26 | March | 2014 | Next Comes Africa

After a week of “Can I come shower at your house?” texts to Kim, or “Can you let me in Kim’s house to shower?” texts to Sonya, we at the hall have now been in possession of running water in all sinks, toilets, and showers for at least four hours. I’m calling it. We officially have water!!

In related news (related because it connects to another necessity of life – internet), what are the odds that two different modems in two different buildings had slipped slightly out of their plugs, causing us to have no internet upstairs or down, at the same time? Weird coincidence. It wasn’t sabotage either because I know I was responsible for one of them; the other was probably the maid. I solved the mystery by exploring two of the empty volunteer units, during which process I also acquired a brighter lamp, three coat hangers (bringing me to a grand total of…three coat hangers), some groceries I had left in one room, and a Tupperware container that somehow while I was gone made its way from my room to a room I’ve never inhabited. It was a profitable experience.

Crossfit – ouch. I love it. Now that I can shower at my own house I’ll be running that mile at 6:30 am on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then limping home.

Tonight I accompanied Rick to a Bible class at Effingham, a nearby township. It’s a newish class, started a few months ago when a brother who had gotten baptized after taking the courses at the BEC contacted Bro. Barry to tell him about a church he was attending. He has basically inherited a small group of Bible students and has been teaching them as well as their pastor. He is also a new student, so asked for some help. Currently Rick is teaching the classes.

I had expressed interest in going a couple of weeks ago, but it didn’t work out. Today it came up again, and I decided to go. He doesn’t go by himself since it’s a township and it’s night, but after seeing my superior Crossfit performance he was confident I would provide adequate protection in the event of an emergency.

This class is held in the home of a lady named Priscilla. It’s a one-room house with a corrugated metal roof and some kind of tarp-ish material for the floor. The sides were lined with thick plastic-y material, but I don’t know if there was anything beneath that or not. In this tiny room – maybe 8 feet squared – was a full bed, a couch, a large chair, several stacked plastic chairs (with no floor space to put them), a wall of cabinets with appliances on top that formed the kitchen, and maybe two small dressers. I was amazed by the use of space. Clothes and shoes were hung around the room neatly in garment bags and on hangers with multiple hooks; umbrellas and other items you never think about because you always have a closet somewhere, were hung on the wall; the only two children’s toys I saw (Fisher Price barn type of things) were stacked on top of a very tall cabinet, out of reach of the child.

I’m always torn when I see people living in places like this. One on hand I’m amazed at how simple that aspect of life can be. It doesn’t mean their entire life is simple, and definitely doesn’t mean it’s easy, but there’s something appealing about simplicity. It was in my daily readings today: “For it is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God” – Luke 18:25. I told Rick on the way home that I would love to live a life simplified by not having a lot of possessions, but still have the resources to go places and have what I need. After Africa maybe I’ll revisit my grand plan to live in some sort of tow-able trailer and just drive around forever. The sad thing is that people here aren’t making the choice to live simply – they’re just trying to scrape by.

Back to the class. The lights went out just before we started. With the lighting of a paraffin lamp – which gave both Rick and me a headache by the end of the night – and the use of cell phones for flashlights and Bibles, we started anyway. I kept an eye on that lamp, thinking of how fast this place could go up in flames – and the fact that there was only one exit (luckily it was opposite the lamp).

We started out with three people and then they just kept on coming. By the end there were fourteen of us crammed into this tiny space. The couch somehow held about half of the people, I had been given the comfy chair, Rick stood, and two people sat on the bed. Kids were in and out, making noise and brushing past us all in what would have been an aisle if we had had any space for one. For most people this would have been the equivalent of having Bible class in the space of the bathroom.

It was an enjoyable class – very basic and full of attentive learners with some good questions. We stayed just long enough to eat some biscuits Rick had picked up, and then headed out before it got too late.

Best of all, the water was still on when I got home.

Oh! Another monkey visited me today. I thought he was a cat but he was a monkey, so we chatted while he ate some fruit from a tree up above me. He was too tempted by the fruit to run away, even though I got really close. I did not feed him. I didn’t have to.

Yesterday I remembered a story my mother tells me. When I was about 4 or 5, I woke up one morning, looked around and asked, distraught, “Where’s my monkey?!” It took some persuading to convince me that I had, in fact, been dreaming – and that I did not, and likely would not ever, own or spend a significant amount of time with a monkey. Dreams do come true. Aim high.

I got a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdA3Kxwr-0Y

Here are some pictures of the little building, and a group picture Rick took. Please ignore the demon eyes. These are nice people.