Jordan here: Usually when I get the inspiration from something, I like to share with you all reading this blog and always tell us how you like reading it. I hope our material isn’t getting too boring and we don’t repeat ourselves too much. Anyway, here goes nothing…
Sarah’s been away for a couple weeks now and I find that I think to myself a lot more when we’re apart, go figure. The last couple days have been pretty busy. I could hear my mom’s voice in my head saying “I sure am busy, for having nothing to do”. I have been running around trying to tie up some loose ends and follow up on projects. I stopped by the school a couple times to check up on our hand washing stations project. A bit to my surprise, they’re still being used with relatively few problems even without our direct supervision. Now our student leaders are running the project and seeing to their proper usage. They’ve improvised some small issues, but now the students have had education on the importance of proper hand washing. And now they have places they can go anytime during the day and be able to wash their hands, especially after relieving themselves and before and after eating. It’s the first step to achieving better sanitation. Baby steps.
I then was checking up on the rabbit hutch in Kulfuo we helped build with a small rabbit rearing group we helped start. The project helped buy 3 rabbits, 2 female, 1 male, to start them off. The rabbits seem to be doing fine and are eating a lot! In a few weeks, we’ll see if they’ve mated and more bunnies will come. I have urged them to take good records of anything that happens. Anything from behaviors of the rabbits, health issues, when you bought new rabbits and how to identify them for the purpose of keeping mating records etc. The one at our house that I hope to use to start a small rabbit rearing group here in Tarsor is almost complete. Sarah is mostly just giddy that she’ll get to play with bunnies ;)
Today was kind of an up and down day. It hasn’t rained here enough. People are always complaining about not enough rain, and I guess I can understand it since their livelihoods depend on it. Fetching water to our garden areas at the dam site has been getting old. Its supposed to be watering itself! Then the guy I’m usually with, Issah, went to his classes in Tumu in the afternoon, and of course Sarah wasn’t here. So I went to the garden on my own. Others were supposed to meet me there, but for a while I didn’t see anyone. I knew I wouldn’t get the work done on my own, so I got frustrated and a little down in the dumps. I really just wanted to sit and do nothing. The past 2 weeks I’d been working my tail off at the tree nursery and on the garden, and I didn’t really feel like doing it all afternoon again on my own. I tried pushing myself to my feet just to do something small and stay busy. It wasn’t fun. Then one of Issah’s wives, Alijah, who has been helping at the nursery lately, and her kids, Hafiz, Kaharo, and Hakim, showed up. I was all of a sudden directing people here and there, running to open the dam so water would flow to our place, etc etc, and I felt better because I had a reason to get up and get stuff done. People were depending on me. We were all working hard when all of a sudden, Alijah looked up in the not so distant sky and said “KIE, duoni ko re!”. Translation: Holy moly, rain is coming! We all quickened our pace and then the downpour started! Hakim, Alijah and Kaharo took off running home, leaving Hafiz and me to finish the work. As the rain was coming, we planted the last of our cassia seeds, and started sprinting to close the dam that I had left open to allow water to flow through. If I didn’t close it before long, things would flood out. As we plowed through the tall grasses and banana leaves, dodging chasms in the ground, and jumping newly-formed steams, all I could think about was the parts in Jurassic Park when things just start to go bad. The storm screwed everything up in that movie. But today, it was a fabulous, cathartic, joyous run through the garden that made all the down parts of the afternoon were figuratively and literally wash away. Then of course, the rain just stopped and out came the sun and the rainbows.
Hafiz and I started to walk home since we were soaked to the bone and our work for the day at the garden was finished. We had a good chance to chat. Hafiz is a great kid who is at the stage where people treating him as a “small boy”, or a young boy whose sole purpose is to be bossed around by anyone older than him. We see a lot of potential in him, but usually small boys and girls aren’t talked to, they’re barked at. So I started asking him about school and all kinds of other things. He, like everyone else, complained that the rain wasn’t enough. I thought immediately about the book I’m currently reading called “A Complaint Free World” and tried to advise him that complaining doesn’t change anything and that thinking of good things and hoping will bring happiness faster than thinking of the bad things in life. I then could hear my dad’s voice in my head saying “Positive vibes, Jordan, positive vibes.” I’m confident Hafiz heard me and will actually recall what I told him, at least from time to time.
When we got back to town, everyone’s mood was a little lighter since the rain had come. They all teased us for having soaked, dirty clothes and were told by every passerby to go and bathe. Yeah yeah yeah I know. Then I made some instant mashed potatoes sent from home with little beef jerky bites that looked like hot dogs and a little instant cheddar cheese mixed in. The combination of these things made me feel like I was sitting at home on a summer evening and my mom had made me Pennies and Potatoes, and my soul was warmed.
After eating, I took the supplies to Hafiz, next door, for the work at the nursery tomorrow. He’ll be in charge and I trust him. As I was standing there giving him respectful directions, treating him like a person, his uncle continued to come over and try to answer for him, or tell me to talk to his father (who wasn’t there) but I just kept talking with Hafiz like he was a real person, worthy of responsibility. I hope he remembers that about us, and that he’s a special kid.
Now I sit under a clear starry sky on this suddenly cool night. I still have lots to do before I’m ready to head out in the morning around 5:30am. Days like this remind me that its just a view at one’s life in fast forward. You have a tough day, or week, or years, then you have great days. I just try to focus on the best things, and those to look forward to. Like tomorrow. I’m heading to Wa and then to Kukurantumi to see my best friend…
