helping those less fortunate (which rings of elitism) but the way to encounter God.
Service is an expression of the search for God and not just of the desire to bring about individual or social change. “As long as the help we offer to others is motivated primarily by the changes we may accomplish, our service cannot last long. When results do not appear, when success is absent, when we are no longer liked or praised for what we do, we lose the strength and motivation to continue.” We can become cynical and depressed. “Radical servanthood challenges us, while attempting persistently to overcome poverty, hunger, illness, and any other form of human misery, to reveal the gentle presence of our compassionate God in the midst of our broken world.”
“Wherever we see real service we also see joy, because in the midst of service a divine presence becomes visible and a gift is offered. Therefore, those who serve as followers of Jesus discover that they are receiving more than they are giving.”
A good reminder for me: I choose to serve because it is a way to encounter God, not primarily to bring about change. It will probably only take me thirty seconds or so to forget this radical new way of thinking but it is something I need to hold onto for longer.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
I saw a notice on a bulletin board at school the other day for free kittens. Thinking this was the answer to our rat and roach problems, we decided to try having a pet again. After school on Thursday, Brendan and Jason picked out the kitten they wanted and we returned home with a precious seven week old kitty. The little guy was a bit frightened at first and spent most of his time under the guest bed. But by the next day, he was a bit more comfortable with us and came out to play. He also discovered the litter box and how to use it so now there is no more peeing under the guest bed. Thank goodness for that.
Choosing a name for our kitty was an arduous task. Brendan set about the task methodically by having us all think about names. Then we had to vote to come up with a shortlist of names that we all generally liked. By the end of the night, Brendan and Jason had chosen “Thunder” as their first choice with “Bobby Joe” a close second. (Bobby Joe is from the Scooby Doo Harlem Globetrotters episode.) But the following morning, Peter mentioned the name “Hero” and it stuck. Kitty is our little hero right now but eventually he will become Superhero, when he kills his first rat. We have high expectation for this little ball of fur. For not being “cat” people, we are really taken with this little kitty. He curls up on Peter’s lap while he is reading. As I am typing this, Hero is pouncing on my fingers and making it very difficult to type legible words. The boys love snuggling with him and dangling a shoelace in front of him to play with him. His bum is a bit stinky but we will just have to live with that. You can’t have it all.
Sunday, March 9, 2008
Peter was feeling a bit low today. When I asked him what was going on, this was his reply, “I’m trying to figure out Zambia . . . and I’m stumped.” Yes, this is my man of deep thoughts and few words. Zambia is a confusing place, especially when you encounter people who have it all figured out, usually ex-pats of one variety or another. Peter was talking to Musharrif, a Bangladeshi-Canadian who lived in Zambia awhile back but now only comes here to do short-term contract work. Basically, he believes that all Zambians are lazy and you can’t get them to follow through on projects or be motivated to work hard. We see that at times too but we also know people who work very hard and could never be described as lazy.
Sometimes it seems like Zambia is like the roads here. An inch of asphalt is laid on top of a dirt road and it is now paved. The rains come and that newly paved road is completely potholed. Good preparation is needed before you actually put the new surface on but that is expensive, time-consuming, and perhaps not thought necessary. But without it, nothing lasts for long. In my trauma counseling class I taught last December, one student commented that Zambia adopted the human rights defined by the rest of the Western world but no thought was put into it. So they adopted it on the surface but nothing changed below the surface. Another Zambian commented that most Zambians say they are Christian but that doesn’t mean that they won’t take a mistress or steal from their workplace. I wonder if NGOs do a good job of laying a good foundation or if we too are guilty of slapping on an inch of tar and calling it good. Then we return home and are puzzled as to why the project wasn’t sustainable. It’s easy to place the blame on others but perhaps we didn’t think through what it would take to make it last. I’ve been thinking about this a lot in terms of parenting. If I want good behavior to last, there needs to be a change of heart in my boys, for them to understand why this is important and for them to own it for themselves. This is a lot of work with just two boys . . . how do you go about doing that on a larger scale?
Monday, March 10, 2008
Our kitty has already lived up to his name! He is officially a hero! This afternoon I was sitting in our living room visiting with Samuel, a twenty year old orphan who is now finishing Grade 12 and attending a Bible school as well. He was in the middle of delivering a personal sermon to me from the book of Deuteronomy on how I need to be generous (he wanted me to buy tickets to a tea at his church and give him piece work so he could earn a bit of extra money). At least Anthony (another orphan we are in relationship with) just says he needs piece work and I don’t get the sermon. Anyway, in the middle of all this, Hero came into view and he was playing with what looked like a worm. However, upon closer inspection, we discovered that it was a baby snake. I don’t know how it got into our house but our fearless kitty was pawing it and biting its head and generally having a great time torturing the bitty snake. Not only was it great entertainment, but it confirmed our suspicions that having a cat around will be good protection from the undesirable visitors that come our way. I’m not talking about Samuel, although I was glad that the sermon ended at that point. Hooray for Hero!
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Well, Peter is finally doing what he came here to do: teach. He began his first two-week module on Monday and it seems to be going well. He is learning much about how much material can be covered in an hour, cultural differences, and where he is making assumptions about what the students already know. Official word from Peter is that the class is going “pretty good.” The intensive format is intense and he feels he might fare better on a more traditional academic schedule but this is a good learning experience. A friend of Carmen’s was asking Peter about whether communication about what is going down at MEF happens at their faculty meetings. We all burst out laughing because there is no such thing as faculty meetings here. In my more sarcastic moments, I would say there is no communication either. It would be safe to say this is not a typical Western academic setting. Yet it provides Peter with many opportunities to learn about how institutions work, settle into teaching, and to serve faithfully despite various obstacles.
No comments:
Post a Comment