Nineteen Days in Simbari (Part Three)

Day Ten (AKA just a bad “mom day”, you know those kind? Where little things feel like big things and most of your conversations with your kids involve telling them to go away or you won’t be responsible for what happens to them?)

That dumb water pump that makes the house sound like it’s going to race off when you turn on the water, is starting to have issues. It’s turning on at random times, even when there is no water running and then at the times we do want to run the water, it won’t turn on. And it is so loud, you’re lucky if you can hear your own thoughts while it’s running. I see bucket showers on the horizon and I’m not thrilled. What’s a bucket shower, you ask? Exactly what it sounds like. We’ve taken them before, not fun.

So while the water pump is freaking out, I mixed up some cookies wrong. (And to clarify the importance of these cookies, I need to explain that I only brought enough ingredients out for TWO batches. If I mess these up, I only have one more shot at getting some chocolate chip cookies out here and today I am in desperate need of some chocolate.) As I’m wondering why it’s not mixing well, I realize the issue: I only put a half a cup of butter in instead of a whole cup. Now the problem is, I don’t know how to soften another stick of butter enough to mix it in (there is no microwave out here in Simbari land). So I leave the stick in the wrapper and put it in a baggie and put the baggy in hot water. Smart, right? Wrong. The butter melts out of the wrapper and also melts at an uneven rate, so half of it is liquid and the othe r half is still chilled. Ugh, I don’t even want to tell the rest of the story. Anyways, because I resorted to kneeding the dough with my hands, I think the cookies might still turn out.

After I get over this catastrophe, I pull my 5kg bag of rice out of the refrigerator. (Yes, the refrigerator. Little, tiny ants attack everything, hence, I use the refrigerator as storage. It doesn’t even work as a refrigerator anyways, so really it’s just a glorified, keep-the-ants-out, extra-extra-large Tupperware container.) As I’m pulling the bag out I hear the pitter-patter, not of little feet (although there is that too because my kids are running wild in the house), but of rice spilling on the floor. I realize that when I had put the bag IN the fridge last time, I must have stuck the side of it with something and ripped a gash right in the middle of my still-full, 5kg might-as-well-have-been-100kg-for-the-mess-it-made bag.

Lord help me: three kids going crazy, water pump screaming like a banshee, rice spilling everywhere, and the one bright spot, my chocolate chip cookies, nearly fatally wounded. And there is still dinner to consider. McDonalds anyone? Oh wait, that’s right, there isn’t one…anywhere…in the whole COUNTRY that I call my home!

My last thought for the day? Beau got a fever last night and has had it off and on today. Hopefully he’s feeling better soon, I was up with him a couple times last night because he was complaining his head hurt. We could all use some sleep tonight.

 

Day Eleven

So by five o’clock yesterday, I was feeling relatively under control again. Dinner was in the oven, green beans were prepared and ready to cook on the stove, and my cookie dough was ready to be baked after dinner came out. I proceeded to go outside to get fresh air with the kids. As I’m standing out there offering my tablet to the sky in hopes of receiving some form of communication from the outside world, Brent got home from the village and the kids played happily (Luke was COVERED, literally, in mud, but hey, minor problem – he’s not screaming.) Life was good again.

By the time I got back inside, it was dinner time. Just a little past actually and I go into slight panic mode because I realize that Luke cannot be in the house as is and needs a bath before dinner AND I forgot to start the green beans. Deep breath, bathe Luke, cook beans. (Brent and Dave are outside this whole time trying to figure out the water pump situation since it is obviously dysfunctional.) So I get my tasks accomplish and go to take dinner out of the oven and SURPRISE the oven had turned off, like five minutes in to the required 45 minutes of baking! Shoot me. So dinner wasn’t actually done and now I have three starving children and a hungry husband who’s already frustrated with the pump. What can I do? Well, I guess I can turn the oven on again.

This introduces #tribaldrama one million. Our oven won’t hold a flame for an extended period of time. Forget about controlling the temperature – at this point I’ll just take “hot.” Oggs told us to check and make sure we have enough propane. So I called out to Brent – while he’s fighting with the water pump – to check the propane tank too. He did. It’s full. So we can now add defunct oven to my defunct refrigerator. Oh the joys. Shari at least came over and offered some help at which point I put my bowl of cookie dough in her hand and asked her to bake them. There was no way I was going to lose my already barely salvaged cookies to an oven that won’t stay properly lit.

Good news? By eight thirty, the water pump was changed out and we decided that the toilet is the biggest factor in the pump misbehaving. So now we are flushing by filling up a bucket from the shower and pouring it in the toilet bowl. I’ll take that over a bucket shower any day, thank you.

Unfortunately, the night doesn’t end there. Brent and I are in bed for about half and hour and we hear Beau screaming, “I don’t want to go over there! I don’t want to go over there! Nooo!” We both race into the kids’ room and Beau is crying and sweating and breathing so hard in his bed. After calming him down and talking to him a bit we realize that his fever, or something, is making him really dizzy and he feels like he’s falling off the bed. I gave him some Tylenol and water and we cool him off a bit. Finally, he lays back down and Brent and I head back to bed. Well, this same thing happens about six more times until I finally realize that he must be dehydrated and I mix up some Gatorade for him to drink. So he does and I have to lay in bed with him for about half an hour so he can settle down. Long story short, we were up with him until midnight and then I still don’t think I actually fell asleep until closer to one. So ends the day that I never want to relive again. Sometimes you gotta laugh or you just might cry.

Today has been a much more settled. I took down the laundry that has been hanging all over the house for two days. It’s taken that long to dry because it’s been so wet here.

 

Day Twelve

The rain is almost nonstop here. I’m a sunshine girl, the product of a California childhood. I love the rain but in moderation; too much and it starts to get to me. It’s getting to me…last night I was starting to feel claustrophobic with the LOUD rain and the utter darkness. I had to pray quite a bit to fall asleep. I can live with a house that’s falling apart. I can live with strange meals and a simple lifestyle. But when I’m in a place without sun and a place without a whole lot of social interaction, I struggle. I think I hit the wall yesterday – the wall of defeat, made up of darkness and loneliness.

I honestly do not know how some families are out in the bush without coworkers…or how some coworkers just do life side-by-side and not together. I don’t get it at all…except for that I know God must meet them in the place he has called them and give them the strength to accomplish what he has asked of them.  I guess I’m writing this stuff down so that when I’m back in my happy place, I can remember that defeat hits me too and I’m not immune to the weaknesses of the flesh. My heart is to encourage our missionaries that do live in the bush and if I don’t understand, or remember, this dark place, I won’t be very encouraging. So I’m here. In it…with no desire to see another piece of kaukau in my life. And an overwhelmingly desperate desire to see the sun and the face of a friend.

Today we have a family coming over from the village. Brent met Benjamin on one of his many wanderings around here in search of a language helper. Perhaps, time with them will be an anecdote to this loneliness. (The Oggs have been terrific, by the way, but during the days they are tied up with Bible translation and lesson work. So we really only see them in the evenings and for a mom with three young kids, the days get very long.)

Related Posts

NINETEEN DAYS IN SIMBARI (PART ONE)

NINETEEN DAYS IN SIMBARI (PART TWO)

NINETEEN DAYS IN SIMBARI (PART FOUR)