Candlelight confessionals….

Here I sit, typing a little earlier tonight, with a candle.  Turns out that the power went out this evening before supper.

 We had acquired a power saw today and while Grant, Jimi, Cristi and I were sawing those beloved boards from the saw-less saw mill, here at the lodge, the power decided to go out.  At first I was a little worried because the saw we acquired didn’t have a plug on the end of it when we got it, and me, being from the United States had never re-wired anything that was European 220 volt.  (For some reason they find the need to make the wires different colors than at home… so I made an educated guess and prayed for no sparks.)  Turns out, there were no sparks, but the saw didn’t work either. Further trouble shooting and inspection revealed they hide a fuse in the plug of these devices and guess what? Yep, the fuse was blown. 

Let me remind you, we are in Africa and when you ask the local guy in the kitchen at the lodge where to get a fuse, he just looks at you funny.  That’s when you realize that the hot plate he is using has no plug on it and has just bare wires shoved into the slots of the wall receptacle. 

Remember the other day when I said general maintenance is not high on the “to do” list in Africa?  Yeah… they don’t replace fuses either.  So, going with the flow, I pull the plug off and decide to “go local” and shove the wires in the wall, still a little scared because joint has twice the voltage that I’m accustomed to being electrocuted by in the States. 

Remember when I said God was watching over us?  Well, he’s still here and he didn’t allow me to "epically fail" at such foolishness as the wires were too small to stay in the plug.  Dang it.  I guess he decided it wasn’t my day to die by electrocution.  Thank ya, Lord. 

Taking a little guidance from above, I determined that the extension cord we had was equipped with a fuse in it so I just stole some wire from the cord and jumped across the dead fuse and we had a working saw.  (Yes, hold your applause, please.)  It’s still all fused and the saw owner will never know his cord is two inches shorter.  He shouldn’t have given the "gringos" a saw with a jacked up cord anyway.  (actually, white people are called "Mazunga" in Africa, respectfully) 

So… after hot-wiring the saw and the power going out, I was sure glad to see the entire block was out of power.  That way I was pretty sure it wasn’t my skilled electrical ingenuity that took down half the grid.

On to the serious stuff that you guys care about…

This morning we went to the build site.  On the way, we had to stop and get lunch.  Not a good thing to see… we drove down the road until Lawrence pulled off next to a roadside hut where a couple of skinned critters were hanging from the rafters.  He walked up and chatted a bit and they grabbed one critter, threw it on a nasty, bloody, waist-high, bacteria and rot-infested stump and commenced to hack on it with some strange sideways axe.  The tossed their chippings onto the blood dripping scale and tossed it into some used Wal-mart type plastic sacks.  It was Mikayla’s job to carry lunch to back to the van.  After all, my hands were full… I had the camera.

We dropped the meat off at a mud hut in a village where they began to prepare it and we headed to the build where the group started pointing the bricks on the inside of the library and treating boards for the fascia. I’m thinking the meals have been pretty good so far in Africa… I really didn’t need this morning’s meat scavenging experience.  I don’t know how long that animal has been dead, and can you believe the butcher guy didn’t have an apron OR gloves? 

Anyway… Lynda, Jacquie, Cindy, and Melody along with Grant and myself went over to the Makalani village with Lawrence to meet with Chief Makalani.  We met the chief… he was a little guy, probably about 5’2” with a smile from ear to ear.  He was obviously a very kind and generous man, with his wife by his side.  Both were very clean, well mannered and polite.  She wore a rosary around her neck and he wore a simple cross.  He dressed in a bright red button up fleece shirt and a pair of old dress pants.  Nothing fancy, but fairly “western.”  We were invited into his house which was obviously different from the rest of the dirt floor mud-brick huts.  His had furniture and the walls were plastered, and painted.  Religious décor was throughout.  He greeted us and thanked the team who had come previously for their continued support of the area villages and even welcomed me, the “tourist” ‘I’m assuming because I was the nerd with the backpack and camera.  Ha.  We talked with him for about 20 minutes and walked through the village with Lawrence to see some of the places where the widows that are sponsored by Invest were living.

