Prayer Request October 2011 - Pt I

Here's some prayer requests that we have over the next couple of weeks. There also kind of what has been kind of the main theme of what has been happening here on a day-to-day basis.

Truck Repairs: They are actually really going great. We found the windshield for the truck and it was the correct one (and expensive). The body work is mostly all done and we were painting it today. What remains is to assemble the cab and dash. We stripped all that out, so right now the cab is just a big glossy empty shell. Hopefully within a week we'll be up and running, but realistically with the way delays just naturally occur here I'm thinking it'll be 2-3 weeks before we're back on the road.

Rain: It hasn't come yet, and water has been shut off to our neighborhood for about a week. That being said, we were doing better than other bairros that haven't had water for about two months. Statistically speaking, in about a month we should be out of the rainy season. The drought hasn't effected us thanks to our well, but it has resulted in long lines of neighbors waiting to use it.

Typically, water gets shut off (for individual areas of about 10,000 people each) for three primary reasons. They are that people don't pay their bills, people break open the water mains to get free water, or drought. Right now we are in the last two reasons. Unfortunately now when the water gets turned off for drought, people break open all the mains to access any water they can, which results in nobody getting water that is “downstream”. It also results in flooded streets and unusable water after it gets turned back on.

Out in the districts where there is no water utility, it just means there's no water right now.

My foot: This prayer request is not for healing necessarily, its for TJ to use common sense and stay off his injured foot. I bruised my foot a couple of weeks ago playing soccer and haven't had the good sense to stay off of it for a couple of days. I thought I finally beat the system this last time when my foot was almost all better so I decided to wear shoes while playing soccer so nothing would happen to it. It was the first time I've played soccer in shoes in over a year. Consequently, it was also the first time I've been running in shoes in over a year. I'm convince the muscles used are completely different because I never am tired the day after playing soccer normally, and here I am still sore down to my bones 3 days later. And my foot got worse. I need to just not play for a couple weeks to fully heal my bruised foot.

New kid: We may or may not have gotten or been getting a new addition to the orphanage. Sound confusing? It is frustratingly so for us here, too.

In Which Kids Fight Inanimate Objects

The second had-to-be-there story this weeks comes from just a few days ago. But first, it involves knowing two of my favorite kids here: Jose (whom you've all met before In Which TJ discusses behavior) and his brother Jordao (The one about what Jordao wants to be when he grows up).

For those of you that forgot, Jose is mentally handicapped and we think physically too. We only think physically because legally he's 13 and currently the size of a 7 year old. He lost a tooth last week. A baby tooth. That he still had. He has problems talking due to his gigantic tongue and will probably remain in second grade the rest of his life (which if he remains the same size nobody will notice).

Jordao is in second grade with Jose, except he is a normal size, for a 14 year-old. (Jordao entered school last year for the first time as a 12 year-old in first grade and has a long way to go as far as catching up is concerned.) We last heard from him when he said when he grows up he want to be a pilot. Jordao has the problem of not being able to perceive communication. We're not sure if his difficulty is in the hearing or the thinking (thus wanting to be an airplane when he grows up).

In Which We Practice Preparedness

Every so often I worry about writing a story that is just too much of a “had to be there” kind of tale. The fear is mainly because I've been told I'm the king of had-to-be-there stories. However since this website is 95%* me telling you things because you can't be here I wouldn't be doing my job if I wasn't trying**. So since we're at it we might as well swing for the fences and go for broke. This week you're not going to get just one story, you're going to get two. Tune in tomorrow for the second one.

*The rest is 4% random pop-culture references and 1% passionate pleas for donations. Oh, who am I kidding. Its like 45% pop-culture references, 38% ramblings, and 17% head-scratching nonsense.

**Writing here is not my “job”, if I had a “job”, or if I considered it “writing”, or “trying”, hypothetically.

The first story I've been kicking around for a month or two waiting find some way to pair it as I don't feel its strong enough as a stand-alone story. By itself it's OK, but it really needs to be surrounded by other things or it has no real importance. Like an actor in an ensemble piece. Or salad.

