Most days, we are okay. We are happy to be here and are adapting to this new way of life. But every once in a while, it's tough to be here. Not necessarily because of any one big thing (although we did see the body of a man on the road who had just been shot on his motorcycle on Wednesday), but just when the little things pile up and you miss the luxuries and help you have back in the states.
Let's look at yesterday as an example. It rained all day. As it has all day, every day, for the past several months. (Okay, that's a slight exaggeration, but not too much during the 6 month rainy season here!). Rain is good, it cools things down, but it makes doing laundry without a dryer nearly impossible. I'll have clothes hanging on drying racks under our covered areas outside for three days and the clothes will still be damp. We only have enough racks for one load of laundry, so I can't start another load until the previous has dried. Well, yesterday, I really needed to wash a load, but the previous load was still hanging out to 'dry.' This results in clothes all over the house, draped on chairs and doors, trying to prevent mold from growing in the dampness of each piece. (Oh, and that makes me think of mold...we get it everywhere because of the perpetual wetness - our shoes, our walls, our furniture, our bags, everywhere).
We had a mason (I guess that's what you would call it in English...a stone worker/handyman) come over around 11 because we have a leak in our ceiling and the bottom of our walls are crumbling in each room. He said, that's because of how houses are built here and when it rains, this happens. Well, the walls are really getting bad but he said he can't do anything about it until the dry season.
While he and Nick were looking around at a few other problems outside, they found two big scorpions who had taken residence in our drains. Yikes! Which leads me to another thing - bugs! Mosquitoes are everywhere and I hate seeing how they feast on Carter and Oliver. We've also gotten used to ants in our sugar, beetles in our pasta, spiders in our lettuce, and unfortunately maggots in our flour. We've got geckos in our house (which I'm thankful for) and monster lizard type creatures all over the walls outside.
Oh, and here's a 'fun' bug story for you. Nick, Carter, and I all got sand fleas last week when we went to a small river. This is a tiny bug that burrows into your foot and then lays eggs - gross! It's painful and got me a little nauseous as I was Googling it, haha. I dug mine out on my own (I'll spare you the details of that), but poor little Carter has 3 at the end of 3 different toes. I didn't know if I trusted myself enough to remove them correctly or sterile-y for Carter so I asked Nick if we could take him to the doctor yesterday.
Well, that brings up another issue. You can't make an appointment with a doctor here. You go and put your name on a list and it's first come first serve. Also, our pediatrician only attends on Monday and Wednesday afternoons. So we went to the 24 hour clinic. We got there at 6pm and found out there were 14 people ahead of us. At 8:30pm we checked again and there were still 8 kids to be seen before us. Well, Nick raised just enough ruckus (it didn't hurt that we had a 3 month old with us) and they took us back to wait in another line for a nurse. Well during this time, Carter started to throw up! We took him for bugs in his feet and it turned into another thing. We couldn't help but think it was because we'd been sitting in a cesspool of germs waiting to be seen (there are no separate areas for sick or well kids). We finally got to see a doctor and he said Carter had an ear infection. What? We'd gone in for his toes, then we wanted help with his vomiting, then we got a prescription for his ear. The doc hardly looked at his toes, just said it was probably impetigo or a bacterial infection. I had to tell him about us going in a river and thinking it was some sort of parasite. He agreed it could be but didn't say anything about removing them (even though everything I've read said they should be removed by a doctor). So we'll give the oral and topical medicine he gave us a shot, but if those nasty bugs aren't gone in a day or two, I guess 'Dr. Amber' will be on duty for removal - yikes!
Some days, I just want to be able to call my mom, my mother-in-law, or a friend to come over and help for a bit. Some days, I don't want to have to make all our meals from scratch. Some days, I debate going to the doctor because we know it's usually an all day experience. But never do I want to move back to the states. This is our home now because this is where God has called us to be. I know Satan can dig into these frustrating footholds to plant seeds of doubt, but we are confident that none of these trivial difficulties are more important than our goal of bringing the good news to so many that have never heard. So thank you for listening to my rant, and I'm sorry to have vented so much (but sometimes I think that's just what I need). I am happy, I am doing just fine, and I am sure I am in the right place...but I sure do miss Walmart and clothes dryers!
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