Friday, February 13, 2009

Well no water for almost two days and the electricity comes and goes. Prudence, our cleaning lady, came today with a bucket of water on her head telling us she was going to fill up our bathtub with water, so we could flush our toilets. That probably does not make a lot of sense, but we scoop a bucket of water up, pour it in the tank of the toilet, and then flush. I am not sure where she was getting the water. She made three trips which took about ten minutes each time. I did a little figuring and decided it would take her a couple of hours to fill the tub. I told her not to bother that we would be in an out all day. They are all so concerned that we have all the comforts when they have so little. We are practicing – If is yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down. We send the students home if they have to go.

The electricity is back on right now, so students are here supposedly working like crazy to get school work done so they can send it to professors back home. What we really find is that they are actually sending emails to friends and writing on facebook. Then the electricity goes off or the internet stops and they complain that they did not get to take the test they needed to or send a paper. Students are students no matter where they live. They are used to waiting until the last minute to do their work at home, but here you have to plan ahead. A few are beginning to wake up but some will be working on the plane home trying to finish the semester’s work.

Yippee! Brad found a pair of trousers. I salesman at one of the stores guaranteed us that he would get in some trousers and some would even be for “big” men, and he did. He told us, “I was saying to myself what happened to that big man that wanted trousers I thought you had forgotten about me.” He had saved some pants back just for Brad. Remember it is a compliment to be fat or big here.

Thanks for your prayers.


Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Today I went to the St. Mulambo School’s 23rd birthday party. This is the school for the deaf, blind, and special needs. They are never quite sure what to call the special needs children. Some speakers called them “the others” – “We are so glad to be here at this school for the deaf, blind and ‘the others’.” Some called them “the slow” and several called them “the dumb”. They had a mass and then the students did short performances. They let the blind sing, the deaf dance, but ‘the others’ just sat there.

It is amazing to watch the deaf students keep right with the beat of the drums; however, some of the dancing was a little too much. They were dressed in native attire and the boys had body paint on their faces and chests. Several of the special needs students could not stay seated, so they got up and joined in shaking their booties all over the place; they had some moves. Then they came right up to those in the audience and pulled them out onto the grass to dance with them. Teachers, men in business suits, even a couple of nuns shook and shook and shook all they had to shake. It was a shaken good time. Luckily I was taking pictures so I was not asked to dance, but since they love to have their pictures taken, I was getting private performances up close, sometimes too close. If only I had a video camera with me, of course I wouldn’t be able to show it because some of it was x-rated.

They served us lunch and I got to talk with several nuns that are in charge of providing funding for this school. Hey Mom, I even met and talked with a Baptist missionary that teaches at the Baptist Bible College here in Choma.

That is all that is shaking here.