You would think that coming up on year two that there would be fewer surprises, but I still cannot think of a day yet that something has not struck me. Today I want to share a few word pictures from thepast few days.
So, I have mentioned that it is hot here, right? Two days ago, it was unbareable, not just for me, but for the Nicaraguans. Tensions were high; you could feel it in the neighborhood. At 3 AM the next morning, after many nights of restless sleep, I got up to take the 2nd shower of the night to cool down (the other was at 1 AM). The water was out! I went outside for some reprieve until I was so tired that I could not stay awake. In my stupor I heard rain! We have not had rain since January. Blessed Rain! And the power went out- no fans, but we have rain. It feels like the tension of the whole country has broken.
Thursday night Bible study. There are two little boys, Adrian and Josue (Hoe- SWAY), who have been attending for awhile. They are nine and seven, respectively. Adrian is quiet and maybe a little studious, Josue talks in an extremely loud voice,and it does not matter that I do not understand most of what he says, he talks to me like I do. They showed up at 3:30 for our study at 6 PM. They showed us their plastic chicken lights, ran around the outside of the house, then set out the plastic chairs we use for the Bible study- they were ready, but I definitely was not. I still had cooking, preparartions, and showering to do.I explained to them that they need to go, but they could come back in 2 hours. 45 minutes later I heard the sound of flip-flops on hard-packed dirt- they wereback! They were disappointed to find out that it had not been 2 hours, and that they needed to go again, but they agreed to come back in 1 hour. At about 5:30 they returned again,and I did not have the heart to turn them away. They stayed, they played, and when we started study, they were in the midst of it all!
I have been walking in the mornings again- trying to get some exercise before the sun gets off the horizon. This is one of the times that I get to see some of the raw Nicaragua. This morning I changed my route some due to a horse that I knew had been killed and was on the sideof the road. This was not the first time I had seen this, but it always saddens me.The other thing that struck me was a family that was taking a cart into market. It was loaded with wood, the teenage boy was acting as horse,while the mom and younger son pushed from the back. A baby was sitting on top of the wood. I respect the work ethic and the needs, but this also saddens me.
Finally, yesterday a neighbor girl came by to ask if she could come and use our internet. She would just need to be close enough to the house to get the signal. Since we know that we are theonly ones with internet in the neighborhood, we are glad to share with students for school projects and other things. What we did not know is that her whole class was coming over to take part in the study session. They just kept coming! We had 11 teenagers sitting on our front porch, laughing, working, and enjoying the time together.It was a blessing to share with them and a reminder that we never know what we are getting into when we are limited in language and understanding!
Addendum
I had planned to send this out a few days ago, but we have had power, internet, and water issues due to a big storm coming through. The challenging thing is that our road washed out, mud is now an issue for the next 6 months, and we lost our plantain tree! The great thing is that the air is cleaner, there is a coolness at night, we get some reprieve from the heat, and we will be back in Portland in a little over a week!