This particular story takes place the night before we hosted a wedding reception at the orphanage. Victor had called all the kids into a meeting so we could talk about being on good behavior and dole out some jobs that would need to be taken care of the next day.

In Which TJ has blue eyes

As I'm getting the papers together to renew my residency here in Mozambique, I was remembering back to a conversation last year with the case worker (if that's what you call them) that was processing my paperwork. It was a long process of me filling out forms and him reading back all my answers asking if they were correct or not. We did a few other trivial things like get pictures taken and do fingerprints, but mostly it was making sure that I knew how to write and he knew how to read, as most of the time was spent with him reading what I wrote.

We got through all the normal questions like where you home country is, where you residence is in Mozambique, what you do. Then this little conversation took place. My thoughts are presented in italics.

Case Worker: And your height is 190cm.
TJ: Yes, 190cm.
CW: Wow, that's very tall. And your hair is indeed brown?
TJ: You're looking right at me, how hard can this be.
TJ: Yes, my hair is brown.
CW: And your eyes are blue?
TJ: Yes, my eyes are blue.
CW: And your weight is--- wait. Your eyes are really blue?
TJ: Yes they are.
CW: That can't be right. Eyes aren't blue. Let me see.
TJ: He really wants to see my eyes I suppose---WOW that is some uncomfortable eye contact right there.
CW: No, your eyes are white, not blue.
TJ: What? Everyone's eyes are white. Look again.
TJ: And...there we go with super uncomfortable eye contact.
CW: You're right. They aren't white. They're black.
TJ: You're really gonna make this into a thing, aren't you?
TJ: Everone's eye's are black in the middle, they're blue outside of that.
CW: But I can't put blue, that's not an eye color. Choose white or black.
TJ:
CW:
TJ: Really? You can't put blue?
CW: Blue is not an eye color.
TJ: I pick blue.
CW:
TJ:
CW:
TJ: Stop staring into my eyes.
CW: Fine. Blue eyes.

In Which We Accidentally the Truck

We accidentally what? The truck.

[Warning: rather long post.] Its been a flurry of activity the last two weeks here. Last week, as I mentioned, I was manning the fort as everyone else was at week-long seminars put on by various NGO's. That week went just fine. Then we pulled into a three-day weekend for Armed Forces day or something. That meant a little bit of housekeeping. I spent the whole day Saturday with the boys in the dorm as we pulled out everything for some good ol' fashioned cleaning. And when I say everything I mean everything. The girls were all watching and making fun of all the odds and ends that the boys were hoarding in there. Water bottles, toys, trinkets, bottle caps of all sorts (which are kind of used like currency around here) were found in their bunks as we cleaned out all the junk.

But the girls got their turn on the Monday holiday when Victor went through their house with them. They got the same treatment in their house while I got to do some much needed yardwork with the boys. I wanted to be there cleaning out the girls house with them, but lets face it, girls can be a little, ummm, touchy when it comes to going through their stuff. And I don't mean stuff in like all their clothes and things. I mean weird stuff. One girl was storing dozens and dozens of old toilet paper rolls. One girl had at least over a hundred pen caps that she had collected. Another yet had a backpack full of not books but pencil shavings. And those were just the girls over age 16 (seriously). The girls did not take to well to the non-stop shame and laughter that resulted from all the boys seeing tons of junk in their trunk because, well, girls.

After that, I spent about two days washing and sorting the old clothes and packaging them up do donate somewhere else (hundreds of kids just down the hill in the jungle would kill to wear good condition 3rd hand clothes). Because of those two days my house still smells “mountain fresh”, or however detergent is supposed to smell. I'm just glad that the detergent didn't smell like cake or cheeseburgers because boy would that make me hungry.

But today's post isn't about what I've been up to. Today's post is for the edification of all you out there. As one of the things I do a lot here at the orphanage is teach and give school lessons, I thought it about time a prepare a lesson for all of you faithful readers out there. This lesson addresses one of my grammatical / literary pet peeves. And I don't even like grammar, but this is still an annoyance of mine. Today, you are all going to learn about irony.