Let me start by saying that these people live in austere conditions to say the least.

We met one widow who brought us into her home.  First she wanted to straighten it up a bit, so we waited outside.  Then three people went because that is all that would fit.  It was mud-brick hut with a grass and tattered PVC plastic roof with sticks lashed together for support.  Some type of political poster from 2009, accompanied by two identical 2008 calendar and one 2009 calendar adorned the wall for decoration.  A time wooden table and two chairs sat in the tiny room.  There was another very small room off to the side that was apparently a bedroom behind a piece of dirty hanging fabric.  Lawrence said that they sleep on roll-up thatch mats to stay off the ground.

I cannot imagine.  It was so small that I could not get my Nikon camera to take a picture inside without going outside and looking in the door.  I have had walk-in closets with more square footage.

After leaving there, we walked through the village where we encountered a grave yard with large above ground cement-like tomb covers that were the graves of previous village chiefs.  A large woven thatch “silo” sat in the middle of the village filled with ears of corn, or maize as they refer to it here.  We walked to the edge of the village and looked at the land that the chief had given to Invest Inc. where corn had obviously been recently harvested by the widows.

We left the village and went back to the build site where the rest of the team was working and spending time with the village children.  (If the kids know we are at the build, they migrate to that area… after all, that’s where all the fun is.)  It wasn’t long before the group was playing ring around the rosie, old McDonald and the like.  If you walked around the back of the school, one would see a crowd of kids gathered around Kayla and Mikayla as the village girls braided their hair.  To be honest… it looked like it hurt!  Abby had been painting black boards and had black paint all over hands, but by the time we had our nsima and beans with roadside “beef-rot” lunch, the village girls had taken one of her hands and exfoliated it with sand and dug the paint out of her nails with sticks.  Kind of an African village day spa experience… the funny thing was, they only did one hand.

I don’t know how they cook in the villages, but the meat tasted great.  I haven’t vomited yet in Africa.  No one has…  Thank you, Jesus.

Fast forward to now… most of the group is on the patio and Abbey is playing her ipod through speakers.  WOW!!!!  Mikayla is a singing machine and Max should be on Dancing with the Stars.  (No, I don’t watch that show, I’d have to tune in my man card if I did.)  Jimi sings like a superstar and I even got to see Cristi break dance under Max’s supervision.  She’s gonna keep her day job, but she did it.  Abby and Max demonstrated the Dougie, you’d think they were dancing on the clearance rack at Déjà vu in Columbia.  If you don’t know what that is, just never mind.  They guys out of the kitchen here even went out and joined in… its really cool how well everyone gets along here, even the locals.  These ARE the friendliest people in the world.  The sounds of rap, country, and Christian music are ringing through the place right now as everyone demonstrates their talents and has a good time.

Its so good here that I’m getting that lump in my throat.  No, wait… I just remembered that cold shower I just had and its not that great.

Oh, look… the power is back on.  Candles are blown out but I’m not changing the title of this post, I thought is was too creative.

Tomorrow we will work in the morning and head off on our mid-trip R&R at Lake Malawi.  (Google it.)  We will spend Friday and Saturday night there and come back Sunday afternoon.  Everyone is hoping we will have hot showers, we’ll see.  I don’t know if we will have cellular or data connection for me to blog, but if we do… I will, don’t worry.

Once again today has brought me to a greater appreciation for the life I have.  I don’t have a care in the world compared to the challenge these people have in the village everyday to simply survive.  Its good to see they are a people of faith, its obvious that God takes care of them, just in a different way.

For us, its not too often that we realize in everyday life how much looks after us, but on this trip, it is completely evident that he hopped in someone’s carry-on and TSA missed it.  He is here with us and has made EVERYTHING work out better than Murphy would normally allow.

Everyone is good, life is good… don’t worry, keep the prayers coming and God bless all of you.  Don’t forget your conversation with God.  He’s still listening.

Your other task for today is to get on Facebook and search for “Be The Change Volunteers” and “Like” them.  They have 161 people who like them now… it needs to be about 1 million.  So, see what you can do about that.  Spread the word.

