The Nitty Gritty

Lest you think that life here is all peaches and cream, or picnics and boat rides, I will let you in on a bit of daily life here. We have school Sunday thru Thursday, on which days our helper, Shila, comes to wash the laundry by hand, cook for lunch ( usually rice, lentils and vegetables -quite tasty), sweep and mop the floors and any other cleaning she has time for. The boys and I spend the mornings doing school work and usually have recess on the roof. There is a large sand pile, left from the construction of the building, which they play in. Sometimes they take a soccer ball up and kick it around. So far it has managed to stay on the roof ( which has a 3 or 4 foot high wall around it). For some reason I try and keep Riley in my sight while we are up there!! Shila leaves at 2 p.m. and I usually hit the kitchen to either cook for dinner or do some baking. I have a teeny tiny oven that can bake a dozen cookies at a time if I make them small enough, or 2 loaves of bread. Needless to say, I miss my oven and Cinnaroma very much! But I'm having opportunities here to cook and bake for others, which makes me quite happy. But back to the nitty gritty... how can I put it into words? These kinds of days are ok and sometimes I really really like living here. Oh, I get tired of having to boil so much water for drinking and washing fruits and vegetables, I get tired of having someone in my house, doing my work. I miss the grocery stores (Austin or Shila do the marketing here), I miss the yard where the boys could be outside without me having to watch them every minute. Yet, these kinds of days are ok. We are getting into a routine. I'm learning how to enjoy being able to focus on my boys and let someone else worry about the work for a time. But what really gets me is all the other things... More than once in the last few days I've vented to Austin and asked why we are here anyway, that we could be doing a lot more good somewhere else because all we are doing here is surviving. It has been a frustrating week of computer glitches, finance records not coming out right, our new cane furniture having to be emptied out and put on the roof for a few days to be dried in the sun and wiped clean of mold, brand new appliances giving out and feeling taken advantage of. What really took the cake was my new coffee maker giving out. A week ago, we were in Dhaka and bought a frying pan, hand mixer and coffee maker from a shop in New Market. We looked at different models and the guy went on and on about how we should buy the Japanese models because the other ones will only last 2 or 3 months and then give out. He said these would last for years. I was a bit skeptical, especially when the mixer had stickers on that said "Made in China". He said they put those on themselves so they wouldn't have to pay such a high import tax. That should have been a clue to get up and go to another shop. But he was convincing and it looked like such a good heavy duty model. Plus he was willing to write on the receipt that we had a 3 year warranty. So we bought our items and brought them here. I had great plans for them! The mixer gave out the first time, right after the blender, which was here previously, refused to blend and I could see the bottom part lighting up as it was sparking internally. I was upset, to say the least, yet found comfort in the fact that I could still get up in the morning and have a nice hot cup of real coffee. Wouldn't you know, the night we had a houseful of expatriate guests ( MCCers on a visa trip from India, a co-worker and his parents) it gave out. I was trying to give them the familiar taste of home sort of meal, no rice and "yellow stuff", but the coffee maker refused to work. I was totally disgusted. We finally boiled water and poured it through the filter which we situated on top of the pot and had our coffee with hot apple cake and ice cream. The next day we cleaned up the coffee maker, which by now had all kinds of grounds in it from all the trials and errors, and put it back in the box, where it is waiting for our next trip to Dhaka. We shall see if the 3 year warranty is any good.

It's crazy how life is sometimes. A couple weeks ago, I was so lonely and wishing for visitors. This week I was blessed with visitors and it was so good! Yet I had all this other stuff going on. Am I surprised? Not really. Guess its a matter of perspective. One of the biggest things I learned from some dear friends in Canton is that I always have a choice. So I am choosing to do more than survive here, even though I was crying my eyes out a little bit ago, ready to get on the next plane home. I still know deep down that there is a reason I am here. Seeing it, understanding it, now that would be nice, but "nice" is not what its about. There is a reason and, right now, believing that statement, is an act of worship; a slow, fragile, fumbling dance for my Heavenly Father who lets me know that its ok if I'm not getting it perfectly, that I don't need to be trying ballet moves right now. Somehow this bumbly dance of faith is beautiful to him.