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24 Hours (A Day in My Life): A Messed Up Knee and Legendary Traffic

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On May 15, 2015

In Other

Wednesday, May 13

8:30 pm:  Gil is home from playing basketball, and limping and wincing.  “I think I really messed up my knee,” he tells me.  “I’ll need to go to the doctor tomorrow if it’s not feeling better.”  I know he’s serious because he almost never voluntarily wants to go to the doctor.

Thursday, May 14

6:15 am:  I am up and getting the kids ready for school.  Gil tells me that we will indeed need to see the doctor today.  It’s his right knee that is injured, so I will need to drive.

7:30 am:  I get the kids off to school, and go to my mom’s prayer group.  I cancel my Swahili lesson and our meetings with our team leader.

9:30 am:  We have stalled going to the clinic, hoping to avoid rush hour traffic.  We’ve had two weeks of solid rain, significantly damaging many roads.  We’ve been avoiding going to town lately, because we heard that the already bad traffic become atrocious.  But since it’s not raining today, and we avoided rush hour, we are hoping it won’t be too bad.

The clinic is 9 miles away.

11:15 am:  We arrive at the clinic.  Obviously, our hopes were dashed for a decent traffic day.  One hour and 45 minutes for 9 miles.  That’s bad even for Dar es Salaam.

We wait at the clinic.

12:45 pm:  Gil finally sees a doctor, who gives him crutches, and also a referral for an MRI at a hospital.  We grab some lunch and head over to the hospital.

We wait at the hospital.  I make a few phone calls to make sure our kids will be picked up from school and taken care of.  My friend Alyssa saves the day.  I love her.

3:00 pm:  Gil gets his MRI.  The doctor checks it out and wants to order an x-ray as well.  However, the x-ray machine is broken and won’t be ready for another hour.  We decide it is better to wait rather than trying this journey again tomorrow.

5:00 pm:  Gil gets his x-ray.

5:17 pm:  We are on the road to go home.  We have 10 miles to drive from the hospital to our house.

9:00 pm:  We arrive home.  That’s 10 miles in 3 hours and 45 minutes, in case you don’t want to do the math.

Conclusions:

1)  I can’t even describe the traffic here.  It’s not traffic, it’s TRAFFIC.  Yes, I’ve lived in Los Angeles.  This is nothing like that.  In Dar es Salaam, at peak traffic times, people make four lanes–or five, or six–out of two.  People drive on the side walks.  No one pays attention to stop lights.  Cars are going everywhere.  After driving 6 hours yesterday, I am utterly exhausted.

2)  We’ll get the results for Gil’s knee on Saturday.  Praying he doesn’t need surgery, or if he does, that it can be done here.  Although, if he does have to fly to South Africa for surgery, it might actually take less time to travel there than driving to the hospital in Dar es Salaam.

3)  We are now in the market for a helicopter.  Anyone got a used one lying around?

37 minutes…..HA HA HA.

Longing for a Better Country…..guest posting over at “A Life Overseas!”

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On May 11, 2015

In Other

This is a pretty exciting day for me!  I finally got brave enough to submit some of my writing to a missions blog I follow….and today, I am guest posting!  

Follow this link over to “A Life Overseas” to read my post, a memoir of loss in Africa.  

I never got to say good-bye, either to the country or the people I loved.  Liberia haunts my dreams; it remains an unfinished part of my life to this day.

Truth on the No Good, Very Bad Days

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On May 5, 2015

In Other

The day started when one of my kids woke me up a half hour before my alarm.  “My bed is all wet,” the child mourned.

And that was just the beginning.

“Mom!  I spilled my smoothie all over myself.”

“Mom!  Look out the window!  Leo chewed up another patio chair!”  Leo is the dog we recently acquired.  He happens to be the Most Obnoxious Dog on Earth.

“Mom! Daddy says he has a migraine.”

Of course, all of these things were also happening in semi-darkness, since we’re having electricity issues (again) and currently none of our overhead lights are working.

“Grace, go get the fan from your room so that we can try to dry the laundry from yesterday.”  “Mom!  The top of the fan broke off!”  Of course it did.

That was all before 7:15…which is also when I remembered that we had a flat tire, which we had not changed because yesterday it was pouring rain.

The kids were 45 minutes late to school.

I’m with Alexander; I want to move to Australia.

It doesn’t help that this comes during a time when I am battling discouragement.  Ministry isn’t going as well as we had hoped; things are hard; we don’t feel good at this; we feel out of our league.  I have been anxious and emotional.

Then this morning I read, Truth affects our emotions when it is believed.

Yes.  What is the Truth I need to believe today?

His grace is sufficient.  Give thanks in all circumstances.  Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.  In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.*

Some will say, “Well, that doesn’t work for me.  When I hear truth, it doesn’t have an emotional effect on me.  It doesn’t take away my anxiety”…..If the Bible’s arguments are not having an effect on you, it’s because you have little faith in what it says.  Faith is massively important here.  We must trust.  We must believe what Jesus says.  (John Piper)

If the Bible doesn’t apply to days like today, then it doesn’t apply at all.

