Friday

The power went off as I began to write this. I can hear the pastors from our pastor’s school singing. I hear them in the distance most every morning, men’s voices deep and loud in worship. An unmixed variety of fruit and vegetables waits on the counter to be blended for breakfast, pending electricity, in my favorite appliance, the Nurtiblend. (Gloria Bussard you inspired me). I made Laura Steen’s vegan breakfast bars last night and am having those for now instead with the Starbuck’s espresso blend Helen Inga brought me at Christmas.

It has actually gotten “cold” here at night and I got out my sleeping bag last night. But it smells like it is mildewed and chances are it is ridden with it. Veronica will wash it for me and having it smelling like Omo detergent instead. Now that 3 out of the 3 things I had intended to do are impossible because of lack of electricity, I can stay here for a few minutes longer to write.
I need to do this more often. I need to do so many things more often, sit on the beach, go for a long walk, read, cook, have people over for dinner. But my day rarely involves any of this nor does it involve most things I originally set out to do. It always changes due to some other need that always seem to usurp my hour of solitude by the sea.

Today we have a team visiting from Indonesia (or maybe it’s Singapore). They have come to teach our teachers in the Primary school how to teach English in the mornings and are working with our students in the afternoon. They taught yesterday too and brought large circular fluorescent stickers for name tags and M&M’s. Twyfa was wearing a tank top, spaghetti strap, camisole thingy with little room for a name tag so she just stuck her name tag right on her 85% bare breast. I had to giggle. I actually gawked for a second, then giggled. Culture and it’s contrasts. I don’t think I am being culturally insensitive by telling you this part. I don’t intend to be. One day I will mature into a proper missionary and I will blush at the fact that I even wrote about this and name tags on bare breasts won’t be funny anymore. And it wasn’t really, “Ha Ha” funny but more like, “Wow, she has a name tag on her bosom” funny. I am constantly made aware of the culture differences and flash back to my own culture. This culture is incredibly more resourceful and practical. How I wish you could see this one, Twyfa. She wears her hair in braids that stick up all over. She has a scar from a poorly stitched cut on her forehead. She came to class very shy. She brings two friends. They used to look at the floor when they talked to me. Now they wait in line for me to hug them. Little me. They now wear makeup and flowers in their hair. Anyway, this group did interactive games practicing colors and words and gave out balloons and candy. Their methods are genius and they had the students thinking outside the box in their games. I loved watching them think hard and problem solve together. They are only here for a day and it reminds me, once again, of the need to have teams come to do small workshops with our students.

Meanwhile we have two small businesses we may be starting very soon that both involve a lot of work. We will also be involved with the Alpha course that begins next Saturday. Our students are out of school next week so we are meeting only in the mornings, but they are all showing up and the morning sessions have been really good. We are getting to know them more and more and feeling like we finally have relationship with many of them.

Last week we got a new student. He has to be older than me but here it is so hard to tell. He speaks English very well, has a very deep voice and talk loud. He doesn’t look you in the eyes when he talks to you. I can tell he is very smart. He is quick to answer questions and answers them correctly. Last week I ran into him on his way to go study Hebrew with a mission school student who is teaching a short course in the afternoons. He looked familiar to me but I didn’t know how until Rodrigo told me his story.

My neighbor Ruth has a street ministry here. It is a small barraca mixed in with all the other bamboo bars. By bars I mean drinking bars. I have told you about them before. They are little bamboo huts that have one light bulb and serve warm beer and gin. They play loud music. Ruth set it up to sell cooked goat and cold Cokes at a cheap price and invite the prostitutes in to sit. Yes, prostitutes. Young girls who walk the streets on the weekends and sale themselves. Now she invites them in for chocolate and to have their feet washed and nails painted. It is a beautiful thing to see. The girls know it is a safe space and love the attention and safe, pure affection. They are so young. I went to the opening of this for a cold Coke and to support Ruth. I also knew I needed to see the reality of where I am living. I have been back a few times. So I vaguely remember this man arguing and debating Rodrigo and his friend in the dark in front of the barraca. He was intoxicated. He was arguing emphatically and out of his mind and making no sense. He was clearly deranged and tormented. He had multiple personalities. They prayed for him. Now he is calm and coherent and in my class. He apparently used to be a translator for Iris. He translated in class the other day when Rodrigo stepped out. He used to travel with Heidi on outreach and pray for the deaf and the blind and saw them healed by Jesus. He wanted more power himself and went to the witch doctor to ask for it. The result was what we had seen that night out in front of the darkness of the barraca. The darkness has left him and he is a different man.

I don’t even know how to process this. I lost myself at “demonized” in the retelling of his testimony. Everything here is spiritual. The unseen is more real than what is seen. What is seen is temporary, what is unseen is forever. I never knew this would be my reality. Every day I take something from this culture that changes me. Every day is a new lesson in one thing or another, deep spiritual things, awakenings to social concerns, how to survive. I can only hope I am giving back a portion of all that I am learning. I am being changed.

It is becoming more and more like home here. I used to think of home every 5-10 minutes. I woke up thinking of home. The minute my eyes opened I would awaken surprised not to be in my big bed in my little house on Newnan Street. I would lament as I cooked breakfast, bathed, dressed as I recalled how everything had changed and I missed the familiarity and conveniences of home. I still miss many of them but they no longer consume my thoughts. This is becoming home and my way of life. I no longer feel like I am at camp or on a very long vacation or living someone else’s life. I have big moments of realization that this is my home. The other day as I sat on the porch at the home of a friend and the sun started to set, that moment came rushing in and surrounded me. I didn’t feel so foreign. It felt normal to sit and talk with my neighbor and peek over at the Indian Ocean. Normal to gather my bag and keys and start up the scooter and follow the pot hole filled road along the sea to my little house. Normal to use my flashlight to check for snakes. Normal to take the laundry off the line and come inside and bleach my vegetables. Normal to boil water for a bucket bath. Normal to mutter broken Portuguese to Veronica and ask her about her day. Normal to understand a little more than half of what she said. Normal to walk down to the barraca to buy eggs. Normal to look under my pillow and under the covers before crawling into bed.

Of course I miss my family and friends. I miss you deeply. I have told you before how I really mourned leaving many of you. I sobbed my guts out for months before coming here. I felt like I spent entire weeks of constantly crying over my nieces and nephews, family and closest friends. With Catherine, Gracie, Carson and Nathaniel, I involuntarily dedicated solid weeks to individually poring over pictures of their beautiful faces and crying over the pain of leaving them. A day never goes by without them being in my thoughts. But I don’t cry anymore over missing Target and Publix and J.Crew and an endless list of restaurants. I guess I am finally growing up a little and coming into my own.

I find that I am rarely alone and struggle to find solitude and peace and quiet. Yet, it is lonely. I would not trade this life for any other. There are a lot of unknowns. Every day is different and everything is constantly changing. I like it this way. After ten years of fairly the exact same routine, I welcome the variety. Of course with the variety comes uncertainty. But not fear. Looking at these words, “uncertain” and “lonely”, they don’t sound very good, but they are. The uncertainty is wonderful because it keeps me from limiting myself. And the loneliness is only for a season and just draws me closer to God. It is needed and welcomed as I am growing in the process.