March 2, 2012

All in a Day

Here is a snipet of what a day is like at Karanda:

Woke up to the roosters crowing at 5:00 AM.  This is farmland and most everyone starts their day at 5!

Water has been on for only a few hours in the morning these past weeks, so I hurry to fill up all our buckets in each room and the kitchen.  I make sure to flush the toilets several times.

Zesa (electricity) is off, so wait for the hospital generator to kick on sometime between 8 to 9 so we can have some coffee and plug in all the torches (flashlights) we used last night.  They charge in only a few hours. 

It begins to rain in torrents, so I hurry with buckets outside to collect water as we quickly go through all our "water buckets" even with being extra careful.  Several pots go on the stove to boil the rainwater that I will then put into our water filter.  It has to boil at least 10 minutes to kill bacteria before filtering. 

We thank God for the rain, but sure enough, there goes the zesa for who knows how many hours or days.  Our record so far is 10 days with no power (outside of the generator).  Someone figured out that in 20 days of February, we only had 96 hours of electricity!


Go to feed a fellow missionary's cat (Mittens).  The missionary is on home assignment so we are taking care of the cat until her return this month.  Find a fruit bat in the sink and it is still alive with a broken leg!  Decide to wait for Christopher to help me get it out.  Not feeling that adventurous and brave just yet! 


Christopher comes home from work for tea (half hour break), and he is my hero as he rescues the bat (hissing and all) with a bucket and gently releases it in a garden outside.  We admire the creativity of God in the wings and architecture of the bats body.  We even get a look at its little sharp teeth as it hisses at us shaking all over.  Poor little bat.

Visit with some of the ladies who come around selling fruits and vegetables.  I never know what they will bring and sometimes it is just one item.  But I try to buy from them as much as possible as there is a famine going on all around us in this area.  I would have never guessed with the green all around and crops growing beautifully, but last year's harvest was small and hasn't lasted through until this year's harvest. 

We hear that a World Vision truck is coming to the little town area outside the hospital to distribute sacks of corn and other items.  People wait in anticipation.  The boys and I walk to town to buy a coke from one of the hospital employees who also runs this little store.  The shelves are almost bare...but he always has cokes...and ice-cold too!  The boys and I practice our greetings with people in town.



 
Christopher gets off work unusually early, so we go with him to visit the Peds Ward.  The boys love this and I am once again humbled by the way they love on the kids, touching them and jabbering away with them.  They don't even seem to notice some of the abnormalities they see.  I wish my eyes could see past as they do.

Supper by candlelight and baths from a bucket.  We go out in the courtyard to look at the incredible stars in this African sky.  There is nothing like it!  We praise God for His awesomeness and thank Him for the chance to be here at this time in our lives. 

Climb in bed under our mosquito nets and pray for our families and supporters.  It's the end of another day at Karanda.

1 comment:

  1. Wow. Great post on the challenges of daily life. That is a busy day especially dealing with the water and power outages. We will continue to pray for you guys.

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