Here’s to believing.

* (2 Cor. 2:9, I Thes. 5:18, I Peter 5:7, Prov. 3:6)

Not Home Yet

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On April 25, 2015

In Other

A friend and I were discussing a new law in Tanzania that could impact how long foreigners are allowed to live here.  It’s not even in effect yet, and we don’t even know if it would impact us.  But it was a stark reminder that we are visitors here.

I thought for a while about where we would go if for any reason we were forced to return to the States.  It was depressing.  I can’t think of anywhere in America that actually feels like home anymore.  My parents’ house probably comes closest–but only the house, not the neighborhood or the city.  I love many, many people in America–especially California–but that doesn’t make it feel like home.

Dar es Salaam is home now.  We’ve lived here 11 years.  For Gil and I, that’s 11 out of 14 years of marriage.  All of our kids were born here.  Dar es Salaam is certainly not the most pleasant city in the world, or even in Tanzania.  I love a lot about it, but there are aspects to this city that I downright hate…yet it is a familiar hate.  My car goes into auto-pilot, even when dodging goats.  I know the secret to finding ravioli.  I’ve planted memories in a thousand corners.  Not much about this place surprises me anymore.  It is familiar.

It’s strange, though, that I’ve made my home in a country where I have to renew my resident’s visa every two years.  I could, technically, be deported at any immigration officer’s whim.  I will never be allowed to own a house here.  I will never be able to vote.  I stick out on the street and am treated differently from everyone else.  A million events could force us to leave:  a serious illness, a closed ministry opportunity, political unrest.

It’s disconcerting to come to that realization–that this is the place where I feel at home, and yet I will never totally belong here.  It’s been the story of my life, starting in Liberia, then Ethiopia and Kenya, and now Tanzania.  My passport says United States of America, and it’s still part of my identity, but I have no idea what I will do when one day I have to live there.

Sometimes it feels like I am floating five inches above the earth, my roots dangling aimlessly.  Then I remember, Fix your eyes on things above, not on earthly things.  My roots shouldn’t go down into this earth anyway.  I am a foreigner in this country, but more importantly, I am a foreigner on this earth.

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands….While we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened….so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.  (2 Corinthians 5)

This life is a only a vapor, and when it is extinguished, that is when I will really go Home.

California, This is What Real Water Conservation Looks Like

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On April 14, 2015

In Other

The language learning pictures of the day were about washing dishes.  I learned the Kiswahili words for soak, scrub, scrape, rinse.  Then, as usual, Lucy made me a recording of the days’ lesson.  Her recordings always keep me highly entertained, which is helpful since I listen to each one about a dozen times.

First, she made me laugh when she said (roughly translated):  “Foreigners always scrape their frying plans with only a plastic tool.  Because they are afraid of scratching their special pans.”

Yep.  She’s got that right.

She also said, “Americans rinse their dishes ovyo–carelessly–because water is cheap in America.  And they don’t have to carry it on their heads.”

Ouch.  Unfortunately, she’s right about that one as well.  As I listened to this recording over and over, pushing the new words into my brain, I also thought about my home state.

I’m originally from California, which is facing a water crisis of epic proportions.  In fact, Lucy told me that she heard about the California drought recently on Swahili radio.  That’s pretty crazy!  I know that Californians are upset about letting their lawns die and their cars stay dirty and their toilets stay yellow.  I get that–I would be upset too.

But here’s a little perspective from my friend Lucy.

Lucy lives in a household of 6.  They are probably considered almost middle class for this country, because they own their own house and both she and her husband have dependable jobs.

Their house has no plumbing, along with most of the households in this city of 5 million.  A neighbor, about half a block away, has a outdoor spigot.  This is Lucy’s water source.

Every day, Lucy buys 25 gallons of water from this neighbor.  Every day, she fills buckets and carries them back to her house on her head.  This much water costs about 15% of Lucy’s take home pay.

Twenty-five gallons of water is what this family of six uses every day–for drinking, cooking, washing bodies, washing dishes, washing clothes.  And that’s on the good days.  On the days when money is tight, it’s only fifteen gallons.

And you know what?  Lucy considers herself blessed, because she only has to walk half a block to get water, instead of the miles that many women in Tanzania have to walk.

Just in case you’re starting to feel way too judged, let me assure you that even though I write from the same city as Lucy, I’m much more in the category of Californians.  We do have indoor plumbing, and we probably use 10 times more water a day than Lucy’s family, yet our water bill is only about 1% of our take home pay.

The average American person uses 100 gallons of water a day–400 gallons per family of four.  Every day.  In California, residents are beingasked to cut that by 25%.  I know it won’t be easy–it wouldn’t be for me, either.  As an American, I am used to using water ovyo–carelessly.

Living in Africa has taught me to appreciate things I used to take such advantage of:  paved roads, electricity, libraries, Cheerios…and water.  Maybe this water crisis will do the same for Californians.

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