Goodnight from Africa.

PS… It was cloudy and kinda cold here today.

On a lighter note...

You wouldn't believe how fast things are moving on the building structure.
We've got all the trusses in place over the past couple days and today the sheeting went on the roof. Tomorrow the mortar will fly as we point the interior brick walls.

Over the past couple days we have also been refurbishing the chalk boards in the classrooms that have gotten to the point of being almost unusable.  They are pretty important since they don't have fancy text books and most everything has to be written on the board.  The boards are mostly plastered areas on the concrete wall and painted as black boards.  So, there has been patching and sanding, washing and priming going on.  Hopefully that will be done in the next couple days.

As the work progresses, the play also continues.  (See photo below of Grant.  If you can figure out what game that is, good luck.)  While Grant was busy playing games, people like Megan (see photo) were making short work of some roof truss braces.  Pretty much the rest of the crew stood in awe as smoke bellowed from her saw.  But, being a Home Depot employee, she has pretty much schooled the entire crew on construction technique.  ;)

Finally it was determined that we would acquire the shelving for the library so Cristi, Grant, Timothy, Lawrence and myself loaded up and headed for town.

It was quickly determined that prefabricated shelving is really expensive in Malawi so we headed to the roadside where you can buy sugar cane, furniture, chickens, caskets, hot dogs, and sunglasses among a plethora of other things.  As we formulated our shelf plan, I sketched it out better than a preschooler and we got some bids.  From grass hut to hut we went until we found the price and quality we needed.  We gave the guy a partial payment and Timothy's cell phone number to call us when the first shelf was done.

Sure enough, about 30 minutes later, that nice man called us to tell us he would need more money to build the shelves than originally planned.  So, we went back, retrieved the Kwacha (money) and set out again.
We went by a grocery store for some staples and I decided to get some candy.   I ended up with a bag of little dead dried salty minnows.  (they still had their eyes open)  I didn't want anyone to be jealous so I got enough to share with the team.  So far Grant and Cristi ate some with me... I hope I don't run out of them too soon.

While I was buying dead fish, Grant was bargaining for a bicycle.  We figure since the fuel crisis is so bad, and we've seen up to 5 Malawians on a bicycle... well, we'll at least have options.  His bicycle even has a light and a horn, but not very good brakes.  I guess that is what the horn is for.

With the dead fish and bicycle in the van, we find ourselves then standing in a sweaty saw mill behind the muslim district bargaining for them to cut lumber for us to build shelves.

I don't have the patience to describe the ordeal after digging through piles of lumber to find enough, straight enough and satisfactory for the shelves.  We end up standing there as five of the nicest guys in the world discuss how they are going to cut it for us AS THEY AGREED because they don't have a power saw at THE SAW MILL.  Nothing really happens fast in this country, its on Africa time, so we determine we need to haul the lumber and cut it ourselves.  :)

Eight bucks or so will get you a guy in a truck off the street to haul a bunch of lumber home for you which is what ended up happening so we could get back out to the villages to pick up the team for supper.

Today was Malawian Independence Day so the rest if the team ate lunch in the village where they got to see some type of dancing celebration.  I missed it.  I was busy buying dead fish and Fanta orange soda.  Im not sure which one was more of a cultural experience... its just a good thing Im not the jealous type.

The night ended with supper together and a few games of Catch Phrase again.  Im not sure how my team lost... Im thinking Mikayla might have rigged it.

Everyone is happy, healthy and in high spirits.  At points the reality is overwhelming for a few but it is all good and its a positive experience.

Its been a long day, so I'm calling it a night.  Its so obvious that God is with us... he continues to make everything fall into place, I don't have a single worry in the world.

Thank you for all your prayers and everyone is loving your comments and messages, its like getting letters from home when you are at camp.  -Come to think of it, I only went to camp once and nobody wrote me, so... somebody owes me.-

Goodnight... the dogs are barking already, I have to power-nap before the chickens come out.
Remember to have that conversation with God, he's always listening...