In Which it's tooooo quiet...

It's been quiet around here. Almost tooo quiet. But for once in my life, I think I'll take it over the alternative. What's the alternative? Things catching fire!

Victor and the rest of the staff have been at a conference all week, thus leaving the orphanage in my very capable yet flammable hands. This means that the only responsible (haha) people at the orphanage are me and Mama Maria. She is very good at what she does (cooking all our food) but not so good at other things (example: saying, "Here, go clean this" as she gives a 3 year-old a butcher's knife). She's also very funny in a cantankerous sort of way.

With a grandmother's smile that says, "I love you," followed by, "but if you don't hold that chicken still I'm gonna cut of your head instead if his."

I like to think that we've been left in charge because we're the two most capable people here. The last line of defense, if you will. Like when President Lincoln finally sent in Gen Sherman to get the job done right. Or the Rebel Alliance sending on Luke Skywalker to take out the Death Star. Or.the Greeks calling on Archimides to invent a Death Ray.

OK, so maybe all those examples involve destroying things, but I chose them for a reason. That's because every time I'm left alone here things end up getting destroyed. More specifically, they catch on fire (Atlanta, Death Star, Roman ships). Disclaimer: Marrerre's roof burning down last week was totally coincidental because I was not left alone in charge.

So, three days into the week, things have so far been relatively peaceful. Food shortages were averted, as were power outages, wild animal attacks, and several mutinies. The animal attacks were our kids chasing  wild animals, and the munities were too poorly organized to ever gain any real traction with the rest of the proletariat the kids.

But because of that, I've been a little pressed for time. It's really just the same stuff I've always been doing, it just feels more daunting now that I'm the only one around. I'm still trying to shuffle of 40+ kids to school on time, prepping meals, doing teaching and homework help, and doing bible-study/chapel daily and nightly (and ever so rightly). And when you throw on the burden of getting a soccer game or two in during the day, oh the stress...

I worried the week was going to be bad after an ominous start after I spent last Saturday night in clinic with one of our little girls here who came down with malaria. (On a side note: it's really really hard seeing your kids suffer and be sick when there's nothing you can do for them*.) And just this morning the sound of the batukis (drums) started up next door as Marrerre was finally, officially getting recognized as the chief. I was worried that is would then morph into a raging party with enough alcohol, music, and women to make a Miami U football player jealous, but as of press time nothing has materialized.

*What every real parent already knows.

So here's hoping that your week is full of excitement and my week stays so lame that I will have no choice but to make Friday's post about all the different types of spinach we use in our spinach stew (or something totally not exciting like that).