Days of Grace: a slow realization

It’s Saturday. We’ve been without water here now for over a month. We can get it from a well and fill buckets and it will come on at random times but consistent water we have not had. I rarely complain about these things but I post way too many pictures of the sea and don’t want you to get the wrong impression. I don't like capturing Mozambique in her poverty and her vulnerability, but it is part of it. And lack of basic resources is a reality.

I awoke Friday morning to the sound of running water, my neighbor filling buckets, so I jumped up and did the same. But the water was filthy. Not much you can do with that. I don’t even want to run that water through the filter to drink. I loaded up a bucket to have water with which to flush the loo. I had woken up earlier in the middle of the night. As per my No. 2 rule in Africa, Always Turn on the Lights, I had turned on the lights to go to the loo. I sleepily took a sip of water from the glass by my bed, the very last of my bottled water, purchased from the barracca by the road. As I picked up the glass I noticed a lizard taking a drink. I had no choice but to take sip and share. It was the only drinkable 8oz in the house.

As I have been looking at the calendar and, an August departure seems so soon. I am still here alone and Andrea is still in England. Adele arrives in May but will leave in August. Andrea will be back but has planned in advance to be gone mid August to mid September. That will leave all our plans and programs and school unattended. Therefore, I feel that I cannot leave. I have slowly come to this realization. Don’t feel too sorry for me. Mom and Dad are coming and I will have to go to South Africa to renew my visa. I have to leave the country by August 2nd. So at the moment I plan to spend my birthday in Cape Town. I will take a rest there. Eat. Bathe. And come back to Pemba until help arrives and I can leave the school, our internships, and other programs in their able hands. It is great that we have plans on the horizon. I expect our internships to start in May. I feel that if I leave, those external programs will fizzle out and the students need to be monitored. And we are making huge progress in the English classes. I can’t just stop it all so quickly and leave them without someone to continue the work.

I am a little bummed that I won’t be home in August, but Georgia in August is pretty rough, hot, humid, blah. I miss seasons, leaves, cold weather, blue jeans, boots, sweaters. Mozambique in August is actually quite nice. Georgia in October or November, on the other hand is lovely. So that is my solace, a fall wardrobe and pumpkin pie.