Bucket Shower

I was just chuckling to my-self while taking a bucket and dipper shower to cool off a few moments ago. I felt like a little kid again, playing in a kiddy pool on a hot summer day, except that this time it was for real. How things can change so fast! Just the other day I was in the comfort of my own home taking a luxuriously hot shower in a tiled bathroom with a granite divider; not once thinking about economizing on the water or electric bill (most of our showers here in Brazil are heated with electric coils).
But now I’m halfway down the worlds largest river which is at an all time record high in a decent sized port city -and no water to be found! At least not in our pipes and water box. Apparently, the city goes through this cycle once a year, where pipes, water lines, and pumps tend to brake and I just happened to arrived in the middle of it. I’m told that a near by neighborhood has been without water for two days already and I guess it just happened to be our turn too.
To make things worse I arrived at 4:00 A.M. last night, a little sea sick and dizzy from being on a boat for a day and half and very week from a bout of dysentery I must have contracted on the boat. When we left Manaus our “ship” broke an umbrella like cover on a little launch “docked” next to us. Evidently our captain tried to speed off but the Brazilian officials caught up with him and proceeded to fine him and walk him through all the legal bureaucracy. Needless to say that set us back 4:00 hours from our original departure time and complicated every stop we made along the way. Somewhere in there I realized that I had been miss informed by the man who sold me my ticket and learned that contrary to my expectation I would be paying for each meal. I was not too happy but when your in the middle of the Amazon there’s not much you can do about it.
This morning I discovered that the “plans” have changed a little – a lot. The missionary who I would be going to the tribe with is waiting for his computer to arrive in the mail and unfortunately it has not. It’s late but there is not much he can do about it. So with not much else to do we are going to wait till the end of the week to see if it arrives. The only problem is that this bumps back my departure date from the tribe, which means I’ll miss the next trip I had scheduled as the missionary in that location will have already returned to the jungle. I’m still not sure what will become of that second trip.
I’ve been spending the day chatting with the missionary wife and trying to regain my strength by napping here and there between runs to the bathroom. But, before you think I’m complaining let me explain. This all seemed normal to me until I started laughing to my self while dipping the cold water from the bucket onto my overheated body. Then I thought to myself, “To anyone back home in the States this whole thing would seem absurdly terrible and unreal except that there is a reason for it all.” And that reason is what drives all this seemingly madness….till every tribe, tongue, and nation has heard the Good News!